Critters

Wounded boy

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We’ve got a lovely day outside, and I was hoping to be able to do a burn. While setting up the burn ring, I noticed The Distinguished Guest was lurking about in the outer yard. He wouldn’t come near me, but I could still see that something was wrong.

I had to zoom in quite a bit to get this shot. That is a new wound on his leg. I sent the picture to the cat rescue lady, but since we can’t actually catch him, there’s nothing we can do but monitor from a distance. At least he’s still coming around for food. My guess is, the damage was done by Sad Face (AKA; Shop Towel). Sad Face has been quite aggressive towards TDG and some other cats, and he’s got the size and bulk to be the winner pretty much every time. I still see Sad Face around, but he runs off pretty quickly.

About the only positive thing I could make out is that TDG wasn’t actively limping as he walked around. He’s is such rough shape, though. He was a lot more social when he first showed up at our place, which is why we think he was dumped, but with Shop Towel beating on him, and likely getting chased away from other farms around us, he is a lot more feral now. I’ve only been able to get close to him when he’s been too hungry to be willing to leave the kibble.

He is not the only critter I saw today. When I first went outside to bring burnables out, I spotted a groundhog running away, first to the raised beds near the spruce grove, then skirting along the edge of the spruce grove towards the garage, then around the other side of the garage. Where he went after that, I couldn’t see. From the looks of the hole in the ground we found by the house when the snow first melted away, it’s possible it’s being actively used, and if it is, this might be the grog that’s using it.

I was really hoping to not have to deal with grogs in the garden this year.

Ah, well. It is what it is.

I’m more concerned about TDG.

As for the burn, it’s all set up, but we’ve got too many wind gusts to do a burn today, so it’ll have to wait. The burn ring is getting so full of ashes, we won’t be able to cover and let it smolder this time, but need to burn it down as much as possible, then clean out the ashes. Since we are slowly burning away the rotten pallets cleared out of where the wood pile used to be, before an electric furnace was installed, there’s a lot of nails in there, so we’ll be using the soil sifter over the wheel barrow to catch things like nails, as well as larger pieces of unburned wood. Since this is all from litter pellet sawdust and garbage, we can’t use the ashes in the garden, but we can dump it in some of the low spots in the outer yard.

This post has been oddly difficult to type. For some reason, Fenrir has decided she really, really wants to sniff and lick my keyboard, directly under my left hand. Earlier, she was trying to do the same thing with my mouse and mouse hand, and when I tried to stop her, she actually got angry enough to attack my hand and try to bight me! I can’t imagine what she could possibly be smelling on there all of a sudden.

But I digress.

Hopefully, tomorrow will be a calmer day and we’ll be able to get that burn done. If possible, I’d like to do a controlled burn of the outer yard around there, but for that, I’d want to make sure to have enough hoses joined together to reach, and the water tap’s shut off valve in the basement turned on. It’s still freezing overnight, so we’d have to make sure to turn the valve off again.

It may be dipping below freezing during the night, but not by much, so I unplugged the extension cord to the cats’ house and put that away, then unplugged the outside heated water bowl. I haven’t bothered to unplug the heated water bowl in the sun room, yet, simply because I like for that cats to have access to at least some warm water during the night.

Okay, this is weird. Fenrir is back. It’s not my keyboard she’s trying to get at. It’s my left hand. I don’t know what I touched that she might be smelling, and I did wash my hands when I came back inside, so I have no idea what’s going on! Time to give up trying to type, though. Every time I remove her, she comes right back and tried to eat my hand!

What a strange girl.

The Re-Farmer

Another sleepless night

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First, some morning kitties!

I counted 23 or 24 this morning.

Last night, I glanced through the bathroom window into the dark sun room, and could see a larger… shadow… moving around. Too big to be a cat and the wrong shape for a skunk.

So I headed out to take a look and, sure enough, it was a big racoon, searching for kibble.

I chased it out, then left the light on in the sun room so we could check it throughout the night.

I don’t know about the rest of the family, but several times, I headed back out to chase out skunks and another – or the same – racoon. That second racoon sighting was funny, as I glanced out the bathroom window, and this racoon head popped up over the seat of my husband’s walker to look back at me!

