Critters

Morning kitties

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So many kitties!

Of course, I visited the mamas first thing this morning.

They are much more comfortable in their new surroundings, and quite eager for human attention.

Just look at those round, round baby bellies!!

I’d kept the cardboard box from the hot water tank, and it’s now serving as a rug on top of the concrete. :-D I’m also finding Beep Beep on top of the chairs, and she’ll even go up on the table. Butterscotch, likely because she if farther along that Beep Beep, makes no attempt to jump up onto anything! :-D

Going into the sun room, there was little sign of the skunks. They’d been in there, but I don’t think they stayed long. All the kibble was gone, but it was already low in the evening and we didn’t top it up, so there was not much left for them to get into.

It did mean, however, that the outside cats were quite hungry.

I was happy to see Big Jim hanging out in the sun room. The blood I’d seen on his face previously is dried up and disappearing – he is such a filthy boy! – and I was unable to spot where it came from. It may have come from a scratch on an ear, near the head. Wherever the wound is, it’s too small to be seen through his fur.

Also, Rosencrantz! We’ve started to see her a bit more often of late.

The kitties were hungry enough that Junk Pile cat almost came inside while I was there.

Usually, when I add food to the outside bowls, Junk Pile and Pump Shack cats are pretty skittish about eating until I leave.

They were still skittish, but hungry enough to tolerate my nearness more than usual.

The only outside cat I didn’t see this morning was Potato Beetle. Even Nicky the Nose was hanging around.

Waiting for me to leave, before he comes to the house to eat.

In the sun room, I started to take the rigid insulation off the south facing windows. We’re at a point were the passive solar heat would be more beneficial than the insulation We’ll take the rest down when we can finally start emptying the room out to clean it.

I also removed some of the insulation around the base of the house to uncover a couple of windows to the basement. This way, Butterscotch and Beep Beep can have natural light. When we can start hauling stuff we removed from the basement to the barn, we’ll take all the insulation around the base of the house to the barn for storage until next fall.

One of my goals for today is to start some cucamelons indoors. :-) They apparently take a very long time to germinate, compared to other things. I’ve worked out the timing of when to start different seeds, and even those I plan to start 2 weeks from now might actually start germinating sooner than the cucamelons. It should be interesting to see how these all turn out.

Time to get back at it! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Settling in… almost

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One of the first things I made sure to do this morning was check on the mamas in the basement.

Beep Beep seems to be settling in just fine!

I disturbed her nap and caught her in a biiiiig yawn! :-D

Butterscotch is not quite so chill.

She is still hiding under the stairs – though she did at least meow a greeting.

Since that is where she wants to be, I moved out a motor that had been tucked into there, pushed aside the box of stuff we still need to go through, and put in a cat bed for her.

Of course, while I was doing that, she hid in another corner, but I hope she will accept a nice, soft bed to curl up on.

After this, I headed outside to do my rounds. The skunks had been back, going knocking a few things about. We didn’t refill the food bowls last night, so there wasn’t much there for them to steal.

With most of the snow gone, I was able to go further afield and start picking up some of the larger branches that have come down over the winter. It will be a while longer before we can do a proper clean up. The long range forecasts had been for consistently warmer weather, but they were wrong. We’ve been staying below freezing, with the odd snowfall, instead. We’re supposed to start warming up again in a couple of days, then some days with both snow and rain.

I checked the different areas we hope to plant in, and they are still frozen solid, though a few bits of greenery has been trying to poke through. I’m thinking of uncovering the old dog house shelter we made for the critters last fall, and laying the black cloth over where the old wood pile used to be, to help warm the soil up a bit faster. We’ll see how it goes over the next few days.

If all goes well, I’ll be picking up a repaired van today. I’ll be calling the garage in a bit; hopefully, he’s had time to check it out by now. :-)

Beside that, I think I’m going to take a bit of a break today, as much as possible. Pain levels are creeping up, and I don’t want to overdo it. :-/

The Re-Farmer

Well, that’s a mess

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Before I show you the messy stuff, let me share with you some adorableness!

