Critters

Short notice shopping, too funny, and kittens, kittens, kittens!

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I got a call from my mother last night.

Her fridge was empty.

I asked if she wanted me to come over today (Sunday) and she said, I could come over to go to church.

So we arranged that I could come over earlier than usual so that I could help her walk over to church (across the street), then do her grocery shopping afterwards.

When I got there this morning, though, my mother said she wasn’t going anywhere. She wasn’t feeling well enough. So we went over her shopping list, instead, and I did that, instead. She was feeling bad enough to take her T3s after I left – something she flat out refused to do, the first time she got them prescribed to her. She was feeling a bit better when I got back. It was a larger than usual shopping trip for her, as she wanted to take advantage of some sales she saw in the flier, too. Extra is always good!

After the shopping was done and everything was put away, I was showing my mother pictures of her great grandsons at the large animal rescue when there was a knock at the door. It was someone from church coming over to give my mother communion, since they saw she wasn’t in church today. My mother was surprised, as she usually calls when she knows she can’t make it. Today was a very last minute change, so she never called. He assured her that if they see she isn’t there, they will make sure he comes over. He mentioned he had two more people to visit after, with one being in the hospital, so she’s not the only person he goes to do communion for. Clearly, he visits her first, since she is so close to the church itself.

I left soon after he did.

This morning, when going my rounds, switching trail cam memory cards and checking on the garden, I picked a small handful of bush beans. Small enough to tuck into my pocket with my memory cards.

When I got to my computer, however, there was only one memory card in my pocket.

Before going to my mother’s, I went out again to pick an ice cream bucket full of crab apples. The big tree with the smaller apples has lots of ripe apples right now. Once I realized the memory card was missing, I back tracked everywhere I went, after I’d switched out the memory card that was now missing. In some areas, like around the crab apple tree, the grass is really tall, but a memory card in its case is light enough and flat enough that I would expect it to just “float” on top of the grass. I even got a daughter to look in the kitchen, in case it fell out of my pocket

Nothing.

After back tracking a couple of times, I left my daughters know it was missing and were it was most likely to be, so they could check while I was gone, then headed out.

Nothing.

After I came back and had a quick lunch, I went to look again.

Nothing.

I was going around the crab apple tree again when I thought of one other possible place it could be.

I had those beans I’d put in my pocket. Could I have accidentally put it in the fridge with the beans? I messaged my daughters to check.

Yup.

I’d accidentally refrigerated the memory card!

Well, at least I was able to pick some crab apples to bring inside. 😄😄

Will all that walking around, I got to see lots of kitties.

First, we have the sun room kittens.

After breakfast, these four in the first picture were soon snuggling together in the bed in the cat cage. The black and white in the second picture seems to prefer under the counter shelf, though I’ve sometimes seen it in the cat cage cuddle puddle, too.

Then there were the garage kittens.

The first picture and the video were taken during the morning feeding. Yes, I was able to pet them all! The only reason the smokey kitten didn’t run off was because it was more hungry than scared.

The last photo was taken just after I got back from my mother’s. As I drove into the garage, the mama jumped down from the riding mower and ran off. I thought I saw some ear tips, though, so after I parked, I went to take a look, and found both kittens sitting on the comfy seat, watching me.

They wouldn’t let me come close, though. I had to take stuff out the passenger side of the truck, which meant going past them, and they both ran off.

Ah, well. At least some progress was made at feeding time!

Then there were the “missing” kittens, which have started to creep out from under the cat house. I don’t know why they won’t go inside the cat house; there are three big comfy beds in there!

A couple of faces were familiar. The tuxedo and the mostly black kitten.

The tuxedo was peaking out at me this morning, and then that tabby in the second photo came out to eat at the tray under the water bowl shelter. I did see other faces peaking out, but not long enough to get photos.

The other pictures were taken after I got back from my mother’s.

That mostly black kitten is pretty much confirmed to be Adam’s baby. But how many does she have? Two? Four?

Six???

There was a mostly white kitten that came out, plus a white and grey, and I knew there was a tabby with white under there somewhere.

Eyelet came over and tried to play with the mostly black kitten. The black kitten did not like that at all!

I also got some short video clips of them, as they got braver and started to come out, even with me standing about 10 feet away.

Once I was at my desktop, I kept looking at that mostly white kitten. I hadn’t seen it by the house before.

Yet, it looked familiar.

So I went looking through my photos from a few days ago. It is confirmed.

That log I put up against the collapsing log building by the fire pit has done its job.

The four kittens that were in there have now moved under the cat house.

From what I can see, it looks like there are six littles under the cat house in total, from two litters. There’s five from two litters in the sun room. That makes eleven littles that have shown up recently.

Then there are the older kittens; the two in the garage, Eyelet, Grommet, Havarti and Sir Robin in the sun room, plus Sprout’s four in the outer yard, making ten older kittens.

The only other litter that I know is still out there is Frank’s babies, born just a few days ago. If they survived. I’m seeing Frank around quite a bit and, so far, I’m not sure if she’s nursing or not. She has been letting me pet her more often lately, but she’s still more semi-feral than socialized. I thought I might have seen some active nips, but she just wouldn’t stay still long enough for me to be sure.

I’m really hoping the large animal rescue can take more kittens, but cats are not their focus. Poirot’s babies are thriving there, but they were already fully socialized, and have no problem with lots of different people, including children, handling them. Feral and semi-feral kittens are not something they are set up for. A horse or a llama or a bunch of beat up chickens, sure, but not unsocialized kittens.

