Critters

Water babies

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As much as the yard cats were after the food this morning, it was the water they were really excited about!

Yes, that’s the bitty baby in there, barely able to reach into the largest bowl!

After it had a chance to drink, I was able to pick it up and cuddle it for a bit – then I tucked it into the entry of the cat house! But that was quite a bit later.

The shallower, metal bowls were frozen solid. It took quite a bit of bashing to get most of the ice out. The big plastic bowl needed more care, as the plastic gets so brittle in the cold and cracks easily. It had been quite full, so it wasn’t frozen solid, but I did have to chop through a thick layer of ice to get to pour off the water inside – which got replaced with warm water. The heated water bowl was bone dry, and every now and then, a cat would sit in it. It makes a good butt warmer when it’s dry!

And this is at only -8C/18F!

I’m so glad we got this shelter built this year. It’ll be so nice not to have to dig the water bowls out of the snow.

I ended up using a long handled garden tool to reach into the cats’ house and grab one of the containers I used for water in there. Not the nice, non-slip metal one I got for in there. I can’t even see that one. I could only see and reach the cheap plastic, repurposed mushroom container. But, it allowed me to put at least a bit of water in the shelter.

My head count this morning was 31. Then Shop Towel showed up, so if we’re counting visiting toms, that makes 32.

I wore my ball cap ear warmer this morning. While I tested it briefly last night, this morning was the first real test. We had some viscous winds from the northeast.

I did wonder how the stitches I chose for the ear warmer would handle wind, and today I have my answer.

Not at all.

Oh, it certainly gave some protection, so it was better than nothing. The next one I make will need to be denser. I can think of a few ways to do that.

By the time I finished my rounds, there was no sign of any cats outside – but as I walked past the larger windows of the cats’ house, they were packed with furry faces, watching me as I went by!

I’ll have to remember to add a top up of warm water when I feed them again this evening. Last night, I saw a large buck going down our driveway on the live feed of our security camera. Last winter, they were eating the cat kibble but, for this time of year, I would not be surprised if deer were going for the water, instead.

The Re-Farmer

All gone, and looking ahead

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The snow we had yesterday morning was gone by the end of the day.

Yesterday…

… and today…

I counted 29 cats this morning. Before coming back inside, I even had a chance to catch and cuddle the bitty baby!

The snow may be gone, but the temperatures are below freezing and staying there. At least it will be fairly mild for the next week or so before the highs are expected to start dipping below -10C/14F. I’m hoping the temperatures stay mild like this for a while. That will give the bitty baby more time with mama. We are fully expecting to bring this one indoors before the temperatures get really cold, but it’s definitely not old enough to be weaned yet.

We’re at the point where my morning rounds will now consist more of just switching out the memory cards in the trail cams, and checking on things. Today, I did finally move the stack of logs leftover from the giant branch pile getting chipped. These are logs that seem strong enough and straight enough to use somehow. I ended up restacking them in the old kitchen garden, between the double lilac and the honeysuckle. This is part of the space in that garden we’ve given up on, as it’s so filled with invasive flowers. I’d cleared away the creeping bellflower before they went to seed, but there’s nothing we can do about the low, creeping flowers that look kinda like periwinkle.

Okay, I just went and looked it up and confirmed, it is periwinkle, and yes, it’s considered an invasive plant! It’s been a real struggle to keep it out of the L shaped bed, because they spread through their roots, and my goodness, those roots are hard to get rid of!! I’m hoping turning it into a raised bed will help to at least keep it out of where I want to grow food.

I’d say having the stack of logs there will help keep them under control, too, but they are there to be used next year, and I expect the stack will be gone long before the flowers in that corner start reaching mature sizes.

There is another type of flower that grows in that corner, and all long the house, right through the rocks we put there when we built the path. These spread through their seeds, not their roots, so they’re not as hard to get rid of. I let those go to seed, then gathered most of them. I took them behind the storage house, where there are two rows of trees, all planted way too close together. It’s very hard to keep this area clear and tidy. This is where I’d scattered seeds from an alternative lawn mix we got, but with this spring’s flooding, that area was under water. None germinated, or if they did, they got drowned. So I’ve scattered the seeds from these white flowers in there. I don’t expect the coming spring to have anything other than normal spring snowmelt, so at least some of the seeds should take. I’ve been looking up invasive species in our province and, while I don’t know what these flowers are, I’m not seeing them come up in the lists. It’s one thing for something to be prolific, as these white flowers are, and another to be destructive, as the periwinkle and creeping bellflower are. At least the periwinkle are just in the old kitchen garden. The creeping bellflower is popping up everywhere that we’ve been clearing and cleaning up among the trees. We won’t be able to get rid of them entirely, but we’re hoping to drive them out by planting the things we do want growing there.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

With the weather turning chilly, we’re moving back into planning stages, thinking ahead to the next growing year!

The Re-Farmer

Nap Time

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It seems, whenever the wheelbarrow or wagon are left out, I’m sure to find the oldest black and white catten in it.

