Critters

Not worth it!

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I don’t mean this, though. THIS is totally worth it.

Tiny: The Beast

Totally.

What was NOT worth it, was a trip to the city.

We didn’t drive anywhere yesterday, but I was keeping on top of updates on road conditions, in a Facebook group dedicated to highway conditions in our area. It was warmer than today is expected to get, but we had “snow squall” warnings over the region, and winds were quite high at times. Lots of people were describing icy road conditions and advising people to stay home, if they could.

Today is working out to be a much more pleasant day. No wind to speak of, lots of sun, but our high is supposed to be only -3C/27F The question is, did the sand trucks get out?

The answer turned out to be, no.

I waited until late morning to head out, as even when it’s just below freezing, the paved roads tend to warm up more and melt.

Not today!

Where our gravel road reaches the highway, there is an exit lane on the other side into our little hamlet. Right away, I could see hints of what was to come, as the entire junction was sheer ice. There was a large truck pulling a trailer that I waited for, then I pulled onto the highway behind it.

The load on this trailer was an unusual shape. You know those trucks that are designed to haul windows? There’s a triangle shaped frame in the middle, and windows are loaded on either side, resting at an angle leaning towards the center? It was something like that, except much, much larger.

Along the highway, we were hitting alternate patches of sheer ice, and clear road. The curves were the worst, of course. As the truck was pulling out of a set of curves, there was a pair of vehicles on the side of the road ahead. There was no oncoming traffic, so the truck moved over the center line well ahead of these vehicles, to give them space, and I did the same. These were not vehicles in any sort of break down, but rather pulled over to do work of some kind. Once I cleared them and moved back into my lane, I barely started to accelerate again, and I could feel my back end start to fish tail! It was a quick recovery, but a bit of a surprise, since I didn’t think I was even on ice at the time.

It wasn’t much further when I saw the trailer ahead of me start fishtailing! I could see no reason for it, as the driver was clearly doing his best to drive to the conditions. My guess is, the load got hit with a gust of wind. Thankfully, I was making sure to keep quite a distance between us, because if I’d had to brake to avoid the truck, I would have gone skating, fancy new tires or not!

Thankfully, the big truck didn’t have to deal with that for much longer, and turned onto a gravel road soon after. By then, I’d already decided; it wasn’t worth driving all the way to the city. There is nothing essential we need to get there, and what we do need can wait a few days. I only continued far enough to reach an intersection, pulled over to message my family, then used the intersection to do a U turn and go back.

The north bound lane was even icier than the south bound lane. When I saw 4 deer running across the road, I was quite happy to have been driving slow and not at all needing to brake or avoid them.

I did decide to stop at the post office before going home, though. The exit and the section of road going through town was easily the iciest I saw the entire time. Since I was in the store to get to the post office, anyhow, I picked up one of their awesome hams as a treat for today.

As I was driving back to the junction, I found myself getting passed on the right, but a little utility vehicle! It was driving on the shoulder, which was clear gravel, unlike the paved road I was driving on, so that thing could easily go much faster, safely, than me! I was happy to be back on the gravel road, which was more snow than ice!

I’m glad we were able to do such a big trip last week!

On the way home from the post office, the computer display on the truck suddenly started telling me my left rear tire was low on air.

It isn’t.

I’ve got an appointment at the garage for tomorrow afternoon to get these codes and the tire monitoring system checked, out. With the tires, it’s the sensors/monitors that are the issue, not the tires themselves. The other codes could be a number of things, but since he’d serviced the truck from end to end himself, he knows it’s mechanically fine. The only thing he’s now second guessing himself over is whether he’d put in a new battery or not. He told me he did but, with it draining like it is, suddenly he’s not so sure! When he asked me if I noticed the brand on the battery, I told him I couldn’t see. I could barely see to attach the cables when I hooked up the charger. I’m too short! He got a laugh out of that, at least. 😁

Seriously, though. We’re going to need to get a step stool of some kind that we can keep in the truck at all times. I’ll need one just to check the oil!

So that means I won’t be going into the city tomorrow, either.

