Instead, I’ve just spent roughly 6 hours, going through old emails, video and image files, and transcribing voice mail messages.
I’m not quite done, but that’s it for digging through old stuff.
If all goes well with my mom’s car tomorrow, I’ll be heading to court to file for a restraining order right after, and hopefully the psychiatric evaluation, too.
Transcribing the audio files was the most draining. I’d forgotten about some of the horrible things our vandal had said about us. Worse was having to listen to bits, over and over again, to try and transcribe things that were almost gibberish. Likely, he was drunk. There was some pretty crazy stuff in there. My guess is, he has Paranoid Personality Disorder.
To think, he’s been leaving messages like this, and worse, with my mother for almost a decade. Not about me all that time, of course, but other stuff. I’m just the first person who’s in a position to do something about it.
The last thing I want to do is write an impact statement. I don’t even know if any of this will be needed. I was selective in printing out old emails between me and my family that documented some of the crazier stuff – I even have some that predated our move! – and still ended up with a stack an inch thick. Granted, that’s with lots of formatted spaces and larger fonts, but still. The package for the restraining order is much, much smaller, but when it comes to applying for a psychiatric evaluation, I’d rather have more available than less, even if they don’t end up needing it all.
The good news: more progress on Cabbages’ socialization!
She has been going around us more often, and the other cats are tolerating her more. Those that don’t, she typically just ignores. It’s rather funny when Fenrir hisses and growls at her, and Cabbages just looks at her with this “gives no f***s” expression!
The bad news is, she has joined the group of older kittens that keep trying to nurse on Grandma.
Also, that picture?
That’s my side of the bed.
At almost 3 am.
She claimed my spot as her very own Cabbages patch! :-D
Normally, I have no problem shoving aside any cats that are in the way of my going to bed, but Cabbages is still learning to trust humans, and I didn’t want to chase her off.
I needn’t have worried. She ended up spending most of the night with me. Or, more accurately, Grandma! That did mean I was repeatedly awakened by loud slurping noises, after Grandma slithered out of her belly band. I kept having to pull her off, and block access to nip. She did not like that, but eventually curled up next to me and went to sleep! I do wish our old mama wouldn’t encourage the kittens so much!
I finally did some looking, and it turns out that yes, like humans, cats can start lactating with the stimulation of nursing. It’s entirely possible “grandma” is actually producing milk again.
With the older kittens, they were well mothered. I’m tempted to let Cabbages nurse. Butterscotch mothered them well when they were small, from what we could see, but I think she forcibly weaned them pretty early, and stopped being the least bit maternal with them, not much longer.
It would be hard to allow one kitten to nurse, but not the others!
I had quite the crowd greeting me when I headed out this morning!
Of course, they immediately abandoned me, once there was food! :-D
I will have to be more careful when I do this. One of the spice boys slipped into the sun room without my noticing, and got trapped! Thankfully, one of my daughters heard his plaintive meowing after she’d turned the light on to go into the bathroom, lighting up the sun room a bit through the window. He’d been in there most of the day! I went in through the old kitchen, then opened the outside doors of the sun room to let him out. It didn’t quite work! Instead, his brother immediately ran in, and the two of them started to snuggle and rub their faces against each other. They missed each other so much! :-D I was able to lure them out while topping up their food in the kibble house. :-)
Yesterday, I headed to town and finally got the opportunity to check the outside of the gate. Checking the gate is part of my morning rounds, but I don’t take the gate key with me, so I can’t check the outside of the gate very well. And why should I have to? After seeing how our vandal had reefed on the south gate, I took a closer look.
Sure enough, he actually managed to cause damage.
It may not seem like much, but he reefed the gate against the post hard enough to create permanent dents in the pool noodle bumpers. The top one had been shifted a bit, though I’d put it back before taking the picture. If you look at the gate post in the first photo, you can see a nick in the paint. That nick is right to the metal. The posts were originally painted black, so that is through two layers of paint. It had to take a lot of force to slam the gate hard enough against the post to cause even that little bit of damage, while there were still the other bumpers to cushion the gate.
Thank God my brother did such a fabulous job in replacing the broken hinges! Our vandal was clearly trying to break the gate. The other half of the gate had nothing, thankfully.
Dealing with this is what I’m procrastinating. I need to transcribe old phone messages to present to the court when I make my applications for a restraining order and involuntary psychiatric assessment. I am not looking forward to it.
One of the things I’ve done instead is finally put up the shelves I’d painted for the entry.
