Working on the sun room

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There are a lot of jobs that need to be done before the snow flies, but some of them are more weather dependent than others.

Working on the sun room is one of them, because we basically have to empty it in the process.

So instead of working on winterizing the garden beds and yard, as I’d originally intended, I started on the sun room.

Well. Half of it.

The main thing was to clear the area in front of the pair of windows on the east side of the door, so that I could clear away as much broken glass from the inner pane as possible.

My daughter had already cleared the big pieces of broken glass from the bottom window – the top one has cracks, but hasn’t broken apart, yet. There were many jagged pieces left that she couldn’t get out. I tried using the glass cutter, but it really didn’t do much of anything. I ended up breaking most of the pieces off with a pair of pliers. Some pieces came out entirely, others broke away closer and closer to the frame, while still others just got crushed by the pliers.

After sweeping as much of the glass as I could, I used a vacuum to get the rest.

While doing the concrete floor, I spotted something that either I completely forgot about, or somehow managed to miss when we first cleaned out the sun room of my parents’ stuff.

Right in the corner, there are foot prints in the concrete. You can see one hand print as well, and there are just barely signs of a second hand print.

My late brother poured this concrete. My guess is, these are his son’s prints.

Awww…

Once the glass was cleaned up as much as possible, it was time to put insulation in place.

I covered both windows, as I’m hoping the insulation will prevent the top window from cracking even more. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s temperatures that are causing the cracks, though they certainly are a factor. The entire sun room is shifting, and sinking slightly, at the corner by the rain barrel. Likely because the barrel was allowed to overflow and, before winter, simply tipped over on the spot to be emptied.

I decided to rearrange this side of the sun room to something I hope is more functional.

The shelf I had the kibble bin stored in used to be in this corner, and the counter shelf you see now was in the opposite corner. It’s on bricks, in case the floor gets wet. The roof leaks above this corner – which will hopefully no longer be a problem soon! We still don’t have a date for the roofers to come int.

The hanger on the wall was on the wall beside the door to the old kitchen, but it was too long, so it was mounted diagonally. It partly worked, but it’s in a more useful spot, now.

Then it was time to clean out this corner, by the bathroom window. That space on the left is where the hanger had been. The counter shelf was in the corner, with all sorts of stuff, including my husband’s walker and my crossbow target, blocking the front of it. The top had become a mess of tools and containers.

Unfortunately, by this time, it was getting late. The shelf went into the corner and I started out organizing things as I brought them back in. After a while, though, I got a daughter to help, and we just shoved everything into this corner, to be finished another time.

The other half is going to take more work. Aside from having to wrestle the swing bench out the door, that side is where the cats – and sometimes skunks – would leave messes in inaccessible corners.

Thankfully, we’ve got a couple more warm, dry days before the temperatures start to drop, and we have the possibility of rain. We won’t be able to get back at it tomorrow. In the morning, we’ve got the cat lady coming to pick up the bitty babies, then in the afternoon, the girls and I are heading out to pick up my mother, then going to the marsh to see the migrating birds, while we still can this year. So after tomorrow, we can get back to work!

Speaking of which, one of the things the girls did while I started on the sun room was head out to a stand of willows behind the barn, with the loppers. They were looking for branches appropriate to use on the wattle wall I’m building in the old kitchen garden. Unfortunately, the only long, straight ones they found were branches that died long ago, and were in no condition for use. The live branches were not suitable for wattle weaving. The best they were able to do was prune some small but straight maple suckers that can be used as space fillers. I’d already gathered some last night from the maples now clear of the branch piles that got chipped, that I hope can be used. I did not expect it to be this difficult to find suitable materials for that project!

Well, that last paragraph took a lot longer to write compared to the rest of this post. The bitties needed attention, and are now back on me. The black and white is content to curl up on my chest, but the grey and white tabby wants to explore!

Time to get off the computer and

Ow! The little bugger just bit my thumb!!!

Time to ten

3d o 7bia

bie7sl7

77777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777774

get a kitten off the keyboard.

The Re-Farmer

Sad news and guardian angels

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This morning there was a real crowd when I came out to feed the yard cats!