We’re supposed to reach highs above freezing, starting tomorrow and over the next few days – depending on what app we look at! That will clear the roads, at least. The way things are going, I won’t be able to get to the city until the end of the week. I got a call from my mother last night. It was a very strange call, where she complained about how terrible she was feeling, and how she’d called my brother (the on that lives more than an hour’s drive away) and he’s not calling back, etc. I called her out when she started saying terrible things about my brother for not being instantly at her beck and call, reminding her that I’m the one that’s the closest, so she should be calling me, first. Or, calling for an ambulance, if she was really feeling that bad. Oh, no… she doesn’t want to do that…

Then she started asking me what, of her things, I wanted, because she didn’t want her fighting over her stuff when she was gone. I told her, don’t worry about it. We won’t be fighting over her stuff. She was, however, making it like she was expecting to die because she had a headache and was feeling weak. ???

By the end of the call, when I finally got out of where her what she wanted, it came down to wanting someone to come visit. I told her I was going to the city today, and taking the truck to the garage tomorrow, so I could come over on Thursday – and she should be ready for a grocery shopping trip by then, too. She started saying she doesn’t need one, because she has milk now… *sigh* She has always had difficulty with planning ahead. I can’t even say if it’s gotten worse as she’s gotten older! So I’ll have to call her tomorrow and solidify my coming over.

She was sounding much better by the end of the call, too. After I got off the phone, I messaged my brother to let him know my mother was wanting him to call – and forewarning him that she was dragging up how he used to come out every week – and bring chicken! (the same chicken she now tells me not to bring her) – after work. I’ve reminded her, time and again, that he did that before we moved out here, so he had no choice. He made that trip every Friday for years, until we moved in and he no longer had to keep checking on the place.

I got a call from my brother later on. He’d gotten through to her and, after cutting off her immediate attempts to try and guilt trip him and make him feel bad, they actually had a very good conversation, and she was sounding quite well during their talk. So that worked out in the end.

Talking with my family about this, it’s really hard to not feel bitter about this whole thing with my mother. She’s expecting us to “be there” for her when she “needs us the most” – and by “we”, she really means my oldest brother. The thing is, she was pretty much never there for us. My family and I were out of province for most of the time, so we weren’t as affected by it. They would come out with their children to visit, and she’d leave, saying she would rather be “with her religious community”. She sure as heck wasn’t there when my brother needed her, and when my father needed her the most, she moved out and left him in the tender “mercies” of our vandal. So for her to now expect us to drop everything, ignore our own responsibilities, family and friends, and cater to her because she’s got a headache… Yeah. It gets hard, sometimes.

But I digress…

As I’m writing this, I’m also messaging with the Cat Lady. She’s dealing with their move, while also trying to work out getting those 6 spots for us for the cheap spay and neuter day. It looked like it would be only females, but the clinic recently posted an update, and they will do males – and will do trapped ferals where someone may not even know if they are male or female! We won’t be able to have kittens sharing a carrier, though, so she’s going to try to find a couple she can lend us (we have 4). The problem is, with the move, they are using their carriers to move their own cats. Most will be going into a kennel (the owner is a friend who is planning to shut down their kennel to appointments, to house most of their cats for a week), but some will be going to the new house earlier, while other will be staying in their old house until pretty much the last minute, depending on their various catonalities and medical needs.

However it works out, we’ll be getting 6 cats done on November 11, with the rescue paying for 4 of them, and us paying for 2 of them. I really want to get all the bigger kittens done. The females are getting old enough they could potentially go into their first heat, and the last thing we need is for that to happen with their intact brothers around! After that, we’ll still have the three littles, but they’re still way too small.

We’ll figure it out!

The Re-Farmer

Can you find them all?

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It’s a bit of a habit of mine to look through the bathroom into the sun room, checking on the cats, during the night. Usually, as things have been getting chillier, there’s a huge pile of kittens in the big cat bed in front of the cat cage. Yesterday, I’d put some scrap pieces of rigid insulation on top of the cage – they had been over the smaller window last winter, but are too scratched up to use again this year, so I just set them aside. The cats love that insulation (and not just to scratch at!), and I was soon seeing several at a time, sitting in the sun spot on top of the cage. I’ll also see cats in the window, or at the food and water bowls, etc.