We’ve getting a couple of very small skunks and one big one going into the sun room. The little ones don’t like to leave, and will sit on the threshold, between the inner and outer doors, rather than go outside. I end up having to push the inner door and kick at it to make noise and chase it out. Chances are, there are cats or other critters just outside the door that are keeping it from going right out, too.

I was trying to get one of the skunks out that way, when it was still light out, when movement out the windows facing the old kitchen garden caught my eye. I had just scared our piebald deer away from the kibble house, too!

So we’ve got the deer, skunks and racoons, along with the blue jays and chickadees, stealing the cats’ food.

No wonder it’s disappearing so fast. Poor babies.

I did manage to sneak a pet on the back of the little black and white cat that looks so much like Pointy Baby. It was all lumps from matted fur. We so need to socialize this cat, so we can take care of that!!

Between the outside critters and the antics of the inside cats, I got very little sleep last night.

Meanwhile…

It’s still really windy out there.

Once again, I found the gate cam fallen over. This time, the solar panel got knocked right off. Thankfully, the connectors were all completely dry – the only parts that aren’t water proof – and I was able to reattach it right away.

I also dragged over a heavy piece of metal I found in the shed with the collapsed roof.

Hopefully, the weight of it will be enough to keep the stand from falling over, until we can find something better.

It was funny checking the files just a little while ago. After it got knocked down, it seems a cat clambered over it and used the wooden stand to keep its feet out of the water. From the fur colours and the matts I could see, it was the little black and white one.

The winds are supposed to keep up all day, but I’m hoping it will calm down at least a little bit, later today. I’m going to need to make a trip into town. I could probably wait until tomorrow, but thinks have a habit of coming up unexpectedly, so I’d rather get it over with today. I’ve heard the highways are clear and dry, so at least I won’t have to worry about icy roads as well as high winds.

Right now, though, I’m so tired, I’m not safe to drive. My daughter isn’t feeling very well, either, so she can’t drive for me. So I think I’ll try for a nap and hopefully head into town later.

And hopefully, we won’t have too many critters out in this wind, stealing the outside cats’ food!

The Re-Farmer

Round kitties, stinky kitties!

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Among last year’s kittens, we didn’t get as many grey tabbies as the year before. So far, all but one of them seem to be male.

This one isn’t.

And she is most definitely starting to look round.

*sigh*

There is another that is more of a muted calico that looks so much like a baby Beep Beep that I call her… well… Baby Beep Beep. She has started to sometimes let me pet her while she is eating and, yes, I can call her a “she”. So far, though, she is not looking to be in the motherly way. The tortie has been hanging out in the sun room a lot, and so far she doesn’t look pregnant, either. With the long haired calico, Brussel, her fur is so long, we wouldn’t be able to tell one way or the other. I don’t usually see Sprout or Phantom very often (I sometimes wonder if they’re the same cat, to be honest), but the last time I did, she was looking pretty svelte so far, too.

Rozencrantz and not-Junk Pile have definitely had their kittens. Somewhere. Whether they have survived or not, or where they might be, is anyone’s guess right now.

Meanwhile, when I went to to feed the outside cats just a little while ago, I found these stinky kitties!

At first, it was just one, rooting around near the bottom of the shelf by the window. Then the second one squeezed its way through the doors. It took me making a lot more noise than usual while tossing the kibble with lysine powder in the old kitchen to persuade them to leave! I have no idea what effect lysine will have on skunks, but I would guess it’s just as beneficial for them as for the cats.

I look forward to when we can start keeping the sun room doors closed again, cleaning up the messes that cats made and being able to move our seedlings in!

The Re-Farmer

Snow or no snow?

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My daughters were sweethearts and took care of the outside cats for me again this morning. Which was nice, because I was trapped in my bed by about half a dozen of them at the time!

When I headed out to switch the trail cam memory cards, only Rolando Moon was willing to follow me around!

She would not let me remove the burr she has stuck in her tail, though.

The driveway cam really takes a beating in this location! I need to find something to weigh down the base of the stand.

