As usual, in my morning routine, I visited the kittens.
David dashed downstairs to visit them, too.
It’s so funny to watch how he interacts with them! The kittens are quite happy to include him in their play, while he seems torn between “I wanna play, too” and “stay away from me, you strange creatures.”
Speaking of strange creatures…
… Creamsicle was in fine form this morning! What a drama queen. :-D
After dropping my daughter off at work this morning, I decided to play a bit of Pokemon Go before heading home. I was parked by a gym and playing the game when I heard something hit the side of the van.
It was a goldfinch, at the middle window.
Now, my first thought was that the bird was disoriented by reflections in the window and accidentally flew into the glass.
But it stayed, fluttering away at the glass, making its way across to the front door’s window, and sat there, at the bottom of the glass, looking at me.
When it seemed to be staying there, I opened the camera on my phone. I thought I’d lost my moment when it seemed to be flying away, but nope.
It went to the front windshield and proceeded to try and peck its way in!
This went on for several minutes! I did try and get video, but my phone’s camera does not do zoom well, and the video was horribly pixelated.
I don’t know why the bird did this, but it certainly made my morning! :-D
I had some extra company when I visited the kitties this morning.
Both Two Face and David came down with me. It’s the first time Two Face has been in the basement for a while.
She immediately began grooming kittens.
They, however, were far more interested in climbing me, and wrestling each other, on my knee!
So she started grooming Beep Beep, instead. :-D
Also, that’s all 5 kittens climbing one leg. Only Leyendecker kept climbing, so he could tackle my hair. The other 4 battled each other with kitten ferociousness, all at once, on my leg.
:-D
The last while, I haven’t seen the outside cats much while doing my rounds. With so many of the cats ending up indoors, I suspect they are going where there are more cats around outside.
This morning, Creamsicle came to join me, and boy, did he want attention!
He was very affectionate.
I got Creamsicle kisses! :-D
What a beauty he is!
Just look at those gorgeous eyes.
He even let me carry him around as I continued my rounds. He’s such a sweetie. We’re still hoping to adopt him, but once they get big, no one is interested in cats anymore. :-(
Today has turned out to be a much cooler day. Downright chilly, compared to the last few days! Perfect weather to work on the lawn. :-)
I popped into the basement for a moment, and just had to come back with a camera.
The kittens are now big enough to get onto the counters now!
Glancing at the drill press and seeing a kitten looking back at me was most adorable.
We will have to keep an eye out. As much as we tried to block things off, there’s still the possibility of a kitten falling behind a counter or something.
When I sat down, all 5 of them attacked me. For the most part, they were moving too fast for pictures, but I did get a couple of good ones!
Big Rig is a real beauty!
Nicco climbed right up into a sun spot again! ;-D
Also, by the time I left, my calves were bleeding, from having pairs of kittens wrestling on each one.
Leyendecker, on the other hand, went for my face.
And ears.
And hair.
And braid, collar of my shirt, my phone, my glasses…
He certainly made things challenging!
Later on, while on the way back from town, I was happy to see our giant furry neighbours near the fence.
Just look at the adorable “little” baby!
Such gorgeous animals!
Thankfully, today was finally another productive day, which I will post about next. I just wanted to share the adorableness with you, first!
Here are some kitten antics to brighten your day! :-)
The ferocious beast likes to climb into the lilac branches. :-D
The like playing with the sun spots, too.
I let David come down with me, and he is very interested in his little doppelganger!
The other kittens and Beep Beep were just too fast moving for me to get any pictures of them. :-D
Outside, meanwhile, the some of the lilacs are reaching the height of their blooming period.
These ones are the first bloomers. The white lilacs and the double lilacs take a bit longer, then there are two other varieties that bloom in succession. So we have lilacs of one kind or another, blooming for quite a long time.
I really appreciate the things that make me smile. Particularly on mornings like today, when I check the trail cam and find our vandal has come for another visit. Twice in the past week, he’s come to the gate, only to make rude gestures down the driveway. Last Saturday, he walked over and stood there, giving the finger with both hands, in multiple directions. I think he spotted the trail cam, but I’m not sure. Either way, he was mugging for the camera. Last night, he drove over on his quad, pulled up alongside the gate to gesture down the driveway with one hand. Almost lost control of the quad. Pretty sure he was quite drunk, both times.
Rather pathetic, really.
Ah, well. At least he’s not trying to vandalize anything anymore.
When visiting the kittens this morning, I was viciously attacked!
By a Nicco! :-D
Saffron has one eye that is a bit gooby, so I took the time to clean and medicate it. Then, after they’d all had a chance to devour some wet cat food, they all went after my legs!