Last night, however, I wasn’t seeing any cats. Even this morning, as I was about to go out to feed them, the sun room was empty. They didn’t start coming in until they heard the old kitchen door, and the sound of kibble being pored into the little bin.

Even after they were fed and watered, they were staying out of the sun room! I saw most of them running around the yard, but I also saw this…

There are five of the older kittens in the window! The fifth one is a black cat in the bottom left corner of the window. As I was taking the photo, I could see yellow eyes watching me, but it moved as I took the picture, so it’s basically just disappeared in the photo.

Nice to see them using the cat house so much more, as the temperatures drop.

As I was finishing up and heading in, I went into the sun room and looked around for cats. I saw none, but just as I reached the old kitchen door, I started to hear purring! There turned out to be one of the adult males tucked into the cat cage. I took a donated cat bed the inside cats don’t like for some reason, and tucked it into one of the bottom “rooms” of the cage. The cats won’t lie on most of it – the filling somehow bunched up in the middle, and I have not been able to get it spread out. Instead, they lie on one of the edges, right up against the back wall. That’s where he was, barely visible. When we tried to keep Toni in there after her leg was amputated and discovered she could squeeze through the 2″ square openings, we lined most of the outer walls with cardboard. We’ve left the cardboard there, since it helps keep things cozier, and the cats seem to like it. It does make it harder to see who’s inside, though! 😄

We’re supposed to have a mild day today. It’s been lightly snowing, and our high is supposed to be 0C/32F or so, depending on which app I check. We don’t need to go anywhere today, unless it’s to the garage. I’ll be phoning our mechanic in a bit to talk to him about the codes coming up on the truck. Tomorrow, I’ve decided to go to the big city rather than the small one. We don’t need to go to the international grocery store this month, so I was considering going to the smaller city, but for the stores I do need to go to, the big city locations are better. I’ll take advantage of it and check out a Fresh Co. I keep hearing their prices are really excellent, but we usually don’t have time to check out new places during our city trips.

We shall see.

Time to call our mechanic.

The Re-Farmer

This and that

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We’ve got a gorgeous day out, today! Cold, of course. The weather apps told me it was -6C/21F out there, with a “real feel” of -12C/10F, but we’re sheltered enough that I’m still not breaking out the parka. My only concession to the cold was to wear one of my ball cap ear warmers that I made recently.

The kittens – even the smaller ones – seem to be handling the snow rather well, though this one looks quite affronted by it! 😄

In the slide show above; the fluffy tortie is making use of the self-warming pad set up in their favourite shelf to sit in and watch what’s going on outside. I got that shot yesterday. The other two, I took this afternoon. We have several very handsome black cats with little white bibs this year. The one sitting on the shelf shelter looks downright angry that the snow is on their favourite corner! 😄 In the last picture, you can see that the cats are making full use of the cleaned out and heated cat house.

While doing my morning rounds, I finally got around to a few things that either got missed while we had to do other things, or that kept getting forgotten about. One of those was to empty and move the rain barrel by the sun room. It was full, and had the diverter over it, so that got removed first. Then I had to break up the ice on top until I could remove the hardware cloth cover. We keep a rock and a brick on it to weigh it down, as the cats sometimes jump up on it. They also serve to hold the diverter (which is just a scrap piece of eavestrough) in place. I got the brick off easily enough, but I ended up removing the cover with the rock still stuck to the wire by ice! After emptying about half of the barrel into the old kitchen garden with a bucket, I was able to tip it over and empty it down one of the paths, then set it aside by one end of the wattle weave bed for the winter. After that, I had to use a hammer to break the rock loose from the cover. 😄 The cover is now stored away, but I ended up having to use the diverter and its supports later on!

