Critters

What do you mean it’s not even noon yet?

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Well, this has been an unusually busy morning. Maybe busy is the wrong word. Let’s just say, there were a lot more different things that got done in a short time, rather than spread out over the day.

I took quite a few photos I wanted to share, but I am pretty short on storage space in my WordPress account (and I’m not willing to pay through the nose to upgrade my plan, when storage space is the only thing I need!), so I’ve uploaded them to Instagram, instead.

First up, check out these beauties!

The Black Beauty tomato is well named. They are gorgeous, and there are so many of them! Of course, the colour makes them very easy to see, unlike the Roma tomatoes, where the developing tomatoes are the same colour as the plants right now.

Then I spotted this guy on the grape vines.

We’ve figured it out. I’m not finding different Abbott’s Sphinx caterpillars. It’s the same one, in different stages of growth. So it went from that incredible blue, to brown and now brown and green. From the photos I’ve been looking at, I think we might see one more colour change before it starts to cocoon itself.

When feeding the cats this morning, Not-Junk Pile actually let me pet her… sort of. So we gave it a try and got the ear mite medication. It too my daughter and I many attempts to get close to her – she kept moving away, but was hungry enough to keep coming back for the food. Finally, while she was in the kibble house, my daughter was able to duck in and use the syringe to apply the ear might medication to a spot between her shoulders. Unfortunately, there’s no way she would let us rub it in like it’s supposed to, but it’s the best we can do.

We have not been able to re-catch that kitten with the messed up eye. The eye is still open, but the swelling around it is huge, and I don’t think it can see at all out of that eye. From what little I can glimpse between the eyelids, it’s just red flesh.

After we managed to dose the cat, I threw away the syringe and packaging, then went to switch out the memory cards in the trail cams. I was just coming up on the driveway cam, reached into my pocket for a memory card…

And pulled out a syringe package.

So I went back to the garbage can in the sun room and retried the memory cards I threw out with the syringe… 😂 It seems that when I dug around the bottom of my pocket for the syringe cap, I grabbed the memory cards as well. I also had the empty syringe in my hand, so I thought I grabbed the packaging as well.

Oops!

After I was done with my morning rounds, I headed into town to the post office to pick up the other two books my husband got me for my birthday – and was surprised to find another package as well. I was just turning the corner on my way home when I realized that stick on the road was NOT a stick!

I was so excited to see my first garter snake of the year! Well, maybe. I might have seen one other, squished on the road, awhile back, but definitely the first live one. I carefully drove around it, and it didn’t move, so I stopped to take a picture out my window. Then I drove ahead, parked, and got it off the road. I did not want to take a chance that it would stay there and get smushed by the next vehicle! I hope it would cross the rest of the way towards our garden, but it turned around and went the opposite direction. Ah, well. Hopefully, it will make its way to our garden and start feasting on slugs and other critters that might harm our plants!

Once at home, I quite eagerly opened the packages. Here are my new books.

Somehow, I was expecting the books to be much larger, like the first one that came in. 😄

If you look at the contents pages, the first book (which is on the right) is almost entirely dedicated to food. The second book (on the left) adds in a few more topics, but is still largely focused on food.

I look forwards to going through these!!

The next books I want are newer editions of the Back to Basics book we have now. That one covers growing and raising food, butchering, preservation methods and recipes, too, but it starts with things like how to select land to purchase, how to did a well, and even step by step instructions on how to build three different types of houses, including a cordwood house. I’ll be using some of the techniques in there for when we build our outdoor kitchen. It also includes things like joinery, blacksmithing, etc.

We passed on many of our books before we moved, so we need to rebuilt our resource library!

As for the other package, that was like Christmas! A dear friend passed on some items. There’s a whole lot of very old cookbooks that I’m quite excited to see, and even a collection of seeds that belonged to a mutual friend and neighbour. They are all “expired”, but I will try planting them next year, anyhow. The germination rate will be low, but at least a few should still manage.

Well, this took longer to write than usual, because I’ve also been messaging with our mechanic.

He wasn’t sure the van was worth fixing, either. It hasn’t been long enough to rebuilt our credit rating enough, yet, so applying for financing at this point would not be a good idea. Plus, the Caravan we were interested in has sold, anyhow. I mentioned we were planning to replace the van in the fall, anyhow, so spending so much money to fix it just doesn’t make much sense. He ended up offering to buy it for scrap, of that helps us any. I think that’s what we’ll end up doing. We’ll get a few hundred for the van, depending on what the price of scrap metal is right now, and can cancel the insurance. The van cost less than my mothers car to insure, but it’ll still be reducing that cost by almost half. We can put that money towards savings for a down payment, instead.

So I think that’s what we’ll end up doing. Which means a trip into town to remove a few things from the van. Maybe not today, but we’ll see.

I do hate having to rely completely on my mother’s car, but we weren’t driving the van because of the noises it was making, anyhow.

Well, that got interrupted mid sentence…

It’s decided. We’ll sell the van for scrap. I’ve let him know, and might head over this afternoon to empty it out and do whatever paperwork is needed.

That van had a lot of problems, but considering the circumstances and the mileage, it really did to well for us.

Ah, well. It is what it is!

The Re-Farmer

So many! Plus an evening in the garden

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While catching up on a few garden things in the cool of the evening, I happened to walk near the covered board pile outside the living room window, where Not-Junk Pile has her litter. I’ve been seeing 3 kittens running around and playing on the tarp, and the tire and tire rim we have on top to keep it weighed down.