The camera was fine. Only the solar panel was touching the water. It and the camera are waterproof.

We had some heavy snowfall at times, but we’re also staying mostly above freezing temperatures. Even overnight, we’re just a degree or two below freezing. We’re getting snowfall warnings of up to 20cm/8in by the end of tomorrow, but from the looks of the weather radar, our strange little climate bubble is very much there. The snow is moving through our region but, directly above our area, the clouds part and go around! The southern part of our province is getting hit harder, and a neighbouring province has gotten 30cm/12 in places already. We’re doing just fine where we are. With how warm it is, the paved roads are staying clear. Not that I have any desire to go anywhere! 😄

We have about 3 or 4 more days of temperatures hovering above freezing, and then we start warming up again. About a week from now, the overnight temperatures are supposed to stay consistently above freezing, too. We’ll see how it actually works out!

Meanwhile, I’ve got some herbs to get started in the Jiffy pellets I started hydrating yesterday. 😊

The Re-Farmer

An awesome surprise

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I had a really rough night last night. No, not because of pain levels. Well. Only partly because of pain levels. More because of this little beast!

She even looks malevolent in this shot!

Throughout the night, if she wasn’t trying to dig under my keyboard or under my monitor (I have no idea what she is after under there!), she’s jumping up onto a craft shelf that really can’t support her, or goes right next to my head in bed, clawing at my sheets – I’m truly amazed I don’t have big holes in my sheets, yet! – before snuggling into my arms and cuddling hard up against me during the night.

She’s not the only one. I usually have her on one side, Cheddar jammed up against my back, and one or two more against my legs. It makes it very hard to roll over!

Then there were the cats determined to use the carpet as a scratching post instead of the scratching post, and the ones that do the non stop digging in the litter boxes (that includes Nosencrantz!) and generally waking me up repeatedly during the night. Oh, and of course there is the scratching at the door as various cats want in or out.

So this morning, I fed the outside cats while still in my pajamas, then went back to bed to try and get a least a couple more hours of sleep!

I almost got it, too.

Which is why I was later than usual when leaving to run some errands. We’re running low on dry kibble, and the price difference is enough to warrant going to the nearest Walmart. I left late enough that the post office had reopened after their lunch break, and my backordered seeds were supposed to be in, so that was my first stop.

Alas, my back ordered seeds did turn out to be yet another package of substitute seeds! Instead of the Improved Purple Queen beans I’d ordered, I got another package of Red Swan. That makes three packages, including the one that I’d actually ordered originally! Ah, well. I won’t bother trying to get the Improved Purple Queen again. They’re obviously having supply issues with that one. On the plus side, the seeds did come with a new catalog of garden supplies, including greenhouses. My older daughter is saving up for a hard sided greenhouse, so it will be great to look through what they have available, and get an idea of what it will cost.

I also got a surprise gift in the mail! I opened up the padded envelope to see, but didn’t open the boxes I found until I got home again. Check this out!

The insert says “Human Body Induction Night Light”. Apparently, they will turn on with body heat? Which is weird. Especially since they have motion sensors.

The box of AAA batteries to go with them was also greatly appreciated. We don’t use those a lot, and my last package got knocked behind a shelf by the cats and we have yet to be able to move that shelf to reclaim them.

I am just thrilled with these! Before moving out here, the townhouse we were living in had some dark hallways and corners. We had night lights all over the place, plus in the three bathrooms (gosh, I miss having more than one bathroom!) with motion sensors, so we could use the bathroom at night without blinding ourselves.

For me, the biggest problem is right at my bedroom door. It’s very dark on both sides, and with cats constantly wanting in and out of my room, I’ve accidentally stepped on or kicked way too many of them. I now have one attached to the wall at the inside of my door, and one attached to the basement door on the outside, both at cat height. It wasn’t long at all before they were tested out, too. Perfect!

