The first was the ear mite medication I bought. When I finally opened the bag to get it out, I realized that there was a sealed box inside.
I bought one dose.
A box has 6 doses!
After going over the receipt and making sure I was seeing what I wasn’t supposed to be seeing, I called up the vet clinic and told them what I found, and that I’d like to return the extras. The receptionist went to talk to a tech and confirmed that, as long as the individual dose packages were still sealed, they could take them back.
I plan to go to the city for our second stock up trip, so I’ll make sure to go to town first and drop the extras off and go to the city by a different route. Somebody made what could have been an expensive mistake!
I also found a surprise in the sun room.
Usually, when doing the evening feeding, I go through the old kitchen, where the kibble is stored. This time, I happened to go out the main entry to take something to the compost bin, then went back in through the sun room to put away the rinsed out bin I’d used. We have had rain on and off all day today, and there were a number of startled cats sheltering in the sun room when I came in. As I saw them dashing around, I noticed a tiny tail disappearing between two bins.
A grey tail.
I was actually able to reach in and give it head scritches, though it did not like that. When I got the kibble ready, I left a handful in front of where it was hiding – it could only back up so far. We still coat the kibble with lysine and, from the looks of it, this kitten could use some!
I thought, at first, that this was the tuxedo’s sibling, but now that I look at the pictures, I can see its eyes are still blue, so it is younger. For now, we are leaving it in the sun room, though I did set out a container of water for it to find, too. I have no clue which cat this one belongs to.
In between the rain, I checked out a few things. The last of the Jiffy pellets that have seeds that didn’t germinate are still on the picnic table under the old market tent. The picnic table is not completely under the tent, so some of the trays are being rained on. I checked them and drained the excess water, and found a single lemon cucumber has germinated! Which makes me wonder how many other things will decide to germinate, too. Hopefully, I’ll be able to transplant anything that does. If we get both types of cucumbers, there’s enough time to have harvests before fall, at least.
I grabbed some broken plant pots we’d been hanging on to and set a bunch of them up in the squash patch, buried in the mulch, for the frogs to hide in. Yesterday evening, I used grass clippings to mulch the spaces between squash mounds in rows; the paths in between will be mulched with wood chips. I am still finding some slugs, so I think I will shake out more corn meal, after I get back from the city tomorrow. We’re still expecting rain off and on all night.
When there were just the too-small pieces left, I went to put them in the old garden shed. When I opened the door, I startled Caramel. There’s a rotted out hole in the back of the shed that cats can get in and out of. She seemed strangely hesitant about running away from me, so I took a closer look at where she had been. Sure enough, there was a wriggly little worm! Looks like she’s moving her kittens again! I quickly put the broken pieces of pots away near the door and closed the shed up again, so she could tend to her baby.
As for the one in the sun room, I suspect this baby is not quite weaned yet, so we will have to leave it alone for now. I’ll still make sure to check on it and, if it hasn’t been moved, leave food for it and perhaps its mother.
Oh! Good grief.
One of the things I picked up in town today was a couple of cat collars with bells. Leyendecker and Finnegan (one of our original tuxedos that moved out with us) have been spraying, so we’re hoping the bells will alert us to them being where they shouldn’t be.
I just heard a bell tinkling behind me, so I looked over to see Leyendecker walk over, then jump onto my bed.
For all that I see him every day, it blows me away, just how BIG he is! I don’t mean how chonky he is, either. He is just a massive cat. He’s taller and longer than just about every other cat, and very, very burly. Hard to believe he was the smallest kitten of the litter!
Okay, the running around I did with my mother yesterday drained me a lot more than I thought it did. I feel totally wasted today. And she wasn’t even having one of her bad days, either.
I’m also not quite sure what is worth getting started on outside right now. We’re under thunderstorm warnings. The south end of the province is supposed to get the brunt of the storms, but looking at the weather radar, is does look like the system will go right over us, too, for a change. However, with the weird climate bubble we have over us, due to our location between lakes both small and huge, there have been times when the radar shows a system right on top of us, but when I look out the window, there’s nothing. So do I go out and start a job that would normally take a lot of time, or requires electricity, and risk a storm blowing over? Or just putter around with small jobs and leave myself feeling like the entire day is waste?
At least I got this cheerful sight, first thing.
Best of all, I GOT TO TOUCH THE BABY!!!! While he was eating under there, I was able to come close, reach under and start petting his back. He sort of looked around at me, then kept eating. If another cat hadn’t made some sudden crashing noises, he would have stayed longer, too.
