I was so happy to see Rosencrantz in the sun room!
It’s been so long since I’ve seen her, I was starting to wonder if she was coming back at all. She’s looking pretty thicksome, so wherever she’s been for the past month or so, she’s been well fed!
We’ve been talking to the Cat Lady about setting up traps to catch female yard cats for spays. Rosencrantz is almost friendly enough that we might… maybe… be able to get her into a carrier. She did not look like a happy mama. Last year, she had kittens insanely early, was clearly coming to me for help, but I couldn’t get to where she had them in the junk pile. Everything was too frozen to the ground, and they clearly died soon after. Once things thawed out, we never did try to get to that spot. I was just not ready to see if there was anything left of them. Then she had another litter – 3 grey and whites, Pinky and a tortoise shell – also in the junk pile, but somewhere in a different spot. She became increasingly hissy and snarly when I tried to pet her. Her behaviour actually reminded me of how Butterscotch used to be, and Butterscotch is her mother. When Butterscotch was spayed, her uterus was in really bad shape, but when Cabbages was done, she had a twisted uterus, too, and she was only 2 yrs old. Cabbages was from Butterscotch’s second litter, the summer we brought her and Beep Beep into the basement to have their babies, and we discovered she was killing off her first litter because she wanted out so badly. I suspect there may be a genetic defect in Butterscotch’s line.
Here’s hoping we’ll be able to start getting that done in the time window, where it’s warm enough to safely trap them and not fear they’d freeze before the trap got checked, but before the ladies start going into heat!
Also, the Cat Lady messaged me on the 1 year anniversary since they took in Cabbages! Where did that year go? Cabbages is doing so well, now. It’s quite the miracle! She’s living the high life, getting fed salmon and chicken so much, she turns her nose up at cat food. 😄
I’m so glad we found the Cat Lady. She and her family are just amazing!
When checking on the seed starts in the big aquarium greenhouse, I’m usually greeted by this…
Beep Beep absolutely LOVES those aquarium lights. They are nice and warm, and I think she really appreciates that, after all her winters outdoors!
Also, isn’t that the most adorable tongue blep? 😂
The down side, she rolls around so much, she starts pushing the one raised light fixture around. I’ve even found it with one end pushed right off the tank! The other light lies flush on the surface, so the frame of the wire mesh covers holds it in place.
In other things…
This afternoon, my husband and I had our rescheduled joint doctor’s appointment. When the phone range this morning, my immediate thought was that it was going to be rescheduled again! It turned out to be someone from home care doing his annual follow up call. The only thing we have from home care is my husband’s hospital bed, so most of the call was to make sure our postal and physical address was still the same.
My husband and I left very early for the appointment. It’s a good thing we did start heading out so early! I went out ahead to get my husband’s walker through the sun room doors (we need to find threshold ramps, but of the ones I looked at, they all seem to be the wrong height), then got the van set up and backed out of the garage a bit. Normally, I would have driven the van right to the house, but we haven’t been able to clear such a large area of snow. I had made sure the path to the garage was wide enough for the walker, and as clear of snow as possible, but anything beyond where there are actual sidewalk blocks will always be a bit rough on the wheels.
I did wonder, though, when I saw my husband hobbling to the van, without his walker.
It turned out he left through the main doors, not the sun room (which would have avoided stairs). He was expecting the walker to be at the main doors, and when he didn’t see it, he just kept going to the van!
When I saw him, I told him I’d go bring the walker, and he was all confused until I pointed out where it was sitting (the cats love the padded seat on that thing!). He went back to get it himself. I remembered just in time to ask if he had his wallet, with his health care card. Nope! He completely forgot! So I dashed inside to get that. By the time we were on the road, it was about 15 minutes later than I had been shooting for, but that is exactly why I factor in so much extra time!
The drive out was very rough on him. Especially the half mile or so of gravel road, just before the highway. It was a complete washboard, and there was no way to avoid it. The best I could do was slow down a bit, but all that did was give him slightly less pain for a longer time. Even on the highway, every now and then there would be a rough spot there was no way to avoid. He spent most of the time doing breathing exercises and meditation to help control the pain (yes, he was on painkillers), and the nausea that came with it.
We made a short stop to pick up a bit of gas and breakfast, which I had also factored in to my timeline, and got to the clinic about forty minutes before our appointment.