I do have the decorative fairy lights in the hallway to light our way without having to turn on the main light, I’ve been using the leftover batteries from the trail cams for those. They each take 8 AA batteries. When the batteries are too low for the cameras, there’s still quite a bit of charge in them. Enough for the LED lights. So I’ve been keeping those separate to use in the LED lights. Now that we have the solar camera and just one other working trail cam, we’re not going through as many batteries as we used to. I’m finally working my way through the box I’ve been storing them in! Since they’re already partly used, they drain fairly quickly. With the fairy lights, they just get dimmer and dimmer.

So, I now have one of these new lights set up in our very dark hallway at about knee height. Another is set up in the even darker corner one of the upstairs litter boxes is in. There’s an old mirror we have yet to remove from the opposite wall, so the light reflects and brightens the whole space. Another went on a bathroom wall opposite the mirror for the same reason. We do have a battery operated LED light switch style light in the bathroom, but it’s a pain to change the batteries on it. We have another in the corner where one of the upstairs litter boxes it, too. They’re held to the wall with self adhesive Velcro, which would come off either the wall or the fixture. I ended up buying heavier duty self adhesive Velcro for the bathroom one, which holds in place better, but now it’s harder to remove to change the batteries. Plus, as the batteries die, the light starts to blink on and off like a strobe, so we’ve pretty much stopped using them. With these new lights, the backs slide off easily. The back stays on the wall while the batteries get changed.

The last light went just inside the old basement door, under the light switch. There is no light over the stairs, so right at the door is quite dark. Not a problem when you’re going down, but when going up, it’s hard to see, and where the new motion sensor light is set, it perfectly lights up the door knob as you reach the top of the stairs.

I am just loving these things! I’ve asked for the link, so we can pick up more! There are so many dark spaces in this house. Plus, of course, if we lose power, we will still have these lights. There are strategic places I can think to put more of them, if I can figure out how to attach them. The self adhesive mounting strips won’t work on the old basement walls, for example.

Yeah, I’m geeking out over these lights!

Also… I’ve got the best friends!!!

The Re-Farmer

Stinky kitty!

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I had another rough morning today. Along with pain and stiff joints, I had almost no balance, bouncing off the walls going to and from the bathroom, so I asked my daughters to feed the outside cats for me again.

Since Easter, when I was no longer on my Lenten fast from sugar and starchy foods, I have still not been eating a lot of either. I might include a potato with my breakfast, or some rice with my supper, and even had a couple of cookies my daughter recently bakes. That’s about it. I think, however, I am going to have to go back. I was mostly pain free during my fast, and certain other… bodily functions, shall we say… had improved. I even had days where I didn’t take any painkillers at all. Granted, some of the pain issues I’m having now may be related to how the temperature fluctuations affect my osteoarthritis, but that can only explain so much. Fatigue is another issue.

A lot of this stuff was so constant, I didn’t even really notice them until they came back after I ended my fast. So it looks like I’m going to need to cut out the sugar and starches, if I want to accomplish the things I need to get done this year. When I finally headed outside, it was because I made myself go. I sure as heck didn’t feel up to it. But, today is working out to be another gorgeous and sunny day, and I had things I wanted to check on.

The first thing I heard when I got outside was a very familiar crunching noise, so I checked the kibble house.

No wonder I was seeing cats cautiously circling around their shelters! Stinky Kitty was moved right in!

This little bugger did not want to leave, either. It’s still too cold to set up the hoses, so I tried to convince it to leave with a long stick. The little bugger just sniffed the end of the stick and kept on eating. He (she?) finally left after I went around the kibble house, banging on the roof and kicking at the back wall.

After that, I did the rest of my rounds. Once more of the snow is gone and the ground it less muddy, we’re going to have to take the wagon or wheel barrow around to pick up all the little branches and garbage that have been blown around. There are a few more garden beds that can be worked on, but I’m physically just not up to it. I kept seeing stuff that I want to get working on, some of which I can start now, but the old bod just can’t handle it today. Which is really, really frustrating. This is stuff that needs to get done, whether I feel like it or not. Especially since the weather forecasts – but just on one of my weather apps – is saying we might get 2-3 cm (about an inch) of snow starting tomorrow, and continuing over the next couple of days. Other apps say it’ll be rain. Either way, not good conditions for the outside work I want to do.

