Critters

Cute stuff, and some productivity

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Before I get into various things, I want to share some cute stuff with you, first!

Our collection of baskets that had been stored in the big fish tank ended up on top of the piano for now. The cats love to go up there, so I fully expected them to take advantage of the situation.

It wasn’t long before I found Tissue and Leyendecker among them!

Tissue is in three baskets at once! :-D

The largest baskets, with decorations on them, are the ones we use for our family Easter basket. There are some smaller ones in the collection that we found while cleaning up the house, including a basket that used to be my very own basket to take to church for blessing on Holy Saturday, along with the family basket, when I was a child!

Here is some more cuteness for you to enjoy…

This piece of foam is what was inside the new washing machine when we bought it. Our old mama cat, who moved out here with us, immediately adopted it as her favourite bed, and now Cabbages loves to join “grandma” for cuddles!

The cats also like to bite off pieces along the edges and spit them out.

Our living room carpet is continually covered in cat fur, foam from this thing, cardboard from their scratch pad, and the dirt they’re still managing to dig out of some of our plant pots! The cats leave trails of detritus, everywhere they go. :-D

Our old mama cat has been quick to adopt any new cats introduced to the house, and is STILL allowing several of the kittens – now almost adults – to try and nurse on her, including Cabbages. Cabbages has been taking a long time to socialize but, thankfully, she is getting along quite well with the other cats. Grandma and Keith are her favourites!

Cabbages and Keith will spend hours like this, all snuggled together and napping on my bed.

Cabbages has finally reached a point where we can pet her regularly, and she doesn’t immediately run off. She seems torn between not wanting those big, clumsy humans clomping about near her, and wanting those scritches and pets. She will even tolerate being picked up and held, if only briefly. That is significant progress!

In other things, we warmed up enough today that I finally switched out the memory cards on the trail cams. That micro SD card I put in the new camera this morning, which had been used only once and did not require formatting in the camera when I put it in the first time, needed to be formatted this morning. *sigh* Why would it work fine the first time, after I’d formatted it in the computer, but need to be formatted in the camera, the next time it was used? The other micro SD cards I’d bought at the same time had done the same thing. I had assumed it was because they were not as high end, but that doesn’t seem to be the problem, after all.

Ah, well. I’ll figure it out.

With the bitter cold we’ve had for the past few days, I was not expecting to find much on the cards. Especially from the new camera, which has been just dying with the colder temperatures.

I was surprised.

The older camera was shut down when I switched out the memory card. When it gets cold and the batteries can’t handle it anymore, it shuts itself off. When I turned it back on, the batteries were still at half power, so it was just from the cold. There were still a few files on the card, though, all from one day.

The new camera had files recorded on each day of the deep freeze! This camera displays the temperature, and it actually kept on recording with an internal temperature of -25C/-13F !! Previously, this camera would die before reaching -20C/-4F! It did shut itself down during the nights; the only night files we did get, had a warning displayed in large red letters, saying it was low power. This camera will actually turn itself back on again when the temperatures warm up. I am totally shocked – in a happy way – that it kept working through the deep freeze. I have no idea why it would stop working before, but is working now, at these temperatures. I’m not complaining, that’s for sure! I did still have to warm up the camera with my hands, so I could see the screen, but that would only be a real problem if I had to do it during the deep freeze, because of the frost bite risk. Since I don’t even bother switching out the cards in temperatures like that, it’s a moot point.

This afternoon, we warmed up to -14C/7F, which made me a lot more comfortable about heading out to help my mother with her grocery shopping. She didn’t need much, but took advantage of having access to her car and stocked up on other things. I gave her some of my extra Mingle Masks, hoping she would use one instead of struggling with the surgical mask she normally uses, but she wasn’t up to it. Still, she has them, and saw on me how to use them, so I hope she gives them a try. She will actually be able to breathe in those. She still would have to use the type she struggles with at the pharmacy, though, so she might not bother. Frustrating.

After helping my mother with her shopping, I went back to the grocery store to pick up a few things to tide us over until we can do our big shop, whenever that will be. I had to pick up some bigger stuff, like cat litter and cat food, so there wasn’t enough room in her car for her shopping, her walker, and my shopping, all at once. Which is fine by me. The final bill was a shocker, though. I didn’t get very much, but it cost almost $270. Considerably more than if I’d been able to go to the city to buy the same things.

Bird tracks in the snow, found when I came home. This is nowhere near the bird feeders, but those are sunflower seed shells on the snow. Which shows just how windy things go!