They are tearing my clothes to shreds. :-D
Also, they really, really like my shoelaces.
Even Beep Beep got in on the action!
For a cat that has spent her entire life outdoors, she is really taking to this “inside” thing – and having access to people to cuddle!
Later on, while checking the trail cam files, I found a lovely surprise.
Other than discovering that FedEx made a delivery after we got home yesterday, and left a package shoved into the gate. I never even saw it, when I did my rounds! If I hadn’t seen the video, I would never have known until this afternoon. I was expecting it to come in the mail, tomorrow.
No, it was this surprise that really made me smile.
That baby is so adorable!!!
They found a spot in the fence where they can both squeeze through the barbed wire, without the mom having to jump it.
The baby can fit through any part of the fence, just by ducking its head. :-D
So sweet!
Also, there’s a package in the middle of that gate. It was shoved into the chain.
Even while walking up the driveway this morning, knowing it was there, I couldn’t see it until I was almost right at the gate!
It’s barely evening, but I think I’m done for the day! :-D
We had plans to go into the city so the girls could get some shopping done that we never quite get to when we do our monthly stock up. With that in mind, I started my morning routine early, starting with visiting the kittens.
Beep Beep dashed up the stairs when I opened the door to the basement, so I let her be and made sure no other cats came down. This way, the babies got to have the wet cat food, without having to fight over it with their mom! :-D
Except for Saffron, who was much more interested in me…
I think they did leave some behind for Beep Beep, when she finally came down. :-D
Doing my rounds outside is getting so gorgeous right now!
I noticed that the cherry tree by the house is blooming now.
Just the cherry trees by the house. The ones near the new garden plot are not blooming yet. Both areas get the same amount of light and rain. The only difference is the micro-climate created by the house itself.
I also found some surprise blooms.
When cleaning up along the south side of the spruce grove, I found a row of crab apple trees. While I still have much to do in cleaning up dead wood and thinning out the trees, what I managed to do so far, made a difference. Last summer would have been their first summer with more light and space. Like the row of crab apple trees I uncovered when cleaning up the maple grove, they had no flowers at all last year. This year, there is one tree, with one branch, that is blooming!
It should be interesting to see how things develop here over the years. I will be taking at some of these trees, and hopefully the remaining ones will have better conditions to grow and produce.
The lilacs are starting to open up, scenting the entire yard!
The chokecherries growing among them seem to be doing well this year.
I also checked the sunflowers, and even more of them are sprouting. These are the Early Russian sunflowers, which can grow 6-8 ft tall. The others are Giganteus, which can grow 10-12 ft tall. I hope to see Giganteus seedlings within a few days. The package info says it can be 10-14 days to germination.
When the girls and I headed out to the city, we had a wonderful surprise, just half a mile from home!
I pulled over and my daughter tried to zoom in on my phone as best she could, but zoom really sucks on my phone’s camera.
What you are seeing is a dozen sandhill cranes! They had been near the road when we startled them. These are really huge birds!! Seeing a dozen of them taking off at once was really something!
The drive to the city is about an hour, but along the way we made sure to stop at the medical clinic. The town our doctor is in is about 2/3rds of the way to the city. After not being able to get through yesterday, I wanted to ask about getting renewed prescriptions. Especially for my husband. Given he has the kind that requires a hand written, in triplicate, prescription that needs to be delivered to a pharmacy within 3 days of being written, I said I could come back for them after we were done in the city, rather than waiting until the doctor was off the phone with a patient.
Then it was off to the city, where we had several places to do to. Thankfully, they were not all that far apart, but not only has traffic increased substantially again, but so has construction. Most of the stores had no real restrictions or line ups. At least not the ones we needed to go to. We did drive past a few places that had long line ups outside. Even Walmart didn’t have any line ups for the cashiers, never mind outside.
I really feel for the people lining up outside in this heat we’re having right now!
Still, we got what we needed to do, done. There was some temptation to do more with “while we’re in the city anyway…”, but it was just too long, too hot and too draining! If it wasn’t necessary, we skipped it.
On the way home, we stopped at the clinic again. The doctor ended up asking me to come in to see him about the prescriptions.
It turned out that he had already faxed the refills to the pharmacy. Including my husband’s triplicate prescriptions. Because of the pandemic, they’ve waived the requirement for the pharmacy to have the physical prescriptions. Which no one told me about. They probably assumed I already knew.