Which I will get into more in a video tour I made yesterday. Unfortunately, every time I try to save the file in a format I can upload, the video gets corrupted. I’m sure the problem is my computer, though, not the software. I’m going to try again today and, if it finally works, I’ll upload and post it.

Then, I’m going to take a nap before I plan to go into town to meet the egg lady for a couple more flats of farm fresh eggs!

The Re-Farmer

Feels wasted

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Today is Sunday and I normally try to keep it as my day of rest, but today just feels… wasted.

I woke up to a bad pain day. Enough that I asked my daughters to take care of feeding the outside cats, then went back to sleep for a couple more hours. It’s not even the worst pain I’ve been in, but it’s like all my joints just don’t want to work properly.

(As I type, retype and retype again, these few sentences repeatedly, because my fingers don’t want to work right!)

Still, I wanted to make sure I got outside for a while, do the rest of my morning rounds and get some fresh air and sunshine. It’s a really gorgeous day out there, and I didn’t want to miss too much of it!

Judgement is judging the state of my boots. 😄

Judgement and Gooby both followed me around all over. With more snow melting away, and plenty of wind, I found and picked up a lot more of those plastic strips from the new shingles being blown around.

One of the areas I can now get into is parts of the spruce grove. Usually it’s either too wet from the snow melt, or too overgrown, to get into. The snowmelt is being absorbed by the ground this spring and nothing is growing yet, so I was able to get through most of the area. There are so many dead trees in there. Some on the ground and rotting, some stuck on other trees and may actually be useable, and others that will need to be cut down. I was also spotting the poplars I want to thin out to use for the trellis tunnels we will be building. Poplar has been taking over the spruce grove. We will be keeping them to a certain extent, as they have been a very useful material, but as we cut down and clean out the dead trees, I want to plant more spruces in the spruce grove!

Feeling the way I do today, though, looking at all the work that needs to be done had me feeling my aching bones even more.

I was also scoping out locations. If things work out to plan, we’re going to have a shed delivered to us at some point, and we need to decide where to put it. It will likely be used as a chicken coop, once it gets the repairs it needs, until we can build the mobile chicken coop I have in mind. We will need some sort of base to support it, so it’s not directly on the ground. Yesterday, I was able to get into the barn and see the state of things. In the lean to side, there are a whole lot of old tires (why are there so many old tires all over the place???), some with rims, some without. It occurred to me that we can use the tires with rims to support the shed. Or just the rims. We don’t have as many rims without tires around, but we can take the tires off.

I had considered putting the shed near the barn, where we would have access to electricity if we wanted, but we have other plans for the outer yard, including permanent raised garden beds and the outdoor kitchen, so I’m thinking it might get to be too much. My daughter is also looking to build a shelter for a forge in the outer yard, though in a different area. The space is going to be filled up quite a bit, and we still need to make sure that there are lanes to drive through with large vehicles. There are also pipes from the well and septic tank running through towards the barn, with the septic pipe running off to the outflow pipe and water pipes running to an old cattle fountain and the barn. The area over them needs to be kept clear, in case they ever need to be excavated. Some day, I would like to be able to turn that water on again, but not until we’ve been able to replace our well pump and upgrade to a larger pressure tank. The shut off valve for fountains and barn is in our basement. There are two cattle fountains are designed to refill automatically, and they keep the water from freezing in the winter. One fountain, we can see from the house. The other is behind the barn, set up to be accessible both inside and outside of a pen. I’d like to have both of them checked out and repaired as necessary. We’re not planning to have cattle, but if we end up having goats or something, or even have it available for the deer or the renter’s cows, that would be good. That is years in the future, though. As for the tap in the barn, it’s been bashed into at some point and needs repair, too.

In the end, I decided the best place to set up the shed would be near the garage. There’s an open space there that no longer has a branch pile in it. We would have to line it up with the front of the garage, which should keep it from shading out the asparagus and sunchoke beds along the chain link fence. With the chain link fence and the garage, we would have to fence off only two sides to create a run for any chickens. It would be a small run for just a few chickens, but enough to start with. The shed would need to be far enough from the garage to access the wall and roof. Now that the branch pile is gone, we can finally clean out the eaves on that side of the garage!