I was able to see that the big wood tick visible in his fur previously is now gone, and I could feel no other lumps and bumps as I pet him. I think it was in a location fairly easy to get groomed out. Unlike when I found that cluster of wood ticks by Pinky’s ear a few days ago.
While doing my rounds, I checked out all the garden beds and did some weeding, but I’m hoping we’ll at least get some rain, so I didn’t hook up the sprinkler and soaker hoses, or do any other watering. The girls hadn’t had a chance to move the branch pile I’d made yesterday, so I dragged that off. I was rather pleased to find the branches were stacked in such a way that I could just grab the bottom branches and pull it across the lawn, all at once!
I haven’t completely put away the seedling trays with the Jiffy pellets that didn’t germinate. It looks like two little Birds Egg gourds have shown up! While weeding in the old kitchen garden, near my daughter’s daffodils, I found cleared a space that could actually have something planted in it. I’m considering sticking the new seedlings in there. If they survive, they would get big enough to shade out a lot of the weeds, but might also get big enough to shade out the flowers my daughter planted in there. Another option is the space we had ground cherries in last year. This was partly an experiment to see if they would seed themselves, and it looks like they did not. Which means there’s a spot with really good soil potentially available. If I pull more dandelion roots out of there, I think it would be worth trying.
I’m still disappointed over how many things had zero germination rates. Some winter squash, and both types of cucumbers, in particular that I was looking forward to.
Now… it is worthwhile for me to get the extension cords out and use the weed trimmer, so I can access those trees my brother cut down for me? According to the weather app, it should stop raining within half an hour. In fact, on the animated radar, I can watch the rain system moving right over us.
It’s not raining right now. There isn’t even any wind.
*sigh*
Well, we’ll see what I manage to get done, so the day isn’t entirely wasted.
I managed to get a few things done before I had to head out to my mother’s. This is what I was greeted with, when I started getting the kibble for the outside cats.
This kitten has moved right into the shelter area! He runs away from me, but waits until I’m fairly close before he does. For example, I was able to walk past him while he was on this rail, and all he did was tuck himself further under the rose bush.
After feeding the cats and doing my morning rounds, I got out the extended pole pruner and cut away some of the problem branches from Chinese elms near the chain link fence. We’ve been pruning them back pretty much every year since we’ve moved here, but the branches grow back very quickly. Pruning one tree now allows for more light to reach where the peas are planted, but the branch that’s casting the most shade is too high for the pruner, even at maximum height. I dragged off the one branch I did get down, to add it to the pile by the fire pit. I really should have broken it down to smaller pieces, first! Elm is a very heavy wood, and once it was on the ground, I realized the branch was quite a bit bigger than I thought.
I also worked on the elm near the vehicle gate into the inner yard, next to the asparagus patch. This is another tree we’ve cut back before, but when the septic truck came out, it was hitting branches again! I got a couple of the problem branches down but started running out of time, so I just broke them down quickly with the mini-chainsaw pruner and piled them for the girls to haul away later. Some of the branches that need to be taken down will probably have to wait until fall, as they would end up falling right on the asparagus and strawberries. If I wait until they are mulched for the winter, they will protected enough.
Then it was time to change and head out to get some gas, then pick up my mother. We then drove to the next major town, about half way to the city from her place, for her eye appointment. I wanted to get her there early, since she was a first time patient. I explained to her that they would need her health care card and do the “paperwork” to get her into their system, and that they would need to take her glasses to measure her current prescription and do some pre-tests. When we got there, though, she actually seemed surprised when they actually did all the things I explained to her. It was as if she didn’t believe me or something! The timing worked out just right, though; all the pre-stuff was done just before her appointment time, and the eye doctor called her in, right on schedule!
There were a few tests she did with my mother that she didn’t do with me when I had my appointment, like checking my mother’s peripheral vision. My mother will have a fairly minor change in her prescription. She mentioned having headaches, mostly when reading, so we hope the change will make those go away. If the headaches turn out to be caused by something else, she’ll at least be seeing better!
Then the doctor went over the photos taken of the inside of my mother’s eyes. She is showing early signs of macular degeneration, but it is still dry, so there is no treatment for it. She was given a booklet about a specific multivitamin that can help slow down further degradation, that also has a grid eye test on the back page. The doctor got her to use it as instructed, looking at a center dot with one eye covered, and what to look for. It turns out that, with one of her eyes, the grid lines look wavy. For now, the thing to watch out for is if it starts to get worse and, if it does, to get back to her right away.