Previously, I’d had a net hanging from hooks to hold various things. The net was from our previous van, to keep things from rolling around. I’d kept it to use with the van we have now, but it doesn’t fit anywhere, but I still hung on to it. It was good enough to hold random things, but not very easy to get at those things, once they were in!
I’d painted the boards I’d cut from a piece salvaged from a shed, and they were ready to put up several days ago. My daughter provided some shelf brackets she was no longer using. I suppose I should have painted them, too, but – unlike the board I salvaged – they don’t have any damage to hide. :-D
The shelves are attached to the outside of a closet, but there is a joist only on the front and back. The rest is just paneling. With the window, I couldn’t have the shelves extend right to the wall, so only one side of each shelf is screwed into a joist. Inside the closet, there is a board that supports the rod, but not at a useful height. So for the bottom shelf, the bracket closer to the window is screwed into paneling, only. I wish I’d thought to attach the bracket to the wall, like the top one, before I’d screwed it into place, but… ah, well. We’ll just have to make sure nothing heavy gets put on that end of the shelf. :-)
We are now waiting for the inevitable crash of a cat deciding to explore the shelves and knocking everything over! :-D They love to sit in that window and watch the cats outside.
So by procrastinating one thing, I accomplished a job that had been procrastinated for a couple of years, now. :-D
Looking at the date, I am realizing that, for my husband and youngest daughter, they have been here for 3 years! In less than a week, it’ll be the 3 yr anniversary for this blog, too.
We had an idea of what we were walking into, when we decided to move out here, but my goodness, there was a lot we didn’t expect!
Having to deal with someone close to us becoming our own personal vandal, especially to the point that it has, was one of the last things we could have expected!
*sigh*
I guess I should get to transcribing those files.
Oh, wait… I should probably work on supper, first.
The kitties were very happy to see me this morning!
Okay, so maybe is wasn’t me they were happy to see, but the food I bring!
The heated water bowl was partially frozen again, so I had to lift the roof to plug it back in. I’ll have to go through my work station in the basement to find an appropriately sized hook to support the cord.
Which I will do later, because my morning was dedicated to a more unpleasant project. I have been putting together a package to bring with me when I go to apply for a restraining order. Thankfully, the type I’m after covers more “minor” stuff, like believing there is a threat to property. Which has already happened. I would have a more difficult time proving my need for, say, a protection order for stalking.
Before our move, we unfortunately had to deal with the police and court system quite a bit, and it left me incredibly jaded. Thankfully, I had long developed the habit of journaling and documenting things to share with family far away. It didn’t take much more to switch focus to document things for police files and courts.
As much as I try to keep everything organized on my computer, it still took some digging. Especially since I was going back to 2018, to establish a history of vandalism, as well as the more recent stuff showing that, whatever program our vandal was required to go through, it didn’t help.
The hard part is going to be going through what I have to present my case for an involuntary psychiatric assessment. It’s not like I can give them a bunch of electronic files and expect them to go through it all. I’ll have to select images and screen captures to print out and, what will be most difficult, transcribe some of the voice mail messages that this person has left. I’ve had to do similar documentation of many hours of security videos, before our move. Two others had already started to but had to stop because of how traumatic it became. It takes a lot for me to reach that point, but even I had to stop after a while. In the end, it was futile, since the police wouldn’t do anything about it, anyhow.
It’s particularly hard to disassociate when you’re right in the middle of the events that need documenting, and that’s what I’m dreading about all this. We’re talking about having a person arrested and forced into a psychiatric hospital for evaluation against their will. This is a big deal, which has a lot to do with why I haven’t done this since the police first started recommending it to me. It seems to be the only way to get this person the help they need. If he doesn’t get that help, it’s not going to stop, and will likely get worse. I need to make a really solid case, and while there is plenty I can produce to show this, going through it all is going to be really unpleasant.
So, I’ve got my work cut out for me over the weekend; Monday is the earliest I can make the drive and start the process.
I had really hoped living out here would mean getting away from stuff like this.
It’s still better than what we left behind, though.
With snow on the ground and a chill in the air, we’re already thinking ahead to what we can do next year.
