cat adoption

Gorgeous days, and certifiably gorgeous!

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Yesterday was incredibly gorgeous, reaching 8C/46F, bright and sunny. Things were melting all over the place! I’m loving the longer days, too. My daughter was able to slog through the snow to do a perimeter check I haven’t been able to do for some time, and tells me she is seeing signs of new growth all over the place.

As I write this, we’ve reached our expected high of 6C/43F, with a “feels like” of 11C/52F The outside cats are in heaven with these temperatures!

There’s the cat with the messed up eye, which seems to be doing better. I counted 32 this morning. I did not see Sad Face anywhere.

Speaking of messed up eyes, Wolfman’s eye really does seem to be looking better to me. I got a call fairly late last night from the Cat Lady about him. She’s just gotten a call from the vet! He’d felt bad about not really answering her when she showed him the pictures of Wolfman and he kinda blew her off. So he took another look at the pictures. He thinks there is still vision in the eye, and it can be saved. There’s a non-steroidal drop I don’t know the name of that he thought would be the right treatment. The Cat Lady told me has a cat she’d used this stuff on before. She had been sure this cat would lose it’s eye, as it was all shriveled. When this stuff was prescribed to her, she had been shocked. She’s never seen such a tiny amount before. A single drop is applied, every 2 weeks, for a 6 week treatment. So, 3 drops total – at about $100 a drop! However, after just the first application, the next day the eye looked almost completely recovered, and the cat is still doing fine. The vet is aware of the situation, though, so if Wolfman in brought in, under her name, he does have samples he can give her for free. !!! Technically, he’s not supposed to give them out to the general public, but she’s a rescue, and they’ve got a good working relationship. They are a business, though, and need to do things the right way.

So next week, I’ll meet up with her with the Wolfman, she’ll take him in for the usual shots and blood tests, and he’ll get his eye properly checked out. Who knows. He might not need this stuff, after all. The main thing, though, is that the vet thinks there is still sight in the eye, and it can be saved. At least that’s what he can say based on just looking at the (rather horrifying, I thought) pictures of the eye.

After all the usual vet care and assessments, Wolfman will then be officially put up for adoption. I told her, I would expect him to be adopted out fairly quickly. He is such a gorgeous cat, with this massive, fluffy tail! Talking about him with her family, it seems they are already bracing themselves, though. So many cats from us have become permanent members of their household, they’re half expecting to fall in love with him and keeping him. 😂😂 He’ll be going into the “cat room” part of their house, for the adoptables, with other cats, but if he ends up in the regular household…

They know themselves too well!

That got us to talking about some updates she got from other cats they found homes for, for us. She sent me a picture of one bonded pair that were adopted out together. One had been so very ill, but is now fully recovered. They are currently hanging out at their winter home, in North Carolina, where they had been flown out first class (!!) and are living in the lap of luxury.

Can she find people like that to adopt me, please?

Then there was another pair they adopted out for us. One of them we’d named Plushy, because she looked like a gorgeous, fluffy stuffed toy. She has another name now. Shortly after adoption, she had a sudden emergency surgery that everyone was surprised by, and ended up having a portion of her small intestine removed. There had been zero sign of any problems, then boom, this happened. She recovered very well, though, and the couple that adopted her and her buddy just dote on them.

They also entered her into a cat show. The show was for Norwegian Forrest cats and Maine Coons, but of course there is no lineage for Plushy, so she was entered in the “long haired house cat” category.

She won third place!

So she is certified gorgeous!

I’m absolutely delighted that these former yard cats are now in such loving homes, and living their best lives.

The Wolfman is not even a year old yet, but he’s already a stunner, and I think we’ve got another David happening – we think he’s going to be a big, fluffy boy! So different from his siblings. Soot Sprite is getting bigger, but he’s still a very slight cat. Tiny, The Beast, on the other hand, looks like she’s going to stay pretty tiny! She’s another stunner, too. They are both short haired cats, and absolutely sleek.

Oh, I almost forgot. The Cat Lady has been talking to the vet at the clinic that still does cheap spay days. While they will also do males on these days, they’re looking to do a males only day in the near future. That’s good news for us, because among the outside cats, the most socialized ones that we could easily get into carriers, are all male. If we could manage to get Sad Face in there, that would be amazing, but getting him into a carrier would definitely take some doing! He’s such a big boy, too, there’s only one carrier we have he would even fit in. We can easily find 5 outside cats for our 5 hard sided carriers, if the Cat Lady can things out. We’ve also got the 2 soft sided carriers, so we could potentially bring in 7 cats, but with outside cats, they might actually tear their way out of one of those. They may be more socialized, but stuffing them into a carrier is something else entirely!

