While I was outside this evening, I found Junk Pile and all three of her kittens, playing in front of the storage house.
When I had the chance, I tried to see if I could get one of them to come close.
It almost worked.
Almost, but not quite! This was as close as little Braveheart would get!
It’s hard to see, but there’s a kitten behind the grapevines in the background. 🙂
They love playing on those stairs!
I’ve been keeping that insulator on the steps filled with water lately. Junk Pile and her kittens seem to prefer drinking out of that, over the wider, shallower container by the food dish.
I would love to have stayed longer to try and play with them, but I was getting eaten alive by mosquitoes!
Meanwhile, I had this on my bed…
At first, it was David, Cheddar and Big Rig, but then Keith pushed his way in between and settled in, too!
It had been a while since I’d seen the outside kittens, so I was happy when they showed up this evening. Little Braveheart had follow Junk Pile to the food bowls by the house, but ran off when I came out. They hung out by the steps into the storage house, before hiding in the grape vines, so I decided to sit on the steps and see if I could tempt them to play.
Braveheart was immediately curious!
Just look at that intense gaze! 🙂
And who’s that back there?
Another baby, chewing on a grape vine! 😀
Junk Pile, meanwhile, came over and lay on the mulch, growling at me the whole time! That seems to be her default attitude these days. 😀
I broke off the spent flowers of a spirea growing under the stairs to wiggle around on the step. It worked a bit!
Braveheart pounced at it! 🙂
Her sibling even came a bit closer.
I saw no sign of the third kitten, though. I hope it’s all right.
After this, they ran off with Junk Pile into the spirea, so I let them be.
Once indoors, I got entertained by more kittens.
The cats love the base of the washing machine packaging so much, we don’t have the heart to get rid of it, yet! 😀
Layendecker had been napping on it when Turmeric crawled on and woke him up. 😀
This morning’s tending to the kitties was truly an adventure!
It started when I opened the door and found Leyendecker and Saffron lying on the top step. Just chillin’! They didn’t even try to run upstairs right away. Unfortunately, in my attempts to step over them, Beep Beep and the other kittens had time to run over. It took a couple of minutes to get everything under control so I could close the door, with Two Face and David also in the basement.
Note to self. Do not visit kittens while wearing shorts.
Both my legs ended up rather bloody, by the time I escaped. Then one of my daughters slathered me with antibacterial cream, after I washed all the blood off.
I tried, and failed, to get a photo of Nicco in a sun spot, up on his back legs, trying to catch dust motes. Two Face was her usual aggressive groomer. The kittens also love climbing that piece of maple tree! 😀 Big Rig going after David was just hilarious.
Then, I made a mistake.
I sat down.
It started with Leyendecker and Saffron. They climbed up on me and played for a while, then settled down for a nap.
Then Beep Beep jumped on top of them, pushing them around while settling. Saffron squirmed her way out from under Mom, found a nip and sleep nursed. Leyendecker passed out, until Big Rig jumped up and joined the fray. Leyendecker ended up pushing Saffron aside to find his own nip to sleep nurse on.
At some point, I felt a kitten clamber up my leg and settle on my lap. That left some damage!! It turned out to be Nicco.
By this time, I’d been trapped by them for about an hour, before I was finally able to alert a daughter for assistance. Which is when Two Face joined the party. Turmeric had earlier climbed onto the work table and played with Leyendecker over my shoulder for a while, but didn’t have any interest in joining the pile in my arms. You can just see her in the background of one of the photos, under the platform bed frame.
It took quite a while to extricate all the cats, but we managed to do it without shredding my clothes too badly, nor adding any new scratches.
Tending to the babies may be adorable, but my goodness, it can be painful, too! 😀
I had some extra company when I visited the kitties this morning.
Both Two Face and David came down with me. It’s the first time Two Face has been in the basement for a while.
She immediately began grooming kittens.
They, however, were far more interested in climbing me, and wrestling each other, on my knee!
So she started grooming Beep Beep, instead. 😀
Also, that’s all 5 kittens climbing one leg. Only Leyendecker kept climbing, so he could tackle my hair. The other 4 battled each other with kitten ferociousness, all at once, on my leg.
😀
The last while, I haven’t seen the outside cats much while doing my rounds. With so many of the cats ending up indoors, I suspect they are going where there are more cats around outside.