My husband’s meds were ready for pick up on the 29th – a Friday – but he forgot to tell me about it until after the pharmacy was closed. So I picked them up on Saturday morning, after dropping my daughter off at work. When I picked them up, the pharmacist told me he could only fill so much, because of the need for renewals.
They must have faxed the clinic when my husband called his refills in, because the doctor faxed the renewed prescriptions …
… on the 29th.
Which means that, when the pharmacist gave me 1 week of bubble packs and told me he couldn’t do more (usually it’s 4 weeks) without a renewed prescription, they already had the renewed prescriptions come in, the day before.
:-/
Meanwhile, I’d been out of my own prescription for some time. When I went to get a refill and they couldn’t, they sent a fax to the clinic right away. I came back a couple of days later, and they still hadn’t received a returned fax.
That had gotten done on the 14th.
No one called me, so I assumed they never got a response. I’ve been without my meds for about 3 weeks. That was part of why I wanted to go in to the clinic in person, since we couldn’t get through by phone.
My doctor clarified all that for me, and even printed out copies of the prescriptions for my own records. Once we were done there, we headed to the town our pharmacy is in.
It turned out my prescription was filled and waiting in the drawer.
*sigh*
Thankfully, my prescription is nothing particularly urgent.
I did ask for my husband’s refills to be done, since he’ll be out in a few days. The bubble packs take more time, so I’ll be coming back tomorrow.
Meanwhile, I picked up something for myself.
After helping my brother patch the shed roof, I felt okay, but by the end of the day, my right wrist started to hurt. I have no idea what I did to injure, or even if it was any one thing that did it. I was able to manage well enough yesterday; mostly, I was reminded of it as a problem when I tried to do something like turn a door nob.
I am considered left handed, because I write with my left hand. With most things, I’m ambidextrous. Some things, I’m right handed.
Like when I open door knobs.
When driving around today, it was more of an issue. Just turning the ignition to start the vehicle was painful. Turning corners, hurt.
So I now have a brace to keep me from over taxing my wrist (though I had to take it off to type) and give it a chance to heal. It’s a bit on the small side, but I got the largest size available.
My and my big, manly hands! :-D
Thankfully, I have two strong daughters who can lug things around for me.
When we unloaded the van, we also brought the pieces of tree in, since it’s supposed to rain. Getting the big one was an issue; we did have to cut one of the branches off.
So far, it hasn’t rained here, but from the looks of the weather radar, we should get at least some, though a rather large rain system has already bypassed us entirely. Some rain would be wonderful. :-)
Meanwhile, it’s time for me to get that wrist brace back on!
Oy, what a day. We’re already at 27C/80F (feels like 29C/84F), and we haven’t even reached the hottest part of the day, yet! Hard to believe we had frost, just a few nights ago.
Speaking of which, it looks like the frost damage to the squash was worse than it originally looked like. I think we’re going to lose most of the one bed.
The new transplants, on the other hand, are looking great!
Before I headed into town this morning, I took the time to use water from the rain barrel to water the new garden plot with the carrots and beets. Things are growing rather well in there, too.
Once in town and after I dropped off the van, it was still cool enough to make walking around town quite pleasant. When I had the chance, I tried calling our doctor’s clinic, as we need to get prescriptions renewed, but the call went to “this customer is not available” messages. That surprised me, as it usually means a number is no longer active, so I called the hospital the clinic is in, and talked to the nursing station. I told her what happened, and after confirming I was calling the right number, she tried transferring me. It didn’t work! It turns out the clinic is just really busy with doctors making calls. They are still only doing telephone appointments now, and I don’t think they have very many phone lines available. We will have to keep trying, because my husband got only a week’s worth of meds. For his pain killers, they can’t be faxed to the pharmacy, so the fastest way for them to be delivered is if I drive to the clinic, then deliver them to the pharmacy myself.
I stopped trying after getting a phone call from the garage, saying now was a good time to come and discuss the van and my mother’s car.
That never sounds good. :-D
I had three things I hoped to get done on my van. Only one was done.
The lift gate now lifts. No more pole!
The AC is shot. The compressor isn’t even working. To fix it would cost well over a thousand dollars, and he basically said it wasn’t worth it.
The door hinge is going to wait. It wasn’t the easy thing. It’s a welding job. The holes are starting to become ovals. It is, however, just starting to happen. While there is a little bit of play in the door, it is still fine and not a concern. He recommended we wait the door dropping becomes and issue, then bring it back.
So only one out of three jobs got done.
Then there is my mother’s car.
