While I am using my phone to make this post, because I can’t do anything with photos on my desktop, this might be the last post where this is an issue.
My new computer is ready to be picked up at the post office.
Unfortunately, I can’t get there before it closes over the lunch period. It reopens at 2, so I’ll head our then. After that, we’ll see how long it takes to set it up and see how it works. It will take a long time to set up or transfer my data over, but I should at least be able to go online and write posts.
I really hope this turns out to be a good machine.
In other things, cat related.
I’ve been chatting with the Cat Lady. They now have several cats from us, living with them permanently. They have pretty much all had weird health issues. Thankfully, Cabbages is now hale and hearty. Leo – a kitten we never named and never expected to survive – had lung issues but is now officially declared healed.
Then there is Muffin, a muted calico that was supposed to be adopted out, but bonded instantly with her husband. For some reason, she hates the Cat Lady, but gets along with everyone else. She also goes to job sites and coffee runs with her husband!
Well, one day, while the family was out of country, her mother, who was taking care of the cats while they were gone, found her with a bloody mouth. After an emergency weekend trip to the dentist, she had some teeth removed.
Since then, they got a diagnosis of stomatitis. She’s going to need all her teeth removed. !!!
Telling my daughters about this, they told me of a cat they follow online (Yes, a cat; not the owner!) that had all her teeth removed a couple of years ago. Apparently, cats can handle being gummies just fine. So hopefully, things will work out for Muffin.
I shared this with the Cat Lady, along with mentioning how we feel so bad that she has all these cats from us that turned out to have major health problems. She told me it was okay. Other cats they’ve found themselves with have been much more difficult. And she wasn’t talking about the one that was do physically abused, he can no longer eat without help, and had to have a leg and tail amputated.
Which is rather alarming!
Then she got back to me later, after talking to someone with 41 cats, wants to adopt some out and get some of them fixed.
Just some?
The Cat Lady says she is getting so tired of dealing with the public, she just wants to focus on us and our cats.
What does that say about the other situations she deals with, when ours is the least problematic??
Speaking of which…
We have a problem with Driver.
A couple of days ago, he seemed to be limping on a back leg. I wanted to keep an eye on him, but yesterday, I never saw him walking. While feeding them, he was in the cat bed under the platform in the sun room, and didn’t get up. When I came back after finishing my rounds, he was gone. Checking through the bathroom window during the night, though, I spotted him on the top shelf by the window. I figured if he could get up there, he was doing alright, or at least improving.
This morning, however, he was walking around on 3 legs, holding a front paw off the ground.
About the only positive thing I can say is that the leg isn’t dangling. With Ginger and with Toni, when I saw how their legs were dangling and flopping around, I knew right away, amputation would be the most likely recommended course of action. With Driver, however, he’s holding the leg up, but there is nothing swinging around or flopping. As I had not noticed him favoring his front leg before, this may even be a new injury he somehow got last night.
The last I saw him, he was disappearing under the storage house. I wasn’t even allowed to get close to him, never mind pet him, which is now unusual for him.
The problem is, we can’t even take him to a vet. With the spay day coming up this weekend, plus expenses like the new computer, expecting new glasses for my husband, etc, we just don’t have any more budget left for vet bills. I’ve told the Cat Lady about it, but not with any expectation that they should take in the expenses.
We have had cats show up favoring paws or legs before, that healed on their own. We will watch closely. Hopefully, it’s not anything serious, but at the moment, I can’t get close enough to check.
After getting my routine stuff done this morning, I got sucked into the vortex of cats on my bed. I didn’t need to go under the covers. They plastered themselves on and around me, and kept me warm!
I fell asleep, but not for any excessive length of time, yet after I got up, it seemed like time just skipped an hour here, another hour there. Very odd.
I’m still fighting with my computer. It takes at least two tries to get it to boot up. I can’t do anything productive on it, but I can go online and browse or watch some videos. I can even play my Alien Crossfire, a game old enough that it doesn’t tax my system. At least until the mouse suddenly isn’t recognized anymore.
Hoping the new machine arrives early!
My husband asked me to go into town for something, so I took advantage of the trip to refill out big water jugs. It was still daylight when i went into the grocery store. It was full dark when I came out!
And raining.
It’s been a while since I drove in the dark, and I didn’t get very far, before I pulled into a gas station to clean my headlights!
The highways are fine to drive on, but the gravel roads are a mess. The shaded parts are still covered in ice and snow, so they are slippery, but that’s about it. The sections of bare gravel are horrible. The freeze/thaw cycle is tearing them apart, and it’s like driving on a washboard. The parts that are not as filled with potholes are no better. I could feel my back end trying to fishtail in the mud, more than on the wet ice!
We have one more day where the highs are expected to be above freezing, then we are supposed to get hit with another Colorado Low. The rain we’re getting now is expected to turn to sleet and snow for a couple of days. Saturday, which is when I’m taking the cats in to the spay clinic, is supposed to be clear again. Here’s hoping!
