I counted both adults and kittens, though I know at least the two new kittens were missing. I saw the orange fluffball earlier, but it was gone by the time I started counting.
I counted 36.
Which is interesting, since that’s about half kittens. In the winter, we have the most cats around the house, where there is safety, food, warm shelter and warm water to drink. In the summer, many disappear, with some popping by every now and then, others not returning until the fall, or not returning at all. Last winter, we tended to have a high of 33 cats. So having 36 cats (38 if I count the two new kittens that I know were hiding somewhere nearby), including kittens, is interesting. I honestly expected more, even taking into account the number of kittens, plus an adult cat, I buried this year. Certainly more than a net increase of about 5!
In the end, we’ll see how many there are in the winter, when the explorers start returning. Hopefully, we’ll have more than just Button adopted out, too.
He does get creative when it comes to getting the nip! It took me a while to figure out what I was even looking at! 😄
Adam is so patient with the kittens. She doesn’t seem to care at all, how many are trying to nurse her at the same time, or how much they are trying to push each other around to get at a nip!
As for getting Button to his new forever home, we were not able to connect with the Cat Lady this weekend. They did make it out to their cottage, but are still dealing with too many health issues right now. Her son is recovering, though, and that’s the important thing! She’s asked me to let her know if I’m heading to the smaller city where we usually meet, in the next week. Heck, I’ll make the trip special, just for that! Button will be taken to a vet clinic first, before going to the vet that is adopting him. I was happy to hear that. He is just not getting noticeably bigger, and I’m concerned for him.
I was finally able to connect with my mother last night and, as expected, she needed a grocery shopping trip. So we made plans for that, and I headed to bed early.
I even fell asleep!
Then, in the wee hours of the morning, I rolled over and got hit with a Charlie horse. After much pain and difficulty, I finally managed to reach my phone and send a voice to text message to my daughter, asking for help.
I love technology.
She was able to give me a hand, bring me some ibuprofen, etc., until the cramps finally eased off. When I was finally able to walk, she stayed close while I made my way to the bathroom and back, ready to help me get back into bed if I needed it. Thankfully, I did not, but the muscles kept threatening to cramp up again. I finally got up and made myself something to eat. By the time I was done and able to get back into bed, I slept so hard, I never heard the thunderstorm and heavy rains that swept over us! I didn’t know we’d had a downpour at all until morning. My leg was still unstable, so I asked the girls to do the outside stuff and water the garden, but the garden didn’t need it this morning.
My mother and I had plans to go out for lunch before I did her shopping, so I intended to be there on the early side. While the girls did the outside stuff, I still wanted to check on things before I left, which reminded me to take pictures of the garden beds to show my mother.
One of the first things I saw as I headed out from the sun room were the new kittens – and their mama!
It is now confirmed: their mama is Sprout. I knew she must have had a litter somewhere, but this is the first time we’ve seen her with kittens.
The orange kitten looks so fluffy!
Unfortunately, Sprout is one of the more feral of the yard cats. She is even aggressive to the other cats, snarling, growling and hissing at them if they come too close. That might make it harder to socialize those kittens!
Then, as I was heading to the truck to head to my mother’s, I spotted Brussel’s last kitten.
She and her baby still like to hang out in and around the garage, much like Broccoli and her babies prefer to hang out by the garden shed.
The visit with my mother went okay. When I got there, she told me she was not up to going out to eat, so she’d made lunch, instead. I wish I’d known in advance, or I would have brought food. I don’t like eating her groceries! It did give us a chance to talk, and I showed her the photos I took of the garden (those will be in my next post), then we went over her shopping list, which included a stop at the pharmacy.
There were a couple of things I forgot to pick up when I went to the grocery store for ourselves, yesterday, so I did both our shopping at the same time. I even picked up a few extra things for my mother that weren’t on her list, but the prices were good, and I knew she could use them. Other things, I found substitutes, because the prices were too high. Still, she’s now well stocked for the week, and that’s the important part.
The visit did have its down sides. After I’d put everything away, she had the local paper out and open. Our vandal has made his annual “in memory” listing about my late brother, with a colour photo of him with my late father. This impressed my mother greatly, because he does it every year, and it costs extra to include a colour photo. The fact that the content is passive aggressive and misleading – even outright false, in one thing – she is totally impressed by it. I told her I’d already seen the listing online, and she was all “and you didn’t tell me?” My response was, why would I? He does this every year, and it’s not like he’s doing it out of the goodness of his heart. She then launched into making excuses for him and how he’s doing such great things, like volunteering to cut grass at the cemetery. Which I’m sure he made sure she knew about. Well, I visited the cemetery, too, but I don’t tell her about it, or about the flowers I added at the family graves, etc. Coming from me, she would find ways to either tell me how I am doing it wrong, or find a way to turn it around and start saying how great our vandal is.