The one odd thing was when she asked if we had any other questions, and my mother started asking about why an eye might turn all red. The doctor said there could be many reasons and, as my mother continued, I realized she was talking about what that happened to her, four or five years ago. After having a sneezing or coughing fit (I can’t remember which, right now), she popped a blood vessel in her eye. I drove her to the hospital in this town every day for a week, so she could get a blood thinning injection, to help it heal faster. And it did.
Turns out, she either doesn’t remember why it happened, or doesn’t believe that her sneezing/coughing fit actually caused it, anymore. It looks like she’s rewriting her memory about it, too. When I realized what she was talking about and mentioned driving her to the hospital for the injection daily like that, she gave me this death glare for saying something. *sigh*
But, the appointment went well, and she got her prescription. She had brought up with me earlier about the possibility of going to Walmart to get her glasses, because one of the people in her building suggested it. I told her that she could probably get cheaper glasses there, but recommended getting them here, because she’d get better care. After her appointment, when she was told she could look at frames to get her new glasses if she wanted, she started hemming and hawing. I again recommended doing it right away here, if only to get it over and done with, and she sort of agrees. But first, I took her to the counter to pay for the appointment. That confused her and, for some reason, she thought they wanted her health care card again. She had the money for the payment already set aside in an envelope in her purse. She was told she could pay for it together with her new glasses, but that confused her even more, so I told them to just process the payment for the appointment on its own.
With her knees being an issue, my mother wasn’t up to wandering around to look at frames, so one of the staff asked her some questions, then went looking for frames that were sort of like what my mother already had. She ended up bringing two metal and two plastic frames. One of the metal frames were a bright red that matched the shirt my mother happened to be wearing, but my mother would not consider such a bright colour! What was funny about that is that the frames she did choose were a plastic pair with blues, browns and greys, and very trendy! 😄 They look good on her, though, and she liked them, so that’s all that mattered – though I know my mother well enough that she chose them more because she was overwhelmed by having to choose at all.
Then they started asking her about what coatings she wanted, and that was almost more than she could handle. She basically told the woman that was helping her at this point to just give her good glasses, and that she would trust her! 😄 They checked her current glasses and basically matched what she already had.
As we were talking, my mother kept asking questions about the chain and how long they were here, etc. They didn’t quite understand what she meant at first, and told her about other franchise locations, but she was really trying to ask if they’d been located anywhere else. She was still convinced that there was only one eye clinic in this town. They told her there was another one, and where it was located, so she figures that’s what she was remembering. I don’t know when she was last taken to this town to get her eyes tested, but considering she says she was taken to it by her niece, it had to have been well over 10 years ago!
I’m amused that it took them telling her there was another eye clinic for her to finally believe it. We even drove past it later one.
The main thing is, her glasses are ordered. They’ll call me when they are in, and I’ll bring my mother in to pick them up.
That done, even though she was clearly tired, my mother wasn’t ready to go home. So we ended up going to a chicken place for a late lunch/early supper. This is a place she normally goes to in this town, but I don’t know that she’ll be willing to go back again, even though the food was excellent, and so was the service. There seems to have been a change in ownership since we were last there, the the people running it are *gasp* not white. We heard another customer talking to the guy that seated us (well; my mother ignored him and walked right to the table she wanted, so… tried to seat us) and he said he was from Pakistan, so when the waitress came by towards the end of the meal, my started asking her where she was from and how long she’s been in Canada…
She was born here. Second generation Canadian, it turned out.
Thankfully, my mother behaved, and didn’t make any rude comments.
Oh, that reminds me. During conversation, she brought up not going back to the Chinese restaurant that’s right next to her building. Why? Because she’s been seeing so many strange cats lately. *sigh* I think one of the people in her building told her this, but when I asked, my mother said there was something in the news about a Chinese restaurant in the city, where they were caught serving cat meat. The problem is, she could have seen something about this years ago, and who knows in what context it was in. Now, very suddenly, she has decided that because she once saw a strange cat in the field outside her window, it means the Chinese restaurant next to her place is using cat meat…
*sigh*
Anyhow…
When it came time to take care of the bill, I made sure to pay it, because my mother doesn’t believe in tips. Before we left, though, she took the receipt from me. When I got her home and she looked at it, she was really shocked by the amount. I told her that included the tip, and she was all “why did you give a tip? She just did her job. She should be happy to have a job…” The usual.