I’ve taken to leaving kibble on the ground for the babies that like to hide under the cat house. Counting these four, I spotted 27 cats this morning! There were more adults than usual, but certainly not all of them.

Sadly, as I was putting food out, I checked inside the cat house, as I always do, and spotted a little black and white kitten.

It was lying alone, in the middle of the floor, looking like it was asleep. Except, it wasn’t.

Now, I know the cat house was empty when I checked it last night. My best guess is that the bitties were hiding under it, then made their way inside during the night. Or just one of them did. There was no sign of the dark one.

I buried it with Keith.

Definitely a sad way to start the day.

Today being a warmer and sunnier day, I started working on cleaning out and winterizing the sun room. In the process, I found the buckets of old seeds my mother saved over the years. Some had vague information on the packets like “yellow flower”. Others had nothing.

I ended up dumping all but the tree seeds into a shoebox sized bin. Found some squash seeds of some kind in the process, and what look like dried currants. The packages said only “shrub” on them.

I decided to just fling them out somewhere. These are old seeds that have been through temperature extremes in the sun room, so germination rates would be very low, but who knows?

I decided to fling them somewhere in the outer yard, closer to the secondary gate. As I was leaving the inner yard, though, I changed my mind.

Out by those willows, things got very wet with the spring flooding we had this year. I figured in a more average spring, it would be a better place for the seeds, as it would at least have more moisture.

That arrow is not where I flung the seeds.

As I took the mowed path towards one of the Korean pines, I suddenly started hearing tiny mews.

That arrow is going to where I found a pair of bitty kitties! The second black and white one, and the grey and white tabby. They were at the base of a tree, and there was no sign of a mama. There were broken branches all over, hidden in the grass, but I got to them and picked them up. They were mewing like crazy, so I quickly (and carefully!) made my way to the south end of the trees, flung the seeds, then put the kittens in the bin to carry them home.

As soon as I got inside, I turned them over to the girls, then went back to look for the dark grey little spitfire. While I did that, I sent a message to the cat lady.

It turns out we have a much better data signal in the outer yard than in the house!

After a few messages, the cat lady called me and we talked about the bitties. She is going to be in the area tomorrow morning, so she will make coming here her first stop. She just ran out of kitten milk with the babies she’s already taking care of, but will pick up more. We will giver her the formula we have now, too.

Then I kept looking for the last kitten in the tall grass. Unfortunately, many other kittens came out to follow me, so any time I stopped to listen for meowing, I was hearing bigger kittens rustling through the tall grass.

I kept looking, using the flashlight on my phone, until my daughter came out to get me. She had seen an owl swooping around, so we needed to get the kittens back to the house. I moved ahead so they would keep following me, while my daughter kept watch. Once by the house, I rattled kibble bowls and topped up the water bowls to get their attention, and they eventually all came over.

Meanwhile, my other daughter was with the babies in my bedrooms/office. They had set up a nest in a laundry basket, but the kittens climbed right out, found the kibble bowls for the other cats, and started eating. Amazingly, Leyendecker was following them around, trying to lick them. Including butt licking. Which is good. Butt licking is very important for such young kittens, and I’d rather he did it, than have to try and simulate it with a damp cloth! While two of us were there to play interference, my daughter opened a can of wet cat food and divided it up, setting bowls in different places for Nosencrantz and Butterscotch (who wanted nothing to do with the bitties!), and the smallest bowl for the bitties.

These babies seem to have had guardian angels watching over them!

They dove right in. The only problem was, they kept trying to bite the sides of the bowl, too!

As encouraging a sight that was, dehydration was another concern. After a while, we broke out the kitchen scale to weigh them, so we could calculate how much formula powder to mix with water. My daughter ended up having to bring a mixing bowl to put on the scale, zero it out, then put a kitten in the bowl. The grey and white tabby was 430 grams/15 oz, and the black and white was only 310 grams/11 oz.

My daughters took care of getting a bottle and formula ready while I tried to comfort the babies. They just wouldn’t stop mewing. The grey and white one really runs around a lot! The black and white will sit quietly for a while, but then wants to be with its sibling and starts trying to find it.