The clinic doors had signs saying, it’s cold and flu season, wear a mask! As if that ever made a difference. 🙄 We weren’t wearing any when we came in, and they didn’t say anything, but my husband still asked about wearing one. I think he felt other patients were having a problem with it, though the staff certainly didn’t. They know full well how useless they are. I couldn’t find the Mingle Masks that used to be in our van – I think my daughter might have thrown them out while cleaning out the front of the van, when we thought we’d be able to use it as a trade in – but I’d grabbed the last ones from the box we’d bought several years ago. It’s been so long, my husband forgot how to wear them! 😄
He then settled in for what he expected to be a long and painful wait, only for us to be called in just a few minutes later! My husband didn’t have a lot to cover. We started the paperwork to get a disabled parking permit, which now has to be done online with a doctor. The last time we did it, several years ago, we weren’t sure how it was done in this province, and left the paperwork with the doctor, thinking they had to send it in. Turns out, that’s not how it works here. After the doctor did the online paperwork and printed it out, there was a part for me to fill out as the emergency contact person, then details my husband had to include and sign for. Then it went to the reception desk, where we had to pay a fee to the doctor – cash or check only, and I thankfully had our checkbook – which was $30. Then we get the paperwork back and have to mail it out to a central office, along with a check for $15, for the placard to be mailed back to us. The alternative would be to drive to the city, find the place, then pay for and pick up the placard there.
In the province we lived in before, it was all covered. Even the doctor was able to waive the paperwork fee. All we had to do was bring a prescription to anywhere that did vehicle license and registration, and we’d get a placard immediately.
My husband rarely goes anywhere, but being able to park closer when he does would be a huge improvement for him.
After my husband left to do his bloodwork, I had my own appointment. I am now OFF that injection that was doing such nasty things to my insides. My husband is on the same injection for something else, and his dose got increased, so I’ll just give my fresh new refill to him. I’m now back on the medication I was on before that had no side effects with me, and worked just fine.
I also talked to him about whether or not it was time for me to apply for disability myself, because of the osteoarthritis. The last time I saw him, I got X-rays of my hands, and they only showed the beginnings of arthritis. I’m also not on any prescriptions for arthritis, so I simply wouldn’t be considered “disabled” enough to qualify for CPP Disability.
The hands are just the newest thing; my hips, knees and feet have been bothering me for a very long time. I even told him, I have no problem doing big things, like wielding a chain saw or pushing wheelbarrows around, but I need to use the bath chair to take a shower, I can’t take a bath, I struggle to do stairs, and can barely open a jar, because I’ve lost so much grip strength due to pain in my finger joints.
We talked about the painkillers I’m on now, which is just extra strength acetaminophen that I take morning and evening, and it’s not really cutting it anymore. So he gave me a prescription to try for 2 weeks, also taken morning and evening, to see how it works for me. That got faxed to the pharmacy, so I’ll be able to get that filled for the weekend, when I’ll be able to go into town to pick it up.
And we were done. I didn’t even get a requisition for bloodwork. I went to the lab to find the technician was still trying to find a vein in my husband’s arm and asked him about the parking permit application. It was at the reception desk, so I was able to write a check for that. By the time he was done and we were on our way home, we still had 10 minutes before our joint appointments were scheduled to start!
I love that when we come in early at this clinic, we almost always get seen early, too!
My husband was more than happy to get home, though that last push through the snowy paths with his walker was a lot more difficult than the first time around. He ended up going in through the main doors rather than fight through that last bit of snowy path to the sun room, and I took care of putting the walker away. Which certainly startled quite a few cats when I banged and rattled through the door with it! 😄 While we are at a relatively mild -9C/16F right now, the wind chill is supposedly -19C/-2F. I say “supposedly”, because we have been getting some nasty gusts of wind that make it feel even colder. The cats are quite enjoying the shelter of the sun room, that’s for sure!
Tomorrow, we’re supposed to have a high of -14C/7F and, if all goes to plan, that’s when I’ll be heading to the city for our Costco trip. After tomorrow, temperatures are supposed to drop to a high of -22C/-8F and stay chilly for a while, though the long range forecasts are not showing temperatures as cold as they did when I last checked them.
The weather app that came with my desktop provides interesting extra information, including average and record highs and low. The 30 year record high for today was 3C/37F, back in 2006 – but the record low in 1997 was -36C/-33F! I’m quite happy with a mere -9C/16F right now, even with the wind chill!
This winter has been the mildest – and closest to average – winter we’ve had since moving out here! I’m really, really appreciating it!