I told her, I tipped her because she gave us really good service. I know the tipping expectation has gotten pretty extreme these days, but some people will always get tips from me. Wait staff is one of them (especially if my mother’s behaviour has been particularly bad!). Our septic guy is another. 😄
By the time I got my mother home and was getting ready to head home myself, I realized I’d been out for 6 hours already. Almost 5 1/2 of those were with my mother. No wonder I was feeling so tired!
One the way home, though, I swung by the post office. I wasn’t expecting anything, but I did want to see if the tomatoes and peppers were gone. The peppers were all gone, as well all the Black Beauty tomatoes, but there were still a few Spoon and Romas left. I hope someone will take them, but if they’re still there the next time I check, I’ll take them back and try to find someplace to plant them!
Once at home, I went straight back out again to do my evening routine with, today, included giving the Korean Pine in the outer yard a deep watering.
I was watched the entire time by cows. 🐮🐮🐮🐮
I thought I had been hearing them for the past couple of days! I love it when the renter’s cows are here!
I was planning to go to bed early tonight, and get and early start working outside, but it’s already 9pm as I finish writing this, and I still need to update my siblings about how things went with my mother!
Then, it’s bed time. Hopefully, I’ll actually fall asleep instead of suddenly becoming wide awake once my head hits the pillow! 😄😄😄
I had an adorable surprise when I headed out this morning!
The tuxedo kitten is back!
We haven’t seen the litter of four, for a while. I suspect the mama moved them across the road, to the empty farm buildings there. Quite a few of the mamas seem to move back and forth from there. We had been seeing six kittens together for a while, including this tuxedo, but the other two have not been seen for even longer. That this one is now showing up alone suggests the other did not survive after being moved. I do wish the mamas wouldn’t move their kittens around that that, but it seems to be an instinctive thing for them, no matter how safe of a location they happen to have their kittens at any particular time.
You can just see it in the photo, but this tuxedo actually has stripes! I was able to walk past fairly close before it ran and hid, and one time I got a good, clear look at his side (and yes, I’m 99% sure it is male). His black fur has dark grey stripes in it that can’t even be seen at some angles.
I’m pretty sure the white and grey sharing the kibble tray is its mama. Not completely sure, though. It has mostly been alone, though it also interacts and plays with the other adult cats.
Today was expected to be a hot one, so I made sure to get some things done in the garden, before giving it all a good watering. I’m glad I did. We were expected to reach 27C/81F for a high. As I write this, at almost 7pm, we’re still at 28C/82F – only one degree short of the record high for today.
I direct sowed more summer squash this morning – four out of the five varieties that were planted. The G-Star (green) patty pans are doing well. No Magda squash germinated at all, and when I loosened the soil to plant new seeds, there was no sign of the old seeds. The germination rate for the Goldy (yellow) and Endeavour (green) zucchini, as well as the Sunburst (yellow) patty pans was very low, and with some, the seedlings were not looking very strong.
We lost one Honeyboat Delicata to slugs, and I considered planting a few more summer squash in the empty hill, but decided to try an experiment. I took some of the Jiffy pellets that had the Cream of Saskatchewan watermelons in them, and transplanted them. One broke up a bit as I did, and I could actually see an intake seed in it, so it is actually possible they might germinate in the new location. We shall see! No harm in trying.
When I transplanted the zucca melon and drum gourds into the bigger squash hill, I mulched in between the transplants, but didn’t have enough to mulch the sides of the hill. Well, I’ve got lots of grass clippings for mulch right now, so I took care of that, this morning. The main reason it was needed was to prevent the sides from eroding when the hill was watered. I was happy to see that a the transplants – aside from the one the slugs ate – are looking strong and healthy. They are liking this heat! We will have to make sure they get watered often, though. Especially ones like the zucca and Crespo squash, which are supposed to grow very large fruit. The Crespo have lots of flowers on them, but they’re all still male flowers, so I’m hoping more watering will help with that. Where they are is far from the house, gets full sun all day, and the soil out there gets dry very quickly, so we could probably get away with watering them twice a day, if we were up to it. Along with watering everything, I topped up the rain barrel by the Crespo squash, too. I keep a watering can beside it, full of water to is doesn’t blow away, and it’s amazing how warm the water in there got, even though it was still morning, and a few hours before we’d hit the high of the day.