There’s a reason we try to do monthly shops in the city. We save at least several hundred dollars every month by doing that, which means we have more budget left over to buy fresh foods locally. The more we’re forced to make smaller, local shopping trips, the more gets eaten out of our budget, and the less we can get overall, either locally, or in the city.

I did splurge on one thing, though.

I bought a 240 count bag of those red plastic beer cups.

I’m on several cold climate gardening groups, which are all busily talking about starting seeds indoors right now. I’ve seen people recommend using these as pots to start seeds in. They just need to have drainage holes punched into their bottoms. While I will be starting some seeds (like onions) in Jiffy pellets, and others (like corn) in toilet paper tubes, I learned from last year, that I need something bigger to start squash in. I did transplants outdoors too soon because they had gotten too big in their starter trays, only to lose most of them to one last late frost. By starting them in something bigger, even if the weather is not cooperative and they get in the ground later, they will have enough room to keep growing in their pots.

Ideally, I would be using biodegradable pots that can be put straight into the ground, with no disruption of the roots. That’s what I will be doing with the toilet paper tubes and corn. I’ve been looking at pots like that. The Jiffy peat pots are relatively inexpensive, and come in larger count packages. I would have ordered some last night, along with the seeds and plants I got for my daughters, but they were sold out. The alternatives were “cow pots” – the same idea, but made with cow manure instead of peat. They are way too expensive, though.

So when I saw the beer cups in the store, I went for it. They are the size I need, and can be reused. With 240 of them, I have more than enough to plant everything we have that need to be started indoors, and need the extra space.

Now I just have to figure out what to put under the the drainage holes. I can think of all sorts of possibilities, but they all require buying something, and that’s just not an option right now. Even if I could find them, they are “non essential” and stores still wouldn’t be able to sell them. (Like with clothes.) Maybe I’ll find something later in the month that I’ll be allowed to buy. The first seeds need to be started the second half of March, so I have a bit of time to find, or even build, something.

One more little step of progress towards our gardening. :-)

Tomorrow, we take the van in to the garage and hopefully find out why it’s been stalling. What we find out then will determine what we do and when, in regards to getting the monthly shopping done, and picking up the new hot water tank on warranty.

Ah, that reminds me. I asked around about how this location has been about medical mask exemptions and things like shields and Mingle Masks. It turns out they’ve gone full mask nazi, even to the point of staff following people around, harassing them and kicking them out.

That is going to be a problem. At the very least, I need to go to the customer service desk with the sticker from the hot water tank, and warranty authorization number.

I did find out another location has been safe to go to. As far as I have been told, I need to go back to where the tank was purchased, but that may mean only the franchise, not the specific store. The first tank we got was from a location in town that told me they don’t do warranties, so I had to go to this other location. The one that was recommended to me is actually a bit closer; just in a town to the north of us, that we almost never go to.

I’ll have to make some phone calls.

What a hassle even the simplest things have become.

The Re-Farmer

It’s still cold out there, and… on a more serious note

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

One of the first things I do in the morning, before heading outside to do my rounds, is check the weather.

This morning, at a time when I would normally be starting to head outside, it was -36C/-32.8F

Yeeeaaaaahhhhh…. No.

I waited a couple of hours before heading out, but it was still -28C/-18.4F At least there was no windchill, and the “real feel” was -25C/-13F

The wait meant I had a whole lot more cats to greet me when I came out! There were none at all, inside the cat shelter. They were all out and about.

They have quite a lot of food out, but still prefer the fresh kibble. Which they quickly abandoned, once they saw there was fresh, warm water!

One of them was eager enough to take a short cut through the snow! LOL

Once again, I skipped switching out the memory cards on the trail cams, but I did head out to the garage to double check that the vehicles were plugged in, and grab some sheets of insulation. We had used these to line the windows in the sun room last winter, when we were keeping the doors propped open so the cats could shelter in it. With the outer door fixed, and that cats having a lovely warm shelter of their own, we didn’t insulate the sun room this winter. That leaves the pieces available to use inside the fish tanks to help keep the seed trays warm.

windchill

It wasn’t a lot of extra time to do that, but even so, I could feel the cold in my lungs. Thank God I’m already a shallow breather, due to my chronic cough. In temperatures like these breathing deeply can injure the lungs.

Image source – available on t-shirts and mugs! (not an affiliate link)

There may have been no wind chill this morning, but as I glance at my weather app, I see we’ve almost reached our high of the day, at -24C/-18F – but the wind chill is now -30C/-20F!

