I went out earlier than usual to feed the critters, making a point of opening the outside door to the sun room, first. This is what I found!
All 10 kittens, in one big sleepy pile!
That creamsicle one at the top left looks so displeased. :-D
Yesterday evening, I spent some time sitting in the sun room with them.
When they realized I was going to stay on the swing bench for a while, I got attacked by the wild beasts! This is about the only decent picture I was able to get, they were moving so much. They would climb up onto my lap and viciously attack each other, the draw string on my waist band, my thumbs, my knee, race up and over my shoulders… It was insane!
In the middle of it all, Doom Guy decided he wanted cuddles and kept trying to lie across my chest, but kittens kept running over him. Meanwhile, Dave wanted that spot, but ended up stuck in my hand, with a whirlwind of kittens and Doom Guy around him. He finally gave up and joined the fray. His brother, however, made his way up to my shoulder and just stayed there, looking out the window behind my head. :-D
What a wild bunch they are!
Before bed, I had to wash all the bleeding scratches they left on my legs, then slather the wounds with antibiotic ointment.
That is one down side of all these active little buggers! :-D
We have figured out where the missing kittens of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are.
Dave and Keith’s sibling is in the junk pile in the spruce grove, outside our living room window. We sometimes see him playing on top of the pile, as his mama used to do when she was a baby. He’s hard to see through the lilac leaves, but he is quite a handsome grey and white tabby.
The other litter, I found by accident. I was walking past the pump shack and noticed the wire that was keeping the door shut was loose, so I went in to see if anything was amiss (and if our vandal and come in outside of view of our camera with nefarious intent). I just caught sight of a dark, tabby looking butt and tail, disappearing behind some junk.
While doing my evening rounds, I found all sorts of lovely growing things!
My mother’s yellow lilies ad opening up like crazy, with lots of buds. They are going to do very well this year!
The white roses my mother planted in the same area are doing much better than last year. These are the same type as by the house, but it’s not as good a location for them, so they tend not to be the explosion of flowers, like I can see outside my bedroom window right now.
I was really happy to see so many cherries forming! These are just the ones by the house – where last year, I found only 3 cherries, in total! The ones by the spruces are also showing lots of cherries starting to form.
Not long after I did my rounds and got these photos, it start to rain.
It continued to rain pretty much through the night, and was still raining when I drove my daughter to work.
Which is so awesome! All the flowers, fruit trees and berry bushes are going to love it!
I swung by the lake this morning. It was still raining and quite windy, so I was expecting things to be empty, but nope. Some people are just really, really dedicated to their fun!
I watched as this guy was kneeling on his board, struggling to paddle against the waves. He managed to stand for a little while, but was soon back on his knees, trying to paddle out further. He was still at it when I left!
Though the rain has certainly cooled things down, we’re still supposed to be hitting temperatures in the mid 20s C for a while, then into the high 20s C by next week. I’ll take the cool breezes while I can! :-)
It’s been cats, right from the start of my morning!
Are you up, yet?
I didn’t even get out of bed yet, when Fenrir claimed my wrist as a chin pillow while I checked my phone. I could just barely angle the phone to get this picture.
Her chin is so soft and warm on my wrist, I can’t complain, even if it does make it hard to check the weather for the day!
Where have YOU been, Jim?
While starting the cat stuff outdoors, a very dirty Big Jim came by.
Do I really want to know how he got black on him like that?
May I come out?
Beep Beep came over while I was securing the door from the outside.
May I come in?
A curious Big Jim! Checking on things while I washed out the kitten’s eye.
Jim has gone into the sun room with the kittens only once, that I know of, and the moms drove him out. This morning, this was as far as he dared go. :-D
We had some new, furry visitors to our feeding station this morning!
This is a first for us to see raccoons! :-)
They are so fuzzy!!! Like round little bears. :-D
This morning, I also figured out a way to let the mama cats out of the sun room, while keeping the babies in.
I noticed a whiteboard I had in storage, and gave it a try. The whiteboard is too slippery for the kittens to climb, and even if they managed to climb up the jugs I shoved against it to keep it from tipping, the marker ledge should keep them from being able to climb over. The remaining question was whether or not the moms would jump over it, and if they would knock it down when jumping back.