Then I found out, he’d come by her place recently.
I told her, he shouldn’t be doing that.
She, of course, tried to turn it around on me, because that’s what she does. It took me a while to figure out what she was saying, because she phrased it so oddly, but she essentially said, if my daughters did what our vandal did, would I cut them off entirely? I told her, if they did what he did, yes! I would hold them responsible and accountable. I then called her out on making excuses for him the way she does, pointing out that he’s stolen 10’s of thousands of dollars of stuff from her that was on the farm (heck, his taking stuff was one of the biggest reasons she asked us to move here!), but that’s okay because he put a colour picture in the paper? He does this stuff because people have been letting him get away with is for years. I’m the first person to stand up to him, and he ended up vandalizing the place, we have to keep the gate locked, and worry that he’ll suddenly show up and try to burn the house down or something.
She changed the subject after that.
That was pretty much the only real downside of the visit. Mostly, I think she was just too tired to be as difficult as she usually is.
I didn’t stay too much longer after putting things away, since I did have my own few purchases getting hot in the truck, so I headed home soon after.
Once at home and settled, I gave the outside cats their lysine enhanced kibble. Since it’s the more granular type of lysine, I have been making sure the kibble bowls get some water in them, so it’ll stick to the kibble. With some of the bowls, I add extra water, as the kittens seem to prefer it, and this way they are getting more hydration in this heat, and the lysine will be dissolved in the water. Some of the kittens are getting leaky eyes and noses, including Button, and I want to make sure they get their lysine! It helps strengthen their immune systems.
No sign of the new kittens this time, though.
Then I went into the garden, but I’ll talk about that in my next post.
As for how things are now, my leg is still feeling like it’s about to start cramping up on me. More so as I’m sitting down then while I’m walking around. I’m going to be feeling downright nervous, getting into bed tonight! I’ve been looking into the various possible causes. One was the lawn mowing in the heat, but I didn’t do anywhere near as much as I have in the past. Lack of electrolytes is a possibility. I’m already taking B12 and Magnesium supplements, but it looks like I might be low on potassium and sodium, too. At least, those are the only possible causes I can be proactive about. Others include things like “getting older”. 😄
While watering the luffa, I saw the dew had condensed and was collecting on the very edges of each leaf. Very pretty!
Once the watering was done, I headed in for a quick breakfast, then headed back out. The grass was still so very wet, but I wanted to get at least some of it done.
I had brought over the lawn mower and getting it ready when I spotted the new kittens.
The orange kitten and the baby Hypotenose I’d found in the outer yard were in the inner yard! I’m hoping that meant they found the kibble.
Unfortunately, I had to scare them off once I started mowing.
I kept the bag on the mower to collect the clippings, emptying into the wagon as I worked on a section of the south yards. The grass was so wet, the opening into the bag kept getting jammed, so I was having to empty it a lot more often. One wagon load of clippings went into the compost heap, around the opportunistic tomatoes, potatoes and onions growing in there. The summer squash in pots got their mulch topped up, which was just a few handfuls of clippings. The rest of the clippings got spread out on the black landscape cloth/tarp in the main garden area to dry in the sun.
The other side of the south yard has a lot of creeping Charlie in it, so I won’t be able to use most of the clippings for mulch. That will just get piled somewhere else. Fresh green grass clippings – especially when they are wet like this – get insanely hot very quickly, and the middle of a pile starts to turn black and slimy in short order. That should kill off any creeping Charlie. I’ll probably dump it on top of the litter pellet compost pile. Normally, in the summer, we’d be burning the litter pellets together with any burnable garbage we have, but first the area was too wet, and not it’s just too hot to stand outside, tending a fire! So we’re still dumping the litter behind the outhouse, as it normally reserved for the winter. It’ll break down, but won’t be anything we’ll use as compost in the garden. The damp, creeping Charlie infested grass clippings should help it break down faster.
But that will be for tomorrow!
By the time I finished the section of yard, it was already 25C/77F. I wanted to go into town today, so I called it for mowing, and will continue tomorrow, when it’s supposed to be a bit cooler.
My trip into town ended up being an unexpected stock up trip, though! I’ll do another post about that, later.
Among my stops in town was a lumber and hardware store I tend to forget exists. It’s near the edge of town, and I don’t usually go that way. I had completely forgotten there is a huge festival in town, starting tonight, though I think some events have been already on for awhile. It’s a long weekend with Terry Fox Day on Monday, though this festival has been around far longer than that. I used to enjoy going to it when I was a kid, and it was still rather small. Now, it’s gotten much bigger. Enough people come out for it that this one traffic light town sets up temporary traffic lights at the intersection next to the hardware store I went to. It wasn’t until I was on my way home that I found they’d set up another set of temporary lights at the other end of town. That’s a first.