Thankfully, tomorrow we should be back to more normal temperatures, and be warmer than -20C. Which is good, because tomorrow afternoon, I am heading out to help my mother with her errands, and have to do a bit of grocery shopping for ourselves, too.

It should be even warmer on Friday, when I take the van in to the garage to get checked over. I really hope he finds why it has begun to stall and have troubles when fully loaded. We were already splitting our monthly shop into a couple of trips, and if the van has problems with just a half load already, and have to make more frequent, even smaller shops, we lose all the benefits of bulk shopping. Plus, our province has kept up a lot of restrictions, loosening some but increasing others, with no change in the mask mandates. There are still a lot of places that refuse to accept medical exemptions, and going out to shop feels like going out to battle, every time. Being surrounded by faceless people is also starting to freak me out more and more. I’m even playing Pokemon Go less. The game has things you can do right from home, without having to go places, and among the thing you can do is exchange gifts with people that are on your friends list. You get to see each person’s avatar in the process, and people are putting masks on their avatars. It’s bad enough that the option is even available, but it’s like a punch to the gut, every time I see a masked avatar. Every avatar represents the person playing, and that person just turned themselves into an NPC.

It’s one thing to know, intellectually, the sort of psychological damage this sort of dehumanization causes. It’s quite another to feel it. And rather surprising, considering how little we go out anyhow. I don’t even want to imagine how wigged out I would be, if I had to be surrounded by it every day. I completely understand my friend who has self isolated for months, because being surrounded by masks triggers her PTSD!

At least I know what the cause of the discomfort is. Most people would have no idea. And why would they? All they would know is that their stress and anxiety is increasing, and there are so many things contributing to that right now. Unfortunately, that cognitive dissonance would cause all sorts of anger, even rage, towards anyone without a mask, and they wouldn’t understand why.

A bit of a rant, there, I suppose, but that lack of awareness directly affects people like myself, who can’t wear a mask. Even in places that recognize medical exemptions, it’s the other customers that become more aggressive and abusive. I have been fortunate so far. I may have been kicked out of stores that refuse to honour medical exemptions (which is illegal, but then, so are the mask mandates), but I haven’t been harassed by other customers, yet. It has, however, affected familial relationships and friendships in a negative way.

I have never enjoyed shopping to begin with. Now, it’s like walking around with the sword of Damocles hanging over my head, never knowing if it’ll drop.

The Re-Farmer

Iced

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

We are still in a polar vortex induced cold spell right now. I delayed doing my rounds outside until it had warmed up to -32C/-25.6F

I skipped switching out the memory cards in the trail cams again! Just the extra time to refill both bird feeders this morning was pushing it.

The heated water bowl was covered over even more than it was yesterday. Not just in frosted surface area, either.

This is after pouring off the old water. That’s a pretty solid layer of ice, left behind! Yesterday, it was more frost than ice.

The other water bowls were, of course, frozen solid. I had to do a fair amount of kicking to get them loose from the snow. When fresh water is added, the metal warms up enough to melt the snow around it, creating bowl-shaped pockets of ice that hold them in place.

Another reason why using old, broken frying pans make excellent water bowls. They can handle being kicked around, then bashed against things to knock the ice out. I used to use a wooden hand rail by the sun room to bash them against, but I didn’t like how much I was damaging the wood, so now I’m bashing them on the saw horses I’ve stored nearby. They’re old and damaged already, and I need to build new ones, so I don’t care if they get more beat up. :-D

Creamsicle Jr. didn’t move from his spot the entire time I was there! He’s under the terrarium bulb, but with the dusk-dawn light sensor, I don’t think it was actually on at the time. I don’t see the red glow of the indicator light, which would visible about 6-8 inches under the outlet.

I did get joined by Ginger, but he was the only cat I saw outside, braving the cold!

With our main entry door falling off it’s hinges, I’ve been going through the sun room to go outside. Which means going through the old kitchen, which is unheated and probably not insulated; at least not by any modern standards. We go into there as little as possible in the winter.

The old kitchen is where we had our crab apple cider vinegar fermenting, and where I now have the mother stored.

It’s almost frozen solid! You can’t even see the mother, which is in the middle of the jar, immersed in vinegar.

I have no idea if this will kill the mother or not.

Does anyone know?

When I was a kid, this room never really got cold, since the wood burning stove was kept going almost constantly, as much to help heat the house as for cooking, so lack of insulation was never really an issue. The old kitchen is an add-on to the original log part of the house, though I don’t know when it was added on. I only know it was already there when my parents bought the property.