That branch pile was never meant to be there for several years!!

Having it by the garage gives easy access to electricity, plus better storage for feed and bedding, and still be fairly close to the house, where we’d be getting water from.

To prepare for the shed here, the ground will need a small amount of leveling, and the tires/rims can be brought over. I don’t know the dimensions of the shed yet, so I’d just want to have them nearby until I know where to put them. We even have a chain link gate in the storage house, sitting on the remaining section of stairs to the basement, that could be used to access the chicken run after we fence it off. The shed itself needs its floor replaced. It has a flat roof that leaks, which is why the floor got damaged, so I want to put an angle roof over the existing one, with an overhang on all sides.

Little by little, it’ll get done.

The next area I wanted to scope out was the maple grove behind the house. The two branch piles there are now gone, so it’s nice and open again. The old garden shed is slowly rotting away. My late brother got it second hand from who knows where, and it was basically shoved in between some trees, on top of rocks. I don’t know if any attempt had been made to level it when it was first brought in, but it’s certainly not level now. The trees are holding it up, though!

Since the outdoor bathroom we were planning to build as a cordwood practise building will have to wait until we’ve cut down and removed about a dozen dead spruce trees, I want to make a garden shed as a cordwood practise building. My original thought was to place it next to where there is a path through the maple grove to the main garden area, with the door facing the path.

The bare ground the branch piles had been on will be planted with a lawn replacement mix of seeds, but as I walked around, I considered using one of those patches as a better location for the shed I have in mind. It’s not going to be very big; the interior is planned to be 6’x8′, plus the width of the cordwood walls, so we have some options. One thing to keep in mind, though, is the water. There is a tap near the old garden area. It used to be right at the path along one side of the garden, but the garden grew smaller over the years, as my parents planted more trees closer to the house, instead of along the north fence line. There are now trees on the other side of the old path, where garden used to be. A lot of trees have been cut down since it was installed, and there’s even a stump right at the tap that still keeps sending out shoots. Other trees have gotten much bigger since it was installed, too. The water source is a tap at the back of the house, and there is a hose buried in the ground. I’ve tried hooking up the hose end, only to have water spraying up from the ground, at the edge of one of the branch piles that was there. One of the goals of this year is to dig up the old hose and replace it. My thought is to get some heavy duty hose and run it through a PVC pipe from tap to tap. That way, if we ever need to replace it again, it would be relatively easy to pull it out and put a new one in, without having to dig a new trench.

Digging that old hose out is not going to be easy. There are going to be a lot of roots in the way!

The main goal being to have that tap at the main garden area working again. It would be a better place to hook up a hose for watering the garden, and I want to make a vegetable washing station. Having the new garden shed near the tap would also be convenient.

The more I walked around the area, the more I realized the best place to build the garden shed would actually be on the other side of where the hose is buried, closer to where the current shed is, and closer to the tap. There are fewer tree stumps to work around, among other things! There would also be more open space in what would be the front of the shed.

In planning the cordwood walls for this, we intend to place longer logs in parts of the wall to support a bench on the outside at one end, which would be closer to the tap. We could even include some longer logs higher up to support a small table or shelf, too. The other end will be facing south, and we plan to have a window and bottle bricks on that side for natural light. With the new location I’m considering, there won’t be as much light, since there are more large maples there. At least one of them is dead and needs to be cut down and untangled from the live tree that’s holding it up. Others are leaning so far over, I plan to cut them to where the trunks are still straight, which will encourage new growth at a lower height. That will be better for the trees, but will eventually block out more light from the planned shed. I don’t mind that too much, though. As long as we have a good, strong garden shed!

So…

Lots of plans. Lots of work to do this summer.

I guess today wasn’t that much of a wasted day, after all.

The Re-Farmer

Some good – but very expensive! – news!

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So we took David in to the vet for what I thought might be a cyst. An abscess was another possibility.

It turned out to be neither.

David had a really bad case of ear mites.

Here he is, with his freshly cleaned ears. He also got a shot of antibiotics to help with the wound he’d scratched on himself.