The temperatures dropped quite a lot overnight, and it was still -22C/-8C when I headed out this morning. It was, however, a bright and sunny morning, with no wind, making it quite pleasant out!
And quite beautiful!
Tomorrow, we’re expected to have one last “warm” day, with a high of -10C/14F. A brief respite on the day my husband and I are going for our doctor appointments – if we don’t get rescheduled again! – before we start getting hit with a cold streak. Depending on where I look, we’ll have about a week with highs colder than -20C/-4F before things start warming up again. Which is still warmer than it has been, the past couple of winters, so I’m not complaining! The cats and cattens are certainly using the sun room more often again. I counted 24 this morning. 😊
It is an inside cat that we are concerned about right now. Our grandma cat, who moved out here with us, is behaving strangely. At first, we thought she had something stuck in the back of her throat. She would make glakking noises and paw at her face. Then she stopped doing it, so I figured whatever was bugging her had worked itself loose and she was fine.
Except, it turns out she’s still be doing it. I just haven’t been around her to hear it.
Last night, my husband called me over because she was sounding really bad while in his room, but had just run off. I found her and tried to take a look – and found blood on one of her front paws! With the help of a daughter, I was able to wash her paw – she did NOT want to be held for this! – but there was no injury on her paw. We tried looking into her mouth, but she didn’t like that, either. Still, from what we could see, there was no injury or blood there, either.
So this morning, I called the vet, hoping to get her booked for Saturday. My husband’s smaller CPP Disability comes in on Friday, so I’ll be in the city for a much needed Costco trip. They were fully booked on Saturday, but we were able to get a Sunday appointment – for 8:30am. Thank goodness this vet is relatively close! After I described what was going on, they did offer us an appointment for tonight, but we just don’t have the extra funds for a vet trip until disability comes in. To be honest, now that we’re going to start making “car payments” so we can get a replacement vehicle before next winter, we really can’t afford any vet trips, but we’ll manage. I’m hoping it’s something relatively minor – something stuck in her throat that can be pulled out and she’ll be fine. Worst case scenario… well. Plan for the worst, hope for the best.
Since bringing in Butterscotch and Beep Beep from outside, we’ve got three grandmas in the house. Unfortunately, that means we can probably expect more health problems to crop up.
We’ll just deal with things as they come, and do the best we can.
This is what I have to wade through, in the mornings!
The one using the empty heated water bowl as a butt warmer is hilarious!
Also, they’ve done quite a job of knocking things out of the shelves and off the counter. We’ll have to wait until the ground is dry before we can move things out to pick it all up. Until then, we need to watch our step for all little stuff that got knocked out of their various containers!
We had a light snowfall last night, making everything all white and fluffy this morning.
The outside cats didn’t mind it at all!
I counted 21 this morning.
Meanwhile, indoors, we have our first signs of spring.
When I checked the trays this morning, three out of four of them had onions sprouting. When I came back about an hour later, there were sprouts in the fourth tray!
I’m absolutely amazed by two things. One is, how quickly they started to germinate.
The other is, how much cat hair there is, all over the soil surface. These trays had lids on them. Where did all that cat hair come from? I mean, Beep Beep practically lives on top of the lights. She naps on them, rolls around on them, and even hugs them, so yeah… I can see some of her fur drifting down… but getting under the lids?
Yesterday, I marked on our communal calendar, two sets of dates. One was the number of weeks counted back from our last average frost date, June 2. This way, we can see at a glance that something that needs to be started 10 weeks before last frost, needs to be started around March 24, while something that needs only 4 weeks can wait until May 5th.
The other dates I marked was number of days counted back from our average first frost date, which is Sept. 10. We have exactly 100 days between our average last spring and first fall frosts. That’s the growing season we can mostly count on for frost sensitive plants.
For things that have really long days to maturity, it’s that “days before first frost” that we need to consider. If, for example, I have a gourd that requires 110 days to maturity, that’s May 23. If it needs 7-10 days to germinate, I would start them at least a week before that.
If I have something than need 90 days to maturity, that falls on June 12 and, by then, I could get away with direct sowing, instead.