Well, we will do what we can to socialize the newbies, so they at least have a chance to get adopted out. Currently, the most socialized ones are the older sunroom kittens. Sir Robin has his wonky eye and sounds like he has respiratory issues, Eyelet is deaf and Grommet has leaky eyes. Only Havarti has no such issues, and he doesn’t like to be picked up and carried, though he loves pets. Sir Robin would be ideal; he can’t get enough attention from humans! But the chances of a rescue with even minor health problems being adopted are pretty much nil.

It is what it is, and we do the best we can for them. It’s going to be harder once the Cat Lady officially shuts down her rescue.

We’ll figure it out.

The Re-Farmer

Morning kittens, reunited, and I got to touch a dinosaur

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Some morning cuteness to share with you today!

The first image is of Sprout with three of her four (Colby, the fluffy orange and white, likes to go to the house or the isolation shelter on his own). Her calico is starting to get big enough that I’m starting to get her confused with Mom at times!

The white and grey garage kitten is getting to the point that I can sometimes not only pet him (her), but pick him up and hold him for a sort time.

But not this morning!

His smokey sibling in the next photo, on the other hand, won’t let me come close. I got to pick it up and hold it that one time, weeks ago, and that’s it. Haven’t been able to get close, since.

My goodness, that is one gorgeous kitten!

We had ourselves a lovely little reunion. My brother and SIL booked a tour for their grandsons at the large animal rescue that took in Poirot’s orphans, and included me and my younger daughter as well. We got to visit Miss Lemon, Captain Hastings and Inspector Japp today!

They have gotten so big! They’re practically twice the size they were when my daughter and I brought them over. They are still small for their age, but it’s good to see how much they’ve grown.

They are also incredibly chill, and the centre of attention. They have different names now, though none that have been settled on. Talking to one of the staff, after telling her they came from our colony, and some of their background, she told me they are a real hit. At the end of tours, they often ask the kids which was their favourite animal, and the answer is almost always, the kittens! Which is amazing, considering the variety of animals they have. Rabbits, pigs, goats, ducks, chickens, donkeys – lots of donkeys! – horses, miniature horses and…

These guys.

My favourites.

I got to pet two of the three emus, but this one really seemed to want my attention! We were warned in advance that they like to go for shiny, sparkly things. I’m amazed they didn’t go for my hat! This one kept coming back to me for more pets, though.

What a face!

What’s amazing is some of the noises they make. Totally what you would expect to hear from a dinosaur!

After we left their area, this one came up to the fence to check me out again, so I got a bit of video.

Yeah, that chomp was totally self inflicted.

I regret nothing.

We also saw some guineas wandering around, several of which were white. I’ve never seen white guineas before!

After the outside tour was over, we were all led back to the main shelter, where the kittens, rabbits, smaller goats and a piglet are kept, along with a gift shop and a few other things. One of my great nephews got a ride on a miniature horse (the other wouldn’t even go into the area with the horses and donkeys). The bunnies and the goats got some attention, but the kids all eventually converged on the kittens! The kittens have their own pen that they can get in and out of through the gaps in the walls, any time they want, but the gate is kept closed to keep the family’s dogs from going in and eating their kibble. 😁

Those kittens get SO much love and attention, and they are just lapping it up.

While looking at some of their displays, I read a sign at a table of pet rocks, talking about where the rocks came from, and that they were painted and made available for “sale” by donation, to help fund the rescue.

Them and the plants.

Which is when I realized that several jade trees from our place were on the ground near the display table! Not very many of them were left, and there were no aloe left at all. I was really hoping they’d be able to use them to raise money for the rescue!

I also bought a couple of dozen of their eggs. We still have quite a bit, but we can always use more!

While getting them, I joked about how we don’t have our own chickens yet. The staff member, who I’d been chatting with a fair bit, sharing about Poirot’s babies, suggested I look into getting ducks, instead. Apparently, they are better layers, and the eggs taste pretty much the same.

I certainly wouldn’t be against that idea!

It was really nice of my brother and SIL to include us today. We drive by the place regularly, and have been to the house part of the property, but that’s it. Plus, we got to visit with Poirot’s babies, too! I feel much better after seeing them. There’s always that worry in the back of your head, when they get adopted out and, in this case, they’re not even adopted out, but will be adopted out when they are a bit older.

As we were leaving, one of my great nephews was saying he wants to go back, tomorrow! 😁

I’d want to go back, too!

I want my own dinosaur. 😄

The Re-Farmer

More kitties and, it’s official

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We must, of course, start with the cuteness!

The cat cave I hoped that Frank would use has been discovered by the littles.

Some of them, at least.

I honestly expected to see it being used more but, hey… if it gives the littles a place to chill without scary strange adult cats to bug them, that’s just fine! They seem to be discovering the cat cage is good for that, too.

I didn’t see any in there this morning, but things get pretty chaotic when I come out with the food. More of the littles are actually staying and eating, rather than running and hiding. I really need to watch where I put my feet!

After feeding the cats and doing my rounds, I was about to go back into the house through the sun room, when I heard little squeaky noises and paused.

I’m glad I did.

Lady Hypotenose was being absolutely tackled by her littles. Where she is in the photo is right next to the door to the old kitchen. I stayed out of the sun room and just zoomed in with my phone’s camera to get some photos, then left them be! I could use the other door to go inside!

On a completely different note. While checking my email this morning, I found a notification from Canada Revenue that there was a message awaiting me at the website.

Well, there it was.

I am now officially classified as disabled by the government. Until 2030. I suppose in 2030, I’ll have to reapply? I dunno. I’ll get a letter in the mail about it. The website doesn’t give any other informaiton.

What this means is that, at tax time, I can get the disability tax credit instead of the caregiver tax credit I’ve been getting. As my younger daughter has also applied for disability and most likely has also been accepted, this means my older daughter can apply for the caregiver credit for one of us.