I waited until this afternoon, when it was warmer, to deal with the old rain barrel way out in the garden. It didn’t have a lot of water in it, but it would have been somewhat frozen to the ground. I didn’t want to risk breaking the cold, brittle plastic any more than it already is. So that got taken care of this afternoon. I had a pile of branches we’d used as trellis supports on it to keep the critters out, since the cover for that barrel didn’t survive the winter, even though it was in the garden shed. Just in case, I also had a couple of branches in the water, so if a critter did fall in, it could climb out. Those all got set aside, then the emptied barrel set on its side next to the pile of branches. The watering can that’s kept beside the barrel and filled with water to keep it from blowing away, got emptied and stored inside the barrel itself. Leaving the barrel out like this also provides another shelter from the weather for small critters that won’t come closer to the house.

(As I write this, we’ve warmed up to our expected high -2C/28F, but the “feels like” is apparently -13C/9F. Not where we are!)

One the way back to the house, I remembered to grab the folding saw horse that was set up by the new trellis bed construction area. We’re not going to get more progress on that until spring. When I got back to the house, I realized that it had warmed up enough that all the snow was melting off the roof – and there was no longer a rain barrel or diverter to keep the water away from the base of the sunroom wall! That corner has already been undermined by water, and the last thing I want is for a freeze/thaw cycle happening under there. So I set up the diverter again, using the saw horse to support it, and the weights from the barrel cover to keep the diverter from sliding off the saw horse. I’ll probably have to come up with something else, though. The cats could very easily knock it all down. I might end up tying a rope loop the the nearby hand rail to hold the diverter, instead. For now, however, it’s doing the job.

We’re supposed to have highs above freezing in the middle of the week. Just for a couple of days. I don’t expect it to be enough to melt all the snow, but it will definitely get rid of most of it, I think. That will be when we cover the garlic and carrot beds with a deep mulch for the winter.

There’s just a few things left that absolutely need to be done before the ground freezes. The rest can wait until spring.

The Re-Farmer

Addendum: one of the yard kittens had gotten into the old kitchen earlier and wouldn’t come out, so after I hit publish on this post, I went back to check on him. This time, he was willing to come up to me and even let me pick him up and take him out. We’ve got bright sunshine, the yard cats are enjoying their sun spots, and things are melting all over. So I checked my weather apps on my phone. Of the two apps I have, one of them says we are at 1C/34F right now! The sun room thermometer reads even warmer, of course, and the thermometer outside my husband’s window is right in a very sheltered sun spot. I just checked. It’s reading 15C/59F!!!

Still happy!

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Today, I got to do a dump run with the new truck.

It doesn’t take much to make me happy!

In this case, it’s having the garbage and recycling bags in the box of the truck, rather than stuffed in the back of my mother’s car, behind my head as I drive.

I made sure to grab a long handled garden cultivator tool to grab the bags that got pushed further in. Most bags had drawstring ties I could grab with the teeth and pull forward. A couple smaller bags didn’t have the same ties. I could grab them and roll them forward, but had to be careful not to tear holes in the bags. It worked out very well.

Next, I drove into town to pick up some prescription refills my husband ordered yesterday, while I was in the city. Along the way, the check engine light turned on again. After I got the prescriptions, I hooked up the OBDII device and did a scan. Once I got the reading, I took a screen cap, then cleared the codes. While I was doing that, I started getting a warning that the battery was low, and to start the engine!!

So I swung by the garage before heading home. It’s Saturday, so our mechanic wasn’t in, but I talked to the guy that was there and showed him the codes. He couldn’t say for sure (there’s a long list of possible causes that comes up when I generate a report), but looking at the 3 different but related codes, he thinks it is electrical. It could be as simple as a loose wire.

Which is when I brought up the low battery warning. That seems to confirm its an electrical issue. Whatever is causing the codes to come up may also be draining the battery.

The truck is fine to drive, though. I’ll just have to talk to our mechanic next week about checking it out. Decisions can be made after he confirms a cause.

Once at home, I put the charger on the battery again! 😆

Meanwhile, on a more adorable note…

… I seem to have lost access to my office chair!

What a difference in sizes between Cheddar and the Littles!

Pom Pom is getting big enough we now let him out of the room. These two are still so tiny, they only get supervised tours. 😆

The Re-Farmer

Found the warm spot!

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Overnight we got what I would call our first real snowfall. Enough snow is on the ground that it might actually stay. At least in the shadier spots. We shall see.