This morning, while doing my morning ablutions, I noticed Dave on the bath chair, eyeballing the towels. We have a small shelf with folded towels under some hanging towels. The hanging towels cover the top, and the cats like to go behind them to create a little cat cave as they nap on the towels. They do it so often, I now keep an old towel the top, just for them to use as a bed. I figured Dave wanted to get in there, so I moved a hanging towel to let him behind it.

It was already occupied!

I had no idea she was there, the entire time I was in the bathroom! :-D

Such a cutie. :-)

Now, on to the icky stuff.

During the evening cat routine, my daughter headed to the sun room to top up the food and water for the outside cats.

The sun room was a mess, with stuff scattered all over, part of the cat condo was collapsed and the bin holding the cat kibble was open.

Two skunks where in it, eating.

*sigh*

I had hoped it wasn’t them getting into the bin. They are likely why we are not seeing the cats using the sun room as often. When I do my morning rounds lately, the cats almost always come over from elsewhere.

My daughter splashed them with water to get them out. One left, but the other might have still been in there when she brought the bin into the old kitchen.

Since it was so late, the mess was left to be dealt with this morning.

When emptying the big bags into the kibble bin, I use one as a garbage bag for the others. It had been sitting beside the bin. I would also sometimes put a bit of kibble in the cat condo, to encourage the cats to use it. My guess is, the skunks has finished off all the food in the bowls, then dug through everything they could get at, to find stray bits of kibble, including pulling the crunched up bags out of the bag that was being used to hold them.

Spotting this as I picked things up was concerning.

Yeah. That’s frozen blood spatter.

While cleaning up, I heard a plaintive meow, but there was no sign of any cats. I eventually was able to lean far enough to look under the swing bench, where I saw a big orange lump loafed on an old blanket we’ve got under there.

It was Jim Boy.

When he came out, the poor thing seemed desperate for cuddles – and for food! I haven’t seen him in quite a while. He still looks like he’s in pretty rough shape, but better than the last time I saw him.

The more important thing was, no sign of injury. The blood did not come from him.

As I continued my rounds, I saw Creamsicle and Potato Beetle – both also looked fine. Butterscotch came from somewhere behind the house, looking uninjured and still very pregnant. I even saw Rosencrantz who, thankfully, does not look at all pregnant. Even Junk Pile cat showed up. I never saw Beep Beep, though. I also didn’t see Pump Shack cat, though I did see him later in the live feed for the security camera. None looked like they had any injuries, from what I could see.

Butterscotch even started to sort of follow me when I was doing the rest of my rounds. I heard her meowing in the spruce grove, but she never came close. On my way back to the house, I cut through the trees to see if I could convince her to let me at least pet her, but she wouldn’t let me come anywhere near her.

I did, however, find this.

Another old and rotting bench!

I may have seen the board before and thought it was an old, fallen tree, but once the leaves come in, it’s completely hidden and the area impassible. This is the first time I’ve been able to come close enough to see that it was a bench!

You can tell, by the trees growing around it, that it’s been there and fallen over for quite a long time.

As we clear things up, I do want to eventually put benches and seats among the trees. Seeing the remains of so many makeshift benches all over gives me an idea of what NOT to do. I might just go ahead and buy the heavy duty plastic benches or picnic tables that Costco carries every spring. If we do go with wood, we’ll need to take steps to protect it from the elements and the moisture of the ground.

All in good time.

As for the skunks, we’re going to have to stop topping up the food bowls in the sun room overnight. Once the weather finally turns to spring, all the food and water will be kept outside, so we can close the sun room doors again – especially after we’re able to empty it out and give it a thorough cleaning. I’m not actually too bothered about the skunks coming around, but they are greedy guts – cat kibble is bad for them to begin with – and seem to be driving the yard cats out of the very room we’ve taken great care to turn into a safe and warm sanctuary for them.