I could see Not-Junk Pile lying in the grass, nursing her littles. They noticed me, and three kittens ran off into the brush around the board pile.

Leaving three others behind! They and their mother watched me closely as I walked by, but did not run away.

Six.

She has SIX babies!!!!

I saw them again later, and it was quite hilarious. I had to zoom in from a distance, and this is the clearest photo I could get.

That’s just a whole bowl full of babies in there with her! 😹😹

As I was in and out of the sun room, I spotted the kitten with the messed up eye. It’s looking really swollen – even more than before – around and behind the eye socket. I let the girls know, so they could try and get it and tend to it as best they could, but it ran under the counter shelf, and none of us have spotted it since. I did manage to snag a black and white kitten with a gummed up eye, and one of my daughters was able to wash it clear. There’s a white and grey kitten with an eye stuck closed, too, but I haven’t been able to catch it.

As I was finishing up, I spotted a teeny little tuxedo running around outside the sun room door. I’m not sure that I recognise it.

Speaking of recognizing cats, after I put the kibble out and cats were coming around, I realized I was seeing both Junk Pile and Not-Junk Pile. I tried to move closer to Junk Pile, but honestly, the only way I can tell them apart unless they are literally right next to each other, is from the wounds Not-Junk Pile has behind her ears, from scratching herself. We still haven’t been able to catch her to give her that ear might medication, which is really getting to be a problem. The wounds behind her ears had been healing up, but today they are red and raw again. I did manage to come close enough that she sniffed my fingers, but that’s as close as she’ll let me get to her.

We reached at least 24C/75F today, though the thermometer in the sun room was hitting 30C/86F. For all the severe thunderstorm warnings we were getting, we didn’t even get rain. So I made a point of watering as much of the garden as I could, while doing other stuff.

It’s too early for the water soluble fertilizer I used to make much visible difference, but that bed with the Roma tomatoes is bothering me. They are just not thriving, for all that they are producing tomatoes. That bed has a mulch of shredded paper, because that’s all we had left at the time. It does the job, but isn’t as good as a grass mulch, and we have a nice big pile of grass clippings available right now, so I went ahead and topped up the bed with a few inches of grass clippings around the tomatoes, between the onions, and especially the edge, where the crab grass comes up from under the logs framing the bed – and right on top of the soaker hose that winds its way around the bed, leaving only the connector sticking out. Then I went around and pruned the bottom branches off the tomato plants. I’m hoping the fresh mulch and the pruning will help the tomatoes get healthier.

After that was done, I hooked up the garden hose, then went to look at the new soaker hose I set up and tested in the purple corn bed. I got the soaker hose because it was affordable, but I guess you get what you paid for. It works just fine, except for the connector. Inside the connector was a flat green disc with a small hole in the middle. I figured it was to control the flow of water into the soaker hose, but when I hooked up the water hose, it sprayed from between the threads. With the disc there, there’s just too much water pressure, forcing the water out through the connector. So I tried taking out the disc and tried again, but there is no rubber washer, so it still leaked. A lot. I have extra rubber washers, but when I put one in, I discovered that the connector isn’t as deep as others. With the washer in place, there wasn’t enough thread to screw on the garden hose! The washer is just too thick. It’s fine on every other hose. Just not this one. I did eventually use it without the rubber washer, but not for long. There was just too much water leaking.

I did, however, have an extra female coupling, so while giving the other soaker hose time to give the tomatoes and onions a good watering, I cut off the connector on the new hose and replaced it. The original coupling was at the end of a plastic tube on the outside of the soaker hose. The new coupling has a metal tube that needs to be inserted into the hose, then a worm clamp is tightened to keep it in place and from leaking. Getting that into the soaker hose took awhile, though! It was designed for a half inch hose – which is smaller than the hoses we have, but the clamp makes up for that. The soaker hose opening is narrower than half an inch! Thankfully, the material it’s made of does stretch, and I was able to get it in properly, then clamp it down.

Once the tomato bed was watered, I tested out the new hose with its now connector, and it worked perfectly!

Oh, slight interruption!

My daughter read that tonight was supposed to be a good night to see the Northern lights, and she invited me to go outside and see if they were visible, or if it was too cloudy. It turned out to be too cloudy, but we heard the barking sound of racoons, so we went to check.

We found two young racoons on the cat hour roof. When they saw us, they flattened themselves down as much as possible, and froze! We ended up using the hose to chase them off, but… gosh darn it, they are so flippin’ cute!

Anyhow… where was I?

Ah, yes.

With the new soaker hose working, I decided to set up a sprinkler over the squash patch, so the whole patch can be watered at once. We have oscillating sprinklers we found after moving here – three of them. They work, in that they spray water, but the oscillating part doesn’t work at all on two of them.

Of course, the one that worked was the last one I tested!

Turns out that if it’s set right, it not only waters the entire squash patch, but also the small patch with the drum gourds and zucca melon – and the corn bed! So it got a real good watering this evening!

By the time I used the soaker hoses and sprinkler for a half our each, it was getting too dark to do much more, so it was time to go in, and away from the mosquitoes! We’re still getting predictions for rain tonight, but I’m not expecting it to reach us, so I might be watering some more, in the morning!

I so enjoy being able to work outside. I’d say outside all day if I could! Heck, with the temperatures we’ve been having overnight, I’d happily sleep outside, too. One of these days, we’ll have a mosquito proof gazebo, and I’ll be able to do just that!

The Re-Farmer

The current state of things

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Wow. Things have lurched from great to not-great pretty severely, today!

But first, kitten updates!