When feeding the cats, I realized we would run out of kibble faster than expected, and before our monthly shopping. Since I’m going to be taking my mother to her eye appointment tomorrow, I decided to do a Walmart trip today. The price difference is worth the cost of gas to drive that far, but of course, I had to combine errands to make it even more worth while! The egg lady was going to be in town tomorrow, but I wasn’t sure if I’d be done with my mother in time to meet her there, so I contacted her and arranged to swing by her place on my way home today. Then, while at the Walmart, I remembered to pick up new hose connectors. I couldn’t remember if I needed to replace male or female connectors, so I got one of each. I drove over the hoses at the front tap by mistake, when unloading the car, which normally would have been okay, except I happened to catch one of the connectors on the sidewalk. More specifically, the metal part under the connector. So while the two hoses connected to each other were fine, the bent metal part resulted in water spraying from where the connector joined the hose.
While looking at the connectors, I also noticed an L shaped swivel connector for the tap, so I grabbed one of those, too.
Once at home, it took me more time to cut off the broken hose connector than it did to fix the hose! So the front hoses no longer leak. At least not at the connectors. The spray nozzle, however, drips. This spray nozzle was actually here when we moved here, and has outlasted all the nozzles we’ve bought so far! So I ended up taking the front plate off of that and soaking it in CLR for a while, then scrubbing it with an old toothbrush. It works much better, now!
I also put the swivel connector on the back tap. That tap is a real pain. It’s difficult to connect a hose to it because of how close to the wall it is, and the angle. We have tried using flexible hose connectors, but they’ve been even more difficult to screw on, and leaked like crazy. Even with screwing the hose directly to the tap, when we move the hose to the side, it starts to drip enough that I ended up putting an old rectangular balcony rail planter under it to collect the water, set up so that when it filled to overflowing, the water would flow further away from the basement wall.
This new connector, however, was much easier to screw on, and angle of the swivel part made it easier to attach the hose, too. Best of all, with everything finally screwed on properly, no more dripping! I like being able to turn the tap on and leave it on.
Hmm… I wonder if, with this new connector, I could attach the hose that runs to the tap on the garden. The last time I was successfully able to attach it, we discovered water spraying from the ground next to a branch pile. The branch piles are gone now, so if I test it again, I’ll be better able to see and mark exactly where the buried hose is damaged.
I think I’ll test that out tonight, when I do my evening rounds!
Along with all that, I had a surprise from the egg lady when I stopped to pick up two flats of eggs. She included some guinea eggs! Enough for all for of us to try them out. She told me that the eggs from guinea hens have higher levels of protein and other nutrients, compared to chicken eggs. I really look forward to trying them!
Well, it’s time to go out and do my evening rounds! One of the things I want to get done is set up the soaker hoses in the low raised beds, with the tomatoes. They should have been set up before they were transplanted, but I wasn’t sure exactly where or how many tomatoes would fit at the time.
It has cooled down to 26C/78F in the time it took me to write this. Better than nothing!
Decimus contentedly nursing one of her babies. The other three put themselves in the cat cave.
Bringing Decimus and her babies indoors has had an unexpected benefit.
I can now open my door, and leave it open. Not overnight, and I prefer it closed if there isn’t anyone up and about to hear if there are problems, but open nonetheless.
Before bringing her in, if I was in my room, I was constantly opening and closing the door to let a stream of “safe” cats in and out. The cats that Marlee, Butterscotch and Nosencrantz were okay with, and that generally did not try to attack Nosencrantz. It basically came down to Turmeric being the only one that could not be allowed in the room, because she would go straight for Nosencrantz, and Tissue was touch and go. It took her a bit longer, but she would start stalking Nosencrantz and was generally really high strung.
Once Decimus came in, some of the usual cats would come into the room, see her and the babies and suddenly leave! After awhile, they stopped wanting to come in at all. Cheddar was pretty much the only one that was calm about it, but even he doesn’t want to come in as often anymore. Leyendecker still acts like he wants to come in, but as soon as he sees Decimus and the babies, he might sniff a bit, but usually wants out again, right away. Especially if Decimus is out of the cage and lounging on the carpet nearby.
Decimus actually wants out of the room. She wants to wander around the house and explore. I don’t think she has discovered the upstairs, yet. Since we want her to be able to go back to her babies quickly, the door gets left open.
The other cats still aren’t sure about her, but she so obliviously ignores any hissing or growling, sniffing and stalking, they tend to back off. Or get really startled when she walks past them and rubs her body against them on the way by. It’s like “I’m threatening you! Why are you hugging me?!?”