I no longer try to go to this festival. I just don’t have the patience for the crowds.
Anyhow; I ended up getting some replacement hose connectors, as I’ve got a couple that I’ve replaced that are leaking, then ended up getting some 4′ lengths of wood lath. I had to ask about it, as I didn’t remember the name of them. It’s basically just some cheap lumber that might be handy with some of our smaller building projects.
From there, I went to the dollar store and found a number of odds and ends we needed, then headed to the grocery store. I had only three items on my list, but found there were some really good sales and ended up getting stuff I’d intended to pick up later in the month, plus some treats.
So I guess it was a sort of productive day, even if I didn’t get as much of the mowing done as I’d hoped. Hopefully, I’ll be able to finish it off, tomorrow, except…
I came home to a message from my mother. She just said “this is your mama” and that’s pretty much it. I called her back, but got her answering machine. My guess is, she’s going to want me to go over tomorrow and help her with grocery shopping.
Well, we reached our predicted high of 31C/88F, with the humidex putting us at 33C/91F, and we’re not expected to start cooking down until well into the evening.
I had a much interrupted night, so the girls took care of the outside stuff for me, including watering the garden, so I could try and get some more sleep. Which is rather difficult when, every now and then, a cat will suddenly get the zoomies and parkour off my body while careening across my room. What a way to be awakened!
I did make my trip into town, late this morning. It was slightly delayed when I stopped at the post office to pick up a package, and found my daughter’s computer was in a day early! I’d even checked the tracking this morning, and it was still saying tomorrow, by the end of day. Once I had that, I went back home to drop it off, then headed into town. My daughter hasn’t tried to take it upstairs yet. Her old computer is still chugging away, backing things up onto online storage – a very sloooooow process. She’ll start getting the new machine set up during the night.
I had intended to see what errands I could do while I was in town after sanitizing and filling our water jugs (it’s a different grocery store than where I usually go to, that has a sanitation station with their refill fountains), I got a message from my husband asking if I could swing by the Greek restaurant and pick up a couple of gyros for him. I found out this morning that my husband had eaten almost nothing all day yesterday – he just didn’t have any appetite – and his blood sugars dropped dangerously low. He had to pop glucose tablets to get himself back up again. The water refill station at the grocery store happened to be next to their pharmaceutical section, and they had some of the glucose tablets in stock, so I grabbed a bottle. With his Ozempic dose being doubled, the danger of his blood glucose levels dropping are much higher. Which ticks me off because I am 100% certain that is his chronic pain could be brought under control, he blood sugars would normalize. However, there’s no fix for his back, and so far, no pain killers tried have been able to get it under control. At best, it become more bearable. It’s like when he was diagnosed diabetic the first time. After that he was diagnosed with sleep apnea and started using a CPAP. Almost immediately, his blood sugars normalized and he lost about 100 pounds. I suspect the increase in dose for the Ozempic is more for the potential side effect of weight loss, but he’s been on this stuff for years now, and it has had zero effect on his weight. Plenty of other side effects, like losing much of his sense of taste, a loss of appetite, loss of muscle mass and intestinal distress, but his weight just won’t change.
Needless to say, when he asked for the gyros, my other plans went out the window, got his food and headed straight home with it, and skipped the other places I was going to check out.
I had been thinking of going to the dump later today, when it opens for the evening, but we really don’t have enough garbage and recycling to make it worth burning the gas in another trip.
My other plan had been to try and get some lawn mowed this morning, before it got hot, but that didn’t work out. Tomorrow is supposed to be a little bit cooler, so I will see if I can get it done then. In fact, our entire 10 day forecast has changed and, after tomorrow, we’re now supposed to be closer to 20C/68F instead of in the 30C/86F range.
I just got back from refreshing the cats’ water bowls outside, and adding frozen water bottles in a couple of them to help keep them cooler. The cats are just splattered all over, trying to keep cool
So happy to see Button in there, getting some nip!
I’m just looking back at some of my garden posts from a year ago. At this time, our garlic was all harvested and curing, and I tried planting beets, radishes and spinach in the empty bed (they did not do well at all). I was also harvesting bush beans, turnips and G-Star pattypan squash. Not a lot, but at least something! I was even getting some yellow zucchini and the odd green one from the plants that survived getting eaten by slugs. We had Black Beauty tomatoes getting so big and heavy, we had to add extra supports. Our Spoon tomatoes were turning red, and our Sweet Chocolate peppers were covered in developing fruit. We even started harvesting some Indigo Blue tomatoes, and our Pink Banana and Georgia Candy Roaster had so many huge squash developing!