It doesn’t stop the outside cats from preferring to eat on the cat house roof!

Junk Pile has found the warm spot, above the terrarium bulb inside. 😄

Most of the cats have been using the sun room. At least the smaller ones. I’m seeing more cats peeking through the window of the cat house now, too. I counted possibly 33 or 34 cats this morning, including Sad Face.

I’ll be heading into the city within the hour. I’ve been keeping tabs on the local highway conditions groups and chats. The highway I’ll be taking has been described as icy and filled with packed snow. Not too bad, but enough for people to warn about driving carefully and taking it slow. As I write this, we are at -3C/27F, with a wind chill of -12C/10F. We’re pretty sheltered from the wind around the house, as it’s coming from the northwest. I just wore my light hooded jacket while doing my rounds and didn’t feel much chill at all. This afternoon we’re supposed to stay at 1C/34F for several hours, so I expect the roads will clear pretty quickly.

I am so glad we got the truck when we did. I would not be comfortable driving my mother’s car in this at all. It’s not even the tires, which checked out fine, or the road conditions, which aren’t that bad. It’s more that I keep expecting it to suddenly break down. It keeps checking out fine, but it makes so many noises and just feels wrong when I’m driving it. So going back to driving it only when I need to help my mother is a relief.

This will be my first time driving the truck in the city. I’m going to love having better visibility, but I’ll have to pay attention to those few extra inches in length! I don’t want to be “that” vehicle that parks with the back end sticking into the lane. 😄

The Re-Farmer

We have cows again!

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I’ve had some sleepless nights, so the girls were kind enough to do my morning stuff for me and let me sleep in. I headed out in the afternoon to go to the mail, then into town to refill a couple of our big water jugs, and ended up picking up a lasagna for supper.

When I got home and went to open the gate, I was pleasantly surprised to see we have cows again!

The renter has rotated his cows to our quarter section one last time before they bring them in for the winter.

Seeing his cows makes me smile, every time!

I drove into the yard to unload the water jugs, then took the time to try and figure out how to open up the cover over the truck’s box. I’d looked up online, but found instructions for a specific brand, and it turns out ours unlocks differently! It took using the flash on my phone to finally see the loop under one corner that released the cover. I rolled it up then climbed in with a broom.

That was NOT fun. I could get onto the tailgate easy enough, but my knees are so shot, it was a real struggle to get up again. I would get one knee up, which would cause massive pain on the other knee. I’m going to take a page from my brother’s book and get some high density foam pieces that can be slid onto the tail gate and make it less painful. We’ve already been talking about keeping a folding step stool to make getting into the back easier, too. We wanted a taller vehicle for important reasons, but … well, I’m short!

Tomorrow we will be making our first stock up shopping trip to the city, and I’m planning to hit Costco on this trip. I will be able to load an entire month’s worth of cat kibble in the back! I might actually run out of room on the flat cart in the store, and should still have space in the truck! With temperatures the way they are right now, we can even skip the ice packs and load the insulated bags in the back with the kibble bags, while things that don’t need to stay cold can be loaded into the cab.

If all goes to plan, I’ll only have to do the one Costco trip, then do a second trip a few days to a different areas of the city, where there are several stores all along one street that we go to. I might even go check out the liquidation place we found but rarely go to.

That should be all the necessary trips to the city after that – two trips instead of 3 or 4. I’m quite looking forward to seeing how it goes!

Oh, I was just reminded as I wrote about the kibble; with how much we get every month, I did some searches to see if I could buy the kibble from a wholesale supplier, instead of at retail. I did find some Canadian “wholesale” outlets, but the prices were often more expensive than what we’re paying at Costco! Which makes these the retail store for wholesale outlets.

I should try that livestock supply store again. Their huge bags of cat food were cheaper, but the cats didn’t like it, but they did have other brands and higher quality cat food. If they have better prices than Costco, for kibble that cats will actually eat, that would be awesome. They don’t have any products listed online, though.

We shall see.

Anyhow.