He was able to find a second hand differential, but the total cost would be just over $950, plus taxes. We talked about it for a bit, and I asked about the possibility of making payments. Since I’d budgeted for 3 jobs and only had to pay for one, I offered to make a deposit of $300 now (which kept me under budget), then make another deposit next month. After that, he’ll start working on the car, and I can pay it off in full the month after.
The down side is, this is money that would have gone towards things like what we’ll need to purchase to build the cordwood outhouse. The payments are low enough to still have some left over that can go towards that, but not as much as I’d like. Ah, well. There are still things we can do that don’t involve any money at all. Like clearing away the sod, cutting wood to size, and making bottle bricks.
That done, I made a quick trip to the hardware store. I was looking for another garden hose. Thanks to a sale, instead of one, light duty 100′ hose, I got a pair of medium duty 80′ hoses.
We now have enough hoses (that don’t leak!) to be able to reach all the sunflowers!
When I got home, the girls were mostly done with stuff in the yard, including getting out the weed trimmer and cleaning up around the edges of the inner yard.
That lawn already needs to be mowed again, and I haven’t even finished with what I’d started!
We have a lot of lawn.
That done, I was able to use the grass clippings I’d collected while mowing in the outer yard. Only 2 days, and the core of the grass pile was already composting and getting so hot, I was almost burning my hands! We used up almost the entire pile to continue mulching around the sunflowers.
There’s only about 8 left to mulch, but I don’t have enough grass clippings to finish. My daughter followed along and dampened the mulch.
I’m happy to say, we are seeing sunflower sprouts!
It looks like the ones that have sprouted are all from one variety; the ones that grow to “only” 6-8″ in height.
I’m so glad I got these hoses. With how far we can now reach, we can be safer when we burn out the apple tree stumps that are infected with a fungal disease. Now is the time to cut out the diseased branches, before spores become a concern. The winds are so high, though, it might be a while before that gets done.
Meanwhile, the work outside has stopped for now, as it’s just too hot out there. I just checked the weather app, and we’ve got up another degree.
My husband had been trying to get through to the clinic for 5 hours, and has given up. Tomorrow, one of my daughters and I will be making a bonus trip to the city. I will try swinging by the clinic and talking to someone in person. My prescriptions can wait. My husband’s cannot.
Oh, and one last thing.
Here is your smile for the day!
None of them stayed still long enough for me to get a decent picture, but Big Rig almost co-operated. :-D
With the sun rising so early this time of year, much of it was already melting away, but there was certainly plenty in the shady areas.
It made the weeds look very dramatic! :-D
Butterscotch took advantage of my checking on the mulched sunflower rows.
She is no longer stand-offish, but now revels in snuggles and wants me to carry her around when I do my rounds!
What a mercurial cat.
Of course, I visited the babies first thing, this morning. Beep Beep was waiting at the door when I opened it, and dashed straight through. I let her be, and allowed David to come down with me for a while.
The kittens were happy to see a human to climb!
At point point, David settled himself down under the worktable, and his doppelganger came over to check him out!
After a while, I managed to catch him and put him upstairs, so I could give the babies some wet cat food. David is a real greedy guts, so there was no way I could do that with him still downstairs! This was also why I was okay with Beep Beep going upstairs for a while; the kittens got a chance to eat some wet cat food before she came back to finish it off.
I think Beep Beep is realizing she’s got a sweet deal going on right now. She hasn’t been trying to get outside at all.
She’s been living pretty rough for most of her life, and was pretty lean and hungry when we moved out here. I think she’s due a spoiled retirement. She’s one of the few yard cats left that my dad used to take care of, so she is also a connection to him, for me. My dad really enjoyed the yard cats. :-)
Hopefully, my day of rest has been enough, because there is lots to get done. I’ll need to stay in town for a while, after dropping my daughter off at work, most importantly to pick up prescription refills that had been ready, yesterday! I had no idea. :-( A dump run is way overdue, too. By the time I get home, it should be warm enough to uncover everything in the gardens. The cloches certainly did their job; they still had frost on them on the outside, while the insides had condensation that was not frosted at all. The new garden bed with the carrots and beets is still in shade, but should be warmed up nicely in just a couple of hours, if not sooner.
Along with prepping to continue with transplanting, I’m going to have to switch priorities on the mowing, and at least get the area to the barn done. We will need access to the doors, and it’ll be easier if the grass there is mowed, first. If things go to plan (which is never a sure thing! :-D ) my brother will be coming over tomorrow to help me with the trailer frame. Specifically to deal with these…
Most of the old screws still stuck in the frame are just bits of metal sticking out. I simply don’t have the tools to take care of it. My brother has an angle grinder he plans to use. I had hoped I found on in the garage, where the lawn mowers and snow blowers are stored, not long ago but it turned out to just be the box for one, full of teeth.