Yet another reason to finish cleaning up the basement and turning it into a maternity ward for Beep Beep and Butterscotch. I’d hoped to have had it finished by now, but my goodness, it is such a huge job!

Which I need to get back to, today.

Time to get to work!

The Re-Farmer

Easter preparations and difficulty typing

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I know I should be in bed right now, but I had a few setbacks. Problems with the van being the most obvious one, but also, I had difficulties typing.

My husband got evidence as to why.

Susan decided she absolutely HAD to drape herself across me as I tried to type. She particularly felt the need to roll around, and use my hands as pillows.

For such a tiny cat, she takes up a lot of space. :-D

Meanwhile, I did manage to finish the last things for the basket before I had to head into town.

These are easily the darkest onion skin dyed eggs we’ve ever made! I didn’t leave them in the pot longer than usual, either. This is just from the sheer volume of onion skins they were immersed in. Also, every single one of them are fine. One of the nice things about colouring eggs this way is the high success rate. At most, sometimes an egg will crack in the boiling water.

The tea dyed eggs, however, are typically much more difficult.

Of the dozen I did this way, I lost three eggs completely (they were delicious, though), and I think only one or two peeled without damaging the egg white. Cracking the shells and cooking them again in the dye seems to make it more difficult to peel them. It also leaves them too fragile to use the shaking method of loosening the peel. I did try it, and the egg just split open in the jar.

We’ll just have to made to with slightly torn up eggs this year! :-D

As for the horseradish, usually I just peel a chunk of root and put it in the basket whole. We would then shred it for use during our Easter breakfast made up entirely of basket contents. This time, I decided to grate it, first.

I left it to dry on a paper towel for a while before putting it into a teeny tiny jar.

I almost forgot I had one last thing to prepare before heading to bed. Brining the turkey! We’ve never done a turkey dinner for Easter before, but I had one in the freezer, so we’re using it now. I use a giant stock pot to brine the turkey in. It’s a big bird, and the brine needed almost 3 gallons of water to be able to cover it completely. It makes for a very full stock pot. I have to get one of my daughters to help me carry it to the old kitchen, so it doesn’t slosh all over. This time of year, the old kitchen is about refrigerator cold during the day, and will probably drop a degree or two below freezing overnight, which makes it quite safe to leave the turkey in overnight.

For now, though, I’d better get my butt into bed. There will be lots to do tomorrow! :-) I’m looking forward to it. :-)

Have a Happy and Blessed Easter!

The Re-Farmer

Mama and her boys

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I had company while doing my rounds this morning!

I did not expect Butterscotch to come waddling over to catch up with me. Gosh, she is getting so big! She even let me carry her for a while.

Her boys will be a year old at the start of next month, if I remember correctly.

After dropping my daughter off at work and, if all goes well, dropping off a little Easter care package for my mother, I hope to find more dry cat kibble. We’re starting to run low faster than we should. Several mornings now, I’ve not only found all the cats’ food bowls, inside and out, completely empty, but the lid on the kibble bin has been opened. Something – not necessarily a cat – has figured out how to get the lid off and been eating kibble right out of the bin! From the lingering smell, we know that Stinky has been visiting during the night, but do skunks have that sort of paw control? It could also be raccoons, but we’ve never seen any here, since we moved in.

There isn’t a shortage of cat kibble, exactly. It’s just that the only big bags left are brands that the cats really don’t like. When even the outside cats won’t eat something, you know it’s pretty awful stuff. Outside cats are not normally picky eaters! We had talked about making another trip into the city this month for stuff like this, but the way things have been going, I am just not seeing that happening. Which sucks, because stuff like cat kibble is so much more expensive out here. If the only thing I can find are the smaller bags, though, the cost difference at that point, to get the amount we need, would make it much more economical to make the trip to the city. That wouldn’t be until after Easter, though, and we’re going to run out by tomorrow morning.

We shall see what I find today!

The Re-Farmer

Cat company and good news

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This morning, I had the boys keeping me company as I did my rounds.