With the kittens in my room, pretty much none of the cats try to come in when the door is open. They might go through the doorway for a moment, look around, then leave. Even Turmeric won’t go much past the door. There was one time she’d come in and was under a stool, so we didn’t notice her when we closed the door. I discovered her when I heard a sudden cat altercation (I can’t really call it a fight) between Turmeric and, I think, Marlee. I dashed over (as much as this broken body can “dash” anywhere) to open the door and Turmeric ran out with her tail puffed out like a bottle brush! She hasn’t tried to come in, since.
Which means that now, after months of having to keep my door closed to prevent cats from going after Nosencrantz, I can now keep my door open again. All thanks to a tiny little mama that is completely oblivious to the curiosity and/or aggressive behaviour of other cats.
It also means that Marlee, Nosencrantz and Butterscotch can leave the room on their own, if they want.
None of them have bothered. Even Marlee, who sometimes does decide she wants out, has shown no interest in going out that door.
Hopefully, that will change and I can start leaving my door open when I’m asleep, too!
In other things, I was up way too late last night, after finally being able to recover my original, personal Facebook account. It was stolen on May 2, and I’ve been going through it to look for damage done. My total friend’s list count had gone down, which was no surprise. I knew that quite a few of my friends that joined me on my new account had either unfriended or blocked my original account after the thief had DM’d them to try and scam them, or they had interactions with the thief when sketchy posts were being made from my account. I also saw a lot of new names I’ve never seen before. So far, I’ve been leaving public posts to let people know that my account was recovered, and that anyone who got a friend request or message from my account after May 2, it was not me, but the thief. This morning, I found the blocked list and unblocked a lot of my friends and family, but saw a whole bunch of unfamiliar names, too. I suspect these are people the thief had successfully scammed, or people who called them out as a scammer. I don’t know what to do about these new names, yet, but once I unblocked the people I knew, I posted another public message that they would finally be able to see, too, explaining the situation.
It’s Messenger that is really going to take time to deal with. The thief was very busy there! From the looks of it, a lot of the thief’s attempts to contact people simply got ignored, which likely means they had already clued in that my account was stolen. It’s the ones that I see had actual conversations that I will have to go through and assess the damage done under my name.
I’m glad I didn’t give up trying to recover my account, but I can sure see why so many people do. So many people were reporting my original account and scam posts being made from there, it really should have been shut down long ago. Since I couldn’t see any posts being made from my original account, due to privacy settings, all I could do was report the profile as imitating me, until the thief changed the public name and profile picture. Then I kept reporting it as a fake account with a fake name. I was reporting it as close to every day as I could, as well as repeatedly going through the recovery process. Then I would use every feedback option I encountered to explain the problems I was having. I would also post updates on my new account, tagging Facebook, telling people on my friends list what was going on, as well as the occasional public post, in case people who knew me were trying to look my up to see what was going on. As frustrating as it was, I fully intended to keep it up as long as I possibly could. I simply was not willing to accept that someone out there was scamming people under my name, without doing something about it.
I don’t have a lot of time to spend on this, and I want to be thorough about it. If that means directly contacting people to let them know that they had been dealing with a stolen account and not me, I want to take time to do it right. So that means I’ll still be using my new account a lot, still. Especially for direct messages.
It’s a pain in the butt, but I really want to repair as much damage done under my name as possible.
Here we have the first kitten whose eyes are fully open!
I’ve been noticing one kitten with eyes that seemed to be slowly opening more and more, and now they are completely open! It seems quite okay with being held, too. Unlike one of the other tabbies I picked up and cuddled yesterday, that was making spitting noises at me. Eyes very much still closed.
Mom is still looking decidedly scruffy! It’ll be awhile before all that clipped fur grows back.
Decimus is actually wanting to leave the room. Last night, I opened the door for her, and she went wandering. She even went into the basement, but the floor there is so damp, she didn’t stay long. She really likes the water fountain!
The other cats were very curious about her. Tissue was the one I kept the closest eye on, because she seemed to be actually stalking Decimus. Much to my surprise, Turmeric wasn’t very aggressive. She didn’t like seeing a new cat around, but didn’t do much of anything other than look startled, when Decimus walked past her and basically body slammed her as she want by, rubbing up against her. Decimus almost ignored the other cats as she explored. If another cat came up to sniff at her face, she would sniff back and keep going. Others would follow her along, sometimes close enough to sniff at her. Curious, but not aggressive.