All six of the inside kittens have figure out how to get out of baby jail. When I was up and about this morning, they got all excited and started wailing, so I put them on my bed with a bunch of toys, and they were happy!

The new kitten, Question (who, it turns out, is female) is definitely more lethargic than the other kittens. I had to wash her eyes out this morning, and throughout the day, we were more likely to find her sleeping somewhere by herself, rather than running around and playing with the other kittens.

They can get out of baby jail, but then they want to get back in and seem to have more difficulty, so I moved the little scratching post over. They can now climb up it and access the top of the “door” to get back in.

We have to keep the door closed and severely watch our feet, now!

When I went to feed the outside cats, I found several kittens curled up together and sleeping on the cat bed we brought in with the trio of kittens I found yesterday. I did not see the trio and hoped the mama had come by and got them, but as I was finishing my rounds, I spotted the two orange ones. Looks like they were just hiding under the counter shelf. The problem is, there’s still been no sign of Caramel. At least Gooby did show up last night. I was concerned about him. When I told the girls about not seeing him, they told me he’s been up on the roof, looking plaintively into their window, and batting at the screen to get in!

One important thing is that I was finally able to catch the kitten with one eye that’s been stuck shut for days. It took the longest time to gently moisten the gunk. It was completely dry and rock hard. The entire eye area was quite swollen. When it got to the point that I could finally, ever so gently, pull apart the lids a bit, all I could see was red tissue. I feared the eye may have been lost, but when I saw the kitten later, the eye was still open, and I could actually see the eyeball. So maybe I got to it in time. I sure hope so.

It’s been hot today, so all the cats and kittens outside are mostly lying around in the shade, sleeping! We were getting severe thunderstorm warnings today, too, but all we’ve got outside here is high winds. I’ll be dong my evening rounds pretty soon, so I’ll be sure to check on the eyes as best I can.

I have a birthday this month, and one of the books my husband ordered for me as gifts arrived today.

Click on the contents image to see the whole thing. The other two books are being shipped together, and are on the same general topic.

My husband knows what I like! 💖💖💖

Oh, I just checked the tracking, and apparently the other two books came in today! I may have gone to the post office before they had a chance to finish processing the parcels. I’ll have to go back tomorrow to pick them up. 😊

The girls, meanwhile, treated us to take out. Normally, the birthday person gets to choose what restaurant we get food from, but this time I told the girls to use the money to get their driver’s licenses for my birthday – or at least get appointments made. The last time my younger daughter was able to book a road test to get her full licence, the nearest appointment was 3 months ahead. She has to book 2 hours with a driving instructor before she can book a road test, though. That got delayed by the lockdowns, and just hasn’t happened, since. Who knows how backed up things might still be. Her sister needs to do the written test to get her learners licence.

The girls still wanted to treat the family, though, so my younger daughter drove me into town. We got a bucket of fried chicken, then hit the grocery store for a few other things, including the cheesecake I chose for a birthday cake. It was very delicious! Last month, the girls picked up the entire Columbo series on DVD, so we enjoyed the food while watching Columbo.

Anyone else remember when TV shows were actually good? It’s been so long…

There was one major downside of the day, though.

I got word on the van.

That noise I was hearing from the back?

It was the brakes. They all need replacing.

Which… considering how long it’s been since we had the brakes done, is pretty fair. However, it’ll cost almost $730 to do them. The power steering pressure hose that needs replacing will be almost $270. So we’re looking at just under a thousand dollars in repairs.

We don’t have that, even if we dip into savings, which is supposed to be going towards a down payment for a replacement vehicle.

The van isn’t even worth that much.

I saw the message letting me know the cost just before the garage closed, so I don’t expect to hear from him again until tomorrow, but I was honest and said as much regarding the repairs. He knows our situation, so I’m sure he was expecting something like that. Then I asked if he thought it was too soon to apply for financing on that Caravan his still has for sale! For all I know, the price on that has dropped again. I haven’t looked at it since I brought my mother’s car in to get it looked at because the check engine light had turned on. There wasn’t anything serious and he cleared the codes but, yesterday, it turned back on again. *sigh*

Talking about it with my husband, he brought up the possibility of asking if we could pay as much as we can for the brakes now – they would be the higher priority – and pay the rest off next month, then do the power steering pressure hose another month. As he pointed out, the van may not be worth much when it comes to dollar value, but it’s a vehicle that runs, and a vehicle that runs is worth a lot more than one that doesn’t! That’s something I can talk about with our mechanic tomorrow. The thing is, we plan to try and replace the van before winter. If we spread out the cost of repairs over several months, we’d be done at about the same time I’d be applying for a replacement vehicle anyhow – but we’d have nothing for a down payment except the “trade in” value of the van. Which would be going for scrap. So all that money we’d be paying would basically be throw away. When we did apply for financing before, it was with no trade in and no down payment, so maybe we can do that again, too. Either way, I’ll talk to the garage about it tomorrow.

Oh, I just thought of something. If we don’t fix the van and sell it for scrap, we’d be cancelling the insurance on it – and that will free up some budget that can go towards a replacement vehicle… Hmmm…

Well, what will be will be.

Time for me to head outside and check on the kitties!

The Re-Farmer

It’s been a day of kittens! Plus, van update

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I had a pretty surprise while doing my morning rounds. A couple of the newly opened poppies are very red, instead of mostly white, like all the others!

This is what they are supposed to look like. At least, this is how the Baker Creek website shows them.

Poppy colours were not my only surprise today!

Today has been a day of kittens.