I’ll still take this over the -20C to -30C of past winters, any day!
Now to wrap my brain around the fact that it’s 7:30pm right now, instead of the 5:30pm it feels like, for some reason.
My daughters requested a trip to the city for some of their own shopping. My younger daughter found a yarn shop in the city and ordered yarn for a sweater she wants to knit for herself. The yarn was ready for pick up today, so today it was! From there, they had a shopping list for the international grocery store.
There was one surreal thing that happened during the drive in I still shake my head over.
Part of the route to the city is a divided highway, with a shallow ditch in between. The highway is two lanes in each direction, and the ditch in between is roughly as wide as another two lanes. Every few miles, there are cross roads and the occasional access lane for vehicles to turn around.
We were coming up to one of these cross roads when I saw what I at first thought was a large black dog running on the cross road towards our side of the highway. Then it rolled across both lanes and I realized it was a tire! Thankfully, there were no cars in that section of the highway at the time, and the tire rolled harmlessly into the ditch on the far side.
According to my daughter, who could look more closely as we passed it, it was smoking!
Of course, we were looking for where the tire came from. We could see a semi pulled over onto the shoulder in the opposite side of the highway. As we drove by, we could see it was resting on the rim on the front driver’s side tire!
Thankfully, the driver never lost control of his vehicle, and there were no other vehicles near it when it’s tire somehow blew itself off the rim and launched itself across a total of 4 lanes and a ditch!
That could have been so much worse!
It still feels so weird, remembering seeing a tire crossing the highway on its own!
Once in the city, my daughter and I hit a drive through for breakfast, then ate in the parking lot. Neither of us wanted to people while we were eating. 😆
Then, it was off to the downtown area and the yarn shop.
Finding the yarn shop was not too difficult.
Getting to it and parking was another story!
This area of the city is old residential, with many very narrow streets, all of which were in terrible condition. They were all 2 way streets, but most had parking on one side, leaving barely more than a car’s width to drive through.
Then we found ourselves coming up to repair crews, with three huge trucks, and no way to turn around or go around. Thankfully, one of the trucks was able to move, we squeezed through and made what should have been our last turn.
I ended up having to drive past the yarn shop, taking the next turn and drop my daughter off in the street! I was then able to drive around the block and come back to the store from the other direction and even *gasp* find a parking spot.
It was worth it, though. We haven’t been to a proper yarn shop since we moved to the farm. I haven’t even been to a Michael’s in years.
It was absolute heaven! So many gorgeous yarns! It took some major self control not to throw the budget out the window and go nuts. Not so much with the yarns that cost over $40 a hank, but there were those clearance bins…
*melt*
I know we could buy all sorts of yarn online, but nothing can beat being in the store and able to handle the yarns and see those glorious shades in person!
My daughter got her yarn and some knitting needles in the sizes she needed, and we finally tore ourselves away.
From there, we went to the international grocery store. My daughter had her and her sister’s list, but when we walked in, I saw they were having a case lot sale.
I got my own cart!
This is what I ended up getting.
The dim sum tray was a treat for supper. Delicious!
Some of the items, such as the Kraft Dinner, were both part of the case lot sale and featured items on their app that I could load onto my loyalty card.
What I like about their receipt is that they list the regular price, then the amount discounted is right under the item. Not all places do that.
So while the total was $140.18 before taxes, that was after $55.77 was taken off for the sales.
I actually didn’t realize until I was looking at the receipt at home, that my 2L of milk was only 99 cents! I had not seen any signs for the milk being on sale. I even grabbed from the back of the display, for one with a later “best before” date.
While I use the app on my phone to scan my loyalty card, my physical card being worn out years ago, my daughter has a spare physical card. I had enough points that she could get some of her stuff for free.
So that was a fortunate unplanned shopping trip. Normally, we miss these big sales, simply because we make as few trips into the city as we can get away with!
When we do go in, though, we try to make as much use of the trip as possible, so we made one more stop at Walmart to get more wet cat food. We are trying to increase how much wet cat food vs dry kibble we give the inside cats. Leyendecker should really be getting wet cat good only, since he has blocked twice now. The wet cat food is more expensive, but not as expensive as vet bills!
Speaking of cats…
I counted 31 this morning, but I did not see Sad Face.
You’d think they would stay out of the moat, but nope. They will cross through the water, rather than go around through the snow! They also seem to prefer drinking from puddles of melted snow over the water bowls. The water bowls have been very full still, when I come out in the mornings.
We are supposed to get colder, soon. The driveway is going to be insane, once all this water freezes!
Ah, well. At least we aren’t snowed in, like the East coast is right now. My friend in Halifax posted photos. They’ve managed to dig a path to the road, and have hopefully dug out their van by now. Her husband was in one of the pictures, standing in the narrow path to the road, with walls of snow reaching well above his head!