I’ll be doing another garden tour video in the middle of the month. Hopefully, things will have progressed between now and then! It should be interesting to compare the two.
For now, though, the main priority is to keep things protected from the heat.
The temperatures are supposed to increase again today; we’re looking at a high of 30C/86F in the forecast. As I write this, in the late morning, we’re already at 25C/77F, with the humidex putting us at 29C/84F
We’re supposed to stay in this range for the next while, too.
Just out of curiosity, I checked my app’s global temperature map and found our expected high of the day is almost the same as temperatures around the equator right now.
Fun stuff.
So I was out watering the garden again this morning. A job that was made easier today, too. Yesterday, I’d gone to the town north of us as the hardware store in that location carries the septic friendly bio stuff for drain and pipe maintenance.
I got three bottles.
Since I was there anyhow, I looked around other departments, including the section for hose repair and the like.
Which was right next to the display of various nozzles, some of which were at half price.
I ended up getting a spray wand, and a spare nozzle. We’re down to the two nozzles that are on the hoses now. I got these at Costco last year, as a two piece set. Once is the usual nozzle with several different spray options. The other lets you change the spray by turning the tip of the nozzle. I really dislike that one, because the finer spray just spreads out like an umbrella and wastes a lot of water.
I put the wand on the main garden hose and moved the good nozzle onto the front yard hose. We now have two spares.
I really like the new wand sprayer! I like being able to get in under the leaves and vines, and being able water more directly – and be less likely to step on vines in the process!
It was while I was watering in the south garden beds, at the chain link fence, that I met some strangers. I was collecting grass clippings to mulch around the self seeded tomato I transplanted last night, when I hear a cat meowing in the tall grass towards the pump shack. So I went to investigate.
I never found the cat I heard, but I did see a strangely orange … something… on the wooden box under one of the old fuel tanks.
Orange and… fluffy?
Of course, I had to go look.
Yup. It was an orange kitten!
We’ve had only two orange kittens in the yard. Brussel’s almost all orange one died, and Caramel’s orange and white one hangs out close to or in the sun room, most of the time.
I’m kinda happy to see another orange kitten. When we first moved here, the yard cats were almost all orange tabbies. Now, we’re down to one orange tabby adult, an orange and white adult, and an orange and white kitten. Having lost an all orange kitten already, it’s cheering to see another one.
Plus, orange cats are more likely to be males.
I managed to zoom in and get a picture, but as I tried to quietly move closer, a different kitten appeared in the same spot!
When I was able to get it to turn my way, I discovered it was a baby Hypotenose!
From what I could see, there are just the two kittens. Where they’ve been hiding out until now, or who the mother is, I have no clue. I don’t even know how many female cats we have anymore.
They are looking big enough and active enough that I expect them to start at least showing up at the food bowls under the shrine, soon.
At this point, we still don’t have a kitten count. They move around too fast and hide out in various places too much to get a firm number. Plus, as today has shown, there may still be more unknown litters that haven’t starting coming to the kibble, yet. On top of that, we may be having more losses, too – ones that I’m not finding and having to bury. It will probably be some weeks before we start to get an idea of how many survivors there are.
For now, whatever the number is, it just went up by two this morning!
There is definitely and up side to the girls being up during the night and sleeping during the day. It means there is someone up and about to keep an eye on things.
My younger daughter came downstairs to discover our entry way flooded, and water pouring down the stairs to the basement.
We still have the washing machine set up with a hose extension. When we do laundry, we run the hose through the window on the storm door to drain into the grass, rather than drain to the septic tank. The septic pump has been having so many issues, the less wear and tear on it, the better. When we’re not doing laundry, the hose is pulled in and sort of rolled up between the drier and the wall of the build in closet.
Somehow, a cat turned on the washing machine last night.
Usually, if they accidentally push the on button, the machine will eventually turn itself off. Somehow, that didn’t happen this time. Instead, it ran an empty load. Which is the one plus side, as the machine automatically adjusts the water level based on weight. So it would have run a very small load.
That’s the only saving grace.
My daughters mopped as best they could. After they told me about it, one of them went down to move the new blower fans and set them up over the worst areas. One at the stairs that have old carpet on them (we really ought to take that off, but whoever put it on, really nailed it down thoroughly!). The other is aimed at a low area where the water tends to pool under some counter shelves. We’ll have to check things regularly and move the fans around, as needed. I might have to steal another fan or two from the old basement.
I did get a bit of a fun thing out of it, though.
