While doing my evening rounds and tending the garden (something has started to nibbled on our carrot greens, so that bed now has a net around it), I topped up the kibble trays. Along with going to the pump shack and leaving some kibble there, I also left a bit of kibble in front of the branch pile, where the bitty kitties are.
While walking around the outer yard, I heard the distinctive crunching noises of a skunk eating kibble – coming from the pump shack.
So of course, I went to chase the skunk away from the kitten’s food.
Oh. My. Goodness!
Would you look at how TINY it is!!!! The litter of kittens in the pump shack are bigger than this guy!
No, I did not chase it away. It’s just a baby! A very hungry baby that let me come quite close. Far more interested in food.
So… we have both kittens and baby skunks in the pump shack now!
I heard a noise and took a quick peek, finding one of the big kittens skirting around the pump shack. Later on, I came back and found no food and no babies, so I went inside. I found the bike I got at the garage sale had been knocked to the floor. While picking it up again I could see, behind some junk, a tuxedo face was watching me. I heard movement in other places, so I left.
The branch pile, meanwhile, was just crawling with kittens!
The four kittens that have been coming to the house were playing with the six little kittens in the branch pile.
That kitten in the foreground?
I was able to catch it and hold it for a while. Some time later, I came over and picked it up again, only to realize it was a different little kitten. I was able to pick this one up again when I came back one last time, topping up the kibble at the branch pile, and the pump shack, again.
Hopefully, this is the start of being able to socialize at least some of the kittens!
So my daughter comes over, all excited, telling me there are racoons in the kibble house. Four of them!
Well, we don’t want them eating all the kibble meant for the cats, so I go to chase them off, grabbing my phone, just in case there’s enough light to get a picture.
As soon as I came outside and they saw me, they all just smashed themselves into a pile of pelts.
There was more than four of them!
At the time I took this picture, I was thinking there might be five of them. I didn’t quite see the one being sat on in the middle.
This particular mama cat was pretty chill about the whole thing, but the bandits were really not happy to see me.
I tried moving around to the end, so they could see I wasn’t going to block them, and they were free to run off, but they just mashed themselves into an ever tighter pile! That one in the middle froze into a loaf and would not move.
I finally went around to the back of the kibble house, banging on the wall. It wasn’t until they started running off, one at a time, that my other daughter was able to see that there was six of them!
Four of them ran off, but two were still jammed into a corner. I finally took a mop and sort of waved it at them to scare them off. Only then did one of them take an aggressive stance, leaping towards the mop and snarling. So I moved around to the back again and banged on the wall with the mop. One finally ran off, while the other squeezed under the cats’ house.
I have never seen this many racoons all at once before! Judging by their sizes, I’d say they are a young family unit.
I don’t know if our chasing them off will discourage them much, though. Between the bird seed by the living room window, where we normally see racoons, and the kibble house, they know there is consistent and reliable food here.
Right now, it’s not a problem. They’re just going for the easy food, and not destroying things. They are, however, notorious for destroying garden corn crops in particular, and we don’t have anything strong enough to deter racoons.
I think we need to invest in some Bone Sauce from Perma Pastures Farm soon! From some of their videos, it works on critters other than deer, too.
Why do all these destructive critters have to be so gosh darn cute?
I was able to get pretty close to a pair of kittens in the branch pile last evening.
They were all smooshed together, playing. :-) They are looking directly at me in the photo; I had my arm stretched out to try and get my phone closer for a picture, which they ignored. I didn’t want to bother them too much, though, and quickly left. So far, I have not see them today.
I saw the four kittens that regularly come to the house yesterday, too. Bradiccus is nursing the long haired one. These four kittens seem like one litter, but I see two mothers taking care of them, so we have no idea how many are actual siblings, and which mother then belong to!
This morning, after I was finished up outside and heading for the sun room, I spotted a ghost.
Ghost Baby was hanging out in the kibble house! She was loafed in the pan, seeming to nap for a while, then eating a bit of kibble, then napping again. We don’t see her often, and she tends to stay away from the other cats, which means she tends to eat after all the others are done. I didn’t want to scare her away from the food, so I tried to keep my distance. I assume she has kittens somewhere well away from the house, but we’ve seen no sign of any, yet.
I do wish we could get her to be less scared of us. Of all the cats, she’s probably the most feral. Even the toms that aren’t ours will let me get closer than she does. At least I know she’s getting food, and that she has found herself some shelter and safety in the outer yard somewhere.
When I headed out to the hardware store, I very carefully, very quietly, skirted around this little scene of motherly bliss!
Yeah, I was zooming in. The mother normally would have run off, but the little calico was asleep while attached to a nip, and she didn’t want to move.