I popped outside briefly last night, when raccoons showed up in the sun room again. It was raining ever to lightly at the time.
By morning, we were still above zero, with a light fog. Things are pretty wet and slippery put there!
We’ve got the “moat” forming around the garage – something more typical or March or April.
That didn’t stop Driver from following me around and demanding attention! He kept flopping in front of my feet, until I finally picked him up and carried him.
I managed a head count this morning. The cats still aren’t all back to using the sunroom at night, but I think I counted 35 this morning!
Meanwhile…
I am having major computer issues again.
I tried using my movie making software last night. I finally started seeds and was going to make a quick little silent video.
The computer started making grinding noises.
As the noises got worse, I tried shutting down the machine, but it wouldn’t shut down. After numerous attempts, I finally did a hard shut down and tried again, after waiting the 20 minutes or more it takes to boot up now.
After doing a few things to make sure it was functioning, I tried the movie making software again. As I was going through Windows Explorer to find some images to include, it started locking up on me.
Oh, and I can’t see my external hard drive, where i have been moving my photos and video to conserve space.
When I tried navigating around WE, it started “not responding” on me. Of course, with WE, you can’t just End Task it. The only option is to restart it.
Which locked up even worse. I got a white screen that wouldn’t go away.
After having to do hard shut downs several times, I called it a night.
This morning, I tried turning on my computer.
It wouldn’t boot up.
After having to do a couple of hard shut downs, I got the dreaded blue screen, and the “this device needs repair” message.
Much to my surprise, though, I was able to go through the prompts and get it started! While I’ve been tapping this on my phone, it managed to finish booting up.
Meanwhile, my husband has been looking up computers on Amazon for me. Not that we can afford one that has what I need. He was even looking at ones with payment plans, but those were even out of budget.
As much as I love the truck, the payments we ended up with were over budget, and that’s really affecting what other things we can do.
We have GOT to get more of the inside cats adopted out.
Last night was a rough one.
With my arm still giving me grief, I tried going to be early again. While I could move my right arm forward and back as normal, if painfully, I still couldn’t get it move more than a few inches straight outward.
When I go to bed, I often has several cats that insist they MUST be either right against me, or me, and they don’t often give me a chance to finish getting into bed before they do it! Cheddar is one of several that has decided where I sleep is his spot. He’s a big boy, so moving him with one wonky arm was a challenge! Others will move as I pull the covers back, but not Shadow in the Dark. He’s one that likes to curly up near my face or against the back of my neck, and he won’t move. So lifting the covers usually results in him being rolled over and over, then he lies there, all sprawled out, looking at me like I’ve offended him somehow!
That’s not unusual, though.
Butterscotch made things unusual.
She’s been doing quite well, and even gotten to the point that she has started to leave my room, if only to go as far as the steps to the dining room, or peak around the corner at the basement door, to look down the hallway, before running back into my room.
Lately, however, she has taken to growling and snarling.
Sometimes, I can see that there’s a cat nearby that she’s snarling at, but they’re usually just there, and not even looking at her. A couple of times, one of them would go at her, but it seems more a response to her snarling, and not the other way around. Other times, I’ll hear her snarling, and I can’t even see any other cats around her.
Well, it seems that having so many cats in my room, usually covering my bed, sleeping in groups, is stressing her out to the point that she isn’t going to the litter boxes. She’d have to go past the other cats to do that.
The first time I heard the odd noises, I found her squeezed onto one of the boxes I’ve set in front of the wall shelf, under my craft table. I’ve got other boxes inside the bottom shelves; with the table there, they can’t be accessed for us, but when they were empty and I thought the cats were just using them as places to sleep, we discovered they were defecating in them, so we blocked them off with empty boxes. One of those overhangs the edge of the shelf, and she was squeezed between the box on the floor and the overhanging box.
Then I started hearing a very strange sound indeed.
The sound of hard turds dropping onto the box she was on!
I managed to get her out of there, but then she went into a shelf above where I sleep; the shelf I keep my glasses in, as well as where I put my phone on a stand to charge at night, among other things.
I got her out of that, and she squeezed herself into the space of another shelf, in between my cookbooks and the top of the mattress. I tried lying down again, but more noised had me getting up again to investigate, and this time she was digging into the shelf that I use for some of my clothes. I got her out of there and tucked her into the nearby cat cave, and she stayed there.
Not for long.
I was again awakened by strange noises, and this time I found she was making a mess on my bed, between my pillow, and my leaning sheep – a large stuffed sheep I sometimes use to lean against when sitting up in bed, but is normally stored in the shelve under where I keep my glasses. It’s large enough to almost fill the space completely.
Well, this time, it was a very messy mess.
My daughters are still timing things so that one of them is always available to help me with his, so I messaged my older daughter to help me. We wiped up as much as we could, then stripped the bed. The fitted sheet and the leaning sheep had to be washed, along with one pillow case, but the mess was bad enough that we had to strip the waterproof mattress cover for washing, too!