First, when we brought Ghosty’s brother in to wash his eyes, we didn’t put him back outside. Instead, he went into baby jail with Ghosty and Decimus’ four. I ended up giving them wet cat food, as even the littles are starting to eat solid food. When Decimus came in, she sniffed at the stranger, but was far more interested in the wet cat food!

I’ve been sending updates to the Cat Lady, but thinks are still in the air at their place. The cat that got hand, foot and mouth disease while they were away, is now blocked! The vet is trying to save him. So coming out here might take a bit longer!

Later on, my husband told me he was hearing what sounded like a kitten in distress outside his window, so I went to check.

It took some digging, but I did find where it was coming from. A kitten had pushed itself right into the corner of the house. There are a whole bunch of things stored there, but I was able to get it out.

Here’s a slide show for you…

After snuggling it for a while – it’s a young one with very blue eyes – I spotted a mama in the kibble house, so I set it down beside her.

She was not his mama, though, so she soon left, but he stayed there, huddled among the kibble trays.

While I was getting him unstuck, I’d heard meowing from somewhere else nearby, so I went looking to see where it came from. Which is when I spotted Caramel and an orange face peeking at me! I’d put a strong plastic bin against the wall in such a way as to create a shelter. Originally, I even had a box with an old pillow in it, but it wasn’t being used, so I moved it to the cat house, but left the bin. Now I know where Caramel moved her babies to! She only moved them less than 20 ft! Assuming that’s where they’ve been, all this time.

I went inside but kept checking on the baby, who stayed huddled in the kibble house, alone. So I picked it up and cuddled it some more, before putting it on the cat bed in the water bowl shelter, so it would at least have someplace more comfortable to be!

Again, I kept going out to check on the baby, and decided to use my phone’s camera to see the kittens in the bin.

They weren’t there.

But I did hear mewing.

Behind me was the stack of flattened corrugated plastic boxes. They’d fallen over in high winds, but I left them like that, since they formed a sort of shelter. I lifted them up and found two kittens! One orange, one orange and white.

I snuggled them for a bit, then put them all together in the water bowl shelter, since they are clearly all from the same litter.

Then I went into the sun room and found three black and white/tuxedo kittens cuddled in a heap, napping. It’s a hot day today, and there are cats sleeping all over the place! I just had to take a picture, and could see the eye issues. One tuxedo has one eye that’s been gummed shut for days, but we haven’t been able to catch him to clean it. The black and white one had both eyes gummed mostly shut, so I was able to pick it up. I snuggled it for a while and it seemed really calm, so I went ahead and cleaned its eyes. It took quite a while, but the kitten was amazingly patient the entire time! Then, when it could finally open its eyes, it stayed in my arms for a while, just looking around.

Then it climbed up on my shoulders, where I couldn’t reach it anymore! I ended up having to go to the shelf just outside the door and lean over, so it would jump to the top. Then I was able to gently pick it up and put it on the ground. It didn’t even try to run off!

Pinky happened to be there and started showing me just how long he can stretch!

Which actually called to mind something that had me concerned.

I haven’t seen Gooby at all, today.

The last I saw him was yesterday evening, out by the squash patch. He and Pinky started to fight, and my daughter had to break them up.

The last time a cat that I normally see every day suddenly wasn’t around was Pointy Baby. I found him with his head stuck in the chain link fence, and he died that night from his injuries. So now I’m concerned that Gooby is injured or stuck somewhere. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for him!

The three littlest kittens, meanwhile, were staying together in the water bowl shelter!

Meanwhile, the new indoor kitten seems to have already been absorbed into the creche! He was more nervous of the little kittens than they were of him. I have no idea if he and Ghosty remember each other, but they are getting along just fine. Decimus came in and settled to nurse, but only a couple of kittens were interested. The two bigger ones ate their fill of solid food, then wanted out of the cage. They can get out pretty easily, but the littles are figuring it out, too. It just takes them a bit more scrabbling! I ended up with the two older kittens and two younger ones running around. I definitely have to watch the wheels on my office chair when getting up from the computer!

Oh, my goodness! I was wondering why it was so quiet, so I went to check. Decimus is now lying on the floor, outside the cat cage, nursing those four kittens – including the new addition! – while the other two are still in baby jail, playing!

What a good little mama!

So… yeah. This has definitely been a day of kittens!

On a completely different note, I got word back from the garage. It needs a new power steering pressure hose, and will cost just under $270. Which is under budget, but there’s still that noise in the back. I asked him about it and he asked some questions, then said he would check the van again and get back to me. So I hope to hear from him tomorrow. It could be the brake drums, but we haven’t driven the van in months, before I drove it to the garage, and the noise wasn’t there before.

The question is, if there is something that needs major repair, is it worth fixing? The mechanic thought that, at best, he might be able to get $400 for it at the scrap metal dealer, though scrap metal prices have gone up since then. If the repairs end up costing more than $400, we will have to decide if it’s even worth fixing. We really need a second vehicle; my mother’s car is great to have, but we need that van.

Well, we shall see what he tells us, and go from there.

Meanwhile, I think I’ll got check on some kittens and do my evening rounds!

The Re-Farmer

Some cuteness, and an unplanned outing

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First, the cuteness! I came into the sun room and spotted this ball of adorableness.

I sometimes like to add some kibble onto the feed bag stuffed with packing material they like to use as a bed. They have a proper bowl, but they can’t all fit around it. Especially when some of the adults decide to eat from it, too!

The kibble bin was running low. We bought four 9kg and two 11.6kg bags of kibble during our last Costco trip. The kibble bin for the inside cats just got refills, which left the equivalent of less than a bag for the outside cats.