They do love that post! :-D It’s one of their favorite things to climb and scratch when they follow me.

Later, I hear meowing from another direction and eventually spotted Butterscotch making her way through the trees.

With some difficulty.

She is still pregnant.

Poor thing! When I came to pick her up, she would not let me near her. I wanted to carry her over the deep snow, but I think she doesn’t want to be picked up right now.

I don’t know how much time we’ve got to clear out the basement. I don’t know about the girls, but I’m hurting quite a bit today and will probably not be able to get to it again. At least nothing too physical. I suppose I could take a break for our 32nd anniversary. ;-)

Not a complete break, though. I whipped up a couple of mats that we will use to create cozy nests that I hope Butterscotch and Beep Beep will be content with to have their babies on.

They already pass the Susan test. Susan, of the still nekkid shaved belly. I can’t believe how long it’s taking for her fur to grow back after getting spayed!

In other areas, we got some good news. Not long ago, a nurse at the long term care facility my almost 100 yr old aunt is in tested positive for the Wuhan virus. The nurse went into isolation, as did 9 residents that had already been displaying signs of respiratory illness. This, in itself, is not unusual for the facility, but they took precautions and tested them, just in case.

Well, today it was announced that the nurse’s test was a false positive. There is no Wuhan virus in the facility at all. With this news, I believe our area is back to zero cases.

After I got the news, I phoned my mom to let her know. She had already heard the news on the radio, so that was good. As we got to chatting, I mentioned the work we’ve been doing in the basement, and that I’d taken 11 batteries to the barn. She flipped out a bit, thinking I was planning to throw them away. I told her no, I was planning to take them to a scrap yard, to sell them by weight. I think she still thought I was talking about the dump and went on about there being people who would buy them. Eventually, she told me that she used to phone someone who would come to the farm and buy old batteries from her. Which is good to know, but it does make me wonder just how many of these there would have been if she hadn’t done that! I don’t think she realizes, however, that if I take them to a scrap yard myself, I’ll get a better price. I also had a hard time explaining to her that I couldn’t get rid of the batteries now, anyhow, because of the lockdown. Just as she expected to be able to go to a restaurant for lunch after her doctor’s appointment, she seemed to think I’d be able to get a scrap dealer to come over and buy old batteries off of me. I’m a bit surprised by that, considering her own building is, literally, locked down and all regular social events are cancelled, and she can’t even go to church. For me, it’s easier to forget, since we are already pretty isolated and not much has changed at home.

Speaking of which, time to pain killer up and get back at it!

The Re-Farmer

Tracking

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The snow was gone in a lot of places before the storm hit a couple of days ago. I could even see green grass through last year’s thatch. So it was no surprise that we’ve seen virtually no deer. Even in the trail cam facing where they cross the road to our place went from streams of dozens of deer to … nothing. In just a couple of days.

With snow falling pretty much continually for the past two days, all the yards and gardens were covered with a pristine white blanket.

Yesterday evening, we saw three skittish deer making their way to the feeding station. They didn’t really get much to eat, as something spooked them and they ran off. They were the first deer to visit us since before the snow fell.

This is what I found this morning.

Tracks, everywhere!

The area around the feeding station was torn up as they dug through the snow to get at the seeds below (which a couple of cats took advantage of. :-D ). From the heavy trails through the garden and trees on the west side, more came and went from that direction than from along the spruce grove to the east. The east yard was full of tracks as they headed towards the barn as well. Tracks went through the spruce grove as well, and my rounds had be going past where a couple of them jumped the south fence to cross the driveway to the old hay yard.

It should be interesting when I check the trail cam files. That will wait until I come back from town after dropping my daughter off at work.

For now, I have to grab a shovel and clear the plow ridge. The snow was soft enough, we didn’t bother clearing the driveway, but the wall of snow at the road is something else entirely!

The Re-Farmer

That looks like it’s toast…

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While doing my rounds this morning, I was able to take a closer look at the bird bath.