This morning, Creamsicle came to join me, and boy, did he want attention!
He was very affectionate.
I got Creamsicle kisses! 😀
What a beauty he is!
Just look at those gorgeous eyes.
He even let me carry him around as I continued my rounds. He’s such a sweetie. We’re still hoping to adopt him, but once they get big, no one is interested in cats anymore. 😦
Today has turned out to be a much cooler day. Downright chilly, compared to the last few days! Perfect weather to work on the lawn. 🙂
I popped into the basement for a moment, and just had to come back with a camera.
The kittens are now big enough to get onto the counters now!
Glancing at the drill press and seeing a kitten looking back at me was most adorable.
We will have to keep an eye out. As much as we tried to block things off, there’s still the possibility of a kitten falling behind a counter or something.
When I sat down, all 5 of them attacked me. For the most part, they were moving too fast for pictures, but I did get a couple of good ones!
Big Rig is a real beauty!
Nicco climbed right up into a sun spot again! ;-D
Also, by the time I left, my calves were bleeding, from having pairs of kittens wrestling on each one.
Leyendecker, on the other hand, went for my face.
And ears.
And hair.
And braid, collar of my shirt, my phone, my glasses…
He certainly made things challenging!
Later on, while on the way back from town, I was happy to see our giant furry neighbours near the fence.
Just look at the adorable “little” baby!
Such gorgeous animals!
Thankfully, today was finally another productive day, which I will post about next. I just wanted to share the adorableness with you, first!
The pharmacy my daughter works at now has a small yarn display. Yay! I saw some t-shirt yarn and grabbed it, because I haven’t seen t-shirt yarn in stores in ages.
I made a basket.
It’s 5 kittens big.
Beep Beep tried to get in with them, but it’s not 5 kittens plus mama big. 😀
For my fellow crocheters, the yarn is Madolinni, 97% cotton 3% lycra and 130 meters. It’s 100% “recycled product from the textile industry”. Unfortunately, it turned out to be much coarser and unpleasant to work with, compared to what I was expecting from a t-shirt yarn, but it does make a very sturdy basket.
The base is a disc done in single crochet, starting from 7 stitches, and increased rounds worked in a spiral until about 9 inches across. The first round for the sides is single crochet worked in the back loop only. The next 4 rounds were done in split single crochet, then I switched back to normal single crochet for the remaining rows. This resulted in an almost cauldron shape. The handles were made by making chains of 10 and skipping 7 stitches, on opposite sides. In the next round, a single crochet was worked into each stitch, including into each chain stitch. One more round of single crochet was done, then it was finished with a round of slip stitch worked into the sides of the final round of single crochet, to add stability and reduce stretch.
For those who are not into crochet, here are more kitties!
Of all the cats that were curious about the kittens, Two Face wasn’t really one of them.
Until we started taking the kittens out and putting them on my bed to run around.
She suddenly turned into a mother!
Beep Beep is her mother, but now Two Face is jumping into the nest to mother her mother, and her little siblings. The kittens are even trying to nurse on her! With her belly still half nekkid from being fixed, the nips are easy for them to find. 😀 I think they are confused about not getting any milk, though. 😀
The kittens are almost big enough to start scrambling out of their nest! We’re going to have to find a way to get them back into the basement, and walling off a corner or something, where there is less for them to get into and potentially hurt themselves. Plus, they are going to need room for food/water bowls and a litter pan, so they learn how to use them, soon!
Before I head out to visit my mother (outsider her window… ) for Mother’s Day, here are some adorable, furry worms to make you smile!
I’m glad Beep Beep used this cardboard nest we set up to have her kittens in. The box is the base from a case of cat food tins. Not only did it turn out to be the prefect size, but it makes it easy to slide in and out of the crate (which is on its side) to check on the babies.
The concrete floor is pretty saturated this spring. Under the crate, there is a puddle of moisture. A bit like condensation created by the warmth of cat bodies above. The crate keeps the cardboard from contacting the floor, so it stays nice and dry.
As I was petting the babies, this little mini-Beep Beep (right down to the orange spot on her forehead!) grabbed my hand…
… and started licking my fingers!!!
Yeah, I melted into a puddle of goo over the adorableness of it.