Which is really something. Decimus has been in the house for less than 2 weeks, yet she’s doing better with the other cats in this one exposure to them than Marlee or Nosencrantz, after being here for months! Marlee, at least, does want to leave the room every now and then, but backs off when she sees other cats. Nosencrantz won’t go near the door, never mind out of it.
The outside cats, meanwhile, are doing just fine. That’s Caramel on the other side of Adam’s big fuzzy tale. I’m actually kinda glad she moved her kittens. We got quite a bit of rain last night, then more rain this morning. The ground under the cat house is no longer dry, even though no water actually runs under there.
Oh, and Adam has been letting me pet her! Not all the time, but when she does, I’ve been able to get some really good, friendly response.
I joked with the girls that we should rename Adam, Eve, now that we know that he is a she – and a mom, now, too! Unlikely, but I thought it was funny. 😉
We had the tax assessor lady come in this morning. I remembered to ask her if she were allergic to cats. She hesitated before saying, as long as she doesn’t touch any, she’s okay.
So, of course, Gooby came over and started rubbing on her bare lower legs! At one point, I had to distract him because I could see he was building up to jump up and climb her!
Gooby would be an excellent cat to adopt out. Talk about friendly!
The assessor took pictures of all the buildings, and took external measurements of the house and garage. Since other buildings are basically used for storage (or have collapsed), she didn’t need anything more from those. She did have to go through all the rooms of the house and take pictures to show the structure. Things like the new roof – and the removal of the chimney for the wood furnace – were things she took note of. The status of the sun room and old kitchen, which are not heated or insulated, were details she needed. When she saw the old wood cookstove, we talked a bit about how it was what we cooked on when I was a kid, but it can’t be used anymore, even if I were able to repair it. She even commented on how a lot of the old houses were like what we have; wood burning stoves close to the wall, and heat shields non-existent.
Then she made some notes. I think knowing that the stove can’t be used was an important detail. She even made note of things like the new hot water tank, and took pictures of the electrical panel for the electric furnace, as well as the main panel.
So that’s over and done with. I hope this assessment will mean lower tax bills for my brother!
Then, this afternoon, we finally had our Father’s Day/birthday pizza night! With cake and ice cream still to come.
It has worked out to be a beautiful day, today. Much cooler (22C/72F feels cool, after the heat we’ve been having!), with lovely rain this morning, and now finishing up with a much delayed celebratory meal, that someone else cooked.
Well, here it is! The longest day of the year, and the first official day of summer. It’s going to be another hot one, though not as hot as yesterday, thank God. We’ve had thunderstorms blowing past us through the night. Here, we did get a decent amount of rain. The rain barrel by the sun room is now about 3/4 full, which is roughly double what was already in there.
While feeding the outside cats, I spotted a wound on one of the mamas.
I thought it might be the cause of all the blood I found in the kibble house a few days ago but, to be honest, it doesn’t look bad enough for that. Though I suppose if it was from more than one wounded cat, it’s possible. We can’t get near her, so we can only monitor from a distance.
The bitties under the cat house are now gone. I’m actually surprised it took Caramel so long to move them. It’s a very high traffic area, and where she had them was where many other critters would squeeze under, so she probably had to face down other cats, kittens and the odd skunk while there. She was waiting for me with the other cats when I came out with kibble in the morning. I hope that means here babies are close by. I’m seeing far fewer cats at the same time these days – typical for this time of year. This morning, I counted only 14 in total.
The rainfall seems to have been enough to make the garden beds very happy. I posted a few photos on Instagram (I keep forgetting that exists!).
The flowers on the Irish Cobbler potatoes are starting to open, and I’m starting to see flower buds on the Red Thumb potatoes. More of the Sweet Chocolate peppers are starting to bloom, and the one that bloomed a while ago has the tiniest of peppers forming. The zucca melon continues to bloom, and now one of the Caveman’s Club gourds has started to bloom. Still male flowers only. The peas have started to bloom as well! In the main garden area, I spotted more Roma VF tomatoes developing, while the Black Beauty and Indigo Blue Chocolate tomatoes are still just blooming; no developing tomatoes yet.
In the old kitchen garden, I found a surprise. Quite a number of things come up around the side of the garden, where the tiny raised bed and step stones are, some of which I have been keeping, like the dill and the poppies. There were a couple of tiny plants next to some old asparagus ferns, very similar looking to dill, that suddenly shot up flower stalks. I swear, they weren’t there last night, when I weeded the shallot bed! One has pink flowers, the other purple. I’ve never seen them before. I guess with weeding everything else, they finally had a chance to grow and bloom!