By then it was past 1am – so much for going to bed early!
While my daughter got the laundry going, I started putting out wet cat food. That lured all but one cat out of my room. I set wet cat food out in the bowls I have there, which allows for Butterscotch and a few of the the shier cats to get some, without being pushed around by the other cats. This time, I was able to close the door and keep the other cats from coming back in during the night.
Of course, that meant frequent interruptions by cats trying to claw the door open.
Eventually, though, I did hear Butterscotch going into a litter box, which should have been a good thing, but… something didn’t sound right. So I used the flashlight on my phone to try and see her.
*sigh*
Yeah, she was using the litter box, finally, but didn’t quite go all the way in.
She ran off again and hid in her cat cave while I got up and cleaned up the mess.
*sigh*
After that, things did finally quiet down, and I managed to get some sleep, but all this having to get up and check things was quite painful.
I have discovered on thing, though. While my girth may make it seem otherwise, I’ve got some pretty decent abs! I had to sit myself up many times using just my abs, and not being able to use my arms at all.
With just Butterscotch in her cave and what turned out to be Susan sleeping somewhere else, I actually was able to get some decent sleep, if only for a few hours.
This morning, I felt good enough that, when my younger daughter went to feed the outside cats, I went along to help out, then do the rest of my rounds and switch out the trail cam memory cards.
I was very happy to demonstrate to her that I can now lift my right arm straight out again! While there is still some pain, I have almost full mobility of my arm again! The level of improvement since yesterday is amazing. I’m so relieved! There were times I seriously considered getting my daughter to drive me to the hospital, but giving it a couple of days of rest seems to be what I really needed. In fact, while writing this, I just tested my arm again, and I could do a full rotation at the shoulder, with no pain! Not even my left shoulder, which was not strained as badly, still has more pain now than my right shoulder does. I’m so relieved!
While doing the morning feeding, neither of us tried to do a head count. There were clearly fewer cats than usual, but they were also running around a lot, making it hard to keep track. There were these two, though…
The cats still aren’t going into the sunroom as much as usual. Checking it just a short while ago, there was a small pile of maybe three or four cats on the platform, and that’s it. Usually, we’d see about 6 or ten on the platform, and almost as many under the heat lamp or on the cat bed below, plus more in the shelf, at the food bowls or just wandering around. It’s going to take time for them to start feeling safe in there again.
These two are almost always in the sunroom. Syndol can’t get enough attention, but the little one (can you believe they’re only about a month or so apart in age?) is now getting to the point of enjoying pets and being picked up. We’d brought this one into the house a couple of times to give his nethers a thorough washing. He was so patient about it, the girls have named him Patience.
Even his tortie sister has started to allow me to pet her more often, and will tolerate being picked up more. Which is good, because it means we can bring her indoors for overnight fasting at the end of the week, before taking her to get spayed. Oh, how I wish more of the females could be socialized enough to get them done! My daughter was able to pet Broccoli this morning, but she wouldn’t let me near her. I did manage to pet Junk Pile – the first time in ages. She seemed shocked at being pet, and liking the shoulder skritches, but didn’t allow it for long. Even Caramel was around, but I only managed to touch her while she had her back to me while eating. Brussel won’t let us near her, but she will go into the kibble house and even into the sunroom. Sprout keeps her distance. If we’re around, she won’t eat at all, and she prefers to eat from the bowls under the shrine, across the yard. We’ve seen Slick around, I think (aka: Octomom), and there’s another grey tabby that’s more spotted then striped that I think is also female. That one will eat at the kibble house or on the cat house roof, but is even shier than Sprout, so we haven’t been able to confirm, either way. Another one we have not been able to confirm is one more from that late litter of either kittens; a small grey tabby with dense longer fur. It will go into the sunroom to eat, and I’ve been able to sneak a pet on its back, if it can’t see me, but that’s it. Given how it won’t let us near it, I’m going to just assume it’s female. 😕
Anyhow, that’s the current status.
In other things, my daughter was able to help me move a chair out of the living room so I have access to the aquarium greenhouses again. With my arm mobile again, my goal for today is to get the big aquarium ready for seed trays, then hopefully actually get seeds started. We’ve got the red onions, yellow onions and shallots that should have already been started by now, plus some peppers and eggplant. Possibly some oregano and thyme, too, but those can probably wait a couple more weeks. I’ll have to go through our seeds that need to be started the earliest and make some decisions. With having to build or rebuild so many beds, once things are thawed out enough, I’m going to work on the assumption we won’t have room for everything we want to plant. Especially for things that would need to be planted in ground, like corn.
We shall see how things work out. For now, I’m just glad to 1) be pain free and mobile enough to get back at it and 2) not have any unexpected running around to do, but actually be home to get my own stuff done!
Time to grab a stool and get at those aquarium greenhouses!
I’m going to start this with some cuteness. I could really use some cuteness right now.