Aside from the trip to town, we got a bit more progress done outside. The last of the garden hoses are put away, the septic tank covered, and a few more garden supports and stakes bundled and stored. Over the next few days, it will be getting cold enough to do the winter mulching before the ground freezes. We’re still expected to get temperatures hovering around the freezing mark for most of November, so it’ll be a while before more than the surface freezes.

It is amusing to start the truck and get a warning on the display saying “ice possible, drive with care”. 😃 We’ve only been getting a light dusting of snow that’s mostly gone by the afternoon, but the south end of our province has been getting a mix of snow and rain, so there are plenty of warnings about road conditions going out.

It’s going to be a long day tomorrow, so I hope to finally get a good night’s sleep, tonight!

The Re-Farmer

First snow. “I meant to do that!”

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We got a bit of snow last night. It’s already pretty much gone but, for this year’s kittens, it’s the first time they’ve encountered the stuff!

Gosh, this guy reminds me of Decimus so much! That permanently stunned expression is what does it. The white arrow on his head reminds me of Pointy Baby.

We’ve passed on photos in hopes someone will adopt him, but he does have lung issues. We can hear his lungs rattling as he breaths. Unfortunately, we’re out of Lysine, and our Amazon subscription supplier seems to be either out of stock, or no longer carries it? I’m not quite sure which it is, based on the very brief notification. I’ve looked at alternatives, but those in the bulk size I’m after that’s meant for humans seem to all have other vitamins mixed in, while the ones marketed for cats cost almost twice as much, for 1/3rd the quantity! I hope our usual supplier starts shipping again. Winter is always the hardest when it comes to respiratory issues in the cats.

Yesterday, my daughter and I finally lifted the roof on the cat house to give it a cleaning. I’d hoped to be able to brace it somehow, but there’s a large ridge beam down the centre; it’s the beam that extends out the back that the counter weight is attached to, so it’s very substantial. Unfortunately, the roof has such a low slope, it means I can’t attach cross pieces (collar beams, I believe they’re called) to the rafters. The ridge beam it in the way.

Once open, we took out all the bedding and threw away the sheet-wrapped pillow that had been in a box, because it got damp on the bottom and started to mold. The litter box was simply switched out for another with clean litter pellets in it. The smoke detector battery was tested, the heat shield put back around the light fixture, then we plugged in the electrical and tested the terrarium heat bulb. My daughter also found a way to secure the timer so that the light sensor should stay upright and facing the window. It will turn the bulb on when it gets dark, then off when it gets light.

We also cleaned the windows, inside and out! Gosh, they get greasy on the inside. All those cat faces rubbing on them. 😄

We had cats in and out the whole time we worked on it! Once the bedding was returned and it was time to drop the roof, we had to be extra careful to make sure no cats decided to jump in from the top! That roof is really heavy, and even with the counter weight, it drops hard if we’re not careful. With how much the roof has been wiggling around, we’re being extra careful, anyhow. We’ll have to plan ahead for building a new cat house, because this one is just getting too old and the wood too rotten. That and the cats are using the inside walls as scratching posts, and WOW are they tearing it apart!!

That done, we’re also starting to do things like put away the hoses for the winter. We haven’t shut the taps off in the basement, yet, so we do still have access to water for a while longer, but mostly we’ll be bringing warm water out from inside, instead.

We ran out of kibble for the outside cats already! When I got another bag, I didn’t realize we were so low for the inside cats, too. By the time the bin for the inside cats was refilled, plus the one I keep in my room for the kittens, there wasn’t much left. Rather than take from the inside bin, I took advantage of delivering Nosencrantz to her new home by arranging to meet near a Walmart, then picked up another 10kg bag. I’ll be doing our first stock up shopping trip to Costco in a couple of days. Now that we have the truck, I should be able to get the entire month’s worth of kibble in one trip!

While I was driving, I started to get some messages that turned out to be from the Cat Lady. I’d brought up about bringing the 5 kittens to get fixed during the clinic’s cheap day. She came back to tell me she has us booked for 6 slots – all females! We don’t even have 6 females to bring in. There are the 3 older kittens (Tiny is just too tiny), Toni and Tissue. We have had no progress in getting at any of the outside females. It would probably be easier if the males weren’t so aggressively friendly and pushing their way past the ladies and spooking them. But this clinic wants to do only females for their cheap day. The rescue would pay for 4, and she was asking if we could pay for the other two. We were already expecting to pay for one (Toni).