Since moving here, our long term goal has been to be as self sufficient as possible/realistic for our needs. Growing up here, my parents were subsistence farmers. My mother had a huge vegetable garden, we had a few fruit trees and raspberries, and pin cherries grew wild in one area. We had chickens, sometimes adding ducks, geese, and turkeys. We had sheep at one point, but I’m not sure I was even born yet when we had those. We had a comparatively small herd of cows for milk and beef. There used to be a small creamery in our little hamlet, and we sold our cream to them – sometimes in exchange for butter! Aside from beef for our own use, once a year we’d sell cattle at auction, and that was the bulk of our annual income. Sometimes, we had pigs, too. We grew crops and hay to feed our own animals, with very little purchased feed to supplement. If the money was tight, my parents would go and get short term jobs. My dad had been working full time after they first moved here from the city, but when he asked his boss for a few days off to do the haying, he was told he could either be a farmer or work for him, not both. So my dad quit the job, right then and there!
We don’t plan to go quite that far in our goals. Our first focus will be on vegetable gardening and planting food trees, including nut trees. The challenge with the trees is finding varieties that will produce in our Zone 3 climate.
There is a great deal of work that needs to be done to get to that point, with limited resources, while also dealing with varying levels of health and able-bodied-ness.
All of which we can work with. It just tends to slow things down.
We really weren’t ready to start gardening this year, as far as clean up and soil preparation, but we went ahead and did it, anyhow. If we waited for everything to be perfect, we’d never start at all! :-D
So for what we had to work with, we were pretty ambitious with our gardening this year. My expectations were actually pretty low for this year. As we plan ahead to what we will do next year, it’s a good time to assess what worked, what didn’t, and why.
Let’s get started!
The one area that was easiest to work in was where the old wood pile used to be. Cleaning that up revealed incredibly soft soil, perfect for root vegetables.
How did this area do?
Carrots: pretty darn good, really. Of the three varieties we got, the purple carrots were a favourite. As far as taste, they were all good, but the purple carrots seemed to have a better, more robust, shape to them, and of course the colour is awesome.
Looking ahead: we definitely want to do carrots again. The purple carrots, for sure, plus there are a couple of other varieties suitable for our climate that I’d like to try.
Beets: Well, they could have been better, but deer were a problem, leaving us with a paltry crop. Even so, we enjoyed the three varieties we got. The girls especially liked the deep red Merlin variety.
Looking ahead: we definitely want to do beets again, but we are going to have to find ways to protect them from deer!
Parsley: those did really well. So well, in fact, that after harvesting and drying them, we have enough parsley to last us quite a long time.
Looking ahead: we don’t plan to grow parsley again next year. In the future, we will be growing herbs in a more permanent location, where we can try growing root parsley (which can take a couple of years for the roots to be mature enough to harvest).
Kohl rabi: this was a disappointment for me. I really hoped they would turn out! For all the seeds we planted, only a few sprouted, only two got big, and between the deer and the tiny cabbage beetles that showed up, they were decimated. The few plants we had ended up on the compost heap.
Looking ahead: I really want to grow these, but I don’t think we’ll try again next year.
Muskmelon: this was a last minute addition, with 2 purchased transplants. They seemed to do very well at first. Then one just up and died. The other grew and even started blooming, but remained very tiny. Then the first frost killed it.
Looking ahead: I remember we’d grown muskmelons when I was a kid, and really enjoyed eating them. My mother didn’t even do anything special to grow them. They were just in with everything else in the big garden. So I know they can grow here. I wouldn’t mind trying them again next year, but we shall see.
For this garden area next year: well, we’ve already got things completely changed in this area, with two slightly raised beds planted with fall garlic. There is still room for another bed the same size, so there is still potential to add to this area. Given the quality of soil, most likely we would plant root vegetables here again.
The next section we planted in was the retaining wall in the old kitchen garden. In this area, my mother had flowers and it’s where she planted her onions and garlic. Unfortunately, she also planted trees and bushes, which has greatly reduced the usability of this area.
Cucamelon: these were not planted were we originally planned, and with less sun than recommended for them, I did not expect much at all. So we were very pleasantly surprised by how well they did! This is something we’ve never even seen before, other than photos, never mind tried to grow. We really liked the tiny little fruits, and even had enough to try a quick pickle.
Looking ahead: We definitely will be growing these again. When cleaning up at the end of the year, I found they had amazing tubers, which are now planted in buckets, in a cool indoor location. From what I’ve read, we should be able to transplant these tubers to get an earlier crop next year. We still plan to drag the rest of the chimney blocks out of the old basement and set them up by the chain link fence in the south yard, which should make for a more ideal growing location for them, too.
Fennel: they… got really nice fronds! No bulbs formed, though. To be honest, once we transplanted the few leggy seedlings we managed to sprout, I tended to forget they existed.