All that, and it’s only July 11!

So I made the trip to the nearest Walmart, at the smaller, nearer city, to pick up more. I ended up buying their last three 11kg bags, then two more 9kg bags.

All the bags were the same price. 🤔

Of course, I took advantage of the outing and got a few more things we needed. A smaller case of wet cat food for the cats in my room and the kittens – I’m now seeing other kittens eating the wet cat food, too! The replacement coupling for the hose I needed. That sort of thing. But I completely forgot to look at shoes! I need a pair of work shoes that are not boots. 😁

Gas prices I saw were pretty high. Passing through the town my mother lives in, they’re at 158.9¢/L, and in the city it was 157.9¢/L. I took a chance and took a different route home, in hopes the prices were still lower in the town we usually go to. Sure enough, the prices are still 149.9¢/L I don’t know why this one town has prices that are so much lower than elsewhere, but I’m not about to complain!

One thing I did before heading out was leave a message at the garage, asking if they’d had a chance to assess what’s going on with our van, yet. It was something they were going to do in between other scheduled jobs. Still no word, though. I hope I hear something soon! As much as I appreciate being able to use my mother’s car – and the working air conditioning! – I much prefer driving the van. Especially when we need to get things like 5 or 6 big bags of cat food!

Of course, it’s entirely possible that noise I was hearing in the back will require more expensive repairs, and we’ll have to decide if it’s worth fixing at all.

Just a few more months of using my new credit card and paying it off every month, and my credit rating should be good enough to apply for financing on a newer van, with an interest rate and payments we can afford.

It’s taking a while, but we’re getting there!

The Re-Farmer

Finding storm damage, and critters!

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My evening rounds today included picking up fallen branches, and assessing storm damage. It’s been a long time since we’ve had so many fallen branches, I needed the wheel barrow to help pick them all up!

Here is a slideshow of what I found in and around the spruce grove.

While I was out with my mother, my daughters tell me the rain, then the storm with hail, went through so quickly, it was like a tap was turned on in the sky. One of them actually saw the top of the spruce come down.

Walking around the perimeter of the spruce grove, I found where a large chunk of dead poplar had fallen, causing damage to an apple tree nearby. As I went closer to see how big it was, I realized I was seeing more than one tree top. It’s hard to see in the undergrowth, but the top of another dead spruce had come down, and the two actually overlapped each other on the ground.

In the same general area, there was also an entire tree that had fallen. No surprise that the based had been destabilized by ants. That’s usually why the dead trees finally fall.

Going past the garage and along the fence line, there was a pile of downed branches from several trees. After that, things seems pretty normal. A few dead branches and there, but there are already so many in there, it makes little difference. There is one tree, however, that keeps tipping further and further. It’s actually still alive, but slowly falling. Meanwhile, there are two dead trees right next to it that are still standing, straight and tall!

Making my way back to where I started around the spruce grove, I suddenly saw a little kitten running across the grass, towards the covered pile of boards – what we used to call the junk pile, but I’ve clear the junk off and discovered a carefully stacked pile of salvaged boards. Whatever tarps had covered it before were disintegrated by the wind, but we were able to cover it with a new, heavier duty tarp, in hopes that we’ll be able to keep them from rotting even more, and be able to use some of them. This pile has been home to litters of kittens for a very long time – and is how Junk Pile Cat got her name!

So I had no doubt little grey tabby was returning to its next under the pile. I took a couple of zoomed in photos, but didn’t try to come any closer, as I made my way back to the house, where I saw Junk Pile (or her doppelgänger; I can’t tell them apart unless they are next to each other, and I haven’t seen one of them in ages) cross the yard to the covered pile. When I came around the lilacs, I startled a little white and grey kitten! As I slowly paused and took its picture, I spotted another kitten peeking at me from under the down spout. When the two of them got together, I had to try and get some video. The image quality drops off the more I had to zoom in, but at the end, another white and grey kitten is there with Junk Pile – and this one is much larger than the others! I’ve no doubt they’re being cared for together as one litter, but the last white and grey kitten is clearly older.

After checking things around the inner yard, I headed out to check things in the outer yard. There are several maples with a lot of dead sections, and I wanted to see if any more dead branches had come down in the storm.

As I came close to one of them, I heard some scrabbling and at first thought it was a cat climbing the tree.

I was wrong.

I went looking for branches, but found three little racoons, instead! They kept freezing, the moving a few inches, then freezing, the shifting a bit, then freezing again.

That gave me a chance to get quite a few photos, and even some video.

Gosh, they are so cute!

But I do wish they wouldn’t keep eating the cat food! We already had to stop feeing the birds because of them (and the deer), but they are quite the opportunistic omnivores!

On top of all this, I was being followed all over by at least three yard cats the whole time. This was a very critter filled evening!

The Re-Farmer

Cool find, and a run around day

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First the cool stuff.

About a week ago, we found this bright blue caterpillar on one of the grape leaves.

Absolutely stunning colour!

We’d never seen one before and had no idea if it was a “good” or “bad” caterpillar, but we left it alone. After a rainstorm, I was surprised to find it still there, and then it just disappeared.

This morning, I found a different coloured one!

I almost brushed it off because at first I thought it was a dead leaf hanging, and then it moved and curled up like this!