Taking a nap.

I imagine this is a great shelter from the wind, while still being out in the sunlight!

The Re-Farmer

Last day

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It’s 2C/36F as I write this. The projected high of the day is supposed to be 4C/39F. This will probably be the last day above 0C/32F for the year.

I counted possibly 31 cats this morning. Even the little bitty baby toodled out of the cats’ house to check things out, even though he could have stayed inside to eat. When I checked later on, he was back in his favourite corner by the window – and even played with me through the window, trying to “catch” my fingers as I moved them around against the glass. (Actually, I think it’s Lexan, not plexiglass.)

In the above picture, you can just see the scrap pieces of insulation I added yesterday, under the water bowls, and the kibble trays under the water bowl house.

With the temperatures, we’ve done as much as we can in the garden beds, so this morning I went around gathering any remaining tools to bring into the sun room, where they can be cleaned, oiled, sharpened, etc. at leisure. When things warmed up briefly, we brought the hoses back out so we could give the trees and bushes we planted this year, one last thorough watering. It’s not too cold to roll the hoses up again, so they’re going to be laid out in the maple grove. As long as the ends are open, they’ll be fine. There are just the hoses at the front of the house left. We have enough hoses now that we were able to use them from the front tap and still be able to reach every transplanted tree and bush, including the Korean Pine in the outer yard.

I brought the poles for the carport into the yard, and we’re going to try putting it together with one or both of the covers we found, and see if it’s something we can use somehow. I was able to use the snow and a broom to sort of clean off the cover that’s on the ground, since we never had the right conditions to hose it down.

I’m a bit frustrated with how little we got done this year. Yeah, we got progress with things like the wattle bed in the old kitchen garden, but there was so much that needed to be done, and it just didn’t happen. Half the beds never got weeded and mulched properly. We have trellis tunnels to build and I’d hoped to get that started this fall, but that didn’t happen at all. I wasn’t even able to cut down dead spruces that I wanted to use to build more high raised beds. We were also supposed to dismantle the shed with the collapsed roof, and hopefully salvage materials to build a chicken cook, and we got very little progress on that at all. This entire year felt like I was constantly behind on getting things done.

On another note, I heard from the cat lady yesterday evening. Cabbages is doing great, and so are the bitties!

We talked a bit about the lysine. She says it takes about 6 weeks for the results to be noticed. The first thing we’ll probably see is that their coats will start looking shinier and healthier. The coughing and sneezing should be reduced by then, too. A study done by a humane society she was working at at the time found the lysine resulted in an 80% reduction in respiratory issues. She has one cat that has continuous respiratory issues, and the lysine has saved her many vet visits.

I must say, this woman is amazing. She has a house full of cats right now that no one is willing to adopt because of health issues. She has one cat that was literally thrown onto the road by her house. Another was a rescue that had been dumped by a closed gas station in the winter. This is the one that needs continuous lysine treatment due to respiratory problems. When she found it, it was unconscious and frostbitten. It had to have its tail and a foot amputated, and lost its ear tips. Worse, there was evidence of substantial abuse, from a broken pelvis that didn’t heal right and can’t be fixed anymore, to cigarette burns, and even trachea damage. After he eats, they have to hold him up so the food will go down. The vet thinks that damage is from abuse, too. This cat is the worst case she’s ever seen. She and her amazing family are giving all these high needs cats their best life now. I’m just blown away. They are such awesome, amazing people. They’ve given up renovations on their house, to be able to give cats the medical care they need. And that’s on top of having her own health problems to deal with! I’m so glad to have connected with them.

The Re-Farmer

The High Life

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Ah, Nosencrantz… luxuriating…

… and making sure I don’t make my bed.

With other cats, I would just make my bed on top of them, and they’d either stay under the covers and nap, or slink their way out. I don’t want to do that to the Anxiety Bear, though. She gets way too stressed out!

Yeah. She still refuses to leave my bedroom/office.

The Re-Farmer

First snow

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Overnight, we got our first real snowfall. From what the live feed on the security camera showed, it looked like we had a storm, but it was just high winds blowing around a small amount of snow – just enough to cover the ground and stay.

Tomorrow, we’re supposed to reach a high around 5C/41F, so it should all by gone soon.

It made for a new adventure with the kittens! While I tried to do a head count, I found quite a few didn’t even bother coming out of the cats’ house, including the bitty baby. I do wish they wouldn’t knock the water bowl out of reach. I’d love to make it so that they could have water along with food in there.

I think I counted 29 in total, but I’m not completely sure.

When I was done my morning rounds, I checked on them again. I could see them balancing along the edges of the water bowls, and doing the cold toes dance at the food trays below. They don’t do that in the kibble house, thanks to the sheet of insulation under the floor.