Looking ahead: I’d like to try growing these again, but probably not for another year or two.
Chives: when setting up the retaining wall, I transplanted some of the chives growing in one corner into a couple of blocks that would otherwise have been right on top of them. They grew just fine, and we were able to snip some greens any time we needed. The original clump of chives I dug them up from is still there, too.
Looking ahead: nothing needs to change here.
For this garden area next year: my daughter planted a border of Gardenia Daffodils and Eye of the Tiger irises along the south edge of this area. There is rhubarb growing under each of the ornamental apple trees. They aren’t really doing well, and I might transplant them somewhere else, eventually. Some asparagus still shows up on the north edge of the garden, but not enough to harvest. If we plant fresh asparagus, it will be somewhere else.
Though we have done a lot to amend this garden area, which had been overtaken by spreading vines and invasive flowers, there is still much work that needs to be done before the whole garden can be used, including building the soil up more at the retaining wall, to level it off. The mulching we’ve added has already improved the soil considerably, but there is so much in this tiny space, it’ll be hard to get it to a functional garden. My thought is for this area to be a kitchen garden; the place for those vegetables and herbs we use the most. There are perennial flowers in there that I want to transplant elsewhere, and while I want to keep the main rose bushes, there are lots of little rose bushes spreading that are going to be difficult to clear out. Not as difficult as those invasive vines, though!
So while we’ll be able to use parts of this garden, other parts still need lots of work. With the poles by the retaining wall being to ideal to hold a trellis, the chimney blocks are ideal for planting anything that climbs.
The next area we planted in was where my mother’s big garden used to be. It is in such rough shape; poorly plowed, largely neglected, full of rocks – and rock hard soil! We’d gone so far as to use Round Up on one area, then mulched it with straw, the previous year.
The mulched area became our squash beds.
Summer Squash: these probably had the roughest start, yet were our greatest success! We planted sunburst squash and a summer squash mix. A late frost damaged the first transplants, most of which never recovered, but the second group of transplants did very well.
The sunburst squash were very prolific, and we all really enjoyed eating them, too. The zucchini varieties had a harder time of it, but still did fairly well. It was great to be able to include picking squash for the day as part of my morning rounds.
Looking ahead: we are most definitely planting these again! We did end up transplanting them later than they should have been, but late frosts are an issue here, so we need to be better prepared for that.
Birdhouse gourds: these were a sad disappointment for me. They took forever to germinate, and when the first batch was transplanted, they got hit with frost. Amazingly, more germinated later, but in the end, this tiny little gourd was all we got – and it got killed by the first frost.
Looking ahead: There are a variety of gourds I want to try growing, as I want to use them for various projects. I want to try these again, but now know I need to start them indoors much earlier, and will probably need to invest in a warming mat.
Pumpkins: these were planted very, very late, using seeds my mother got for free. No idea what the variety was. I quickly made some mounds to plant the seeds in, but honestly didn’t expect to get anything. Ultimately, they just didn’t have enough of a growing season.
Looking ahead: we do want to grow different pumpkin varieties. We’ll just have to make sure to start them earlier! I’m not entirely sure why I want to grow pumpkins. We’ve only ever eaten it as pie. But there are lots of recipes out there, and I’m sure we’ll find something we like! :-D
Yukon Gem potatoes: These were an experiment for us. We planted two beds, using the Ruth Stout method, because our soil is just too hard and full of rocks.
It did work, though it wasn’t a particularly large harvest. The odd thing was finding seed potatoes, still intact!
Looking ahead: we do want to grow more potatoes, and try other varieties. We’ll still probably use the Ruth Stout method of growing under mulch for a few years, until we can start building raised beds. For now, I’ve taken the seed potatoes I’ve found and replanted them along the north side of the garden, covered in mulch. It should be interested to see if they grow at all, next spring! We planted only 6 pounds of potatoes this year. Next year, we definitely want to plant more, now that we know we can successfully grow them without digging and hilling.
Giant Sunflowers: We had several goals with our sunflowers. Some were met, some were not!
Growing them for bird seed seems to be a miss. We likely planted them too late, as it doesn’t look like they reached maturity at all.
While I did harvest a couple of heads that are hanging in the basement, we’ve decided to leave the rest out over the winter. If there’s anything the birds can get out of them, great. It looks like the deer are still trying to eat them, too, as I find more and more of them, broken.