We tried to feed them with a bottle, but it just did not work. They didn’t want to take it, and when they did, the formula didn’t want to flow, even though we snipped the nipple as the instructions described. Finally, we tried pouring some into a tiny bowl to see how that worked.

The bowl was too tiny for both of them, as the voraciously went after the milk! One of my daughters ran to get a small rectangular bowl, and that worked much better. After giving them a chance to have some, we transferred them, and the bowl, into the cat carrier we’d set up so we could safely tuck them away as needed.

Once they were done, they started crying at the door, so I let them out. They were both absolutely wet with formula, and seemed to be quite happy with nice, full bellies!

As I type this, the black and white is curled up against my shoulder. The grey and white tabby had settled on my thigh, but is now on my wrist, wondering what my fingers are doing on the keyboard!

And mewing.

I’m not going to get much sleep tonight.

My only concern right now is for the kitten we never found. I can only hope that it is safe with the mama somewhere.

What a day!

The Re-Farmer

All gone. :-(

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Today, I was able to make the trip to the nearest Walmart, primarily to pick up some kibble for the outside cats. There was a pet store nearby, where I was able to pick this up.

What they didn’t have in stock was cat milk or kitten formula mix. I did my shopping at Walmart, then took a different route home to swing by our vet. They had only 2 little cans of kitten formula left, so I got one of them – expensive stuff!!! – and headed home.

Once everything was brought inside, I quickly set up a nest for them in a bin in my office, then went looking for the babies.

They were gone.

The cat house was completely empty.

On the one hand, this is good news. The bitties were not abandoned, for all that we never saw them with a mama. She tried to bring them somewhere safe, but there is just too much activity near the house. The mother is doing her best to take care of her teeny babies.

On the other hand, their chances of survival just dropped significantly. Not just from the elements, but the farther they are from the house, the greater the risk that a predator will find them. Once the mamas start bringing them back to the house for kibble, the kittens tend to stay of their own volition. That’s why we have a yard full of kittens right now, but hardly any mamas. Rosencrantz is really the only one that hangs around, and she’s the oldest of the mamas still outside, now that Butterscotch and Beep Beep are inside.

I’ve just been in contact with the cat lady. Unfortunately, she had not had a chance to look at the emails I’d sent her. There’s a reason she prefers texting! She is currently caring for a 3 week old kitten found to the north of us; the mama had been killed by a coyote, and the rest of the litter died of exposure, so there’s just one lonely baby left. She has been dealing with her own health issues, and just got the go-ahead for major surgery, so things are going to be pretty wild for her for the next while! If we do find any abandoned kitties, though, she told me to let her know right away, and she’ll come get them.

Meanwhile, we now have the nursing kit and formula on hand, just in case.

I really hope things work out well for the bitties!!

The Re-Farmer

Little spitfire!

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While my daughter was working on attaching the metal roofing to the water bowl shelter, I played interference with kittens.

I also got to cuddle with this little spitfire!

This one hisses and spits whenever we pick it up. While I held it and scritched its ears, it would start to calm down, then seem to remember that it wasn’t supposed to like this, and hiss and spit some more! For just a second or so, though. 😂

We’re supposed to hit a low of -8C/18F by 8am, and then warm up to a high of 3C/37F. After that, we’re supposed to jump to a high of 10C/50F, with a couple more days just a tad warmer, with overnight lows just below freezing for a couple more nights before staying above freezing for a while.

Hopefully, the bitty babies will be staying in the warmth of the cat house, and their mama – whoever it is – won’t take them away again!

The Re-Farmer

Water shelter is done!

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My daughter and I were able to get the metal roof onto the water bowl shelter, and it’s now all set up.

We cut the sheet of metal roofing in half, which was a challenge. We started off using an angle grinder, which did NOT work well at all, and was insanely noisy. The cats and kittens were very alarmed by it. We ended up using tin snips. Later on, when attaching the metal to the top edge, we had to use a drill. Not as loud, but still enough to scare many of the kittens. Not all of them. Gooby, the most socialized one (the friendly grey and white tabby has gooby eyes) would actually try climbing my daughter while she was working! Half the time, one of us would be trying to keep kittens away, while the other one worked.