The forecasts say we’ll have one more day of this bitter cold, though it will be a bit warmer tomorrow. Today’s high is predicted to be -25C/-13F, with a wind chill of -31C/-23.8F. Tomorrow’s high is supposed to be -21C/-5.8F with a wind chill of -28C/-18F. After that, we’re supposed to keep warming up for the next week. Check this out!

It’s like temperature whiplash!

Time to think of warmer things. Like gardening. I think I’ve figured out a way to raise our seed trays up closer to the light in the fish tank greenhouse. If it works, I might not need to line the sides with foil.

But first, another cup of hot tea!

The Re-Farmer

A good day for a hot cup of tea!

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

Ah, how looks can be deceiving!

Outside my window, the sky is clear, the sun shines brightly, and not a twig or branch in my view is moving from anything other than birds landing on them.

As I write this, our temperature has warmed up to -24C/-11.2F, with a wind chill of -34C/-29.2F When I headed outside to do my rounds this morning, it was -25C/-13F with a wind chill of -38C/-36F.

At those temperatures, even the heated water bowl starts to freeze over! There’s actually a layer of ice forming under the frosted areas that you can just barely see.

Nutmeg was content to watch me from the comfort of their shelter!

I am so thankful my brother went through all that effort to bring their old dog house for us to use. It’s working out so well for the cats!

The cats that did come out into the cold were much more interested in the fresh warm water than the fresh food! The cat equivalent of a hot cup of tea on a cold day. :-D

When switching out the memory cards in the trail cams, I of course had to warm up the new camera with my hands, just to be able to see the screen. I wanted to see how it would take the micro disc my husband gave me.

Alas. I still got the “incompatible” message and had to format it in the camera, even though I made sure to format it on my computer. The card may be the same brand as the other one, but I guess it’s not an “ultra”. At some point, I’ll just have to buy another one of the card that works without having be formatted every time. At least I know what’s going on, now, and what I need to do to be able to see the screen.

At some point, the other camera is going to need to be replaced, too, so we’re already doing research on cameras more like the new one, but better able to handle the cold. We should have plenty of time, but I’d like to get one before it’s needed. I can’t complain about what we have. It’s still an excellent camera for the price, and I really appreciate some of the features it has, and the faster processing speed.

And now, it is time for another cup of tea… :-)

The Re-Farmer

There are those who prefer the cold!

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

What a difference between yesterday and today!

I took advantage of yesterday’s warmth with a trip into town. At one point, on the way back, I was driving through precipitation that couldn’t make up it’s mind if it was snow or rain! LOL We actually hit 3C/37.4F, which was a couple of degrees warmer than forecast.

Then the temperatures plummeted overnight. While the actual temperatures remained above -20C/-4F, the wind chills brought things down colder than -30C/-22F Apparently, there was even a storm last night, though it seemed to be well to the south of where we are. We got hit with high winds, mostly.

As I write this, we are at -17C/1.4F with a wind chill of -28C/-18.4F

While I was doing the cat stuff outside, most of them just stayed in the cat shelter and watched me though the windows. They still had lots of food in the kibble house, but I also toss some inside the entry of the cat house, where I have another food bowl. I don’t put much in there, since I don’t want to encourage other critters going in there. That food bowl was empty.

Some of the cats did come out for some warm water; the heated water bowl does the job, but when it’s cold like this, I like to give them water that is actually warm, and they really seem to appreciate it.

Then they all just disappeared! Not into the cat house, but running off around it, with some running under the storage house.

I discovered why when I turned around as saw we had a visitor!

My younger brother’s dog had come for a visit!

He just thrives in these temperatures! The colder it is, the more he loves it.

They have yard cats too, of course, so when he comes here, he expects to be able to come right up to ours and play! Butterscotch and Rolando Moon (and Beep Beep, if she were still outside) are more familiar with him, as he used to visit my late father all the time, but the other cats where born after we moved here, and the sudden appearance of a fluffy giant is rather frightening for them! Meanwhile, he just wants to play. :-D

As I was finishing my rounds, I managed to get him to follow me down the driveway and start heading home, but as I came back, he was suddenly bounding beside me, leaping and jumping in the snow, trying to get me to play with him!

Unfortunately, the winds made staying outside any longer than I had to, out of the question.