Throughout the winter, when chipping ice out to add water, I’ve been very careful not to touch the bird bath itself. It already had cracks showing on it, and now that the ice is melting away again, I can see that at least one has gotten worse. I’m sure my ice chopping didn’t help. :-D

Yeeeaaahhh…. I’d say the bird bath is toast.

The kitties still like it! :-D

Since completing my rounds outside, it has started to snow. A gentle snowfall, just enough to start coating the trees again. It won’t last long. Looking at the long range forecast, we’ll be staying above freezing every day. By Sunday, we’re even supposed to hit 10C (50F)! It’s going to get muddy out there, but I’m looking forward to the warmth, and the snow melting away enough to be able to extend my rounds again.

The girls and I have decided it’ll be worth heading to the city to try and do our monthly shop, though I expect we’ll split it again, make a smaller trip and go back again later in April.

I should try and find some rubber boots again. Last year, I couldn’t find anything that would fit over my burly calves. :-D

The Re-Farmer

Some furry visitors, and getting a call

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I happened to look out the window, and saw this.

Looks like the deer found something to snack on, as the top of our compost pile thaws out! There would be all sorts of vegetable and fruit peels there right now.

If there were deer at the compost, I figured there might be some at the feeding station…

There certainly were! Along with Pump Shack cat and Two Face. :-D

As I was watching, the two in the back of this photo wandered behind the house. Then they suddenly came running back into view, clearly startled by something.

There turned out to be a big pick up truck coming up the road. It was slowing right down as it neared the intersection – far more than usual – then continued to drive slowly after it turned, until well after it passed our driveway. By then, all the deer had been startled away. Going back to the window I first saw them at, I could still see them in the trees, with a couple already crossing the road. Not long after, I saw the truck returning and driving just as slowly. At that point, I figured the driver was watching out for any deer that might come running onto the road, rather than trying to watch them in our yard. :-)

It makes me so happy to see our furry visitors. :-)

On a completely different subject, we got the call I was wondering about this morning. The heart clinic phoned my husband.

There was a rather long and detailed interview, checking on his status. As far as his heart condition goes, he’s been doing awesome, but he did have to qualify some of his answers by explaining that he was dealing with the pain of his disability.

By the end of the call, after making sure he wasn’t in an urgent situation, his two appointments next week were cancelled. He was told they were looking to reschedule in June. He was also told they’re cancelling all their appointments, due to the Wuhan flu, to reschedule in June. They have no idea how they’ll re-book everyone for June, so it’ll more likely be July or August.

I can’t say I was expecting this, but I wasn’t not expecting it, either.

So that’s off the calendar.

My mother’s medical appointment is still on, though it’s already been rescheduled once. We shall see how that goes.

I did call my mother to check on her yesterday. I woke her from a nap! Oops! :-D

She assured me she had been able to get to the grocery store. It’s just a couple of blocks away, and she does the distance well enough with her walker. She’s been told to try and get exercise, so this is one of the ways she does it. The only downside is that the main doors of the building are now kept locked, so outsiders can’t get in without a resident letting them in, which makes is harder for her to get in and out with the walker. Those doors are the ones with the button to push to open automatically. She manages okay, though. As for her supplies, the grocery store delivers to her building regularly, so she has no problem buying as much as she needs and getting it home. Apparently, the only things they were out of stock on (that she noticed, anyhow) were bananas and garlic! :-D

She had also gotten a call from my sister the day before, and even the social worker had called to check if she needed anything. With all the social events now cancelled and people told to stay at home and not have visitors unless they absolutely have to, I think my mom is getting a bit bored! She does still go to the lobby just to sit for a while, for some “fresh air” and sit in at sunny window. The walk down the hall counts as her exercise, too. :-)

The main thing is that she’s doing okay and is not running out of any necessities.

As for her appointment, I’m not expecting a cancellation call, but again, it wouldn’t exactly be unexpected, either.

The Re-Farmer