It also means I can apply for various supports available, and get my own disabled parking placard. My husband has one which, in this province, we have to pay a doctor to fill out a form, then send it in with a check for the placard itself, which then gets mailed to us. In the province where we were living when my husband went on short term disability, he got a prescription that we took where we had our van insured, and we were issued one without charge, immediately. It was a red, temporary one. After six months, when he went on long term disability, we did it again and he got the blue, long term one.

Other than that… I don’t know. I’ve been looking at the various supports out there, both provincial and federal, but it seems I don’t qualify for most of them. Most are aimed at people who are in supportive living or long term care, neither of which I need.

So… really, it doesn’t change anything for me other than being something the federal government recognizes at tax time.

I somehow thought there was more to it than that. I’m used to dealing with my husband’s private disability insurance. Not government stuff.

Thank God for private insurance. We’d be so hooped without it!

The Re-Farmer

Not the kittens I expected!

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So I headed outside to do a quick walk around. The storm hit while I was in the sun room, checking on the littles.

There were these ones.

The tabby leaning back blissfully is the kitten I found in the garage (still no side of the second one I saw briefly). The other two are from the litter of four Lady Hypotenose brought into the sun room.

There are quite a lot of “missing” kittens. I am pretty sure at least a couple were taken somewhere else by their mothers, but I haven’t seen Lady Hypotenose’s black and white today, and there is another white and grey/black that I couldn’t see.

There was one place they could be that I can’t look in. At least, not normally. I tried to “look” by using my phone’s camera. It took several failures before I finally got this photo.

Oh, my goodness. I just went looking at photos I took, the first time we saw Lady Hypotenose’s babies. The black and white I posted a picture of earlier is NOT Lady Hypotenose’s. That one had a black noce and chin, which I can see in the above photo.

So the two on the right are both from Lady Hypotenose’s litter.

That black one, though?

I don’t think I’ve seen it before. Or, maybe it’s the one I saw briefly on the critter cam that one night? It’s impossible to know for sure.

There is a whole lot of mixing and matching going on with these new kittens! It’s really hard to keep track. That’s why I try to take photos as much as possible, but it can be really hard to get a decent shot of them, as they run around and hide so quickly.

With all the moving around of kittens, we still have no idea what the kitten count is this year. Of course, it’s still possible there will be losses, some we will know about, some we won’t. The ones we saw that the moms have moved are the ones the least likely to make it.

I hoped to see Frank while I was checking things out before the storm hit (it has already passed, but we are still under a severe thunderstorm watch), but there was no sign of her. I hope she is somewhere safe and warm with her new babies – and that she’ll find the new cat cave and bring them to the sun room!

Unlikely, but still possible.

The Re-Farmer

Kitten status

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Yesterday evening, I headed outside a few times, just to try and get over my funk. Plus, I just couldn’t be inside and not do anything productive, even though I did rather waste the day.

The first time I headed out, I was checking on the kittens, but only saw two.

That little tabby looks so angry all the time! 😄 That’s the one I found in the garage.

I have not seen that blue eyed black and white kitten all day today. Not sure what’s going on. That is one of Lady Hypotenose’s litter.

I also haven’t seen the other two foundlings I wrote about here. I don’t know who the mother is, but it seems they’ve been moved.

I started to check on the old kitchen garden when I heard the tiniest of meows from… somewhere. It took a while of listening before I could pinpoint a direction, and it was most definitely a distressed meow.

I found Ink’s litter. They’re in the collapsed log building by the fire pit.

One of the kittens had fallen down!

There’s an old tire leaning against the wall on the outside. The kitten was on it, crying out to its three siblings, above. The adult cats can get in and out of this old building fine, but small kittens like this… well, they can fall out, but they can’t get back in!

I was able to quickly grab it and lift it up to the top of the wall, where its siblings were. It did NOT like it, but it took only a fraction of a second, and it was free of the scary human. After they all scattered, I lifted my phone as high as I could and took a picture in the general direction they ran to. That’s the last picture in the slide show above, cropped down to just the two kittens that were visible.

I was happy to see that white one’s eyes were open, because in the other pictures, they looked glued shut! What I can’t tell is if the kittens are just starting to get into their leaky eye phase, or if they are getting out of it.

Later on, I took the log I’d removed the the old kitchen garden bed, where it’s being replaced with wattle weave, and brought it over. I was able to lean it in that low spot in the top log and settle it in place firmly. The kittens can now get in and out of the building on their own, rather than Mom having to try and carry while jumping down from the top, herself!

That was yesterday evening.

This morning, as I was in the old kitchen, about to prepare food for the outside cats, I saw this through the window.

Note that cat in the carrier. That turned out to be Frank. In the next picture, you can see she slammed herself into the cuddle puddle in the cat bed! The Grink is in that bed, along with Eyelet, Grommet and Sir Robin. The Grink isn’t much bigger than the kittens!

Frank didn’t stay, though.

As I was going around to all the food bowls and trays, I was watching Frank. She was in the water bowl shelter, checking out the cat beds and box in there. She was in the sun room, checking out the cat carriers. She was going from place to place, poking around and moving on.

I realized she had to be looking for a place to give birth.

I messaged my daughters and asked them to put fresh puppy pads in the cat carriers in the sun room, in hopes she would use one of those.

The sun room littles have discovered the cat cage. They are really skittish and quick to run away, but I’ve been seeing four of them consistently.

Three of Lady Hypotenose’s babies were snuggled in one of the beds in the cat cage – I put a small bowl of food in there for them, too. They started to use the cat bed in the other cube as a littler, though, which was something I needed to deal with later.