Not a very clear picture, but it was getting pretty dark and the time. This little sweetie is starting to actually enjoy being pet and even picked up, if only briefly.
Also, I’m very happy that he’s alive and unhurt.
I’ll have to explain that particular statement in a bit, but I’m rather unhappy right now.
I had called my mother last night and made arrangements to help her with her groceries today. At her request, I was going to pick up a hot lunch at the grocery store first, if they had them ready, so I left earlier and expected to be away for some hours.
They didn’t have the hot lunches, but I was still able to pick up a meal for us, and we had lunch together, then went over her grocery list. Grocery shopping by myself, with just her list, is a lot faster, and even got a bit more of a visit in before she left for a regularly scheduled social gathering some social workers arrange in her building.
I hadn’t had much sleep the night before, having discovered a huge puddle on my bed and needing to do laundry in the wee hours! Once I was back home and settled, I tried lying down for a bit, on the half of my bed that wasn’t still air drying. Yes, I had the new waterproof mattress cover on, and yes, the puddle actually soaked through it in spots.
While I was lying down, I had my phone on the charger on my desk when it started making notification noises. I ignored them, partly because I was buried in cats. After a while, though, my husband came by, commenting on how surprised he was that no one commented on the photo he’s sent.
Before I left my mother’s, she gave me some stuff to take with me. One of them was a baggie of different types of candies and chocolates that the social workers give out to everyone in her building. The girls and I had split them up, with a few going to my husband, including some caramels.
The picture he’d sent was of a caramel.
This a crown stuck to it.
The candy had actually pulled it right off!
After talking about it briefly, my husband made a phone call to the dentist. It was shortly after 3, and they were willing to take him in right away, but with how long it takes to drive into down, it was too early. So they said to come in for 4.
I could hear his side of the conversation and, once I realized he was able to get in right away, I extricated myself from the cats and started getting ready to head out again. I drove the truck into the yard, then went to the sunroom, which had only the outer door tied off, so I could open it from the outside, to get his walker.
I reached in to untie the door, and it growled at me.
I opened the door, and there was a big white dog standing there, looking at me.
At first glance, I thought it was the dog belonging to the younger of my brothers, who lives on the quarter across from our driveway. He doesn’t come around anymore, so that was a surprise.
Then I realized, it was not my brother’s dog. First off, this dog was not as fluffy. My brother’s dog gets very fluffy in the winter. Also, this dog had very distinctive eyes; one blue, one half blue, half brown.
I stepped aside and the dog left the sunroom, but it didn’t go far. It was very nervous and wagging it’s tail, but it was the sort of “if I reach out, will he lick my hand, or bite it?” nervous behavior. I didn’t reach out to it, of course, but the dog did start barking at me.
I still had to get the walker, though, so I went into the sunroom. There, I found a few things knocked out of the shelf against the window and onto the floor under the platform. The only cat I saw was the little fluffy tortie, and she was clambering her way up the shelf to the very top. It wasn’t until I was outside with the walker, after picking some stuff back up again, that I saw there was another cat already up there. They were watching me – and the dog – out the window.
The dog was still barking as I got the walker set up. My daughters, of course, came out to see what was going on, so while I fussed with the walker, they were on the other side of the kibble and water bowl shelters, and able to see what I missed.
A cat, lying dead in one of the paths in the snow leading to the food bowls under the shrine.
It was the single calico cat among last summer’s kittens. We’ve never been able to socialize her, but she was a talkative one and would always greet me when I came out to feed them.
I had to confirm that she was dead, of course, and she had clearly not been gone for long. I was able to move her to where she will later be cremated, and I’m sure that if I’d touched her with my bare hands, she would still have been warm.
Needless to say, that dog was no longer welcome.
We did some banging around and commended him to go home, but he just ran around the house. I chased him away some more, and he eventually ran out of the yard.
We were all quite unhappy with the situation.
My husband, meanwhile, had come out of the house and was in the truck. We needed to get going. We left the girls to take care of things, including locking the gate behind us, so we could get to the dentist.
It was just 4:00 as we came through the doors!
They got my husband in quickly and, while I waited for him, I posted a message on an FB page for our community, as well as on my personal profiles (since recovering my stolen original account, I still keep both old and new accounts active), about the dog, what happened, and our general location.
We did have a bit of a surprise at the dentist.
They already had a file for my husband.
Neither one of us remember him going to the dentist since we moved out here, but apparently they have him on file for 2021.
I was in the process of messaging my daughters to update them when my husband came out.
He was done.
When he made the appointment, they asked him to bring in the broken off crown. It turns out, all they needed to do was cement it back on again!
Then it was time to pay the bill. They do direct billing with the insurance company, but when they tried to process the payment, they got a message to get the new card information. There had been some changes within the system and we got new cards, but they had the exact same information on them. In fact, they sent us new cards twice, because of some other issue. I had both older cards, plus the newest on, in my wallet, so we were able to look at all three to compare.