The water levels were still low, so I heated up some more water to finish topping them up. I also raided the bin with scrap pieces of rigid insulation. There was one that just fit the length of the water shelter, and three water bowls could fit on that. Another piece went under the big heated water bowl that doesn’t work, next to the ramp. There’s an old crocheted blanket in the corner that used to be inside the cats’ house. I’d tossed it into there to get it out of the weather, then left it when I found the cats were using it. A couple more scrap pieces of insulation went against the walls in the corner, held in place by the blanket, for a bit more shelter. More pieces went under the kibble trays on the ground below. The trays will keep them from blowing away. I’d have added more, but at the time I didn’t have anything handy to weight them down without getting in the way of the cats.

Before I did all that, I had fixing to do. The tarp on the far side of the shed we’d covered had come completely loose from their nails, and some of the nails had even fallen out. No surprise, with the high winds we had last night. The only thing that kept the tarp from being blown off entirely was the weight from the length of PEX pipe that had been tied along the end! The only thing I had to improve the situation was a box of large cup hooks. After straightening out the tarp as best I could (it had bunched up along the pipe), I screwed in the hooks and tied the tarp down more thoroughly than before – I hope. It would be good to replace those with stronger eye hooks later but, to be honest, I don’t know how much good that would do. The cup hooks are not very strong and are likely to break if the winds are high enough, but the wood is so weakened with age that stronger hooks would get torn right out of the wood.

We really need new sheds to replace these old ones. Or one large building to replace them all, including the barn. One of those would probably cost less than multiple sheds.

Something else for the list, after we pick up our lotto winnings!

Oh. I suppose that would require buying a ticket, eh? 😉

It was about -5 or -6C (23 or 21F) at the time. Not particularly cold, but chilly to be in for as long as it took to get that tarp tied down again! Of course, I’m always fretting about the littlest kittens, so I made sure to check on them again.

Yeah… I think they’re good.

The Re-Farmer

Bitty Baby update, and… that’s a new one!

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The bitty baby seems to have developed a bit of a routine. After I’ve put the kibble out, I check inside the entry to the cats’ house, and usually see the bitty at the kibble, with one or two other kittens. Then I do my rounds and when I come back, I’ve been finding the bitty here.

He’s come out for some water, and taking a break.

The poor thing’s eyes are so gooby right now. The inner eyelids no longer look red and inflamed, so they no longer look like they’re bleeding, but now the eyes tend to be more stuck shut. I’ll have to get the girls to go out later in the day and give the eyes a good cleaning.

I was able to pick it up for some cuddles. It definitely didn’t like being picked up, but doesn’t fight me off anymore, either. After some cuddles, I put it down inside the entry, where it’s warmer. We got a mix of snow and rain last night, and while doing my rounds I saw snow still on the ground in the more shaded areas.

He is so incredibly tiny for this time of year, but I had a reminder that this is not the first time we’ve had such tiny kittens so late in the year. In fact, we had one show up even later. I popped onto Facebook while uploading pictures, and got one of those “X years ago today” things. It was a video of Dah Boy, who moved out here with us from the city. We had two stray cats show up on our balcony, having climbed the fire escape stairs to peek at us through the living room window. They were starving, so we started putting food out. One of them had a collar, and both were very friendly, wanting human attention as much as food and water! Then one day, the collar was gone and we could see a sore around the neck; the cat had been on its own since a much younger age, and outgrown the collar. We were able to take them to a vet to check for microchips, but there were none – and the one with the collar turned out to be a pregnant female. We tried to make a nest for her using a carrier we had, but when she disappeared for a while, we figured she had her kittens somewhere else. Soon after, we were able to put a patio table on the balcony, over the carrier, with a vinyl table cloth covering the space. That turned out to be what she needed. Somehow, that mama managed to drag her one kitten from wherever she had her litter, up two flights of stairs and a landing in between, under the gate onto our balcony, and into the carrier.

What a mama!

We already had two cats – the limit for where we were living – but we got permission to bring the mama and baby in. It was November, after all, and there was no way that baby would survive the winter without help. He was even younger than our bitty baby is right now! Once he was old enough to wean, we were able to adopt the mother out. A year later, she showed up on our balcony again! Pregnant again, but that’s another story. In the end, we found ourselves with Mom and Son (over time, our other two cats passed away), and they moved out here with us.

Dah Boy is now eleven years old.

Wow.

Which gives me hope for the bitty baby.

The bitty might be just tolerating attention so far, but the fully socialized cats are something else. Especially Plushy! Once she decided humans were good for something, now she won’t leave us alone.

Also, apparently I’m a tree.

The three of them were fighting for real estate when Plushy decided to take that open spot on the top of my head! This is a first!

Also, apparently my face is delicious. All three of them kept trying to like my face. Especially my nose! It is a rather large nose, so I guess it’s just easy to reach. 😉

Well, it looks like we’ve reached our high of the day already. 3C/37F. I’d better head outside and get some of the more temperature dependant stuff done!

The Re-Farmer

Quite a crowd!

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Usually, I have one or two kittens follow me for my entire rounds.

Some mornings, however…

While you can see four in the photo, there were eight of them that followed me to the sign cams on this particular morning! I think that’s a record.

The Re-Farmer