Then, because if one cat has ear mites, all the cats have ear mites, we got enough medication to treat all of them. One box has enough ear drops for 11 cats. The other has a topical treatment for the remaining five.

Before I left, someone came in to show me how to administer the ear drops so he, at least, has been done.

Fifteen more to go.

Most of the cats don’t actually show signs of ear mites in their behaviour, but I was pretty sure Ginger, at least, had them. I’ve tried to keep his ears clean and treated with mineral oil, but he is not very cooperative about that. Can you blame him?

Once I can get organized with the girls, we’ll start working our way through the cats. I’ll have to make a check list so we can mark off which ones are done, so we don’t loose track and forget someone. The hard part is actually going to be cleaning their ears as much as possible, first.

The life cycle of ear mites is 3 weeks. These meds are a monthly dose. One treatment should be enough, if we get them all done as quickly as possible, but if we were to stagger the treatments over a longer period of time, we’d run the risk of reinfection. Several of our cats have been treated for them before, but I don’t think we’ve ever been able to treat all of them at the same time.

The vet asked about contact with outdoors, and I did mention Potato Beetle being our newest indoor addition, however we would have had the ear mite problem before he came in.

The final bill was just over $640.

Ouch.

That’s more than what I had budgeted to for a plumber.

Thankfully, my daughter will be able to help out, though she has to transfer out of her PayPal account, first, so it will take several business days. I don’t know if she’ll be able to cover the full amount. Whatever it works out to, I hope it’s enough that we can still get the plumber to come in and replace those bathroom taps for us! I guess it’s a good thing I kept forgetting to call him back – and a good thing it is no emergency to get it done!

The most important thing is that the swelling behind David’s ear was nothing major; it was just from him scratching the one spot so much.

The vet that treated David was the same vet I spoke to about Pointy Baby after we got him unstuck from the fence. She was a bit surprised to hear he had passed, but only because when we spoke to her, he had seemed to be doing all right. Given the circumstances, it was most likely due to damage to his neck bones. It wasn’t “broken” – he could still move all his limbs – but considering how long he had to have been struggling to get free, all sorts of damage could have happened. I’m just glad we were able to get him out and he died in the comfort and warmth of my arms, and not while still stuck in the fence!

The whole thing makes having this good news with David much more of a relief.

The Re-Farmer

Well, crud

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Early this evening, my daughter brought David over to the isolation ward, AKA my bedroom, for supervision duty. He’s been scratching a lot at one spot behind his ear to the point of irritation. I’d treated it with an antibiotic ointment, but he’s a bit hard to pin down, so it hasn’t been doing regularly. Today, my daughters noticed that there’s now a patch of fur missing behind his right ear, and the skin is quite red and raw.

I was able to put more antibiotic ointment on it while my daughter held him, but in the process I could feel that there is a definite lump under the wound. My guess is, there’s a cyst that’s bothering him.

Crud.

We were able to call the vet clinic just before it closed. After explaining why we wanted to have him checked, I was asked if we wanted to get him in right away. Of course, I said yes. It turns out they had a cancellation, so we now have an appointment to bring him in tomorrow morning.

He wasn’t too keen on not being allowed out of my room. Especially since I took the opportunity to clean his ears with some mineral oil, just to see. The right ear, with the lump behind it, was very dirty, but there was no blood, which was good. The left ear wasn’t very dirty at all. He was very unhappy with the procedure, so the next while was spent keeping him from scratching while my daughter tried to find a cone. We should have two of them, but no one can remember where they are. She didn’t find one, but after awhile, the irritation went away, and he stopped trying to scratch the area. After several more attempts to get out, he finally settled down, and is now sleeping comfortably on my bed.

Marlee is not happy with the new addition, but they just growled at each other a bit, and are now chillin’ far away from each other.

Hopefully, he will just need a cyst to be drained and that’s it.

We’ll find out, soon enough!

The Re-Farmer

The status of things

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Today may be cooler, but we’re still staying above freezing, and the kitties are just loving it!