They all had identical information on them.
Rather than fuss with it then, the receptionist said they’d clear it up with the insurance company, then bill use the rest later.
I remembered to ask how much it was, and it came out to $190. Our coverage is 90%, so we won’t have much to pay at all, when the time comes.
Since we were in town anyhow, my husband suggested we get something to eat. Clearly, his mouth was feeling just fine!
So we went to small restaurant nearby, and I was a very rude person, frequently checking my phone. There had been a number of reactions to my posting about the dog and what happened.
Then I started getting some private messages. A friend and neighbour sent me a picture of a dog. I couldn’t tell if it was the same dog, though. It had its fluffy winter fur, for starters, but I couldn’t make out the colour of the eyes. I asked about the eyes, and my friend said it was his brother’s dog (they live on the same quarter section), but he wasn’t sure about the eyes.
Then he sent me another picture. This time, it was a summer picture, so the dog’s fur was sleek. More importantly, it was a clear shot of the dog’s face – complete with porcupine quills in its snout!
Once I saw the eyes, though, it was confirmed. This was the dog that we found at our place.
We messaged back and forth a bit, and he gave me his brother’s phone numbers.
When we were done eating, and getting some take out for the girls, we headed straight home. The light was fading fast, so as soon as I parked the truck, I wandered around the house to see what I could see. Which was nothing obvious, but it was really getting too dark by then.
While we were out, our daughters kept an eye out for the dog, and did the evening feeding of the outside cats. A few of the cats had started to come back, including some friendlies that wanted pets.
The sunroom doors were also secured with both doors tied off, and tightly. There would be enough room for cats to squeeze into the sunroom, but no dog is getting in there!
My husband took his walker in through the main doors and is now storing it in the entry, in front of the washing machine, again. It’s more in the way, there, but we can’t get into the sunroom from outside anymore, when both doors are tied off like that.
Once things were settled indoors, I went through the old kitchen to go to the sunroom. There were only 3 cats in there; the fuzzy black one in the photo above, Syndol and one of the white and greys that’s really friendly. When I had been walking around outside, I did see a few cats around, but they were understandably very nervous and quick to run off. I did see Rolando Moon as we drove into the yard, and Brussel by the garage, plus a few more identifiable ones. It won’t be until tomorrow morning that I’ll be able to try and get a head count and take a good look around.
Meanwhile, I did phone the guy the dog belongs to. He had already been told what happened by my friend, and was in total shock. When he got home from work, the dog was at home and everything seemed normal. Plus, this is a dog that is not prone to wandering, even when chasing deer out of the yard. The dog looks like it’s part Pyrenees, and they like to guard their own territory. That he should wander to another farm a mile away, then kill a cat, is extremely odd behaviour.
Had my husband not had to go to the dentist unexpectedly, I wouldn’t have gone out for at least another hour, to do the evening cat feeding. I would have found the sun room half trashed and almost devoid of cats, and I would have found that little calico in the path, and never known what happened – and the dog’s owner would never have known his dog had wandered off.
As we were talking, one of the things he asked me is if we had a BB gun or pellet gun. We do have a pellet gun. I have permission to use it to scare the dog off.
Which is unlikely to happen. I don’t typically carry it with me when I do my rounds!
To be honest, though, I was thinking thoughts about having our crossbow handy.
I am seriously unhappy.
We are dog lovers in this household, but a dog that’s a killer is a different situation altogether.
Hopefully, we will never see it again.
I’m going to miss seeing that gorgeous little calico.
Oh, and jus to top things off, I’ve wrenched my shoulder. When the dog had gone around the back of the house, and my daughter could see it through the sunroom window, in the old kitchen garden, I went around to chase him off. Right now, instead of a rain barrel at the corner, we have the diverter set up. It extends as far as the hand rail with the rose bush growing at it, near the steps for the laundry platform. With how warm things have been lately, there’s been a lot of melted snow from the roof that flowed onto the ground in the space between the handrail and the laundry platform, and towards the cat shelter.
The very space I needed to go through, to get to the old kitchen garden.
It was, of course, very slippery. I used the hand rail to keep myself upright, but still came very close to falling a couple of times. I didn’t think I’d hurt myself, but the more time goes by, the stiffer my shoulders are getting. My right shoulder, in particular, is getting so that it’s painful to move, or raise my arm at all. I’m going to have to pain killer up if I’m going to get any sleep tonight!
Here is a rolly polly Rolando Moon to delight you…
… while I wait in a parking lot, for our quarter beef pick up.
It still makes me giggle, every time, that we do this like some sort of illicit drug deal.
Though the way things are going with the powers that be, I might not be far off the mark. So many groups are now calling to end the eating of meat, especially beef, I wouldn’t be surprised if they try to make it illegal.
Hopefully, sanity will prevail.
Until then, let’s appreciate a fuzzy orange belly and all those toe beans!