Interesting thing to note: this is NOT Bradiccus.
I’ve seen Bradiccus nursing this little calico and two others.
I have no idea which cat is the actual mother, now. It seems they are sharing parenting duties.
Then, while heading to the garage, I was actually able to get quite close to these two!
The little black and white one kept staring at me, while the other climbed up next to it, but neither ran away. They are at that clumsy movement stage, and running away isn’t something they can do very well just yet. :-D
Oh, those blue, blue eyes!
Oh, that big a$$ mosquito on the one kitten!
After picking up the parts needed to fix the kitchen sink and heading home, I just had to pull over to get this picture.
Using the wide angle setting actually picked up more detail than I could see from inside the car. Mostly, I was seeing those very smooth layers of clouds in the distance.
Not long after I got home, the storm reached us. I’m glad I remembered to shut down my computer! We had power fluctuations long enough to reset some clocks. My husband was asleep at the time, which means that every time the power went out, so did his CPAP, which meant he suddenly couldn’t breathe anymore.
Thankfully, it didn’t happen too often, and the power never went out completely for more than a few seconds. Internet connectivity was interrupted more, though. I didn’t turn my computer back on until just before uploading pictures for this post, but I did try to watch some TV with Roku. Original Star Trek series. :-D At one point, we were loosing signal for longer than we were getting it. We weren’t losing our internet completely, though. According to the StarLink app, we lost connection twice – once for 1 minute, 3 seconds, and one for 41 seconds, and neither of those were at times while I was trying to watch the show. I had my phone with me, and could still access the internet, so whatever the interruption was for the streaming service, it was not at our end.
Right now, however, it’s looking bright and sunny again. Time to head out and check if there was any storm damage.
Sunday is normally our day of rest, though of course work still needs to be done. Today, however, is going to be more of a day of rest than I’d hoped. We had rain overnight, and everything is still wet, so finishing the mowing is out. We’re also still getting all sorts of weather warnings, from severe thunderstorms to high water levels from rain falling elsewhere. At least we’re not getting tornado warnings in our area.
The garden, at least, if finally seeing some grown spurts. I’m most happy to see how this bed is doing.
That Kulli corn has been staying small for so long, I was starting to be concerned, but it is finally kicking in. I hope the beans planted with them are helping!
Hungry kittens are brave kittens! Nice to see them actually inside the kibble house, instead of hiding under the cat house.
There was an unexpected harvest this morning. Just a tiny one.
I checked on the wild strawberry patch, and could actually see the red berries from a distance!
The berries are so tiny, they are hard to pick! Many were already over ripe, but there are still lots of under ripe ones. This is the most we’ve seen since we found the patch while cleaning out the maple grove.
At some point, I would like to prepare a bed for them and transplant as many as I can, so they’re not fighting with grass and weeds to grow.
While moving things over to the burn barrel, I found another surprise in the branch pile.
One of the other litters of kittens has emerged! I had no idea there was another litter of kittens in this branch pile. Definitely the largest litter we’ve seen, too. There are six of them.
So adorable!
The cats are going to miss this pile of branches when we finally get it chipped!
We got another, far less pleasant surprise.
Our first spring here, one of the things that suddenly gave out was the drain on one side of the kitchen sink.
Well, the other side has finally given out, too. I heard some dripping a couple of days ago and asked my daughters to check it for me, as I can’t get under to look properly. My younger daughter found where it was leaking. When examining it from below, she was actually able to push the whole thing upwards!
So today, I’ll be making a trip to the hardware store to get the kit to replace it all. They open in about half an hour, so I’ll be heading out soon. At least we know, since we’ve already had it happen before, what we need to fix it! :-)
Butterscotch kept me company while I was getting dressed this morning.
The Grand Old Lady is certainly enjoying the indoor life!
She still shows zero interest in leaving my room. She will put up with Nosencrantz and Cheddar, but wants nothing to do with the other cats. If another cat comes in, she goes into her cubby hole in a shelf, where we gave her a bed and even her own bowl of food, because she simply would not come out if other cats are in the room. While she will happily come for cuddles with humans – just don’t pick her up! – she generally wants to just be left alone.
After all her years surviving outdoors, I figure she’s earned it.
I just wish Nosencrantz wasn’t doing the same thing!
This is the black and white kitten from the very first litter we found. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s this one…
We found this one alone in the yard, soaking wet, and no mama around. Likely she dropped him while moving him, then ran off when I came outside. We brought him (her?) in, and my husband kept him warm while we looked around and, eventually, were able to reunite it with its mother.
I am increasingly convinced that, of the 4 kittens in that litter, this may be the only survivor. I know there was a tuxedo in the litter, and a couple of tabby looking kittens, but this is the only older kitten we are seeing.