As my daughter and I were heading out to go to town, I heard a noise and saw that Beep Beep had jumped it, without knocking it down. When I came back later, however, it seemed the Butterscotch hadn’t figured it out yet. So I just lifted her over. You can actually see her in the photo, at the old dog house, where she promptly went to eat some grass! She has since returned to the sun room, and the kitten gate is still up, so it seems to be working.
The kittens, meanwhile, were content to ignore the set up.
They had all been sprawled on that blanket until they saw me moving around. A few came to check things out, then stayed to play.
This one, however, just luxuriated…
Cutest.
Thing.
Ever!!!!
In other things, we have not been able to work on painting the gate again, yet. We had a good rain during the night, so it was still wet when we went into town. I’m hoping to get some more done this evening, once it starts to cool down a bit. At least the area that’s already painted is no longer tacky to the touch! Tomorrow, I’ll be driving my mother to a medical appointment, so if I get some painting done today, that’ll give it plenty of time to cure tomorrow. No rain is predicted overnight, so that should help, too. We’ll see how it works out.
I have a whole bunch of things to share with you today, but the first thing I want to share is some good news. Our van didn’t need to get any work done on it today!
With the kittens getting more mobile, it was time to clean up the sun room as much as we could. Moving out the furniture to wash the concrete floor is not in the cards while we are using it as a kitten maternity ward, but I definitely needed to move things around so I could bring the cat cave box to floor level, and get the broken glass out from behind and under the plastic couch.
I decided the best way to accomplish this was to put all the kittens together into a box, but the box into the old kitchen, then open the sun room up. This allowed the moms to finally go outside, while the kittens were safe in the (much cooler!) old kitchen.
Which meant I had to do continue more clean up in the old kitchen. Specifically, the corner beside the wood burning cook stove that the cats keep getting into and mucking about.
I ended up filling 3 garbage bags of some gross stuff, plus a recycling bag that will go for electronic disposal. On top of that is stuff that will need to be put into storage, and stuff that will be kept. I’ll post more about that later; come back tomorrow for a guessing game photo! :-D
But first… kittens!
This is the smaller box nest that we made for Beep Beep to give birth in, but Butterscotch moved her babies into, instead. That pillow and cat bed are just covered in cat fur! *L*
With my daughter’s help, we got the gridwall off the top of the cat cave we created for the winter, and put it back into storage with the others in the old kitchen. Once that was clear, I could start moving things around more easily, and without needing help. The crocheted blankets, floor mat and bath transfer chair went outside to be hosed down.
The floor mat was immediately claimed by a very pregnant Guildenstern (or Rosencrantz?), with Doom Guy keeping her company. I had the doors to the sun room and old kitchen open, and we had cats all over the place, checking things out!
Except Beep Beep and Butterscotch. They eagerly took off. Butterscotch came back rather quickly, but it’s 9 in the evening now, and still no sign of Beep Beep.
When I finished cleaning things up, I brought the kittens back into the sun room, putting all of them into the bigger box nest so I could set up the smaller box again.
Butterscotch ended up nursing all of the babies. Well. Almost. Butterscotch has only 6 teats, so she can’t nurse all 8 of them at once.
After moving the kittens back into the sun room, but before Butterscotch came back, I left the outside doors open, so it wouldn’t get too hot in there, while I put the crocheted blankets on the clothes line to hose them down.
I ended up having to close the door, because they were running around so much, one of them found the open doorway and started going outside!
It was one of Butterscotch’s babies, and she was back by then, so I closed her up inside again. Her babies continued to explore, and one of them discovered the smaller food bowl.
Yes, he started eating! Sort of. He wasn’t figuring out that “chewing” thing and was basically swallowing pieces of kibble, then coughing them back up again. :-( So we took him out of the food.
This was his first solid food!
Later on, after everything we done and poor Butterscotch was being engulfed in kittens, I went looking around for Beep Beep.
I never found her, but someone else found me.
Doom Guy wanted up.
As you can see, he was not messing around with that!
He never made it all the way up, but I now have a new batch of scratches on my leg. :-D
I’m sure Beep Beep will be back soon enough. If nothing else, she’ll be feeling the need to nurse soon.
I’m so glad to finally be able to get the sun room cleaned up as much as I could, even if it wasn’t as much as I wanted to.
Don’t forget to come back tomorrow to play the guessing game!
The Re-Farmer 