Bringing Tissue, though… Tissue: Destroyer of Cars. That’s a risk!

I’ve messaged the Cat Lady about how many we can do, but haven’t heard back. She’s in the middle of getting her house ready for sale, and to start moving next month, if things go to plan. Thankfully, the new house is very close, but moving is always very stressful. The hardest move we ever had was only half a block. It took us a week and we all were sick with colds. At one point, I just collapsed and was bed ridden for a couple of days. And we had only 4 kids and two cats at the time, too! So she has a lot to focus on that are a higher priority. All that, and she’s still hoping to come out here this weekend to drop off a donated cat carrier for us to keep! With the move, she’s not positive she’ll be able to take Ghosty after the spay. It might be better for her to come back with us for a bit longer, instead.

With us now having car payments, starting next month, finding the money to do spays – even super cheap ones (only $75, instead of $350!!) – is going to take a bit more juggling of the budget than usual. We’ll manage. Especially if we are able to adopt out more cats, and not be spending so much on cat food every month!

The Re-Farmer

Saying goodbye

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Oh, my goodness.

This was an unexcepted thing. I was connected with someone last night, we got together this morning, and it’s done.

Nosencrantz no longer has to be constantly stressed out being around so many other cats. She has a new forever home, and she’s already settling in nicely. When feeding the cats this morning, she came out of her hiding places as usual, and I was able to get her into the carrier. She got treated to some wet cat food while I finished my morning rounds, then off we went to meet her new family.

I am feeling really good about the family she went to. You know how, when you sometimes meet someone and there is this automatic connection? That’s how it was when I was introduced to someone who was looking for a new cats. Nosencrantz checked all her boxes, and she checked all of ours!

This is a hard one for me. Of all the cats, Nosencrantz is the one I connected with the most. She, however, was so stressed out. There’s a reason we also called her Anxiety Bear! Too many other cats. Both inside and out, she had specific cats that targeted her, too.

Now, she has a safe, warm “suite” to stay in for a couple of weeks as she gets used to her new home, before they let her out to explore. She’ll have one other sweet and friendly cat to get used to, and cat loving children to dote on her. They also have other cats that are completely indoors, including a rescued tripod. I have been promised lots of pictures, and look forward to getting to know the family more!

It feels like this family was put in our path at just the right time, too. I am going to miss Nosencrantz, but this was the right thing to do for her.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden: Last onion harvest, plus adorableness

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Let’s start with the adorableness!

Shadow in the Dark has turned into a pretzel!

It occurred to me that these guys are coming up on 6 months old. The Cat Lady was looking into getting 5 slots for the cheap spay and neuter day, including Toni, Ghosty and a couple of outdoor males, but I just asked if her if we could get the 5 oldest kittens done, instead. She still wants to get Toni done, too, so she’ll see if she can get 6 slots. She might be moving next month, though, and things are really hectic for her and her family right now (and their 27 or so cats!!), so she’ll get back to me on that one. I told her I’m less concerned about Toni than I am about having 5 kittens old enough for their first heat (well… three female kittens going into heat with intact males around!). Ghosty, depending on how things go with the move, would not be coming back, as she’s found a home for her.

Speaking of large numbers of cats, I did a head count outside this morning. Including Shop Towel/Sad Face, I counted 38.

As much as we’d like to reduce that population, we really need to reduce the indoor population first. It’s just not healthy for them, mentally or physically. The Cat Lady, once they move to their new home, will be able to convert a heated shed into a place just for cats. That’s something I wouldn’t mind finding a way to do. Too bad we can’t use the storage house for that! We need more sheds, anyhow. The ones we have are either fallen apart, falling apart, or jammed full of junk. Or, in the case of the warehouse that used to be my late brother’s workshop, filled with my parents’ stuff my mother insists we keep. Not that we’d use that for cats. We need a workshop more!

Ah, well. All in good time.