It’s also incredibly shy and runs off as soon as it sees me, no matter how far away I am. That is why I put some kibble out on the step, and on the ground in front of the grape vines. What I might end up doing is moving one of the smaller kibble containers over by those steps and putting food out there, regularly. The down side of that is, the skunks are more likely to get it before the kitten does.
Well, if it’s a lone survivor or if its siblings are even shier than this one, I hope they will eventually start coming to the kibble house for food. Leaving food farther out for a while will help get them more comfortable coming over.
I popped out to see if the weather would allow some lawn mowing, and discovered a whole bunch of adorableness, just outside the door!
When I first opened the door, they were next to the water bowls (while mama was inside the kibble house, eating), and all four of them were moving towards me, all in a row. :-D Then they went around the back of the cats’ house, stopping long enough for me to get a couple of pictures.
There was a mama cat and kittens on the laundry platform steps, and they all started towards the cats, like they were synchronized. :-D After getting the pictures, I shooed the mama out of the kibble house and they all left.
Once the skunks were gone, the kitties were a lot more relaxed.
Except Sad Face, with his permanent tragic expression, and always looking ready to dash off.
Checking the weather radar, we had our frequent climate bubble in effect. The severe weather system split, with the large portion of it going to the north of us, and a smaller portion to the south. I was able to get some mowing down around the garden area, though it was so hot and sunny, I stopped when I ran out of gas, rather than filling and continuing.
Further south, however, another system went through. My brother’s place got hit with driving rain and hail! Everything is okay, though.
In other things, I called the tree company that cleared our power lines and roof a few years ago. Someone will be coming out over the next few days to give us an estimate. My plan had been to take down dead spruce trees myself, but considering where some of them are in relation to the house, and to each other, it would just be more efficient to hire someone. They can do it all in a day – and with greater safety! When I first called and left a message, I made a point of mentioning that I want to keep the wood for building with. I also mentioned getting things chipped.
With that in mind, before I started on the mowing, I got out the orange marking paint I remember to pick up more of at the hardware store. I then went around and marked the ones closer to the house, as well as the one by the garage. I’d marked as many dead trees as I could get to, last year. The marks have faced, but I could still see them. Last year, I’d counted about 22 or 23 dead spruces, with the possibility of more that were not accessible, in total (I hadn’t bothered marking some of them at the time).
We lost more trees over the winter, though. This time, I marked 22 dead spruce trees, and that was without going around the East side of the spruce grove, and trying to get through some of the underbrush.
That’s a lot of trees that can be used to build more high raised beds! Assuming they are all still solid, and from the looks of it, they are, though a couple of them have been dead and drying long enough, they have split lengthwise.
That spruce grove is going to look really empty once all the dead trees are cut down. Once things are cleared up, the plan it to turn part of the area into a sheltered seating area, with trunks supporting benches and tables. Fruit or berry trees that need more shelter may then be planted, as well as more spruces transplanted into the spruce grove.
Once those dead trees are down, though, we can get back on track for building the cordwood outdoor bathroom, with a composting toilet rather than a pit, that we were looking to do as a practise building. After we no longer need to use the space to access and drag out the dead trees, we can start working on building up a foundation for it. This year’s flooding showed us that, while the space we’d chosen for it didn’t end up underwater, like so many other spots, it did eventually get very muddy. We definitely need to build things up at least a few inches. Though the plan is to make an outdoor bathroom, it will have a solid floor, and the composting toilet will be easily removed, if we ever want to repurpose the building to be just a regular storage shed.
The dead trees we plan to use for building high raised beds had been intended for building the cordwood shed, but garden beds have become more of a priority. I expect we’ll still have plenty of wood that can be used for it, anyhow. Plus we’ll be making bottle bricks to use for light, instead of windows.
This is a project that will take much longer to get done than we originally planned. At least we still have the old outhouse all cleaned up inside and can use that, if we lose our septic again!
Also, if we do the floor right, we won’t have to worry about groundhogs digging dens in the pit, like we found under the outhouse!
Last night, I had to get this picture through a sun room window, as they would run off as soon as they heard the door open.
There are three kittens nursing in this photo. We usually see 4 kittens together, so this suggests to me that the third kitten – the almost black one – is from another litter. I had thought the one that looks like it’s going to be a long haired cat was from another litter, but it’s in the photo, nursing with the calico and the tabby.
Every now and then, I see the black and white kitten from the first litter. It runs off as soon as it sees me, no matter how far away I am. I have not seen the other 3 from that litter. Hopefully, they have all survived, and they’re just shier.
The Re-Farmer 