The other purposes we grew them for is as a privacy screen, and wind break. With a 50% loss of our first planting, likely to deer, we planted another variety, just to fill in the gaps. We did not expect to get seeds from them. It sort of worked. There just wasn’t enough of them.
Looking ahead: yes, we want to plant these giant varieties again, but if we do, we need to get at least double, if not triple, the amount of seeds to create the windbreak and privacy screen we want. Hopefully, we can plant them earlier, too. We also want to try other varieties, including one that is the source of a purple dye. We definitely have to figure out how to protect them from deer, though!
For this garden area next year: In the mulched area the squash were in, the soil is so much softer! Except for all the rocks that are still a problem. In cleaning up for winter, I turned the pumpkin mounds into larger beds, so that area now has 6 beds, including one long thin one at the back, prepped for next year. Plus, there are the two potato beds nearby. Any potatoes we plant next year will be in a different location, to avoid attracting the Colorado Potato Beetle. We will likely continue to reclaim more of the old garden area, but not all of it, as we intend to plant a nut orchard in here in the relatively near future. The sooner we can get that done, the better, since it takes so many years before nut trees start producing. So we will focus mostly on where we have already planted, but when it’s time to do more, it will be elsewhere.
Final thoughts: so it’s been a year of successes and failures, but we did learn a lot from our first year of gardening here.
We have a better idea of what works for us, what we like and what we want to plant next year. For the longer term, we definitely will need to look at getting poly-tunnels – possibly a greenhouse – to be able to extend our growing season and protect from frost. We are looking to claim more of the outer yard, towards the barn, where there is more sun, for things like that. We also know that winds from the South are more of a problem than winds from the North, and need to plan accordingly. This year also really hit home for me that we need to built tall, accessible, raised beds. Any raised beds will help when it comes to our rocky soil, but this old body is just too broken, and height will help.
It started to snow last night, and continued all night. Where we live, it was still a light now – other areas got much more – but it was enough to be a test for the kibble house!
The inside is completely free of snow. :-)
Unfortunately, three of the containers were on the ground – you can see the patch of grass on the left, where one of them ended up. It is most likely the skunks doing this.
I might add a narrow board across the front to try and prevent that. As long as the floor boards can slide under it, that should work fine.
The heated water bowl was still plugged in. :-D There was almost no water left, though, so we had some thirsty, as well as hungry, kitties!
While doing my rounds and heading to the trail cams, I noticed this.
Though a light layer of snow covered the paw prints enough that I couldn’t make out what they looked like, I can be pretty sure that this trail was left by a skunk. They are low enough to the ground that their belly fur would leave that wider trail in the snow. :-D
Once I was done my rounds outside, I settled in to check the trail cam files.
Between the still shots from one camera, and the video from the other, I have about half an hour documented. While the appliance repair guy was here, the gate was left open. Our vandal showed up in the driveway, going from side to side for a while, before moving the two sides of the gate. The video picked him up stepping in to grab one side of the gates that was open to the inside, pulling it all the way to the outside, then reefing on it. Because of where the hinges are set in the post, when opened all the way to the outside, the gate can hit the post. After repairing the damage our vandal did last time, and repainting the gates, I added pieces of pool noodle to cushion the gate. This way, even if the wind blows the gates all the way open to the outside, the foam slows the swing down, and they bounce gently, rather than slamming, metal against metal. It also reduces stress on the new hinges. So when he reefed on the gate, the foam protected it, but with his pushing it so hard, there is only so much the foam can do to reduce the stress on the hinges. (At this point, there does not appear to be any damage.)
The files then show him going back and forth a few more times, before we can see the appliance guy leaving and me locking the gate up. There is, however, a 14 minute gap, where there is nothing to show where he was or what he was doing; all I can say is, he wasn’t in front of the cameras to trigger the motion sensors.
I remember as I walked to the gate, seeing how the two sides of the gate were positioned and thinking it was the wind again. It was odd with the one side, because I’d deliberately left it open as far as it could swing, which means it was in the fence and on the old tire I’ve got as a bumper. That side is the one that the wind blows around the most, but not so much when it’s open all the way. Now I know it wasn’t the wind at all!
So I called the RCMP as soon as I was able, and started a new file. The person I spoke to went over my options with me, and gave me the name of the constable that would be calling me back about it. I then looked up and called the nearest court where I can start the process to get a restraining order (there are several types available, one of which includes damage to property), leaving a message. This is also where I would be going to start the process for a psychiatric assessment.
