Every now and then, we would bring one of the inside cats into the sun room to visit with Ginger.
It hasn’t been very productive.
Most of the inside cats have either never been in the sun room, or happened to dash in for a few moments before we could stop them. Which means that when we brought one of them in, they were far more interested in exploring, than checking out the new cat in the room.
Yesterday, I brought in David.
David is a slightly different case. He actually spent quite a bit of time in here, while it was set up as a “maternity ward”, with Beep Beep, Butterscotch and their kittens. However, the only reason he was in there was because we found him in the yard with his mom, with eyes so leaky and glued together, he was easy to catch. So was his brother, Keith, though Keith’s eyes were not as bad. We were never able to catch his sister, Junk Pile kitten, because her eyes were healthy and she kept running off.
Bringing him in for daily eye washes and eye drops got to be a bit much, so we simply kept him in the house. It was a while longer before his brother joined the indoor clan.
So while David’s not unfamiliar with the sun room, he was pretty much blind the entire time he was in it. So he did spend some time exploring, but was more relaxed about it, and more curious about the new addition. They didn’t do much more than sniff each other’s noses, but there was no animosity, hissing, growling or anything. They were pretty chill about the whole thing.
This morning, it was hard to get good pictures of Ginger! He got very interested in the bottom of the door, where the outside cats were milling about, waiting impatiently for their kibble. Then he went into rolling mode! :-D He did let me pick him up for a bit, but he was too energetic and playful to cuddle.
He gets his stitches out this afternoon. Then he gets introduced to the great indoors. :-D
Here are his mom, brothers, aunty and cousin! The little calico wouldn’t go for the food while I was there, so I didn’t stay long. I actually got to pet Ginger’s Aunt Rosencrantz and Nutmeg this morning. It’s amazing what they’ll put up with when there’s food involved. ;-)
Usually, I leave the doors to the sun room open while I feed the critters, and the outside cats are free to go in and out for a while. They seem perplexed that they can’t do that right now. Ginger, meanwhile, wanted to play with the cat on the other side of the door! I could hear scratching from the outside, so they were trying to play, too.
Ginger had to settle for me playing with him, instead. :-)
One more day, then he gets his stitches out and, unless the vet says otherwise, he’ll be joining the inside cats. :-)
That discolored patch turned out to not be a smear, nor a stripe of darker orange fur. It’s starting to peel away! It may actually be some damaged skin that’s coming off as his fur grows in. Weird.
The little irritated bits between some sutures no longer look irritated.
I think he will be very happy to have those stitches out!
Oh! I just have to share this photo of something I spotted while feeding the critters.
In a small patch of open soil, I found a hoof print.
That’s a deer print. The concrete block is part of the sidewalk in front of the main entry steps.
But before I get into that, we had some activity in the feeding station yesterday evening!
Two pairs of deer came by – but they were NOT together! They kept fighting each other and chasing each other away from the feed. I do try to spread it out, but by the end of the day, there isn’t much left.
I managed to get some video, since I had to use my phone to take the pictures anyhow, and put them together. I’m trying to move away from YouTube, so I’ve uploaded to Rumble. Please let me know how this works for you.
If that doesn’t work for you, please try clicking here.
They were really cool to watch!
Anyhow…
I had considered going to my mother’s church this morning, to have our Easter basket blessed, but the church was needing to have people register and so on, in advance, so we decided to skip it this year. At least they had it this year. Last year, it wasn’t allowed.
So we were to assemble our basket today and just bless it ourselves. I did want to take advantage of things being open to make a run into town. I was going to do it in the afternoon, but I got a phone call from my brother. He and his wife had found a new recliner chair small enough for my mother and wanted to bring it over. I agreed to meet him and help assemble it, in the afternoon.
Which meant I headed into town earlier today, then went straight to my mother’s town to meet my brother before we headed to her place together.
The main thing I wanted to do today was get a second battery for the baby chainsaw. I also brought in the little corded chainsaw we found a while back. It should hopefully just need to have the chain sharpened. Otherwise, it should just need a new chain.
After starting a work order for the chainsaw, the lady tried to find a battery for me. After confirming they had none in stock, she went to the Stihl site to check their inventory.
They had none.
Zero.
Anywhere.
Which I suppose makes sense. Most people buying a battery operated tool will order a second battery so they can set one battery to charge and continue working with the second battery. This little thing has a matching little battery, so a lot of people buying these would not have a matching battery already and be getting a second one at the same time. Since this thing is so popular, they can’t even manufacture them fast enough to keep up with the demand, they would probably be going through more of that type of battery than the cordless pruner itself.
She did place an order for one for me, but has no idea when it could be fulfilled. They will call me when it comes in, though. Until then, I’ll just have to make do with one battery.