I was awakened by an army of cats demanding to be fed, so I finally got up to do that, a bit earlier than they usually get fed in the mornings. I tried going back to bed, and several of them “thanked” me, by laying down with me.
And on me.
At one point, I had four cats lying across one arm alone!
Eventually, I was able to crawl out from under them and got out to do my morning rounds about an hour later than usual. I was just finishing up when I came around the corner of the house and saw this.
There had actually been more of them in the paths to the bowls under the shrine, but a few ran off before I could get my phone out for a picture. It’s been so much warmer, I can’t get a good count of how many there are. They are a lot more active, and not staying as close to the house. They’re also not as hungry, which can only be helpful when it comes to the cat food supply! In fact, I went out to do the evening feeding before starting this, and didn’t have to add more kibble at all, there was so much still left!
I got a message from the Cat Lady this morning, to confirm how many females will be brought in for the cheap spay day. The clinic needs to know by Feb 1st, as spots are filling up fast. They’re doing males, too, but the spays are more intensive than the neuters, so they need to know. I’ve confirmed we’ll have 2 indoor females and 1 outdoor female, plus 1 indoor and 1 outdoor male. We’ll try to get the fluffy tortie indoors for overnight fasting, but we won’t be able to do that with an outdoor male. In fact, when it comes to an outdoor male, we’ll just grab whichever one we can get into a carrier! I would like it to be Shop Towel, but I didn’t even see him today, and there’s no way to be sure he’ll be around. We already do their evening feeding while it’s still light out, so the food is typically gone before 8pm, and that’s as close to having the outside cats fasting as we can get. The clinic does trapped ferals, too, so they are understanding if some cats may or may not have had an overnight fast, and are as prepared as they can be for that.
I’ve been informed that, along with the donated cat beds and other stuff the Cat Lady has for us, she’s got another kennel – by which she means, a cat carrier. I still am not used to her calling carriers, kennels. To me, a cat kennel is one of those wire cages, sometimes with multiple floors inside, and enough space for a litter box. Which I do want to get, to make it easier to isolate cats indoors. Right now, to do the overnight fasting, we’ll have to keep the fasting cats closed up in my room overnight. With needing to isolate 3 cats for fasting, that’s not too bad, but if we only need to do one, or a few kittens, a kennel would be far more efficient, and I wouldn’t have to worry about cats escaping if I have to go to the bathroom during the night!
After the morning rounds were done, it was my turn to do the upstairs cat litters (I can’t do the downstairs ones, as with my knees being so unstable, going up the stairs while carrying the buckets would not be safe for me to do). At the same time, I had the computer starting up. Last night’s upgrade was downloaded and the computer shut down, so it needed final installation when I turned it on. As a result, start up was even longer than it has been of late. Thankfully, everything seems fine. I’m still slowly going through things that I haven’t accessed for so long, all my saved passwords, etc. need to be input all over again. In some cases, I’ve even had to change passwords, because the ones I tried were coming up as “you are using an old password”. Frustrating. Still, it’s getting done, and the computer is behaving, and that’s what’s important.
Anyhow.
I never even made it to the computer this morning, other than turning it on. By the time I finished my chores and made breakfast, it was almost noon and, for some reason, I was incredibly sleepy. My daughters apparently were having issues, too. My younger daughter has been trying to go to bed early, then get up early, but Sunday nights is their regular gaming night with friends in various time zones. So she got up later this morning. My older daughter, who has gone back to working at night, partly to keep the cats from attacking her sister (who does the same for her during the day) had work to do, but was falling asleep at her computer, and ended up going to bed much earlier than usual. Neither of them got much sleep.
I was finished up my breakfast and my older daughter was chatting with me, and I was so tired, I was actually falling asleep mid sentence! I finally gave up and went for a nap. It wasn’t even 12:30, and I was planning to go to the post office to pick up a parcel when it opened at 2. Still, I figured at least an hour would be good!
Well, I did get about an hour or so. Which was interrupted.
I think I was lying down for less than half an hour, when the first interruption happened. My older daughter was in the kitchen, getting started on some cooking, when the power went out.
My daughter’s first thought was that the kitchen breaker was tripped, but nope. The furnace had been running at the time, which I can hear the loudest in my room, and that shut off.
Of course, what really got my attention was my hearing my computer shut off.
Not good, on a computer that is already on its last legs!!!
My daughter mentioned she had seen some trucks milling around at the intersection near our place, and wondered if they had done something. With all the fans and furnaces and whatnot off, even I could hear the reverse alarm from the trucks on the road.
My husband was in the process of trying to find a strong enough signal to report the power outage to the electric company with his phone, when my daughter, still in the kitchen, saw some guys at our power pole!
My husband went out to talk to them (I was only half awake through all this). He was told it was regular maintenance, and they apologized for cutting our power; they didn’t think anyone was home.
!!!