Once the roof was done, we moved it right up against the kibble house. Then we had to pop open the roof of the cat house, so we could unwind the slack on the extension cord out the door. I put some hooks under the kibble house roof to hold it elevated. Unfortunately, the working heated water bowl has a shorter power cord. I ended up having to move the whole thing in about half a foot to get the power cord out of the way. The good thing about it being tucked so far under the overhang is, we don’t need to put a waterproof case around the plugs, like we do with the cord powering the cat house.

When we opened up the cat house roof, there were only two bitty kitties inside – the two we had been trying to snuggle and keep warm, before we could put them into the cat house and they would actually stay there.

I’m hoping the other two were hidden under the cat house, along with several other kittens I later saw peeking out. When topping up their food for the night, I put kibble at the various spots they use to get under there. Not a lot of kittens showed up when I topped up the food; most were still in hiding from all the noise and activity. I really hope the bitties are okay!

Once the snow starts accumulating, I’m hoping the set up will shelter the inner “courtyard”, and keep it from drifting in front of the kibble house, as it sometimes did last winter. We’ll still be shoveling the space out, of course, but it would be good if there will be less of that!

We shall see how the kitties like the new set up!

The Re-Farmer

Bitty Baby update, and a bit of progress

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I was really concerned about the bitty babies last night! We dipped at least as low as -7C/19F during the night. I knew if the bitties were inside the cat house, they would be okay – especially if they had a mama to curl up with – but if any of them got caught outside, and the board ramp was knocked over, they couldn’t get back in on their own.

The board ramp was knocked over this morning. The brick it was braced against was frozen to the ground. I suspect we are still getting skunk visits during the night. We don’t see them around anymore, though I’ve seen the odd one on the security camera live feed at night. They go into the cat house entry to eat any kibble that’s left there.

Thankfully, I spotted all four of the bitties through one of the windows. The board ramp is back, but I didn’t want to hang around too much, or they’d be tempted to go outside.

There was no mama. I didn’t even see an adult cat come out of the cat house when I went outside. The bitties have the cat house to themselves; all the other kittens seem to be leaving it to them, other than when they pop into the entry to nibble on some kibble.

All the shallow water bowls were frozen, and the big bowl had a layer of ice on top, but I had some nice, warm water for them. The board ramp I set up for the water bowl shelter is being well used, with lots of little footprints in the frost.

I tried to do a head count, and I think I counted 21, plus the four bitties. Rolando Moon came around later. If any of the mamas came around, it wasn’t while I was there to see them.

With all those growing kittens and cattens, and the temperatures dropping, they are going through the kibble faster. We’re going to have to pick up more before the end of the month. The cat lady is going to try and get some donated cat food for us, too, though we don’t know when she’ll be able to do that.

Before starting on this post, I sent an email to her through her cat rescue’s email address. We usually text, but that’s always a pain out here. Especially if I want to send photos. My phone is supposed to link up to the wifi for calls or texts, if there is no data signal available, but it’s never been good at actually accomplishing that. So I sent the email, with a few pictures, explaining the situation. Hopefully, she knows of a foster family that can take in kittens that aren’t weaned yet. While the kittens don’t look like they are starving or dehydrated, that may just be a “yet”. At least the clones have figured out kibble is food, but I don’t know about the other two.

Hopefully, I will hear back from her soon.

In other things, I got some progress on those willow branches I’d pruned. I dragged them all over to where we’re building up a burn pile where the big branch pile that got chipped used to me, and sorted through them there. Only a few of the branches went straight to the burn pile. With most of them, even if the branches were kind of wonky, most had enough straight sections that I could still use them in sections. It’s still nowhere near enough to finish the wattle weaving, but there will be at least a bit more progress.