With the temperatures dropping below freezing consistently over night from now on, I pulled the bed of Red of Florence onions, yesterday.

There was enough to half fill the wheel barrow, plus there were a few too small to bother keeping.

Their necks are still too “fleshy”, so we won’t be able to cure them like we did with the other onions we harvested already. We’d had a night and morning of consistent rain, so these were also pretty damp. We have the hardware cloth “door” we made to keep the cats out of the old basement when we keep the door open in the summer. It does double duty for laying out vegetables. I was able to set it up in the old kitchen and laid the onions out to dry a bit. From there, we will need to process them; some for freezing, some for dehydrating. This is on top of the onions we’ve been able to cure and braid for casual use. We got a very decent haul of onions this year, but only the yellow onions, plus these ones. Oh, and the shallots. We also had the Red Wethersfield onions, but not one of them survived transplanting! I’ve no idea what happened to them, but I want to try that variety again before we conclude that they just won’t grow here.

The high for today, and the next couple of days, is expected to be 3C/37F. After that, the highs will be lower, and reach just above or below freezing. So far, the overnight lows are not expected to drop very far, and remain just a few degrees below freezing, but we will no longer be seeing overnight lows above freezing from here on. It’s still not too bad, though. Nothing severe or extreme. Also, we don’t have the snow that other parts of the country got yesterday, including the city we lived in before moving out here!

There was a thin layer of ice on the outside cats’ water bowls. It’s starting to be time to bring warm water out for them when we feed them. It’s time to put the hoses away and cover the taps, anyhow. The electrical in the cat house needs to be plugged in and tested, so we can plug in the huge heated water bowl in the water bowl shelter, plus the terrarium heat bulb inside, with its timer set to turn it on at dusk. I’ve already set up the smaller water bowl in the sun room and plugged it in.

Still lots to be done, but as long as we get the essentials taken care of, the rest can wait until spring, if necessary.

The Re-Farmer

Good morning!

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Breakfast is served.

I counted 37 or 38 this morning. Plus Shop Towel. He came over to the kibble house and seemed okay at first -I was even just starting to be able to touch him – but then one of our friendly males came by and he attacked. I chased him off and he actually stopped to attack another cat that had been startled by the commotion and happened to be running in the same direction.

*sigh*

Also, yes. That tuxedo has a messed up eye. That’s the one that had a badly infected eye, but we could never catch him to clean it up. Not the tuxedo that lost its eye entirely. I haven’t seen that one in a long time.

Today looks like a day where not much is going to get done outside. It looks like it’s been raining for most of the night, judging by how much water is pooling in our driveway, and is still raining now. It’s expected to continue raining until the evening.

Which I’m okay with. It’ll be good for the ground to get a lot of moisture before the snow hits and the ground starts to freeze. That will benefit any young trees, like the apple we planted in the spring, and the Korean Pine in the outer yard, as well as the garlic and saffron crocuses that were planted not long ago. A good, deep watering before winter is a good thing.

Oh, I need to remember to contact Veseys about those purple raspberries. I double checked and yes, I was remembering correctly. They are regular cane raspberries, not primal cane. Primal cane raspberries produce berries on new canes every year, so you can literally mow the whole patch down in the fall, and they will produce new shoots in the spring. With regular cane, berries are produced on second year canes, which then die off, leaving the fresh first year canes to survive the winter and produce the following year. What we should have gotten in our order was first year canes, and we should not have had any berries this year at all. Instead, the canes planted this year would have produced berries next year, while also having new canes come up that would produce berries the year after. There were no new canes that came up. Just the ones we planted, that produced berries, instead. It seems highly unlikely, but we either got second year canes in stead of first year canes, or conditions somehow “tricked” the raspberries into acting as though they’d gone through a winter. This can sometimes happen with biannuals like onions or carrots. For example, the year we had groundhogs eating our carrot greens, quite a few went to seed after their greens started growing back. I can’t think of anything that happened with the raspberries that could have simulated that sort of annual pattern, though.

Anyhow…

Days like today – rainy and overcast – always make me feel really, really sleepy. I’m resisting the urge to crawl back into bed!

The Re-Farmer