It took some searching, but we finally found out what it was. It’s the caterpillar for an Abbott’s Sphinx moth, or Sphecodina abbottii. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen the adult moths around, but had never seen the caterpillar. Turns out, they can have quite a few different colours and patterns on them, but that blue is my favorite, hands down! The caterpillars do actually eat the grape leaves, though I haven’t seen any damage, so they don’t eat much, it seems! The adults eat nectar from lilacs and honeysuckle, both of which are done blooming in our area.

That false “eye”, by the way, is over its butt. It has claspers at its hind end and, when startled, curls up and hides its head.

I think they’re gorgeous!

Anyhow.

We had another cold night last night. The predicted low was 9C/48F, which isn’t too bad. I didn’t sleep last night, so I was awake to see when it had dropped to 6C/43F – with a “RealFeel” of only 4C/39F! An hour later, we dropped even further to 5C/41F, but at least the “RealFeel” didn’t get any colder. I do wish I’d had some idea that it would get that cold, because we really should have done things to help protect our tomatoes!

When I checked them this morning, however, they seemed to be okay.

I was scheduled to help my mother with grocery shopping today. She wanted to go shopping at a different store after picking up her new glasses, so she kept postponing the trip, even though I reminded her they would come in, in 7-10 business days. When we arranged this, it was Saturday, and I offered to help her on Sunday (which was yesterday), but she acted all surprised and said, not on Sunday. Which is odd, because between my siblings and I, we’ve taken her shopping on Sundays pretty often. My brother visited her yesterday morning and, when he saw how empty her fridge was, offered to take her shopping, but she said no. I was going to be coming over today. He did go out to at least get her some milk and butter, but the grocery store wasn’t open yet, and he ended up going to a gas station. They didn’t have butter, so he got her some cream cheese, just so she’d have something to spread on her morning toast. An 8oz package of cream cheese and a 2L of milk cost him $16!

He had intended to go to church with her, and then take her for lunch, but she turned out to be having one of her bad days and got really nasty with him. So bad, he actually left, which takes an awful lot for him to do that! So I was a bit concerned about how she would be today.

Turns out, she was having one of her better days, and things went pretty well.

She’s been making a big deal in telling me not to pick up lunch before visiting her. The last time I got take out, including the food she’d been asking for previously, she gave me a hard time about it, so the next time I was set to come over and she told me to not bring anything, but if I did, to bring her onion rings, I made sure to eat first and didn’t bring anything. She was all surprised I didn’t bring her onion rings, when I didn’t even go to that particular restaurant. I told her; she said not to bring anything, so I didn’t bring anything! Then she had to make herself something to eat. This time, I simply picked up some fridge chicken and potato wedges (from the gas station; only place that was open at the time) and didn’t tell her. I just came in with the food. This time, she didn’t complain! She didn’t even complain that I bought a couple of fruit smoothies to drink, even though she’d never tasted them before. So we at least had a decent lunch! She did start to make comments about how we shouldn’t be eating so much “goody goody”, until I asked her, just how often do we do this? Now I wonder if she thinks we should only have food that tastes bad or something. She keeps seeing on TV or whatever, about how this food or that food is “bad” for you, to the point that she’s stopped even buying perfectly healthy food at the grocery store, but replacing them with stuff that isn’t any better, and sometimes worse.

It had been so long since she’d gone to the grocery store, she really needed to stock up. I think her good behavior likely had more to do with how tired she was. Tired enough that she got me to run in to get a couple of things for her from the pharmacy store, rather than go in herself. I got her the 2 things she needed and was done, but if she’d gone herself, she would have walked through the whole store and probably found other things to get!

But, she is well stocked now, and she was more than ready for a rest after I’d put everything away for her. She didn’t even try to guilt trip me into staying longer!

Before I headed home, though, I went back to the grocery store, as my daughter had asked me to pick some things up while I was out. Then I went to the hardware store and talked to someone about that water pipe to the garden tap that’s got a hole in it.

The pictures I took came in handy. After showing them to a staff member, she showed me some options. The problem is, I don’t know what the exact diameter of the pipe is. However, once I know that, I have a plant to fix it, without having to dig up the entire pipe! I can simply cut out the damaged part, and insert the cut ends into a flexible PVC coupling with stainless steel clamps. Once I know for sure what size I need, it can be a very quick and easy fix – and won’t have to dig out the entire length of pipe and replace it!

Though I am curious as to how it switches from the pipe I uncovered, to the hose end that connects to the tap.

She was very very helpful and likely saved me a lot of unnecessary work!

While there, I also picked up some water soluble fertilizer for the garden, which was planned, but also got a 50′ soaker hose, which was not planned, but the price was too good to pass up. I’d been looking at those in the city, and they were typically about twice the price or more – and the one I got wasn’t even on sale! I want to set it up in the bed with the purple corn.

While I was out and about, I got messages from my family. The first was to let me know there was a nice downpour happening – that started just minutes after I left! The next was to let me know it was hailing! Once it was clear, they checked the garden. One of the garden stakes supporting a tomato plant had fallen, but that was all – and the tomato plant was not damaged.

By the time I got back, the storm system had blown over, but the winds are still very high. We’ve reached 18C/64F, which is lower than the predicted high, and temperatures are supposed to start dropping now. Our overnight low is supposed to be 9C/48F, but that’s what it was supposed to be last night, too! Still, we are supposed to creep up to above 20C/68F for the next week or so, so the garden should be okay.

It would be nice if the winds would die down a bit, though. Driving home, I could feel the wind trying to push the car off the road! Oh, that reminds me; in one of the messages my daughter sent me, they had actually watched the top of a dead spruce tree break off. I’m going to have to make sure to check on that when I do my evening rounds.