Though both today and tomorrow are supposed to have highs just above freezing, with tomorrow slightly warmer than today, we are no longer getting rain and snow. We will be nice and sunny, which makes it a good time to get some things covered. I’m glad I picked up the 3 pack of medium duty tarps at Costco a while back. One of the things that needs to be covered is my late brother’s post pounder that he built. It needs to be refurbished, and that’s not a job we can do right now, but we can at least keep it from getting worse. The trap I’d wrapped around it before was torn to shreds by the wind, and I finally cut the remains away completely, not long ago. The plastic that was covering the motor was also starting to tear, so I made a priority of at least covering that, first. The tarps I have are only 8’x10′, but that should be enough to cover most of it, if I do it right. I’ve learned from how and where the old tarp started shredding, where I need to put some sort of padding, first. Between that and being more strategic on how the tarp is tied down, I hope to be able to reduce the damage from high winds.

The other thing I need cover is the wood pile – formerly junk pile – near the house. The groundhogs absolutely destroyed the old tarp that was over it before, for nesting material – then disappeared. The top boards may be pretty rotten, but the further down we go in the pile, the better shape the wood, and I’d like to keep them from getting worse. This year, however, we had not been able to mow, weed walk or weed a lot of areas as we normally would have, and one side of the pile is among those. It’s completely full of mostly thistles right now. I’ll have to cut away enough of that to be able to reach the pile from all sides, so it can be re-covered with a new tarp. The old tarp was held down by whatever heavy things where handy. This time, I want to actually peg it to the ground.

There is still much to get done before the snow flies – and stays!

The Re-Farmer

Kitten progress, and… Oh, Mom. *sigh*

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After several delays, my mother was finally good with my coming over to help her with some errands. I used our van, as I don’t want to drive her car with the slow leak in one tire. Neither of us remembered to bring a stool for her to use to climb in and out, though!

While I was gone, my daughters were able to go outside to check on the bitty babies. They actually quite liked the attention. Even the one that would hiss and spit came running back for more attention after being put into the cat house!

When I got home, I topped up the kibble trays, and three of them were out and about.

That little grey and white one in the foreground REALLY wanted attention! As for the black and white clones, you can see one of them peeking out from under the kibble house floor, behind Judgement.

These two started very enthusiastically eating kibble! I’ve been putting kibble into the entry of the cat house (the only area that can be reached without opening the roof), so they’ve been around kibble since they showed up, but this is the first time I’ve seen them actually eating any!

The fourth kitten was in the cat house and, aside from peeking out the entry, seemed content to stay there.

I still have no idea who the mother is. Of the adult cats we see around (all the adult males have disappeared again), none of them seem to belong with the babies.

We’re going to have to check on them as the day winds down and things get chillier, to make sure they are safe and warm in the cat house. I do wish we could reach into there without lifting the roof, so we could pop food and water in the main area, instead of just tossing kibble through the entry.

As for the outing with my mother, that went well enough – aside from her struggle to get into the van! It’s easier for her to get out, and I keep having to tell her to wait until I get her walker out and over to her before she climbs down. She frequently ignores me, of course. 😁 I’m just concerned that she might fall while I’m getting her walker out of the back of the van.

Along with errands, she took me out for a late lunch, and then we made a quick stop at the grocery store. She didn’t even try to get out of the van for that one, and just asked me to run in and pick up some milk for her.

After getting her home and putting things away, she gave me a bag of stuff that she didn’t need anymore, including a couple of pairs of jeans. My sister had bought them for her, but she said they were too big, and thought they might fit me. I looked at them when I got home and had to laugh. My mother completely forgot that my sister had not only taken them in for her, but also hemmed them for her. My mother has shrunk quite a bit over the years, so the pant legs are really, really short!

As she was telling me what was in the bag, she mentioned she had some yarn for me, and told me to look into her storage closet. There were things in the way from reaching it, but I could see the balled yarn in a bucket. My cousin had given her a shawl, you see, so she undid it and saved the yarn…

Two things came to mind when she said that. The first was the memory of her doing the same thing to a shawl my daughter had crocheted for her, using some lovely Peruvian wool yarn she had bought specially for this gift. My daughter was so very proud of the finished shawl, as well she should be. Her stitches are always so perfect! She was so happy to gift it to her grandmother. Years later, we were able to make a road trip out and my mother wanted to give us some yarn. We both recognised the yarn immediately. When asked about it, she said she had undone the shawl so that the yarn could be use for “something useful.” Like slippers. The look of hurt on my daughter’s face still sears my heart. We still have that yarn, and my daughter still refuses to even look at it. Though she has since had it explained to her, my mother remains oblivious to the pain she caused, or why it was such a hurtful thing to do.