There is a window at the stairs for the new basement. It doesn’t have a screen, but I had opened it up just a bit to allow some air circulation.
The swing bench is on the patio blocks outside of this window, as well as a wooden bench right up against the wall behind it. The more feral kittens tend to hang out there, so I’ve made a point of leaving kibble under the swing bench, but they will not let us come anywhere near them.
As I was going up the stairs, I saw some kittens playing at the window, with one on the wooden bench batting at another under the bench, right at the window, who was batting back. A third kitten was managing to squeeze a leg in to join the batting party, too.
So I stuck my fingers through the window and wiggled at them.
Immediately, three kittens started batting at my fingers!
I don’t think they could see me through the window at all, or I’m sure they would have run away. I was able to slowly open the window a bit more and reach further. There’s one kitten that’s mostly black but has two white spots under its nose like a funny mustache. That one was on the bench and kept playing with my fingers even as the others got nervous and left. It even let me almost touch it, sniffing at my fingers as I reached as far as the bench’s top.
Thanks to a window, I was able to make physical contact with kittens that we’ve never been able to get closer than 5 feet or so before!
Once things were set up in the basement, I noticed a small pool of water near the door at the top of the stairs. The mop and bucket were still there, so I started mopping it up, moving some things to get more puddling that I found – and started to see water running across the floor again!
That’s when I realized the drainage hose was still full of water. I’d knocked it over a bit, and it was starting to empty onto the floor.
*sigh*
We got the hose running through the door to drain and left it set up. I was needing to do laundry today, anyhow!
Some day, we intend to put new mesh in the window of that storm door. For now, being able to run things through the door has been the handiest thing ever! We do have to fill the gap under the window with a towel to keep the mosquitoes out, and to keep the bottom of the window from dropping directly onto the hose, but that’s not a bit deal.
So… that was quite a way to start the day!!!
After we finished setting all this up, I headed outside to feed the cats and do my morning routine. One of the first things I saw was that the green zucchini is finally starting to bloom!
The plants aren’t looking very strong, though. I did move both pots with squash growing in them onto the patio blocks by the swing bench. I was concerned they were getting too hot where they were. They’ll still get plenty of light, but will be shaded during the hotter parts of the day.
I’m trying to think of an empty spot we might have somewhere, large enough that I could dig a hole to fit the entire pot’s soil. I think the zucchini will do better in a garden bed then a pot, but transplanting them at this point would have to be done very carefully.
Note for future reference. Don’t try to plant summer squash in pots. At least not these ones. I believe there are varieties that were bred specifically for container gardening, but these aren’t them.
At least they didn’t get eaten by slugs this year.
While the potted summer squash aren’t doing very well, the G-Star patty pans that got planted so much later are getting huge! I’m so glad we got those sent to us by mistake a couple of years back. This variety seems to just love growing here.
I’m also glad we have so much space between the shifted beds in the main garden area. We are training the winter squash and pumpkin vines to grow along the sides of the beds, but they are getting so big, it’s getting harder to walk between the beds to check on them or water them. Even the melons in the low raised bed are starting to need to be trained to run along the sides of the bed, to keep the path open.
The corn is really starting to kick in, with silks visible all over, and the tassels opening up. There isn’t much wind to blow the pollen around right now, though. I considered trying to hand pollinate them, or even just give the stalks a shake, but the winters squash vines below are so big, it would be hard to reach without damaging them. I’ll just have to let nature take it’s course.
I’m happy to say, the new strawberry plants that got eaten by a deer are recovering. I’m seeing new leaves appearing, at least. I don’t expect them to recover enough to produce berries again, but hopefully they will recover enough to survive the winter.
We’re supposed to be getting hotter again today, and even hotter tomorrow, so I’m still watering the garden every morning, while it’s still cooler. After feeding the outside cats, of course. Some of the kittens are getting gummy eyes, including Button. I brought him inside and held him while my daughter cleaned his eyes, but he was the only one I was able to catch.
Speaking of Button…
I was just finishing up when I started getting messages from the Cat Lady. Her son is expected to be home from the hospital on Friday, so she’s hoping to be able to get Button on the weekend. I’m so glad to hear he’s responding to treatment, and isn’t going to need surgery. Thank God! Things could have been so much worse!
She came home late last night to discover Cabbages had knocked over a 15′ palm tree they have in their house. That’s a new achievement for Cabbages! Good grief! What is it with her and plants?? I told her about a cat turning on our flooding issues, and we commiserated over the destructiveness of cats! 😁
Thankfully, Broccoli isn’t destructive! At least not like that. She’s very destructive when it comes to anything threatening her babies.