Temperatures are supposed to stay pretty high over the next while – slightly above average for this time of year. As uncomfortable as I find it, it’s great for the garden – as long as we keep getting a decent amount of rain! So far, so good, at least.
I’m looking forward to when the tax assessor comes and goes, tomorrow morning. We delayed the joint Father’s Day, birthday pizza night my older daughter planned out, so that’s going to be done tomorrow, too. Then it’s time to get back to work.
Of course, my mother phoned this morning. Even though she told me my sister was able to get groceries for her recently, she suddenly wants me to go over and help her with groceries. BUT she says she doesn’t want me to be in a hurry. In other words, she wants me to stay with her for a long time. I’d just told her we were going to be busy for a while, and had plans, including celebrating my daughter’s birthday (which was already postponed) but she told me we should postpone it to Sunday, so I could spend time with her, instead.
She brushed past the whole “birthday” part as if it wasn’t there. She’s never cared about any of her grandchildren, other than expectations for them to be always sending her cards or phoning her or visiting her. And when they don’t, because she treats them like crap, she starts talking about how, “oh, if they only knew that if they would come to visit me, I’d give them money.”
Okay. I have to admit. I’m still irritated by her phone call. When I called her on it, she started making “joking” comments about how she only thinks about herself, and that she’s my biggest “baby”. I simply said, yes. She has zero respect for other people’s time or priorities. While it has gotten worse as she’s gotten older, this is not a new thing, by any means. It’s one thing when she does it to me. It’s quite another when she does it to my kids or my husband.
Bah.
Anyhow.
When she found out I’d gotten my eyes tests, she asked me to make an appointment for her, but things have been busy and I kept forgetting. So when she brought it up, I told her I’d call the clinic, make the appointment, then call her back.
Well, it went to machine, and now I’m sitting here, waiting for a call back, when I should be doing other things. At least it’s giving me a chance to write this post.
I think, however, I will call them again, in case they simply haven’t checked their messages.
Early this morning, we were already at 20C/68F, and I don’t think we got any cooler overnight. We did have a series of thunderstorms pass us by during the night. Plenty of lightning visible. Here, we got some rain, thankfully! Enough to noticeably change the level of water in the rain barrel, at least.
By the time I headed outside, it was already 25C/77F. With the heat yesterday, and today expected to be even hotter, I mowed the inner yard last night, starting quite late. By the time I was done, there was barely any light left. This morning, I could see the parts I missed in the dark! 😄 No matter. At least the main areas got done. Around the main garden area and the rest of the outer yard still need to be done.
I am so appreciating the loan of that riding mower!!!
No mowing today, though. We’re supposed to reach 33 or 34C/91 – 93F today. More storms are supposed to come through, so hopefully we’ll get more rain. My younger daughter and I will be going to the city today, and they are supposed to reach 36C/97F today. Thankfully, the AC in my mother’s car works!
I just got interrupted by some alarmed squeaking.
From these guys.
We put the cat cave into the cat cage, but the kittens don’t want to be in there. They can crawl out, but can’t get back in, anyhow. Last night, I heard alarmed squeaking, and when I checked, Decimus had moved two of them into the cat cave, so I quickly put the other two with her.
Just now, I checked the cage and saw three squeakers, but heard another squeak from somewhere else.
My closet.
I have boxes at the bottom of one end to protect the floor, because Nosencrantz kept pooping there. Decimus discovered she could get into one of them and had moved a kitten into it! This is not a good place for them, so I took it out and put it back in the cat cage. Decimus was in the cave again, with one of her kittens, so I put the remaining three in with her.
One cat has not moved her kittens, though.
So far, Caramel is keeping her babies under the cat house.
I have no idea what Adam is trying to do to her in the photo, but it’s funny looking, and I’m glad I caught the moment!
There are at least three kittens under there. Looks like an orange and white, a tortie or muted calico, and a grey tabby. There’s a leg on the orange and white’s head that I can’t figure out, so there is probably a fourth kitten in there, somewhere.
They are so close to the opening, I’m seriously considering pulling them out and putting them in the cat carrier. Caramel would likely go in with them – I’ve actually been able to pet her when she’s on the cat house roof! – but then what would we do with them? We can’t put them in baby jail with Decimus. There’s not enough room. We have no other space for them. The Cat Lady isn’t able to take in more cats or kittens, either.
So, they stay where they are, for now. At least they’re still close to the house, nice and dry, and protected from the heat.
The Re-Farmer 