Since I was there anyhow, I picked up an extra bottle of oil for the bar, plus an extra chain. These fall into the category of “better to have them and not need them, then need them and not have them!”
Once the little electric chainsaw is in cutting shape again, it will be enough to meet most of our needs. We won’t be taking down any big dead trees with it, but it will go a long way in helping cut up the already fallen ones to make them easier to clear away.
That was taken care of rather quickly, and I had time to visit the beach for a little while.
The ice fishing shacks are long gone, but the ice is still thick enough for people to walk on it, and do a bit of ice fishing without a shack.
Then it was off to my mother’s town. I made a stop at the grocery store there, because I remembered seeing them carry the same type of deer feed and bird seed we usually get.
Not today, it turns out. All sold out! We at least still have some deer feed left, and the birds like that, too, so it can wait a bit. :-D
It did give me a chance to pick up a few things for my mother that I noticed she runs out of very quickly.
Then my brother and I met up, heading to my mother’s and surprised her with a new non-electric reclining chair to replace her old arm chair that she’d been complaining about. Of course, she had nothing nice to say about it, complaining that it was too big (it was the smallest they could find!), or that she didn’t need it, etc. The complaining was less than usual, however, which tells me she was actually very happy with it! :-D I am hoping she will be able to use it to sleep on, every now and then, as she still has breathing issues when she sleeps, and being slightly upright should help her with that.
So that worked out well, and we even stayed for a short visit. Then we loaded all the packing materials, and my mother’s old chair, into my brother’s truck, so my mother had nothing to worry about. Since the chair needs to be further forward, to have room to recline, than her other chair, things needed to be shifted around, and she now actually has slightly more space to walk around than with the smaller chair. :-)
On the way home, my route took me past where the recent fire was.
I am happy to say that the house tucked in the trees I was concerned about untouched by flames. There’s a drainage ditch that cuts through that quarter section, and it acted as a bit of a fire break that kept it from spreading to another house in the same quarter. The only thing that burned was open field. It was “just” a grass fire.
Driving around that quarter, however, showed that a LOT of that field was burned! When controlled burns are done, they tend to focus on specific problem areas, not entire fields. I could see where it had burned out of control, and the tire tracks from the emergency vehicles going in.
It was after I’d turned onto our road that I saw just how far it went. Plus, oddly, there was a burned out car in the middle of the field. ?!? Yes, farms tend to collect old cars, but they don’t leave them in the middle of fields they grow crops in!
As I got closer to the quarter we are on, I saw where the fire had actually jumped the road to our neighbour’s field. It didn’t go much beyond the ditch, thankfully. Another thing to be thankful for; the renter plowed the field he’d grown corn on. It would have acted as a fire break, since there wasn’t enough fuel available.
What I also saw was that the fire had actually burned past the fence, into the quarter section belonging to the younger of my brothers. Not far, thankfully. His quarter is mostly hay, so there was plenty of fuel available for a grass fire!
Which means the fire reached less than half a mile from our place, and my brother’s.
So thankful that no homes were lost!
Meanwhile, while I was away, the girls took care of assembling our Easter basket. Well. Except for the stuff that needs to be kept refrigerated. :-)
Looking forward to celebrating Easter tomorrow!
I hope you are, too. May your Easter be a blessed say of peace and great joy.
Ginger does love to roll around! He doesn’t seem to mind a bit of spilled water in the way, either. :-D He was quite happy to let me pet him, as I went in and out to feed his brothers.
Nutmeg actually let me touch him this morning, and even skritch his head a bit – but not until there was food in the bowl!
Gosh, Creamsicle Jr. looks ornery! :-D
Even their calico cousin came by for eats.
Would you call that a calico? I don’t know. I am fascinated by the fact that the patches of both grey and orange fur have tabby stripes in them.
With the high winds we had in previous days, I actually shifted the kibble house to have the back facing south, instead of being at an angle to the cat’s house. We had so much wind from the south east, it was actually blowing around the smaller kibble bowls. I had it an an angle because I wanted the space in front of the entry to the cat’s house more open, but the whole point of it is for the cats to be sheltered while they ate, and that wasn’t happening!
Ginger actually let me pick him up and cuddle with him after I fed his brothers and cousin. I even tucked him into my coat, though it wasn’t anywhere near chilly enough for it. He was a bit restless in my arms shifting about until he was curled up on my chest, with his head hanging down. It made it easier to give him head skritches, which he really, really liked.
Then he started licking my hands! He went into full grooming mode. Apparently, my fingers and wrists in particular, are very tasty. :-D
What a sweetie!
I think I spent about half an hour, cuddling with him before I had to head out again, and he was quite happy with the attention. He was also up to jumping down himself when I stood up, rather than waiting for me to put him down.