Oh, there is one more happy bit of news. Last night, we reset things in baby jail, after taking out and washing all the bedding, including the cat cave. This cat cave is like a big bag that is drawn closed at the top with a rope. My daughter managed to wrestle the sides down to fold it in half, so the kittens couldn’t climb up it anymore, and risk them accessing the parts of the cage with wider openings in it.

They also now have a shallow litter pan, and I’ve actually seen a kitten using it! The whole set up is more open, though we can no longer casually reach in to pet the kittens in the cat cave. I look forward to seeing the pet cage the Cat Lady said she picked up for us to use!

The babies are really active and want to explore, so we have to be careful. We’ve changed things up enough that they shouldn’t be able to reach sections of wall where the wire is further apart, but they’re determined little buggers. I don’t want to get up in the night and discover kittens have gotten underfoot! They seem happy and playful, though, so that’s good!

The Cat Lady will be coming for Ghosty and her sibling soon, but I do hope she’ll be able to find homes for the younger ones, and Decimus, after they are weaned, too.

The Re-Farmer

Morning kittens

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The inside kittens are starting to get very mobile!

This morning, I took them out to run around on the bed for a while.

David came over to investigate.

Then to groom!

David likes the babies. Also, in just a few minutes, he groomed them more than I’ve ever seen Decimus grooming them!

While doing my morning rounds, I remembered to go into the storage house *shudder* to see if I could find something to use as a litter pan for the kittens. I found a stack of broiler pan drip trays that I considered, but ended up choosing a very old, rectangular roasting pan. It has straight sides that are about 2 inches high. Low enough for the kittens to climb over, but high enough to keep the litter in. I hope!

I heard from the Cat Lady last night. They got back from their trip, but came home to a kitty that got hand, foot and mouth disease while they were gone, so they’ve already had to go to the vet. He might lose an eye to it, and he’s got sores all over inside his mouth. Poor thing!

Once they deal with stuff at home, they’ll need to go to their cottage to assess storm damage that happened while they were gone, too. That’s a lot closer to us, so she plans to come by to pick up Ghosty and her sibling (who got some eye washing this morning), and drop off stuff for the cats. She did a lot of couponing while in the US and found a metal pet cage for us. It’s a smaller one, she says, but big enough for cats, so we won’t have to use baby jail anymore.

Which would be very useful. The kittens are starting to climb a lot more, and reaching the second level. The metal wire squares that make up some of the walls, plus the door, have larger openings that the kittens can easily fit through. A new cage where they can’t climb through the walls will be much appreciated!

The outside kittens were also out and about. As I was finishing up and preparing to go back inside, I spotted this.

One of the mamas had brought the babies a present!

So I went in through the main doors instead of the sun room!

I’ve been seeing the mamas bringing mice for the babies more often. Last night, while I was checking on some banging noises outside (fire crackers, not gun shots), I came into the sun room for a moment. I heard a kitten making a very strange, deep sounding growling noise from behind the inner door. I tried to see what was going on and found two kittens. One, the younger tuxedo, ran off, but he was the source of the strange growl. After a bit of effort, I could finally see the front of him and why he was making such a strange noise. He was trying to growl while clutching a mouse in his teeth!

The yard cats are most definitely earning their keep!

Oh! I hear thunder coming closer. Time to shut down the computer!

The Re-Farmer

New?

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I was feeling well enough to do my evening rounds. In fact, I feel as though I was never sick in the first place! Bizarre!

One of the first things I did was catch Ghosty’s sibling, and my daughter and I gave it a face wash.

Its eyes weren’t stuck, but there was a lot of crud around one of them, and its nose was partially blocked, so my daughter cleaned it up as much as the kitten could tolerate while I held it. This kitten is starting to get used to being handled, and doesn’t run away like the other kittens. It even comes right up to me, sometimes, and lets me pet it.

While checking the garden, I spotted this beauty.

The Black Beauty tomatoes have a lot more tomatoes forming than seems obvious, at first glance. Some of the stems are so dark, it’s hard to see the dark tomatoes against them. This one, however, is so dark, and was shining in the sun! What gorgeous tomatoes!

I tended to a few things from this morning, including reopening the gate by the fire pit, and using the bucket of water I’d left for the cows to water the Korean pine. Two of the Korean pine wire covers had been knocked off. They’re just held in place with ground staples. I’m going to have to find something better to hold them in place, so they don’t get knocked aside so easily.

I was puttering around the kibble houses before going inside, hoping to lure some playful kittens closer, when I spotted … a new kitten?

My apologies for the picture quality, but I didn’t dare come any closer, so this is zoomed right in from across the yard.

That is a rather large kitten!

Usually, then the mamas bring the kittens to the house, they are old enough to be weaned, or close to it, and able to start eating solid food. The tiny tuxedo that showed up first is the oldest; the others still have blue eyes.

This kitten looks much larger and older than any of the kittens around the house. It looks almost “teenager” size! I’ve never seen it before. It makes me wonder that the mother didn’t bring it to the kibble house earlier!

I’m glad we kept up leaving food so far from the house for cats that aren’t ready to come closer. We have a couple of kibble bowls further from the house, but this one has more shelter under the spirea, and is more popular with the kittens.

We are expecting to see more kittens show up at the house throughout the summer, but younger kittens, not an older one!

The Re-Farmer

Not what I planned for the day…

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First, the cuteness!

Here’s Adam, with a couple of the babies.

These are not her babies. 😄

I actually took this photo yesterday. I haven’t taken any today.