Angry kitten, meanwhile, was snuggling with Grommet in the shelf at the window.

I could not see the black and white anywhere. Hopefully, it’s just under the counter shelf. Even Lady Hypotenose seemed to be looking for it!

I pretty much finished off the kibble with the morning feeding, though, so I headed out after breakfast. I decided to go to the feed store in the town north of us, instead of my mother’s town. I got two 40 pound bags, which should last us two weeks. After picking that up, I went into town and checked out their Red Apple store. I found a cat cave of a particular design I’ve been looking for for a while – one that doesn’t collapse easily. I was actually thinking to pick up a clear storage bin and finding a way to turn that into a secure cat cave a mother might like to give birth in, but the only ones they had that were the right dimensions was insanely expensive. The fabric cat cave I found was expensive, too, but I haven’t been able to find it anywhere else, so I snagged it, anyhow.

After a brief stop at the grocery store across the street, I headed home.

I was too late.

I saw Frank moving around the yard, and the first thing I could see was the blood on her back end. She had clearly just given birth – and yet, there she was. Not only was she going around the yard, but she was roughhousing with Sir Robin and Havarti, too!

That is not the behaviour of a cat that’s just given birth so recently, I found drops of blood on the floor of the sun room.

I still set up the new cat cave, in hopes she will find it and move her babies there. Given her state, I thought they had to be close by and checked all the usual places. Nothing. I was even bracing myself to find remains. None of that, either.

Given her behaviour, I strongly suspect she lost her litter.

One of the sun room kittens and Lady Hypotenose, however, have discovered the new cat cave and checked it out. I might find other littles in there, instead!

Meanwhile, I took out the cat bed the littles had started using as a litter box and put in an actual litter box. I used a garden hose to wash out the cat bed as best I could, and it’s now hanging on the line. I don’t expect it to dry anytime soon, though. We’re under a severe thunderstorm watch right now, so it’ll probably get rained on.

In fact, I think I’ll check on the outside cats and see if they need a kibble top up now. It’s early, but if the weather apps and warnings are right, a thunderstorm will be hitting us around the time I would normally be heading outside to do it. I did top up the kibble after refilling the bin, though, so they should be fine.

Time to see what I find!

The Re-Farmer

Morning in the garden, afternoon kitties, and not a good day

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I’m having a rather bad day today – and I don’t know why!

But first, the good stuff.

In the first photo above, you can see our growing pumpkin now has a sling to support it on the trellis. Or, more accurately, to take the weight off the plastic trellis netting so it won’t snap. The weight is now being held by the vertical supports for the permanent trellis, plus I wrapped garden twist ties around the strand of the netting holding the most weight, to strengthen it and put some of that weight onto the horizontal support bar above.

The next picture is of the Hedou Tiny Bok Choy seeds I gathered. I keep getting that name wrong, but I looked up the old post from when I got them as free seeds with an order from Baker Creek, back in 2022, for our 2023 garden.

The seeds in the container are actually from today’s pods I gathered, plus some I gathered earlier, as the pods dried out earlier. We will have plenty of seeds to plant this fall, for next year.

The funny thing is, we’ve never actually grown any of this variety of bok choy. The first year I tried them, they were in the bed by the chain link fence, before we know how destructive those Chinese elm seeds were. The entire bed was completely choked out. Yet, a couple of little bok choy survived and promptly bolted. All of two plants. I left them be and collected the seeds. They got planted last fall, in the “greens” mix of seeds planted in the old kitchen garden.

The problem was, the mix was scatter planted and things were pretty crowded out. I never saw the bok choy until the bolted – again, just a couple of plants – sending their flower stalks up through the mass of kohlrabi leaves. They were able to get much bigger, even being crowded out as they were, and I had a lot more pods to collect once they dried up. The pods were so dry, they started snapping open in my fingers as I tried to collect them. Most of the seeds ended up in my hand, but I’m sure a few ended up on the soil. I finally broke off the flower stalk lower down and brought the whole thing inside. For now, the seeds are in the cooler living room, with the container open to make sure they are completely dry.

When I do the winter sowing this fall, it will be a lot more organizes and planned, know that I know how the different things worked out. These tiny bok choi will be planted where they won’t be hidden or crowded out by other plants, and with protection from cats. Hopefully, next year, we’ll actually be able to harvest some and find out what they taste like!

There might still be some stalks of pods hidden under the kohlrabi leaves, but I definitely got most of them. While looking around, I did a bit of weeding and suddenly realized I was looking at a whole lot of new sprouts that were NOT weeds.

We left more spinach to go to seed than we need, and some of them got so leggy and spread out when they bolted, I pulled them like weeds, and just dropped them as mulch. Well, it looks like those seeds continued to develop, even after the plants were pulled!

We’ll be having an unintended fall spinach crop!

I was really struggling this morning, though. I couldn’t sleep for some reason, and after I did finally sleep, I woke up (was awakened) with this simmering undertone of anger, and it just hasn’t gone away. It didn’t get better after I had breakfast, so I tried for a nap.

It didn’t get better after a nap.

So I’ve asked the girls to take over on various things, but the outside jobs I could have done today, aren’t getting done. My head space is so messed up right now, I can’t even think of which project I would be working on. On top of it all, even though I just bought more kibble during the Walmart trip, it was just one 9kg bag for the inside cats, and another for the outside cats, and we’re already running low. I need to go to the feed store and pick up a couple more 40 pound bags, if I want to last until the first stock up trip at the end of August. I’m in no shape to do it today, but I will have to do it tomorrow.