Day after tomorrow, and he’s at the vet to get the sutures removed. :-)
Before I update on how Ginger is doing today, I just wanted to quickly add that the fire that happened last night remained under control, and all is quiet – though there were certainly a lot of files to check out on the trail cams this morning! The fire trucks went past our driveway, lights flashing, but we heard no sirens at all at that time. We still don’t know what caught fire. The local news included stories of several grass fires, including one where a home was lost and 20 others evacuated, but these were all in the southern end of our province and nowhere near us. I hope to find out more, just to be assured that no one was hurt.
And now, back to our regularly scheduled spice boy update!
Ginger really was a bit spicy this morning! He was quite active, watching at the window, ducking under the swing bench, checking out the fresh food and water, and generally making it hard to get hold of! He finally flopped down on my feet and start rolling, and I was finally able to pick him up.
He was also eyeballing the door while I went in and out to feed the outside critters! As I headed out with kibble for the outside cats, Butterscotch dashed into the sun room. Which I was okay with. I figured a visit from his mom would not be a problem! She doesn’t like being indoors, though, so she was ready to dash back out as soon as the door was open again. :-D
It was nice and cozy in the sun room, so no tucking into the coat this morning. :-) He wouldn’t settle down, though, and I got only a brief snuggle in before he jumped down again.
Once on the floor, he couldn’t make up his mind if he wanted to keep rolling around, or to tackle the toes of my shoes! :-D
His surgical site is looking pretty good. He still has a couple of tender looking spots, but they seem to be lessening.
He’s got 2 more nights of his pain medications left, I believe, which means he’ll be out of them before he’s back at the vet to get the sutures removed. Hopefully, he will not need them anymore. He’s been remarkably tolerant in being given the medication, but we’ll be happy to not have to put him through that anymore!
Transitioning him from a room all to himself, into a house full of cats is going to be interesting.
We had another fairly chilly night, but things are definitely warming up again. Enough that the outside cats were all running around by the door when I came out this morning!
They were both hungry and thirsty! Even Junk Pile cat didn’t quite run away, waiting for some food. The kibble bowls were all empty, and even their heated water bowl was almost dry. The other bowls were frozen, so they were very happy for the warm water.
We really need to work on getting Creamsicle Jr. to let us near him. I want to get a look at one of his eyes. It seems to be leaky.
This is the same pussy willow I posted a picture of, less than a week ago. It’s really, really trying to develop those catkins! It should be warm enough from now on for them to finally develop fully. The brief cold of the past few days set it back quite a bit.
We never got much snow out of what should be the last winter blow out, and it’s already pretty much gone. Which means things are still very dry out there. I’m hoping we will get some good rain this spring. We’re going to need it!
I received an interesting hint that the weather is warming up and expecting to stay that way. I got a bank notification that a charge from Veseys came through. I expect to soon get a shipping notification. The only things we have with them right now are items that will be shipped when it’s time for planting. It was a very small charge, so not everything that’s waiting is going to be on it’s way, but the ground it still frozen solid. I’m curious to check what we ordered that can be planted this early in the season!
We had another bank transaction that had my husband and I wondering. Something got credited to our account, but neither of recognized the listing it was under. It seemed to be a refund of some sort. It took me a while, but I finally found the original debit, almost a month ago. After some searching, my husband finally figured out it was the new ergonomic keyboard he had ordered for me that we were waiting for (not the only thing we are still waiting for, either). For some reason, we got refunded, but have had no notification. He’d ordered it from this company (the name of which was not what was listed in the bank statements, lending to the confusion) as a “guest” and gave them my email address, but I’d received no notifications from them. I even searched my spam folder. He thinks he may have accidentally put in an old email address of mine that I no longer have. We decided to try and order the keyboard again, but this time he created an account with the company, rather than ordering as “guest”.
Which is when he found out what happened. As soon as he tried to place the order, he got a warning that they don’t ship to box numbers. He never got that warning when ordering as a guest, and since the email address was likely goofed, they couldn’t get through to us to fix the problem, so they canceled the order and refunded the money.
Unfortunately, he’d ordered it originally at a sale price. The sale is over, so this time, it’ll be full price. Ah, well.
While he was going through the purchase, he just had to call me over to see the shipping costs. There were three options, with different expected delivery dates. Two of them were free, but the expedited shipping cost was actually more than the full price of the keyboard. Including taxes!
There was still the issue of their not delivering to box numbers. We don’t get postal delivery, so there’s no point in giving them our physical address. Hardly anyone can find our place, even then. This is not a new problem, unfortunately, but my husband found a workaround. He inputs the physical address for our post office/general store. Since the package would have his name on it, and the population here is so low, the post master knows which box number such packages belong to, so we still get our parcel pick up card in the mail box.
It may still take 2 or 3 weeks to get here, but it should work.