My goodness. I just glanced at my weather icon on my computer and noticed we’ve already started to drop in temperature. Looking out my window, it’s a clear and sunny day and looks like it should be quite pleasant out there, but we’re now -18C/-0.4F, with the wind chill down to -31C/-23.8F We’ve already hit the high of the day, and it is expected to keep slowly dropping from now on until tomorrow. We’ll have one more mild day tomorrow, then temperatures are supposed to plummet for a few days before getting mild again. With concerns over the vehicles, we plan any outings around the forecasts, which means quick run to check the mail and pick up more bird seed and deer feed will be done tomorrow.

Unlike our furry visitor, we do NOT thrive in this cold, and neither do the vehicles! :-D

The Re-Farmer

It’s a fluffy day today!

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The temperatures have gone up quite a bit today, and the outside cats are quite appreciating it!

I was very happy to see Rosencrantz this morning! I haven’t seen her in a couple of weeks.

Butterscotch also made an appearance this morning. I didn’t see her yesterday.

Her babies were just loving the new snow, running around a chasing each other in it. :-)

Butterscotch, however, would not come anywhere near me this morning, so I wasn’t able to check her wound at all. She seemed to be moving around fine, though, so that’s a good sign.

Nostildamus made up for her lack of interest, wanting all sorts of pets and attention!

He has such soft fur.

Today was a day when everything looked soft and fluffy. Even the trees.

The warmer temperatures brought with them the softest, fluffiest of snow. We got about 2 inches of it by this morning; two inches of mostly air!

The Potato Beetle is not amused. The kittens might be enjoying the snow of their first winter, but the adult cats seem much more ticked off about the whole thing! :-D

We’re supposed to drop to more normal, chilly temperatures after today, so I think I will take advantage of the day and make a trip into town to pick up a few things we are starting to running low on.

Just glancing at my weather icon on my toolbar as I write this, and see that we have reached 0C! (32F) The wind chill is at -6C/21F, which is still quite balmy! A wonderful day to get outside. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Count ’em, plus a preview

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

There are eight cats in this picture.

Can you spot them all? :-D

These guys sure do make my mornings!

I also have a preview to share.

I experimented with the no-knead, overnight dough recipe I’d made before, using the old dough bread baby from my Babcia’s bread experiment.

I didn’t take any process photos this time, since I was winging it. The “overnight” dough became an “over day” dough, for starters! :-D

Instead of making a pair of loaves, I made one giant loaf in a parchment paper lined lasagna pan.

As I was spreading the dough out as evenly as I could, I found myself thinking it was looking a bit like a focaccia. Too bad we’re out of olive oil.

Then I remembered… we still have some fake truffle oil (the only kind we can find, or afford!) left.

I ended up drizzling the top with the fake truffle oil, spreading the oil around evenly, then stabbing the dough with my fingers to make lots of little holes, which also helped even the dough out in the pan more, before sprinkling on some coarse salt and dried parsley.

Of course, it wasn’t real a focaccia recipe, and it rose quite a bit. This is how it turned out.

This turned out to be, hands down, the best bread I have ever baked! Definitely a winner!!

I think the next time I try this, I’ll use a baking sheet instead of the lasagna pan, to make a thinner bread. Mostly, because I think it’ll be easier to slice than this was, but it’ll also give a larger surface for the oil and salt crust. The texture and flavour it gave was amazing!

Next time, I will definitely take process shots and share the details here!

The Re-Farmer

Stubborn kitty, and a milestone!

/ Re-Farmer / 8 Comments

Once again, Butterscotch simply would NOT let me check her out. I barely even got to pet her, never mind check her wound!

I did manage to accidentally get a picture of a perfect snowflake on her ear, though!

Doesn’t she look so elegant and calm here?

The photo lies! :-D

The best I could get was a glance of her wound as she walked away from me, and I saw nothing out of the ordinary, so I hope that means everything is healing well. She doesn’t seem to be favoring the leg, except I think where the fur is shaved off is cold. I’ve seen her coming out of the shelf shelter we made, which has rigid insulation lining the empty bottom shelves, and more rigid insulation to block the wind and snow. She can sit in there and her bald spot will be nice and warm.

She does not go into the cat shelter. I don’t know where her hiding place is, but it is not in the inner yard. I think it’s somewhere in one of the collapsing sheds in the outer yard. :-/

Seeing two of her kittens peaking at me from between the kibble house and cat house was adorable.

I missed Nostrildamus going into the cat house; you can just barely see his tail tip through the strips of carpet. :-)

Rolando Moon is such a loaf! She is quite prepared to drive away any kitties that dare come close!