While I was writing this, the constable called me back. We talked about our options again, and after going over the past files, he didn’t feel that pressing charges of mischief again would be the most productive. If I did do that, they would arrest him, file charges against them, then let him go and the whole process that happened last time would happen again. That the charges were stayed after he’d finished whatever program he went through, the constable felt that this was highly likely to happen again. Obviously, it didn’t work last time. However, as long as there were charges against him, I would effectively have a restraining order, and would not have to apply for one. I could still apply for a psychiatric assessment through the courts, but if I did, a judge would throw out the charges, since basically he would be viewed as not responsible for his actions, and I would no longer have any protections.
One main difference between the restrictions he’d be placed under if I press charges, as opposed to getting a restraining order, is that with charges, he’d still be keeping his guns. With a restraining order, there is enough documented justification for his guns to be seized, and he would be required to stop drinking alcohol, which is another big part of the problem. I could apply for a psychiatric assessment, and it would not affect the restraining order the way it could with pressing charges.
So for now, I will wait until I talk to the court clerk before making a decision, but it looks like the most effective route to take is to apply for both the restraining order and a psychiatric assessment. And I’m far more interested in our vandal getting help for his mental health issues than I am in getting him arrested.
*sigh*
While we have seen him on the cameras doing things like walking to the gate and giving the finger to the cameras, or slowing down as he drives by to peer down the driveway, etc., this is the first time we’ve seen him come to the gate while it was open like this. Which means we now cannot open the gate and leave it unattended to let people like the appliance repair guy drive in and out. We now know that, if our vandal happens by and sees the gate open, he will do things.
This is so tiresome.
At times like this, I wish we lived even more remotely than we already do!
This is the new panel he put in. All of this is behind the touch screen in front. At the far end is the power button, then where the knob pops on, the start/pause button, and then the controls for temperature, spin and soil. There is no load size control; the machine senses that itself and adjusts the amount of water accordingly, but at the far right of the panel, you can do things like add a soak time, and extra rinse, or even tell it to add extra water. All of these can change the time, which is where the digital display comes in.
Of course, he tested everything before he started, and it was exactly the same as before. After switching out the panel, but before putting it all together, we tested it.
Power? Yes.
Knob for wash cycles? Yes.
Start/pause? Yes.
Temperature? No. Spin? No. Soil? No!
But, of the buttons on the far right did work.
Just one!
So he opened it up again, tested them without the front panel, and everything was working.
He put it back, and it was working.
Best guess, there just wasn’t enough contact between the touch screen and the switches, the first time he put it on.
Of course, we kept testing it over and over, as he put everything back in place!
It’s all working fine now.
Hopefully, it will stay working!
I have a sudden urge to do laundry…
I’m sure if I ignore it, it’ll go away, though. ;-)
When I headed out this morning to feed the outside cats and do my rounds, I had a bit of a surprise.
Along with finding two of the kibble containers had been knocked out of the kibble house, there was something wrong with the heated water bowl.
The water was frozen!
A quick glance into the entry of the cats’ house found the problem. They had managed to unplug it!
I am so glad I added that counterweight to the roof…
When I lifted the roof to plug it back in, I think I spotted why it came unplugged. I had put their favourite cat toy inside, and I found it in the entry, on top of the power cord. It’s likely that, while playing and knocking it about, they accidentally unplugged the heated water bowl. It should be harder to yank out now, but if they do unplug it again, I can add a hook to hold the cord in place.
I might just do that, anyhow, so it’s not an issue over the winter. I’d really prefer to not have to lift that roof when the snow gets deep! :-D
The little calico has been settling in surprisingly well since I abducted her from outside.
She has been quicker to explore and be around the other cats than Tissue did.
Fenrir doesn’t take to the new additions well in general and, of all the cats, Turmeric has been the most aggressive towards her. For the most part, the little calico has been ignoring their hisses but, when necessary, she stands her ground rather than getting intimidated.
I took this picture last night, as she claimed the middle of my bed. When she lay down for a nap, she actually used Fenrir’s butt as a pillow! When Fenrir finally noticed, she hissed and ran off, but the little calico didn’t even flinch!
This morning, I was awakened by a tiny body pouncing on my feet. :-D
She still isn’t very comfortable with us humans. Aside from the foot pouncing, that is. ;-) Once in a while, we’ll manage to pet her, or just hold our hands out for her to sniff and gently bat at our fingers. She doesn’t seem scared or nervous at all; just stand offish.
Meanwhile, I discovered the girls had already named her.
The Re-Farmer 