Weather forecast is now saying we’re going to have more rain tomorrow morning. Maybe. The weather app on my phone was saying thunderstorms starting in the wee hours and ending by late morning. Now, it says no rain at all. The app on my desktop says we’ll get a bit of rain in the late morning, then again in the evening. We’re also supposed to get a lot hotter. It’s going to be topsy turvy temperatures for the next while. Last night, the forecasted low was 10C/50F. We ended up dropping to 8C/46F, instead. I actually got cold last night, and when I did my rounds, I wore a sweater for the first time in months. While not cold enough to need to cover things, anything below 10C/50F is not good for our garden, when everything is so far behind.

Anyhow.

I did head out to do the evening cat feeding earlier than usual as I wanted to make sure the littles hiding under the counter shelf could have a chance to eat without the bigger cats pushing them around. I’ve only seen one or two at a time, so I still don’t know how many are under there. For all I know, one of the moms has moved some of them.

After putting the food out, I did a head count of adult cats.

Five.

Yup. Just five! Not twenty five or thirty five. Just five

Of course, there were a lot more in the morning, but I haven’t been able to do a head count. They move around too much.

I did get a couple of pictures this afternoon, though.

Eyelet couldn’t hear the sound of the food being added to the trays and stayed in his comfy bed, making it easy to get his picture. Syndol REALLY wanted me to be paying attention to him instead of Eyelet, though!

As I write this, I have the critter cam live feed up. I can see one little kitten – the one I found in the garage, and later rescued from following other cats around the yard – running around. I saw a skunk earlier and my husband went to try and check it out, but it went under the counter shelf, instead.

Not as fast as usual, though! It would have come face first with however many kittens are under there.

They seem to have made peace, though, as the skunk’s tail is no longer visible, and he’s all the way under.

*sigh*

I’ve accomplished pretty much nothing today, and I feel like I got hit by a truck. Not pain wise. That’s been so much better since I started the anti-inflammatories. Some of it is just a general malaise. My chronic cough hasn’t been very frequent for some time, but today it’s hitting me again. I’m not coughing a lot, but when I do, it’s bad enough that my old daughter was calling down from upstairs, asking if I was okay – and she was wearing headphones while she worked! My cough is like my throat is being torn up. I spent more than 10 years in two provinces going to different specialists to find the cause of my cough, and none was found, and I finally gave up. Nothing drives a doctor more insane than being a short, fat woman that every test shows as being extremely healthy, other than physical damage, like the OA and bone spurs. Aside from not having the laundry list of fat-people ailments they think I should have, they can’t find the cause of my respiratory issues. After test after normal test, they start looking at me sideways, and thinking I’m making it up. With my new doctor, I haven’t even brought it up. She knows it’s an issue, and it’s all in my file, but I see no point in asking for more tests again. I just live with it.

Still, it’s not my cough that’s causing me issues today. I know part of it is the cats and their destructiveness, which is what woke me up this morning. We just have too many cats in the house, and chances of adoption these days has basically dropped from slim to none. I don’t blame the Cat Lady for getting out of rescue, that’s for sure.

I think that might have something to do with that underlying anger I’m feeling today. I think maybe it’s just caught up to me. We do the best we can, but there are limits, and we’ve passed ours, long ago. I can’t even reach out to the stray and feral rescue group I’ve been following; people are very quick to make assumptions and get nasty. You’d think rescues would be a whole lot of people actually interested in rescuing cats and finding homes for them, not virtue signaling, one upping each other or reporting people to the province to “help”.

Oh, I need to stop. That underlying feeling of anger is bubbling up.

I think I’m really starting to burn out.

The Re-Farmer.

More babies!

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Okay, it’s official.

I now have NO idea how many kittens we have.

For some time now, I’ve been wondering when the more feral mamas that have been showing up at feeding time, would bring their babies. I thought it would start weeks ago, to be honest, but I think at least a couple of them had litters very early, lost them, then got pregnant again. Slick being one of them for sure.

Speaking of slick…

Last night, I checked the critter cam and was amazed to see a couple of very small kittens, one of them almost completely black with what seemed to be splashed of white on its chest, making its way up to the platform above the cat cage – along with another that looked like another white and grey. Then I saw Slick (formerly Octomom) with them. I’m not sure if she was the mother, but I got that impression.

I did not see them when I did the morning cat feeding.

I did see some of the new littles. They seem to have picked under the counter shelf as their place to hang out.

As I was heading towards the garage to put food in the tray there (still no sign of that kitten that popped its head out momentarily, before disappearing again) when I spotted two very scared looking kittens under the table I have up against the house, where the isolation shelter was for the winter.

We’ve got another white and grey, and a fluffy tuxedo!

The tuxedo started to run off and went around the house, but I was able to catch it and carry it to the sun room. It was NOT happy about that, and started to cry out very loudly. I put it down near a tray of food and it immediately ran off further into the sun room.

I then went back to the other one, which was much easier to catch. It did start to fight back, hiss and finally cry out loudly as well, as I was carrying it, before I set it down by the food tray, too.

Since then, I’ve seen the white and grey, tucked into a corner next to a shelf, just like in the picture, looking very forlorn. One of Lady Hypotenose’s littles was curiously trying to come closer, but it was having none of that. Last I saw, it was on its own, still curled up in the corner. I’m hoping it came out to eat, later on. I also hope the mama comes around.

With all the new littles hiding under that shelf, there’s no way to know how many there are. If I had to guess, I’d say nine new ones, including the two I’ve only seen on the critter cam. Ten if I count the one I saw in the garage, but haven’t seen since. While I was expecting the mamas to start bringing them over, I wasn’t expecting them to start doing it all at once!