I spotted her nursing her calico baby under the wheel barrow while I was watering. They stayed there long enough that I was able to sneak a photo, after they were done. Rabi is such a beautiful kitten! She’s going to be a long haired beauty, like her big sister, Brussel. Hopefully, though, we’ll have better luck socializing Broccoli’s kittens, this year!
I’ve started making plans for an outdoor isolation cage. I’ve got two versions I’m thinking of. The small version, we could probably put together with materials we have on hand and maybe just need to buy hinges, or wheels, if we decide to make it more easily mobile. This “small” version would still be 4’x4’x4′, I think – plus the height of legs – and have two levels. I want it to have a floor at least a few inches off the ground. It also has to be solid enough to keep the raccoons out, since it would have food and water inside. A smaller cage would be ideal to keep a single newly spayed or neutered cat safe during the recovery period. I’m thinking an insulated shelter box on the bottom level, with a hinged access door on one side or the back, and a covered area beside it for a litter box. The litter box would also have a hinged door to access it from the outside. The door in the front would be hinged so that we can drop it to the ground like a ramp. When no cats are in isolation, they could go in and out as they please, and it wouldn’t be associated with the fear of being trapped. The upper level would have space for a cat bed or two, food and water bowls or whatever we set up for them to enjoy and play with.
While we plan to use wire mesh for the walls of the shelters, we’ve got so many salvaged windows in the barn and one of the sheds, I would love to be able to incorporate some into the walls of an isolation cage. It would be very convenient, for example, so have a window in the wall that could be slid open to access the litter box or food bowls inside, rather than making a hinged door.
I haven’t decided on the roof, yet. We still have leftover pieces of metal roofing material, so we’ll most likely scavenge some of that.
A larger version would be something with a human sized door, that we could walk into. Maybe not with a lot of room, but enough to go in and clean things or do whatever is needed. That one I’m thinking would be made large enough to keep two or three cats in during recovery or treatment. If we get the old catio the Cat Lady can no longer use, that would probably be what we use to make a larger isolation cage. I have no idea what the catio looks like or how big it is. We did have some photos of cats in catios sent to us, before they moved to their current house, but I don’t know which one couldn’t be used anymore after their move.
For now, though, we need to have something ready for when we can start trapping cats, one at a time, for spays. A smaller isolation cage should be faster to build.
In theory, at least!
Anyhow.
So that was our morning today.
As I write this (just past noon), we’ve reached 25C/77F, with the humidex putting us at 29C/84F. We’re expected to get a few degrees hotter, but we might actually get a bit of rain late this afternoon. Just a 35% chance of it, though, so not likely. The weather radar does show the system being pushed right over us, though, so we’ll see.
The Re-Farmer
[just before publishing this, I decided to see what the AI assistant would tell me about this blog post. I found it rather funny, and thought I’d share. This is what the AI thinks of this blog post:
The content is engaging and provides a detailed account of a challenging morning. Consider adding subheadings to break up the text for easier reading. Also, including more images or visual elements would enhance the reader’s experience. Additionally, linking to relevant content within your own blog can increase reader engagement and time spent on your site. Overall, the personal storytelling style is authentic and enjoyable to read.
😄😄
Also, I hate their “improve title” alternative title suggestions. They are the sort of titles that would have me NOT click to read a blog post! They feel so… artificial.
As has become usual when I start my morning rounds, I look for Button to make sure he is okay. I’m just that paranoid about the tiny beast. Especially with a busy night chasing raccoons out of the sun room. I had the critter cam feed up, and my goodness, where they busy last night! At least I knew the cats had a chance to eat first. Most of them, at least. Any late comers would have had to contend with the raccoons. There was one big one that came in several times. Then a mama her family of four “little” ones (not so little, this time of year!) and then another mama with three littles that my daughters chased out.
With the cats having eaten, I probably wouldn’t have bothered chasing them out, except that they started going into the cat cage, where a couple of babies were sleeping, and on top of the cat cage, where there is a fairly large cat bed full of kittens.
Needless to say, I didn’t get much sleep last night!
This morning, however, Button was, as usual, cute as a button!
It was pretty early in the morning when I went out, to water the garden before things got hot (as I write this, it’s 28C/82F with the humidex putting it at 30C/86F. While I was in the city, it was 30C/86F with the humidex putting it at 38C/100F), I sent a message to the Cat Lady. I told her I was going to be in the city and what area I would be in, and offered to bring Button to her.
Well, that poor woman just can’t catch a break. She was already dealing with painful recovery from surgery on her hand. I was almost finished with the watering when I got a response from her.
She was in the hospital with her son, who suffered a head injury while playing hockey. I got updated through the day, and the potential prognosis is very dangerous, so they’ll be keeping him in the hospital for at least 5 days.