This morning started out pretty normal. There were just a couple of things that had me wondering, as I did my morning rounds. For example, some of the slug trap jars were out of place, by quite a bit. I checked every squash plant for slugs (found only one!), and there were three of the jars knocked off the mulch and into the paths.

Later, while passing through the maple grove, I went to check on the pipe from the tap. I’m thinking we might be able to just patch the hole, rather than dig up the entire line. The bamboo stake I used to mark the location of the pipe and hole was snapped off at ground level.

It wasn’t until I was taking some fallen branches to the pile near the fire pit that I discovered the cause.

There was a cow on the wrong side of the outer yard fence! The entire herd was there, but one was most definitely not on the side was was supposed to be.

I sent a message to the renters to let them know, then closed off the gates to the inner yard. When I came back with a bucket to fill with water for the cow, as there is no open water source in the outer yard, I spotted a couple more cows – and possibly some calves, mostly hidden by the tall grass! A trail of cow patties by the fire pit gate, leading towards the yard, confirmed that at least a couple of cows had gone into the inner yard during the night. Thank goodness, they didn’t eat anything in the garden!

I sent an update to the renter and she said she would be there soon. I was quite relieved that she even looked at my messages, since we are connected through Facebook Messenger, but haven’t use it since before my account got stolen. I wasn’t sure if she knew I’d recovered it or not.

Next, I went to check the “gate” by the barn, where the cows often sometimes get through. The chain across it was still there, but one of the poles supporting the electric fence was down, and the wire was clearly broken somewhere, and was lying on the ground for as far as I could see.

I popped inside for a while and had a quick breakfast. When I could hear cows suddenly mooing, I headed outside again. The renter had come over in their utility vehicle – with her littlest one along for the ride! – and was by the gate in the fence leading towards the gravel pit. It’s a barbed wire gate, and a pain to open, but she had it down by the time I was crossing the outer yard in that area. At that point, I could see there were quite a few cows on the wrong side of the fence, and they were very curious about what was going on. I went around in one direction, so they’d move towards the opening, while she went around the other way. Unfortunately, one of the cows panicked, and that set them all off. The herd outside the fence stampeded off towards the gravel pit, and the ones inside the fence began panicking even more, trying to find their way through. A couple of cows found and went through the open gate, but at least one cow and a couple of calves barreled their way through the barbed wire fence. Then one last cow went and ran in the opposite direction. We got her going back again, but she wouldn’t go for the open gate. She eventually went through an opening in another part of the fence, which normally has the electric wire across it.

We got the gate closed again, but a couple of lines of barbed wire were loose. She brought out a fence tightener she’d grabbed on her way out, but it turned out to be broken. Her husband usually does this stuff, but there was some sort of accident involving a fence on another section of property he was dealing with, and he probably had the working tightener.

Thankfully, we have some. I’ve found at least 3 of them, and 2 of them were in the garage, so I went and got them. The first one we tried worked, and now I know how those things are used! It was the first time I’d seen one in action.

Once that was done, I went to put the tighteners away while she checked the fence line, so see how many fence posts would need to have the barbed wire re-stapled to them, and the status of the electric fence wire.

We continued to check the fence from both sides, though there were some sections I couldn’t get at, as it’s so overgrown. I even commented about how I don’t mind the cows getting through, because they can eat the overgrown grass we can’t mow, and how I wouldn’t mind borrowing a couple of cows for that. I’d said that to her husband, when he was her last, and they actually wouldn’t mind that, except that we have no way of knowing what might be buried in there that a cow might eat or hurt themselves on. Which is completely understandable!

While I was working my way around piles of stuff on our side of the fence, the renter found a broken end of electric fence wire, but there was no side of the other end.

The section of fence that is open is by the septic outflow pipe, which is on the outside of the fence line, near a collapse log building on the inside of the fence line. There used to be fences around the entire area where the outflow pipe and a low section it drains into is, but those fences have fallen down long, long ago. The only think keeping the cows out there is the electric fence. That’s where we found where they got in; the tall grass was all tramples and the electric fence wire had been dragged far into the outer yard. There wasn’t enough slack for her to connect them again, so she was going to have to get more tools and supplies.

I went inside and intended to go back out again to help later on, along with doing a number of other outdoor tasks on my list, now that we’re having such gorgeous weather right now. Unfortunately, that plan went out the window, when I was suddenly hit with a bout of severe intestinal discomfort. For several long, uncomfortable hours, I didn’t dare stray far from the washroom. As if that weren’t bad enough, my husband was hit with the same problem, at the same time! We have no idea why, but we were both fighting for the bathroom, and even our daughter’s had to get rushed out a couple of times. I didn’t even dare drive the 3 miles to the post office to pick up a parcel, and had to get my daughter to do it for me.

We seriously need a second bathroom. Yeah, we have the outhouse, but it’s too far from the house for times such as these! Thankfully, whatever it was, seems to have passed and I’m almost feeling stable again.

So plans for today have been thrown completely out the window. Thankfully, I’m feeling stable again – at least enough to do my evening rounds! I was even able to head out and harvest some more mint for my daughter. She decided to use the mint harvested earlier to make a simple syrup, but the longer she cooked it down, the less it tasted like mint, and the more it tasted like sugar. Once the syrup is strained and cooled, she plans to use it to make mint flavoured panna cotta. I’m quite looking forward to it!

Plus, mint will be good for my digestive tract. I just wish I knew why it went crazy in the first place, so I can make sure to avoid it in the future!

Thank goodness, the weather is supposed to stay good for the next week or more!

The Re-Farmer