In other things, this blog hit a milestone yesterday.

We reached 500 followers!

It was rather funny when I got the notification from WordPress. In the time it took me to actually look at it, the number had gone back down to 499. Then it jumped up over 500 by the end of the day and stayed there.

This is really amazing to me. One thing that always surprises me is that anyone is finding it in the first place! That anyone is actually interested in our crazy little corner of the world is greatly appreciated, and I’ve been getting to know some really amazing people in the process. You guys are awesome! :-)

To all our new followers, thank you so much for joining us for the ride. Welcome! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Morning kitties, and apparently we had a storm

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

I just had to pause for a picture when I saw these guys, watching me when I came outside this morning.

These guys know well enough to stay out of the wind, even if they can see fresh food and water is about to be dispensed! :-D

Except this little Spice Boy, who has a thing for drinking out of the water jug. He prefers this over drinking from a bowl! :-D

Also, those bulk sized Orville Redenbacher popcorn containers are the handiest things. The plastic is really strong, and they are a very useful size. We’ve got some with the bottoms cut off and the lids in place, that I use to scoop and carry critter feed. I used to use a metal pitcher for their water, but this holds a lot more water, and the handle design is easier to carry with one hand and not slosh while opening and closing doors. Used to put them in recycling, but now I keep them because they’re so useful!

As I was finishing up my rounds, Butterscotch made an appearance, and even let me carry her!

Well, sort of carry her. :-D

She still moves around too much for me to get a good look at her wound, but from what I can glimpse, it’s still looking good. Understandably, she seems uncomfortable sitting in the snow, as much from the lack of fur around it as for the wound itself!

We’ve got another relatively mild day today, though winds are certainly making it chillier. We were supposed to get snow this afternoon, but a storm passed through to the south of us, last night. We got light snow and winds, in our area. Now, it’s just winds. I’m good with that. We need to make a trip to the pharmacy this afternoon, which is when the weather was originally predicted to hit us. We’ll just have to watch out for ice, high winds and deer, and not the edges of a snow storm, too! :-D

I am soooo appreciating our mild winter. The last 3 since we moved here got so brutally cold. We’ll be getting colder next week, according to the long range forecasts, but it’s more of a normal cold than what we had in previous years.

I have no doubt the wild critters are appreciating it, too! Much better chances of survival. With Butterscotch having a little of kittens so late in the season, it is a relief for them and their safety, too.

Life is good.

The Re-Farmer

Stubborn Kitty!

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

After getting Butterscotch’s wound stitched, and keeping her in the house overnight, we’ve been keeping an eye on her to make sure she is doing okay. As much as possible, anyhow.

She is not making it easy!

I had to zoom in, just to get a picture of her NOT letting me come close, this morning. :-D You can sort of see her skinny chicken leg, where the fur has been shaved off on the inside of her right leg. Her tail hides most of it.

She did eventually come over for some pets, though.

She will take attention on her own terms, thankyouverymuch!!

With her constant moving, it was hard to get a look. I had to giggle at myself, “chasing” a cat around, trying to look under her butt.

She seems to be moving around normally, and not favoring the leg more than the other, so that’s good sign that she is not in pain and the injury is healing up.

Other cats were much more friendly.

Nosey is such a sweet cat!

Interesting thing about him is that he wouldn’t come near us for the longest time. He sister would let us come near, which is how we were finally able to snag her and bring her inside before she could get pregnant. Once his sister was no longer around, he became much more willing to let us near, and now he’s one of the friendliest of yard cats!

There was only one problem, though. I had a crowd of cats following me as I did my rounds, which is usual when it’s wonderfully mild as it is today. Butterscotch tends to pick fights with the other cats, but this morning, after she hissed at Potato Beetle when he got too close, he actually went at her! As I moved to break it up, Butterscotch ran off, but Potato stayed, intently sniffing at the snow. Some of her kittens came by, and they started sniffing the snow, too.

When I got close enough, I could could see fresh urine in the snow, and they were very interested in it! My guess is, with the antibiotics and other medications she was given, it smells very different.

Butterscotch, meanwhile, did not go far!

There she is, with her baby. :-D

I love how the cats peek under the garage door like that!

As much as I was able to see of Butterscotch’s wound, it looks like everything is going well. Which is a relief. There is concern of her getting aggressive with the other outside cats, but that would be much more of a problem inside than outside. :-/ Ah, well. She’s a hardy cat and has probably survived far worse, before we even moved out here!

The Re-Farmer