I was able to pick up some drill attachments to clean the rust off. I was hoping we’d be able to paint it, too, but won’t be able to pick up more of the paint we need for a while. We’ll see what’s left in the budget after the van is done on Monday and, hopefully, my mother’s car gets fixed. That can be done after the trailer frame has a bed added to it, which I believe my brother has got what is needed to do that.
I will just have to maintain awareness so as not to overdue things. This time, I only needed the one day to recover after unknowingly pushing myself too hard. There have been times I’ve needed several days.
I’m happy to say, that a day of rest seems to be just what the doctor ordered. In fact, I felt so good, and it looked so beautiful outside, I decided to see if there was something I could get started on today.
Because I’m an idiot like that.
The beautiful looking day lied! :-D It was still cold and windy out there! Those lilacs are looking gorgeous, though.
When I went to check the forecast, though, I found a weather alert. We’re supposed to get frost tonight.
I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t get those transplants done!
The girls and I headed out to make sure everything was covered.
The squash bed was a challenge. I didn’t have very many of the plastic containers I was keeping to use as cloches for exactly this purpose. We did, however, still have the five gallon size water bottles from when I did a complete water change of the fish tank (which, I am happy to say, shows no signs of turning cloudy or that mass of algae growing back; it was definitely our well water that was the problem!). I cut a bunch of them in half, and we got all the squashes covered!
I don’t know that the bricks balancing on the necks of bottles will do much good, but it’s worth a try, to make sure the cloches don’t get blown away.
The girls covered the new garden bed with plastic, as well.
The plastic row covers are sandwiched between pairs of boards, so the sprouts won’t get flattened too much.
We didn’t bother doing anything with the potato beds, since the straw mulch will insulate them just fine.
Based on the long range forecast, this should be the last frost of the year. We’re going to start getting hot again, tomorrow.
Meanwhile, here are some more smiles for you! :-)
The girls went to visit with the kittens for a bit, but only Big Rig stayed still long enough for a decent photo. :-D
As David does so well with the kittens, the girls let him come down, too.
For those who are not yet familiar with the Spoon Theory, visit this link.
Today has been turning out to be a very non-productive day. Right from the start.
The first issue was waking up in pain. Particularly in my hands. Every joint in my fingers, stiff and sore. I know osteoarthritis is setting in (inevitable, given some of the jobs I’ve had in the past), but most of the time, they’re fine. Some days, however… well… let’s just say they’re “not fine.”
I woke up fairly early and started getting ready to do my usual routing, which now starts with bringing fresh water for the kitties. My husband was using the kitchen, so I sat down on the couch for a bit to let him finish.
I basically passed out for nearly 4 hours.
It felt more like a few minutes.
My entire body is feeling achy and sluggish, I’m in a snarly mood, and I’m in a brain fog.
Definitely a reminder that I am not really all that able bodied. I didn’t feel like I’d been overdoing it over the past few days, yet I clearly have, and my body is making sure I know it.
Well, at least it’s a good day to go into recovery mode. It’s too wet to finish mowing, and too chilly to finish transplanting. Manual labour outside is not going to be much of a thing, today.
And so, I will share some smiles with you, instead! :-)
I’ve been posting so many photos of our adopted cats and kittens, I rarely get photos of the two that moved out here with us. Last night, DahBoy got to entertain us!
One of my daughters was in my doorway when DahBoy demanded up.
He did not want up on her, though. She was just a way to get to his real goal.
No, not the top of the door, either!
He wants the top of the linen closet. He knows there’s space up there, and he wants in!
Will a human assist him? No? So how is he to get down, now?
Oh, look! A handy human.
I got that last shot a split second before he leapt onto my shoulder, then vaulted the rest of his way to the ground. :-D
This morning, while visiting the kittens, I had to very carefully step my way around kittens that were determined to climb my legs. They didn’t stop until I gave them some wet cat food.
Even during the feeding frenzy, Saffron and Turmeric were more interested in me than the food! They’re not as into the solid food thing, yet. Especially Saffron, who would much rather climb a table leg. LOL
Once outside, I had another cat I had to dance around. Potato Beetle was quite determined to walk in front of my moving feet and flop onto the ground. That is, when he wasn’t doing this…
What a goof!
At least they’re entertaining. ;-)
Ugh. It feels like such a wasted day, today, and it’s only mid afternoon!
Hopefully, a day of recovery means I can get things done tomorrow. I really need to get those transplants in.
The Re-Farmer 