Then it was time to tend to the outside cats, and we had quite the crowd this morning!
At the top left is Rosencrantz! She stared showing up again very recently. I wonder where she goes, when we don’t see her for weeks at a time?
In front of her is Pump Shack cat and in the top middle is Junk Pile cat. While I was able to pet Rosencrantz this morning, these two just won’t let us near. 😦
Butterscotch and Creamsicle are eating on the right of the photo, and Potato Beetle was with them, but he found me more interesting than food!
Why?
This is why.
He just HAD to fling himself bodily across my feet and start rolling! He eventually slithered his way across my feet, around my legs, to eventually end up sitting at my other foot, looking up at me, as if to say “why haven’t you picked me up yet?”
He did it one time while I was looking at something else, and I did end up stepping on his tail a bit. At some point, this guy is going to have to learn that moving feet are not a place to drop in front of! 😀
I have noticed that Beep Beep is more willing – or able! – to leave the babies while they sleep. This is encouraging, as it means she is getting food and water, and using the litter, more often. She’s also getting a chance to wander around, say hello, and jump up to one of the windows to look outside.
At least for a little while.
This gave me an opportunity to get pictures of the babies. 🙂
I also took advantage of the opportunity to switch out the bedding – and get individual pictures.
Three of the five now have their eyes open! 🙂
Beep Beep seemed to appreciate the fresh bedding, too.
Playing with kittens. What a great way to start the day!
This afternoon, one of my daughters and I brought our inside mama cat to the vet for a check up. She has been acting very ornery and out of sorts, and my daughter, sweetheart that she is, wanted to get her checked out.
They did some blood tests and even a quick ultrasound to make sure she wasn’t pregnant (ha!), and everything checked out okay. As she is an estimated 10 years old (we’re guessing she was about a year old when she first found us), it is most likely she is in pain from arthritis. My daughter got 2 weeks of pain killers, one every 24 hours, to try her out on and see if she improves.
They’re supposed to taste like cat treats, but she did not want to take it! Normally, I’m able to get the cats to take pills fairly easily (we just gave all of them worm pills, not long ago), but she was pretty upset and fought us off. We gave her more time, then tried giving her the pill in with a piece of meat.
She ate it right away.
Hopefully, this will make a difference. We were instructed to stop giving them to her immediately, if she starts to throw up. I don’t know how long it’ll be before we should be noticing a change, if any. After these are gone, we will know whether or not this is something to continue.
Thankfully, the bill wasn’t as high as we feared it would be. The vet recommended getting her fixed, even at her age, as apparently females that aren’t have a higher risk of urinary tract infections. With my daughter’s reduced hours at work, it’s going to be a while before she can afford to do that.
I really, really appreciate that she’s doing this, because we sure as heck can’t. 😦
Later in the day, my daughter and I disturbed the kitties. I wanted to give them clean bedding, which meant we had to take the babies out of their nests, then persuade the mamas to follow. We had a crate with one of the cat mats I’d crocheted at the bottom to put them in, which meant I could get a good photo of both litters in the process.
Butterscotch babies!
Here are Butterscotch’s babies. We now have a soft bed in the old radio she’s made a nest in that is large enough to cover the entire floor, plus go up the sides a bit. The babies will have softness and warmth around them, even when they start getting more squirmy and moving around in there.
Getting them out was a challenge. Two of them were attached, and did not want to let go of the nip! Butterscotch, at least, was fairly easy to lure out after the kittens were taken out.
Beep Beep, on the other hand, needed more persuasion! After taking her babies out, she stayed in the box her next is in and would not come out. The box is under a chair, and I ended up having to take the chair away, then we had to upend the box to get her out. I moved the box aside, as even the floor under it was damp, but as soon as I put it on the floor, she was right back in it!
Beep Beep babies!
We don’t have another box the same size, so we flipped it so the damp cardboard is now at the top and able to dry out, put a new clean bed inside, then shifted which chair it was under, so it was on dry floor.
The good thing about concrete floors; we’ll be able to clean and sanitize any messes much more easily!
As soon as the box was set up again, Beep Beep was right in there, and happy to get her babies back.
I think they were all glad to have new bedding, too!
) for Mother’s Day, here are some adorable, furry worms to make you smile!
The Re-Farmer 