Needless to say, she wasn’t about to leave her son to pick up and deliver a kitten!
Good grief.
Gotta keep this amazing woman and her family in my prayers, that’s for sure.
When I finally headed out, I made sure to grab ice packs from the freezer – leaving the ones my daughter uses around her computer. I even double insulated the packs, putting them in a smaller soft sided insulated bag, then tucking that soft sided bag into an insulated hard sided bag. They actually stayed frozen for the entire trip!
The trip itself took longer than expected. My plan was to go to the town my mother is in to get a bit of gas, then cross over to another highway that would take me straight into the street I was planning to do my shopping at.
The highway going past our place is in the process of being resurfaced with fresh chip seal. Everything was considered a construction zone. Normally, that means the speed limit is 60kph.37mph, but they didn’t have those signs up. They did have signs saying to reduce speed to 40kph/25mph when passing oncoming traffic.
Most of the oncoming traffic I encountered didn’t even slow down from highway speeds, which is 100kph/62mph.
Then the traffic came to a complete standstill, with a highway worker holding a stop sign up. We ended up waiting there for about 5-10 minutes, during which time a couple of dump trucks with more aggregate were allowed through.
After a while, we started to see oncoming traffic behind a pilot vehicle. The pilot vehicle pulled over to let the traffic behind it through, the turned around to pilot us back the other way. The highway was down to one lane only, and we ended up driving on the shoulder at one point, to make room for oncoming traffic behind another pilot vehicle.
Things cleared up just a short distance from my mother’s town, where there is no road construction happening at all. When I got to the gas station, however, I could see construction signs in the distance, south of town. I don’t know how much further south the construction zone continued, and was more than happy to cross over to the other highway.
Needless to say, I took the other highway to get back home when I was done!
The trip itself was productive, at least. It was a small trip, but still expensive. 😢
This is the largest of the melons that I’ve seen (there might be others, hiding in the leaves) from the Summer of Melons mix. This mix of seeds has early, mid and late season melons, and the early ones – whatever varieties they are – are definitely showing up in the trellis bed, where the first transplants went in.
I took one photo yesterday and the other today. What a lot of growth in just one day!
I think I’ll try and make a point of taking photos of the melons and squash more often, with my hand as a size reference. The winter squash and pumpkins has also been getting visibly bigger, from day to day.
Today, we reached our expected high of 29C/84F, but I didn’t notice what the humidex was at at the time. Tomorrow, we’re expected to hit 30C/86F, and the humidex is expected to reach 38C/100F. Our low tonight is supposed to drop to 17C/63F by about 3-5am. I’ll definitely be out early to do the watering again, while it’s still cool.
My husband and I had plans to meet a friend in the city today, but unfortunately, his pain levels were just too high. I am expecting to do our first stock up shop tomorrow, as CPP Disability is supposed to come in on Monday, and when the disability payments are due on a Monday, they’ve instead been deposited on Saturday. However, just in case, I went into town early this evening to pick up a few things to tide us over the weekend. There were some really good sales on, so I got more than planned, and was still in budget, which is always nice.
After what happened this morning, with having to bury 4 newborn kittens, every time I’ve gone outside, I’ve been looking all over, hoping not to find any more. After chasing some raccoons out of the sun room, I gave the cats their evening feeding, then stayed outside to make sure the cats got a chance to eat before the raccoons came back. There was one bugger that was watching me from behind a tree for a while, but I didn’t want to get too close to chase it off, as that would have scared away the more feral cats eating under the shrine. Tricky bugger! It did eventually leave, though.
Since I was being eaten alive by mosquitoes, I kept moving around, eventually going into the West yard.
That’s when I saw one of the cats in the lawn near the old kitchen garden. They’ve worn a path in the grass from the lilacs behind where the tulip bed it, and the corner of the old kitchen garden. There was something in front of the cat that was still there when she ran off. Other cats also went to see it, so I had to check it out.
Yup. It was another dead kitten. It looked to be only a couple of weeks old, and had been dead for a while. It seems a mama was bringing it to the house and it didn’t make it, like the one I found in the old kitchen garden not long ago.
That’s 5 kittens I buried, in just one day.
It’s getting to the point that every time we go outside, we’re nervous about what we’ll find. With this heat, the kittens by the house tend to just splatter themselves all over, in the grass, on the sidewalk blocks, in the sun room, all stretched out and sleeping, and we have been checking to see if they’re breathing!
It’s Button that really gets me. He will sleep absolutely anywhere, usually in high traffic areas. Since he is so very tiny, and has a forever home to go to, I’m the most paranoid about him! I chatted with the Cat Lady today and we have a tentative date to connect on Sunday, if she is able to come out this way. Unfortunately, she just had surgery on one of her hands not long ago, and it’s been hurting a lot, so she might not be up to making the trip.