One of the really useful tools I’ve found is the Farmer’s Almanac planting calendar. Most planting calendars just give number of weeks before first frost, because they’re meant to be generic. I can get that information from the seed packet. Farmer’s Almanac, however, lets you input your area code (or zip code, if you’re in the US). You can even put in your city (ha!) and province/state. It will find the climate station nearest you, then give you the calendar dates for starting indoors and transplanting, or seeding outdoors. It even gives you the choice of dates based on frost date, or on moon dates. Oh, and I discovered something very handy when I hit the print button on the web page. It allows you to remove things from the list that you aren’t growing, which greatly reduced the number of pages that got printed out!
It’s still a bit generic, of course, but the date range is pretty wide. For example, it tells me bell peppers should be started between March 24 and April 7. We have five varieties of bell peppers, and four of them are early varieties, so we could use the information on the seed packet to figure out which ones need to be started in March, and which can wait until April.
Of course, they can’t cover everything, so we still need to make adjustments. For example, their calendar says to start winter squash outdoors between June 16 and July 14. With some varieties, we could do that, but we’ve got some large varieties of winter squash that need more time to fully mature, so we would be better off starting them indoors. If we use the biodegradable pots that can be buried, that would reduce transplant shock.
We have always started summer squash indoors. I think, this year, we might direct seed them. The calendar says zucchini can be planted anywhere between June 16 and July 14, which is when we can expect the soil to finally be warm enough.
As for the things we’ll need to start the earliest, the herbs (except dill, which is direct sown) will need to be started at the same time as bell peppers; in March. The eggplants and tomatoes can be started in early April, melons can be started in early May, while pumpkins and watermelon can be started in mid May.
The direct sowing dates are pretty interesting for some things. If we decide to try growing radishes again, they can be direct seeded in early April – at the same time we’d be starting eggplant and tomatoes indoors. Carrots can be planted in late April, early May, which would be about the same time we’d be starting melons indoors.
All of which needs to be taken with a grain of salt. For example, the calendar says to start onion seeds outdoors in early May. Sets, sure, but seeds? Nope. There’s a reason people out here start their onion seeds indoors in January! Also, it has dates to start lettuce and chard indoors, but none for direct seeding. Who starts lettuce and chard indoors? I mean, sure, you can grow them indoors, but for transplant?
As it stands now, though, we won’t need to start anything else indoors until March 24, at the earliest.
That gives us February and most of March to get the materials we need and build a removeable door and frame, to keep the cats out of the living room, and out of the seedlings!
We’ll also need to build a barrier to block an opening in the shelf to the left of the door in the image.
Nosencrantz may turn into a ball of anxiety around the other cats, but she’s completely different, with me!
She has completely adopted me as her own, personal human. Incredibly affectionate. This is her napping after a hard session of “pet my face! Now!” 😄
She has the softest fur of all the cats.
Does it make up for her habit of crapping in all the wrong places? I gotta admit, when I had crawl on my hands and busted up knees to clean up another mess in the shelf behind my night stand at 2am, I certainly didn’t think so!
I’ve blocked off the space now. She has lost one of her hidey holes for when she runs away from the other cats.
After I cleaned everything up, blocked it off, and went back to bed, the little bugger came over and began snuggling me.
We’ve got ourselves a Potato Beetle for your daily cuteness!
Yes, it looks like the Potato has become one of the elect few that the ladies will allow in my office/bedroom without much issue. Which is good, since Butterscotch is his mother! Not that she wants anything to do with him, any more than she wants anything to do with any other cat!
Potato Beetle has had a couple of battles. He doesn’t start them. Leyendecker went after him hard recently, and Potato stood his ground. Not sure if they worked out their pecking order issues, but I haven’t seen them go at it, since.
The Potato, however, is perfectly content to just wander around the house, eat, sleep, and commandeer my husband for love and naps. If all the other cats left him be, as most of them do, he’d leave them be, too!
Pretty easy transition for an outside cat, that’s for sure!
Ginger has become accepted as one of the few cats Nosencrantz, Butterscotch and Marlee, will accept in the room with them. Almost. Nosencrantz will still hiss and run off. Butterscotch ignores him and keeps her distance. Marlee will sometimes hiss at him and block his way when he tried to go for the door. He’s more intimidated by her, than she is of him! Overall, though, we’re able to let him into the room to enjoy a nice soft bed to nap on – and an extra feeding of wet cat food in the evenings. Better than having him trying to hop down the stairs to join the other cats at feeding time in the basement! Even if he’s not in my office, the girls will make sure to bring up some wet cat food for him, after feeding the cats downstairs, so he doesn’t have to push his way through other cats to get some.
I think he’s quite appreciating the special privileges he’s getting!
The Re-Farmer 