I also wasn’t expecting mamas to bring such small kittens, and then disappear. There was no sign of a mama when I found the two this morning, and still no sign of a mama for the one that I found in the garage (I don’t know what to think about the second kitten not showing up anywhere) that Lady Hypotenose immediately adopted.

Which makes it really important for the new littles to be in the sun room, where they have the most protection, as well as access to food and water. I’ve got the live stream on the critter cam on my phone up as I write this and, while I’ve seen the odd kitten come put and play, mostly I’m seeing nothing but some older cats sleeping on the platform over the cat cage.

It looks like, for the next while, part of my rounds is going to include watching out for kittens being left in the yard, and if I find any, getting them to the sun room. Which is where I think the mamas are trying to get them to, anyhow.

Well, I can say this much, at least.

There are a lot fewer kittens than last year, and I’m happy that they are looking so healthy. There was a while last year where, every day, sometimes more than once a day, I was coming out to find dead kittens or dying miscarriages that I had to euthanize. It was really rough. I’ll happily take the fewer, healthier looking kittens over that. I just wish we should get their feral mamas spayed!

All in good time.

Meanwhile, we will work on socializing these littles and try to get them adopted out!

Oh, that reminds me. While I was at the Walmart yesterday, I was waiting my turn to get to the wet cat food. The woman that was there with her cart was loading it up with cans and kibble, so I asked her, how many did she have?

It turned out she not only had her own cats, but was fostering both kittens and a dog. So we chatted for a while. She is working with the big rescue that the Cat Lady was volunteering with before she left to start her own rescue. I told her a bit about what happened, and she was nodding her head. She told me that there have been some changes in the organization in the last while, but I’m still loath to turn to them for help. I mentioned that the rescue that’s been helping us is shutting down this year, as are other small rescues. She was not surprised. It’s too heart breaking. No one is adopting or, if they are, they don’t want to adopt until someone else has spent hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars to spay/neuter and vet the cats first. They want a “rescue”, but they also want a perfect cat – and then they balk at the adoption fees. As the woman I spoke to put it, the problem is the people.

She’s totally right.

The Cat Lady has so many cats right now that they’ve kept permanently because people adopted them, claiming they understood that, say, this kitten had heart problems, or that one had respiratory problems, and yes, they fully understood and expected that they will need medical care – only to bring them back a few days later, because it was just “too much” for them.

Then you get people like that one that told the Cat Lady she wanted a calico, but when shown pictures of one we had, she said she wanted one with more white.

…

Yeah. The problem is the people. Not the cats.

Well, we do the best we can, anyhow.

What else can we do?

The Re-Farmer

Mid month stock up: this is what $178 looks like, plus a very long day.

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It may not be mid month on the calendar yet, but it is for our stock up shopping schedule.

It’s been a very long day.

First up, the cuteness. A really bad, cropped critter cam image, but still cute!

That is Lady Hypotenose, in the wee hours of the night, tending her now five kittens! I saw them on the camera earlier, swirling around her like a vortex, except the new baby, who was hunting nip. I look a couple of minute later and there she was with three of her babies (the fourth one ran out of frame), and her newly adopted baby, nursing them all in the middle of the sun room.

What a good mama!

When I went to feed them this morning, they were all over the place, but when I came back after finishing my rounds, they were all gone! Every one of them! I couldn’t see them anywhere in the sun room!

I went out to check the cat house and various other spots, but nothing.

Then I came back to the sun room and found a single kitten, going for the food. I had no idea where it came from.

So I went into the old kitchen and watched through the door with the missing screen, and spotted a kitten squeeze its way out from under the counter shelf.

*phew* What a relief! I was afraid Lady Hypotenose changed her mind about keeping her kittens in the sun room!

After that, I had a bit of time before I needed to head out to my mother’s, to take her for her doctor’s appointment. She really struggled to use the stool and get into the truck but, unfortunately, this was not an appointment that could be done over the phone.

We were able to go through a whole bunch of things during the appointment, from going over the results of her various blood tests (all is fine), talking about her leg swelling with a dosage change and confirming that yes, she has toe fungus, and getting a prescription for that. My mother brought up her frequent complaint about dry mouth, that happens only when she’s sleeping. I’ve been telling her, she’s probably sleeping with her mouth open. I get it, too, sometimes. So when the doctor asked some questions and came to the same conclusion, my mother was right ticked off!

I think the doctor was ticked off, too – or at least shocked – but not at my mother. I brought up the referral for another mental health assessment, since it’s been more than a year, and home care needs it for paneling my mother for a nursing home. The doctor looked up the last penal report and was shocked it wasn’t enough. She wrote a referral for the assessment, but also wrote a letter to the home care coordinator (I’m glad I keep her business card in my phone case, because she needed the contact information!). I brought up that my mother really shouldn’t be living alone, and my mother added that she is having more trouble moving around and has to lean on furniture to get around he apartment.

I think the case coordinator is going to get a rather brusk letter about my mother’s conditions, and that she needs to be in care.

There were a few other things, some of which I had to explain to my mother as I brought her home. Normally, we would have stopped for lunch or something after the appointment, since we were on the road at lunch time, but with the changes in her prescription, I needed to get her bubble packs to the pharmacy.

My mother was so tired, she actually started to fall asleep during the drive!

Once I got her home, I went through the lock box and took some bubble packs out, leaving the new one that just got started today. My mom will stick to the same dose until that pack is done.

I also found a message from my daughter. The pharmacy had already called me on the land line, wanting to talk to me about my mother’s prescriptions! When I got there, I joked with the pharmacist that they are FAST! They were calling before I even got my mother home, yet!

They took the bubble packs to adjust them, but the new prescription for my mother’s toes as another issue. I was warned right away that it was expensive, while she looked up if it was covered by our province’s prescription insurance.