Hmmm… if I do go to the city tomorrow, I wonder if there is somewhere closer to her place where we could meet, and I can bring Button with me? I’ll have to message her and find out.
It’s not even 8:30am as I start this, and I’ve already spent a couple of hours outside. It was already 19C/66F, and I don’t think we got any cooler than that overnight. Right now, we’re at 23C/73F, but at least the wind is making it feel a bit cooler.
We’re still expected to reach 29C/84F as a high today, so I wanted to make sure the garden got a watering before the heat hit. Most of what we’re growing this year is stuff that needs a lot of water to begin with, but they also like heat, so this should work out, I think.
After I was doing the last beds in the south yard and dragging the hose back to the house, I spotted something dark in the grass.
It was stillborn kitten, completely encased in its amniotic sac. I was surprised to find it, since I’d gone past there with the hose earlier. It wasn’t until I collected it to bury it that I realized how wet it still was. This happened while I was out watering!
After I buried it, I started looking around in case there were anymore. I found one just around the corner of the house.
This one was not in its amniotic sac.
Then it moved.
There was no mother in sight, and it had clearly been left there, likely before the first one I found was stillborn.
Sadly, I had to dispatch it, because there was no way it was going to survive.
I’d messaged a daughter about it and she came out to join me. We walked around the house looking, in case there were more, but we found none.
This is one of the more feral cats from last year’s late litter of eight kittens. That would make her just over a year old. While I’ve been able to sneak pets now and then, as soon as she realizes I’m touching her, she runs off in a panic. Otherwise, she does stay close to the house in general.
I tried to see and she did look a bit damp under her tail, but not enough that I could be sure – she could just as easily have gotten wet sitting in the damp grass. And she still looks rather round. Which means either it wasn’t her, or it was and… there’s more in there? Good Lord, I hope not.
While my daughter and I were walking around, she updated me with her own situation. She is absolutely stressed out and exhausted. Her computer has been dying for a while, and she’s picked out a replacement system at Memory Express that meets her needs. Unfortunately, that’s when she discovered her credit card expired last year – and they never sent her a replacement. She used it to buy her current computer, at least 10 years ago. The card was paid off and she wasn’t using it, and never noticed that it was expired until now. So that was going to delay her purchase.
The problem is, in this heat, her computer is not wanting to boot up anymore. She had a couple of completed commissions that need to be sent out, plus she needed to buy more online storage to use as a backup. She has the free storage available, but it’s not enough. She managed to get the computer working long enough to send out the completed commissions, but her computer crashed again while she was in the process of paying for the online storage.
So she’s been spending most of the night with her computer covered in ice packs wrapped in towels, fighting with it. She got the commissions sent out and finally got to the point where she is backing up the one essential folder she needs to protect, to start with. Once that started uploading, she couldn’t use her computer anymore. It’s still backing up as I write this. She has tried going to bed earlier, so as not to be hovering over it, but she keeps getting up to check it. With good reason, considering how often her computer has been crashing lately.
We talked about finding a way to set her up in the living room, where the air conditioner is, but she doesn’t think she needs to. Part of the problem with her computer (besides its age) is the physical case. It just can’t cool itself down enough. Newer desktops, like the one I had to get, have much better cooling systems, and the boxes allow for more air circulation.
She noticed a selling feature on the desktops she’s been looking at often includes their improved cooling systems!
Meanwhile, she’s been transferring funds from her PayPal, which can take several business days to process. If worse comes to worse, she’ll pay us to get it for her. Chances are she won’t be able to purchase her replacement computer until the middle of next week. Worst case scenario, it will have to wait until next month. Most of her clients are repeat customers, so it’s unlikely she will lose any commissions in progress, but it will certainly delay things.
Meanwhile, she’s stressed to the max.
It’ll work out. It’s just that in between stage that is making things difficult!
This will make the third desktop in our household that’s being replaced, and we’re still paying off my husband’s.
Ouch.
At least she can claim hers as a business expense!
So that was what I got updated on while we were walking around the house. Thankfully, we did not find more remains. When I head out later in the day, I’ll have to look again, just in case.
What a year this has been.
And it’s not even the end of July, yet!
The Re-Farmer
[Update: *sigh* we just found 2 more, scattered about. Confirmed the mom. She completely ignored her kittens.
This picture of domestic bliss was interrupted when suddenly she, and two other mamas, drove off Rolando Moon! Rolando doesn’t like the babies, nor any of the other cats, really, and I guess they see her as a threat.
Just a little bit longer, and Button will be off to his forever home!
The Re-Farmer 