Normally, for things like regular maintenance, I would have received an email from the electric company, but not this time!
It was good to know that we lost power on purpose, though, rather than some sort of failure somewhere. It was back on again before long.
When 2 rolled around, my daughters did the wet cat food, and the cats surrounding me exploded the moment they heard a can open. While being used as a launching pad was rather painful, it did mean I could finally roll over onto my non-aching hip! It wasn’t long before I was enveloped in cats again, but I figured I could lie down for a bit longer. In fact, I’m going out to pick up our quarter beef tomorrow. Picking up the parcel can wait until then, right? I’ll just get a little bit more sleep.
Of course, when I did try to get up, I had even more cats on me. One of them was David, who doesn’t usually cuddle me – he prefers my daughters – so I didn’t want to move. My bladder, of course, had other ideas, so finally I dragged my butt out of bed. It wasn’t until after I’d talked to my husband for a while that I suddenly realized…
It was well past 4pm.
I’d slept for at least another two more hours!
I had no idea I was that tired! I’m not even sure why I was so tired. Sure, I had a cat-interrupted night, but it wasn’t any worse than usual!
So my plans for this afternoon just sort of disappeared, along with my day.
My plans involved things like vacuuming, so I’m not exactly heartbroken about it.
For now, I need to go through the trail cam files, which I normally would have done in the morning, and see how many more old files I can delete to clear more space on my computer.
It’s just past 7pm as I finish this. It’s full dark out right now – sunset is shortly after 5pm these days – but it’s still 2C/36F out there. So warm!! We had a high of 4C/39F, which is what we’re supposed to reach tomorrow, too – but the say after, we’re now getting a predicted high of 7C/45F!!! The 10 day forecast has us with highs above freezing every day. Woohoo!!! The record high for today was 3C/37F, back in 1976, while the record low was -38C/-36F in 2004. The average high for today is -12C/10F, so I am quite enjoying this break from our typical winter temperatures!
Not having the furnace running all the time is going to be much nicer on our electric bill, too!
Anyhow. Time to get my butt in gear, and get at least a few productive things done this evening!
I’ve been able to sneak a touch while she was eating on the cat house roof maybe twice before. She’d panic and run off.
Today, she was at the water bowl in the sunroom as I came in from outside, her back to me. I started to pet her back, and she just kept drinking! A couple of other friendlier cats started to push in on either side of her, wanting pets, too, so she started looking around. That’s when she finally looked behind her and saw me, still petting her back.
She moved away immediately, but not in a panic, and not in a run. She just went under my husband’s walker and watched me.
So I started petting other cats, and saw the fluffy tortie was in reach, so I picked her up. Her response was to immediately start purring! She still wanted down, but she enjoyed some cuddles, first.
I even got to pet Sad Face (AKA: Shop Towel) for a bit.
I’m just so excited to finally pet Brussel. It’s only taken a couple of years! She’s been hanging out in the sun room a lot more, too.
Now, if only her short haired sister, Sprout, would start coming to the sun room, too. I’ve stopped putting food under the shrine, so she at least had to come to the kibble house to eat.
I had intended to put this box in the shelf shelter, as the cats have broken and torn off most of the insulation “walls” I put across of fronts. It’s too big, so I stuck it in the water bowl house. It didn’t take long for Judgement to discover it!
It’s becoming quite warm out there. Yesterday, we reached 0C. Reports to the road conditions group I’m on described icy roads and even rain!
Today, we’re supposed to reach a high of -1C. We are already at -3C, with a “RealFeel” of +1C. In a few days, we are expected to reach highs several degrees above freezing for almost a week. I’ve even seen a forecast of +6C, but only from The Weather Network app on the TV, that we get through our Roku device. That’s the only one that’s connected to the Government of Canada data.
Speaking of the Government of Canada, the past few days has seen news that even filtered its way through the social media censors. It took this long for a federal court to rule that our Prime Dictator’s use of the Emergency Act against the trucker protests 2 years ago was, in fact, unconstitutional. Of course, everyone who read the Act knew that already, just like we all know all the mandates and restrictions were unconstitutional and illegal. There are still four political prisoners rotting in jail, once again denied bail.
Of course, our Supreme Leaders admit no wrong and plan to appeal. Why not? They don’t have to pay the course costs. We do. Listening to various Liberal and NDP politicians lying through their teeth in their responses is as disgusting as ever. Their paid media is having difficulty covering for them, but they do it, anyhow. Without all that government money flowing, they would have collapsed years ago. Only the independent media is reporting on it fully. At least, in beteen getting arrested or assaulted for asking questions.
I’m thankful to be out here in the boonies, and not in the cities right now. Aside from the increased costs, we are largely untouched by their shenanigans.
It’s getting really hard to afford to feed the kitties, though.
The Re-Farmer
(Dangit. I wrote this post this morning, and I was sure I published it. It’s now late evening, and I just found it in my drafts.
The Re-Farmer 