It wasn’t.

My mother had given me cash, and asked me to get some more Voltaren as well, since she’s using it on both her knees and her back now. Between that and the new prescription, it wasn’t enough, so I paid the balance.

When I got back to my mom’s and went over everything with her, and told her I’d covered about $50, she was furious. This little bottle was $50? she said, as she threw it across the table. No, it cost over $120. The $50 or so was what I covered.

Cue much ranting and raving about how it’s just toes, she didn’t need it, she didn’t want it.

She had been quite happy to get the prescription when we left the doctor’s, but I guess she expected it to be free, just like she did with the inhaler when I covered that for her, too.

It took a while to calm her down and give her the instructions on how to use it.

I suspect she will refuse to use it.

After all that, I was more than happy to leave. I still had my own errands to run at Walmart, since I was out, anyhow.

It had been raining off and on all day, and I even got warnings from home that it was pouring buckets. It wasn’t that heavy where I was, though, so the drive to the Walmart wasn’t too bad. I’m just happy to have the rain. We need it so badly!

Once I got to the Walmart, I could finally have my own lunch, too!

I didn’t have a large list, but it was enough to make the drive to Walmart worth it. Especially when it came to the cat food.

This is what $178.63 looks like.

Yeah. Not much there at all.

The most expensive items were the two bags of kibble, plus a case of wet cat food. I also got a box of pet stain/odour remover, to cat supplies alone were in the $100 range.

My husband requested water flavours, but they had only one flavour of his preferred type/brand, so he got three different types. I also grabbed more distilled water for his CPAP humidifier. He still has a good supply, but it’s a lot cheaper at Walmart, so I got extra.

There’s some coffee creamer for the girls, some cleaning vinegar and facial tissues, some powdered chicken bouillon, and some rye bread. They had an excellent price on corn on the cob, so I picked up a bunch.

And that’s it. That was almost $200

Ouch.

By the time I was heading home, it was late enough in the day that I asked my daughter to feed the outside cats. She tells me that all the kittens, except the two garage kittens, came to the house to eat, and she even got to pet some of the new littles! I’m glad because, by the time I was bringing in more cat food through the sun room, they were almost all hiding again.

The system that gave us all that wonderful rain today has passed us by and it seems like the main body of it will go right over where the huge fire across the lake is. Even with the rain, the air was still smoky. We might get a bit more rain tonight, but just barely.

I actually don’t have any appointments or planned errands for the next couple of weeks! I’m amazed. It’s been so long. Of course, there will be the usual unplanned stuff – trips to the dump, any new calls to cover my mother’s med assists for home care, stuff like that – but I’m otherwise actually going to be able to stay home for the next while!

What an amazing thing. I might actually get some progress done on various projects that had to be set aside!

I think I’ll celebrate by going to bed early.

The Re-Farmer

The kittens are showing up!

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I was really starting to wonder!

I’ve seen several nursing moms show up during feeding time. Normally, when their kittens get old enough to wean, the mamas bring them to the house and feeding stations and basically leave them here. That hasn’t been happening. One of the moms, Ink, clearly has a pretty large litter, judging from how her underside look, and how many teats seemed to be full and swaying. I could never get a good look to judge how many, though, but figured more than four. Lately, though, her belly is starting to return to normal appearance, which means she’s not really nursing much, if at all, anymore, and there’s no sign of kittens.

Well, that changes this morning.

When I came out to feed the cats this morning, I found four new babies in the sun room!

That black and white one in the back is particularly hissy-spitty. BUT they did not run away. They had been playing when I opened the door, which means they’d already been there for some hours, at least. Long enough to start to feel comfortable.

Lady Hypotenose is her mom, and she seems to have contentedly moved her babies into the sun room.

Everything else was as usual while I did my rounds, and when I left to meet up with my brother and his family to take my mom out for lunch.

That changed when I got home.

There were no kittens in sight when I parked the truck in the garage, but when I got out of the truck, I was hearing distressed meowing! My first thought was that I somehow hurt a kitten, but it wasn’t a pain meow. It was more of a panic meowing.

I went around the truck and saw a kitten run out from under and around my brother’s riding mower that’s parked to one side. The kitten saw me and ran behind some stuff to hide.

Which is where I saw a second head pop up, see me, and disappear again.

These kittens are much younger than the garage kittens.

It was late enough in the afternoon that I decided to quickly get changed, then feed the outside cats. Lately, I’ve been doing just kibble, but this time I made sure to do the upgrade from kitten soup. Before, I would use a couple of cans of wet cat food, mixed with hot water until smooth and thin, and then I mixed in dry kibble to soak up the water and wet cat food gravy. The cats love it to the point that I have had to kick the adult cats out of the sun room so the kittens could get some.

I also grabbed an extra container to use as a bowl in the garage.

Well, that worked out different than expected.

After I’d put the garage food out, I saw the little kitten I’d seen first, running around behind the garage and meowing. Pinky – the garage kitten mom – seemed unsure about these new additions and a little stressed out.

Still, once the food was set out, I saw her eating together with one of her own kittens, plus the new one.

The new one was eating very enthusiastically.

Looks like we have a boy!

Just after I got that first picture, though, Pinky promptly started batting at his head. He was so hungry, he mostly ignored it and went back to eating, but Pinky was NOT happy with him there.

He was so busy eating, I was able to come over, pick him up and carry him to the isolation shelter. He hissed at me, but that was about it. Once I put him down, he almost immediately dove in for the food.

I finished up with the cat feeding and put things away. By the time I was done, the new kitten was out of the isolation shelter and running around in the grass, meowing in distress. He seemed to be trying to follow other cats. For a moment, I thought maybe Ink was the mom after all, but she took off, ignoring the kitten as he tried to follow her.