It’s interesting how much more difficult it has been to get things delivered out here today, compared to when I was growing up here. We didn’t even had driveway markers until not all that long ago, but people could still find us with our section number. The modern delivery systems just sort of assume people live in cities and towns, with street addresses. Box numbers are now associated with security problems or scam artists. Never mind that so many people still use box numbers, even if they live in towns. The town we go to for most of our shopping and errands, for example, has an organized street address system (unlike our hamlet, which does have some street names, but no street numbers), but all mail goes to box numbers at the post office. If there is only a street address, the post office employees have to figure out whose box number it belongs to. A little more difficult when the population is several thousand, instead of a couple hundred.
You’d think, with modern technology, it would actually be easier, but the systems don’t recognize section numbers, can’t figure out our rural road systems, and don’t accept box numbers.
So we have to get creative, just to get things to go to our nearest post office!
I love my technology, but sometimes, it just makes things harder! :-D
Ginger wasn’t sure if he was happy to see me this morning.
Until I refilled his food and water bowls. ;-)
Then he was just rolling around, luxuriously. While giving me death glares! :-D
At least it gave me a chance to look at his surgical site. There’s still a touch of pink in the areas that had looked irritated before, but they are improving. The few times we’ve seen him start to scratch himself, he stops right away. As if he started to scratch a normal itch, but stopped when he scratched the tender areas instead. That has been a relief.
After topping up his food and water, I took care of the outside critter feeding. I’d mostly closed the inner door into the sun room while going out to the kibble house, but got a surprise when I opened the outer door to return to the sun room. The little bugger had squeezed his way in between the doors and almost escaped! It took some quick foot work to block him from running outside. He wants to join his brothers! After his attempt was foiled, he settled for sitting at the window and watching until I was done and could stay with him for a bit. He was hesitant to let me pick him up, since that usually means we’d soon be trying to shove a pill into his mouth, but he did let me, and we sat for a while with him in half in my coat for cuddles. There are no more morning medications for him now, so it was just uninterrupted cuddle time! :-)
Four more days until it’s back to the vet and the sutures are removed!
Well, I certainly got distracted today. For some reason, I thought I’d already written this post this morning! While fiddling with the computer to try and see things on my monitor without the magenta and neon green all over the place, I found I hadn’t even uploaded the photos!
So, here is today’s very late update on Ginger!
It was a cold night last night, but he was toasty and warm in his favourite spot!
The outside cats were very happy to have their very empty bowls refilled!
And for the warm water.
It was -15C/5F at the time I headed out, with a wind chill in the -20sC-4F. It had gotten cold enough that even Ginger’s water bowl started to get a bit slushy, being as far away from the heater bulb as it is.
By the time I finished taking care of the outside critters, he was out of his warm spot and allowed me to pick him up for cuddles today. This time, I remembered to unzip my parka a bit before picking him up…
… which allowed me to tuck him half into my coat while we sat and cuddled. :-)
I think he liked that!
We stayed like this for about half an hour, before my daughter came with the last of his morning pills. He’ll only have a single evening pill for a while longer. We’ll know how much longer, after he sees the vet to get the sutures removed on Monday.
Ginger may have been toasty warm, but after sitting in the sun room at 0C/32F for so long, I was the one starting to get pretty chilled! So we tucked him back into his warm bed, and I quickly finished my outside rounds before making a quick trip into town to get water refills, and the last few things needed for our Easter basket. The day warmed up quite a bit, and when I checked the sun room in the afternoon, it was almost 20C/68F! What a difference! We’re going to stay warm from now one, so we’ll have to make sure things don’t over heat for him in there, during the day.
Less than a week, and we should be able to bring him in to join the other kitties. :-)
While in the dining room, I heard a familiar thumping noise from the living room window.
The distinctive sound of a bird hitting the glass. :-(
I took a look and saw Junk Pile cat wandering by, so it looked like she had startled the birds. It took a while, but I eventually saw a bird lying upside down in the snow.
I figured it was dead, but decided to check, anyhow, because if it was just unconscious, either a cat would get it, or it would freeze to death in the snow.
I’m glad I checked.
It was definitely very stunned when I picked it up, but after a few moments, it lifted its own head, so I ducked around the house, out of the blowing snow, and kept it warm in my hands.
Poor thing lost a few feathers!
After a while it start to stand up a bit more, but made no effort to leave my hands.
After a while, it got more active and looking a bit anxious. I would have preferred to keep it warm in my hands for longer, but I didn’t want to scare it too much, as that could be harmful as well.
Once it seemed like it was able to stand up and move around better, I tucked it onto the bigger bird feeder, where it would be sheltered from the wind.
Checking on it after going back inside, it was still there, with juncos and chickadees fluttering around to get the seeds. About fifteen minutes later, I checked again and could no longer see it. I am hoping it fluttered away to a nice sheltered spot to recover fully!!
The Re-Farmer 