The other thing that came to mind was recognizing the yarn and realizing what just happened. I asked my mother when my cousin had given her the shawl. It was very recently. My aunt passed away not long ago, and my cousin brought some things of hers to my mother after the funeral.

I was the one who made the shawl, and had given it to my aunt as a Christmas gift, several years ago. I especially chose the pattern to make something she could wear over her shoulders while in her wheelchair. The yarn I’d chosen was bamboo silk, because I felt she deserved something was both warm and luxurious. It had an amazing drape to it.

And my mother undid it. She thought the nursing home had given it to her, because there was a label with their name on it. A label they would have added to all my aunt’s garments, to keep track of who they belonged to while being laundered. My mother thought the yarn would be good for some slippers or something.

I told her that I had made the shawl, and that this yarn was not at all appropriate for making anything that would be walked on. Yarn for footwear needs to have certain manmade fibres in it, or they wear out and get holes very, very quickly. My mother seemed to think it was quite funny that she had undone a shawl I had made for her sister. She even commented that it took a lot of work to unmake it. I told her it was a lot of work to make it!

She remains completely oblivious.

*sigh*

She still wants to give me the yarn, though when she asked, I did tell her that I don’t crochet much anymore. My hands simply hurt too much for that kind of fine motor control. Especially when it’s chilly out. Winter is usually when I can get back into crochet and crafting, but these days, that just hasn’t been happening, and this year, the pain in my hands has never been worse. I’ll take the yarn, though. I’m sure I can make something “useful” out of it that won’t also completely destroy it.

What a send off before heading home!

Well, at least I had some kitten therapy when I got home!

The Re-Farmer

Looks like four.

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We woke to a light layer of snow on the ground, which had me concerned about the bitty kitties. When I started putting the kibble out, I couldn’t see them. I did notice the board I’d put as a ramp into the cat house was knocked over, so I put that back – and spotted one of them looking at me through the window!

It was as I was coming back from putting kibble under the shrine that I saw something that had me doing a double take.

A tiny ball of fluff! It was pushing around the other kittens. The face you see glaring in the corner of the photo is an adult, but I don’t think it’s the mother. She had no interest in the baby.

I was able to pick it up and put it into the kibble house, but when I came back to top up their water bowls with warm water, it was back on the ground.

Except… I wasn’t seeing the same kitten!

There are two almost identical bitty kitties, under the kibble house!

One came out and I was able to pick it up and put it in the kibble house. This one started hissing and spitting when I picked it up, so I’m guessing it wasn’t the same kitten I picked up before.

I found a brick to brace the bottom of the ramp, hoping the other one would come out, but I couldn’t see it anymore.

I did see the two kittens we found yesterday, wrestling in the corner by the window. They seemed alert and not at all distressed, which tells me the mama has been tending to them. I am guessing the other two were stuck outside because the ramp board had been knocked over.

I did the rest of my rounds, then looked for the kitten again. No sign of it. I am hoping it went up the ramp on its own, but more likely it went under the cat house, rather than in. I wasn’t going to poke around too much, because the last thing I want is for the mama to take the kittens away again.

So it looks like this is a litter of four. I did see several adults cats around, but none of them behaved like these were their own kittens. Who the mama is, is still a mystery.

Today and tomorrow are supposed to have highs just above freezing, then things will warm up again. Because the cat house was built to house two large dogs, it’s very open in there. We’ve been thinking of quickly popping the roof up when it’s warmer, and putting in some boxes or bins to make cozy little “rooms” inside, where little ones can curl up. Now that the kittens are in there, I’m afraid if we do, that will cause the mama to take them away, too.

One thing is encouraging. As tiny as the kittens are, they have really dense fur, with thick undercoats, for their ages. Which tells me they are developing their winter fur even faster than the bigger kittens.

Or they’re just really fluffy, fuzzy, kitties.

Either way, it’s their first layer of protection against the coming cold.

The Re-Farmer