When the kitten started wandering to the outer yard, I had to do something. It’s dangerous for a kitten out there! Thankfully, I was able to catch him. This time, I took him into the sun room and into the cat cage, then gave it his own food and water bowl. He tried to get through the cat cage walls for a while before the food became too irresistible for him. The cat cage has a kitten sized opening under the “door”, so it would eventually find its way out, but for the moment, he settled. Some of the kittens that showed up this morning were nearby, and that seemed to relax him a bit. Which is when I was able to get that last photo in the above slide show.

After a while, though, Lady Hypotenose showed up to nurse her own kittens. While she was moving around to get their attention, I took a chance and got the new kitten out of the cat cage and put him with Lady Hypotenose and her babies. I don’t think she nursed him, but he was definitely calmer around the other kittens, and already seems to have picked a friend!

In the second picture, you can see Lady Hypotenose taking a break from the kittens!

Two of her others like to hand out around that cat bed. The last one, the black and white, is definitely the spiciest of them all. I kept hearing him growing, hissing and spitting, at any of the bigger kittens that come near.

Later on, I’ll go out and see if I can spot that other kitten I saw in the garage. I’d really like to get it into the sun room, too. Whichever cat is the mama, at least in the sun room, they will have access to food and water, even if the mama has simply left them here.

Our total kitten population is now at 14 or 15, and the new ones in the sun room now have a MUCH better chance at being socialized and hopefully adopted out!

Which is a good time to point out that we do have a donation button at the top. All donations go towards the feeding and care of the cats.

The Re-Farmer

Critters, and the day so far

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Of course, there is always the cuteness of the kitties, but this morning we had something extra.

Our bathroom window opens into the sun room and this morning, I was hearing some strange noises. I checked the critter cam, but couldn’t see anything. The noises were still there, though, so as soon as I could, I went to see what the heck was going on.

What I found was a pair of little raccoons, squeezed between the top of the counter shelf and the wall shelf above!

As I came in, they dove behind the counter, against the window.

There was more than two.

I can make out at least three of them. This is a litter of four that comes visiting – the mom must of run out of the sun room before I got to the door – so I’m pretty sure there is a fourth one mashed into there!

That insulation is against a double pain window that lost its inner pane. After cleaning up as much of the broken glass as we could, we put the insulation there to both protect the window from extreme temperature differences and any kittens and cats that would go back there.

Also, baby raccoons. 😄

We had more rain last night, and very small amounts of rain off and on, so after they had their breakfast, the cats curled up in their favorite spots.

Nosey found himself a nice little bed in the portable greenhouse. At the same time, Grommet was chilling on the garbage can heat sink (in the last picture). I also got a picture of Grommet and Eyelet snoozing together in one of the cat beds in the shelf shelter. Grommet really likes that cat bed!

Late this morning, after my daughter loaded the truck for me, I finally made it to the dump. It’s been a while! When I got there as saw the pit area, it was clear that they had finally pushed the huge build up on garbage at the edge of the pit, in. There was actually room to drive in and turn to back up to the edge.

Which was already filling up with trash on the edge. A lot of people make no effort to toss the garbage into the pit, and just dump it at the edge. Which gets to be a problem when it’s odd stuff like construction garbage (which isn’t supposed to go in the pit; there are areas set aside for that) or like what I saw today; a large pile spilling into the lane of what looked like rectangular pieces of foam. Picture mattress foam, except definitely not from mattresses.

I’m glad to finally make the dump run, and that they did clear the pit area since I was last there, but it has already gotten so bad, so fast, again, it’s really a problem. I’m not the only one worried about getting a flat, driving into the pit area!

After I got home, I did some stuff in the garden and got things going for the crock pot, as on one wants to cook in this muggy heat. I had to stop to go to my mother’s for her med assist, so one of my daughters finished that for me while I was gone.

Today makes 5 days this week, where I had to come in to do my mother’s med assists, because they were short staffed. The first two were mornings, the rest were evenings, where I have to set out her bed time meds for her to take herself, later.

When I got there, my mother had just finished her supper. Which was also her breakfast! She had stayed in bed all day today, which means she didn’t have food with her morning meds. She probably had a few crackers with them.

I remembered to grab our callous grinder from home, so after she took her meds, I checked on her toenails and smoothed them out a bit. Since I am taking her to her doctor next week, I brought up having the doctor take a look at her feet, just to make sure she doesn’t have any fungus, because of that one weird toenail.

Since I was there anyhow, I also did her dishes and put away her laundry, which was still neatly folded in the basket on her couch, where my sister had left them for her. The wheelchair I brought is still sitting in her living room. I don’t think she’s even touched it. Which really doesn’t help us any, when she’s asking us to buy her a new one and we don’t even know if she can use a manual chair to begin with.

I hope my mother is feeling better tomorrow, though. My brother has a surprise for her. We’ll be meeting up at a particular restaurant, with his grandsons, and then he’s going to go get my mother to have lunch with her great grandsons. We haven’t said anything in advance, as my mother’s behaviour is so unpredictable, it’s just safer not to say anything. I’ve been asked to be there partly because she behaves differently when I’m there, and is less cruel to my brother and his wife. With her behaviour around kids, it’s really hard to know how she will be. She wanted nothing to do with her grandsons when they were little, and the only interest she had with my daughters was to “test” them and get them to perform for her, in between making false reports against us to the home school office.

We never know, though. She might have one of her good days, and it’ll be a great visit and one her great grandsons will remember in a positive light in the future.

We shall see.

The Re-Farmer