I only counted about 16, this morning. As things melt clear and my morning rounds are extending further out, I’m seeing the cats all over the place. The long haired tuxedo followed me all over the place, much like Pointy Baby did – just without actively trying to get me to pick him up and carry him!

I miss Pointy Baby.

The berry bushes we planted last year are almost completely uncovered. That old saw horse with the sticks is over the highbush cranberry the deer kept eating. I checked the other one and can almost, sorta, see leaf buds starting to form!

The main garden area is still mostly covered with snow. If all goes to plan, the area in front of where I’m standing will have at least a couple of trellis tunnels built.

The garlic bed isn’t quite clear, yet!

The standing water has receded more, so I was able to get to the storage warehouse (which I would really love to reclaim as a work shop again!!) and look around. With not being able to get to the dump as often in the winter, we’ve been storing our garbage bags in the old kitchen, where it could freeze. It’s getting too warm for that, now. We need to build a garbage bin outside that is cat and racoon proof to store the bags until we can make our dump runs. There are pieces of plywood and other random boards in the warehouse. With all my parents’ stuff jammed into there, none of it is accessible. Some of the stacks of boxes need to be moved around, anyhow, as they are starting to collapse and tip. That’s as good an excuse as any to move things around. Some of the plywood sheets, however, are behind a couch, and there are all sorts of boxes and bins that predate us on and in front of it. No matter. We’ll figure out how to get to them. I’d love to get rid of all the bags of clothes in there. They’re not even suitable for donating after all this time, but my mother still insists we don’t throw anything out! *sigh* She’s still all worried that someone might come in and steal her old underwear or something. 🤨

While in the shed, I noticed an old broiler pan that will work as a kibble tray. I don’t know why we’ve been finding broiler pans all over the place – no one ever used them for what they were made for – but they make great kibble trays, so I grabbed it. With a bit of readjusting of things, I was able to reclaim two of the baking sheets I got for carrying transplants around that were being used as kibble trays over the winter. There is still one more, just inside the cat house entry, but I will leave that for now. With the two trays I reclaimed, I’ll be able to pot up the Indigo Blue Chocolate tomatoes now.

After I was done my rounds, I made a quick trip to the post office to see if a parcel had arrived. With so much snow gone, once I was back, I actually went to close the gate! I’m seeing our vandal walking by with his dog on the trail cam more often, so I wanted to have it at least closed. This makes it the first time that gate has been closed since the snow got too deep to keep clear, several months ago.

Well, now.

When my brother and I put the repaired gate back up, the two sides were even. That sliding bar holds the two sides closed, and I could put a pin through the pair of holes at the corner, which made sure the wind or whatever didn’t vibrate the bar off the end of the gate. Before winter, it was noticeably shifted, but we could still lift one side of the gate while pushing down on the bar and get the pin through. Now, it’s just too far off! We’ll have to come out with a level and see which gate post has shifted the most. I was thinking the north post was tipping away, but my daughters think the south post is tipping inwards. It could well be both. The gate posts were installed in such a way that they can be adjusted by adding washers to the bolts at the base. My brother had done that when he installed the new hinges that replaced the ones our vandal broke. I’d hoped it would be a few years longer before it had to be done again. It’s been about 3 1/2 years since these were repaired and replaced, so I guess that’s not too bad.

The main thing is, the gate is now closed! Without being able to put the pin in the sliding bar, the chain is extra necessary to make sure they don’t swing open on their own. We’ll also have to touch up the paint a bit. I think I still have a spray can of it around. I’ll have to think about what I can put around where the chain and bar is damaging the paint so quickly.

Things are going to stay colder over the next 10 days or so, with daytime highs just above freezing and overnight lows dipping several degrees below freezing. We’re also getting smatterings of rain. I’d say it’s a good thing we didn’t plant those carrots, even if we did have the plastic to cover them until they germinated. I don’t mind, though. It means things will continue to melt and be absorbed by the ground slowly. I rather like not having to wade through giant muddy puddles to get to the garage. It will give us time to work on other preparations.

I’m just thrilled to be able to get outside and get working again, even if it’s just a tiny bit at a time!

The Re-Farmer