We shall see how that goes. We’re still waiting on our tax returns. I hear these are delayed because Canada Revenue had to fire several hundred people who inappropriately got CERB money during the illegal lockdowns. Not very encouraging to know so many tax department employees had no problem committing fraud, but not very surprising, either. Hopefully, the refunds will be processed soon. Aside from potentially paying for cheap neuters, it’ll be nice to finally get the pill switch replaced on our septic tank, so we’re not having to turn the pump on manually several times a day!

Ah, well. It is what it is. It’ll work out.

Meanwhile, I’m still giggling over the updates on our adopted out yard babies. I knew we had some really gorgeous cats, but now it’s official; some of our yard cats are show quality gorgeous!

😁😁😁

The Re-Farmer

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He roooollllsss!

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Judgement decided to join me while I did my morning rounds today.

While I was penguin walking over the icy driveway, he kept running ahead, then flinging himself to the ground in front of my feet! Except sometimes, he would fail because the driveway is so slippery, he paws would start skittering, instead. So he’d just run ahead and try again! 😄 I finally got to a patch of exposed gravel, where I could stop and pet him for awhile. At which point, he started running around my feet, then rolling like crazy, making it hard to pet him – or get a decent picture!😄

I counted 24 yard cats this morning, then spotted a couple more in the outer yard as I went to the gate, so my headcount was 26 today.

I contacted the Cat Lady this morning, but she has heard nothing back from the woman who was a potential adopter for Ginger. She did adopt out a cat to someone else today, and another 3 legged cat is coming in. She was talking about having them together in the separate cat room they have (along with the cat with no eyes, I believe), but they are going to the US for a while soon. I told her, no worries. The less disruption for him, the better, so it can wait. He’s stressed out enough as it is.

Plus, I don’t mind his sweet company for a bit longer. I know it’ll be better for him, but gosh, we’re going to miss him!

The Re-Farmer

Possible?

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It’s been a very quiet and uneventful day today. I quite like those! But I did get some potential good news from the Cat Lady.

She had a potential adoptee for either Ginger or Toni. She didn’t have a very good picture of Toni, though, so I managed to get a few for her, including this one.

She filled me in on the potential adopter. They had a cat for 17 years, before losing it to age, and are interested in adopting another. They already have a three legged dog, so a three legged cat was definitely of interest! The dog is only 6 pounds – Ginger is heavier than that! He’s also the calmer one, as far as general temperament goes. Toni is younger and much more energetic. This is an older person, so I think Ginger would be better fit. They still have to go through the application process, but if this does go through, whichever cat they decide on would basically to the vet for shots and an exam, then straight to their new home, instead of the usual week or two at the Cat Lady’s first.

As we were talking, the Cat Lady told me about a struggle the shelters are having. They recently did a TNR for a stray that I believe turned out to be female. Once the cat was with them, though, she was incredibly friendly. They didn’t want to release her to fend for herself again, as she would have transitioned to the indoor life instantly. They had no room, none of the other shelters have room, and after sharing her photo and bio everywhere, they could find no one to take her in or adopt her. Even the Cat Lady had to say no. Tomorrow, the cat goes back to the streets.

It was all I could do to not say “we’ll take her!” We have too many indoors already, and I wouldn’t want another situation like what happened with Marlee escaping, never to be seen again. I still feel so bad about that.

It illustrates, however, just how difficult it is for animals in our province right now. Cats in particular. It’s just so hard to get them adopted out!

The Re-Farmer

A day of rest, and possible adoption news

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I try to keep Sundays as my day of rest, but that doesn’t always work out. Today, I finally did, though not from much choice! 😄

I was awakened early by hungry cats, so I went ahead and did my morning rounds early, too.

The outside cats get rather confused when I come out that early! The sun was barely up. I got a head count of 28 or 29, though.

Also, I can tell when the racoons have gotten in. Now only is the garbage can typically knocked over, but they leave the water bowl absolutely filthy! Ew.

As I was heading back in, these four posed beautifully for me. When I moved to pet them, after taking this picture, the tuxedo with his back to me took off. Syndol, of course, wanted aaaaalllll the pets and pushed the orange and white away to get them. 😄 I tried to pet the tuxedo with more white on its chest. He wouldn’t let me, but he didn’t run away, either. As I pet Syndol, he sniffed my hand – then started giving me kisses!! It was so sweet!

Once back inside, I uploaded and went through the trail cam files. No computer troubles! Yay! I did have a surprise, though. The gate cam is set to take one still image, then a 10 second video. I was going through the stills when I saw a great big racoon near the gate, but the next image… what the heck was that? Something looked to be jumping through the bottom bars of the gate, but I could not tell what it was.

Then I checked the video.

It was a fox!

We know we have foxes around, but very rarely see them. I think we saw a fox crossing the outer yard once, our first summer here? I only vaguely remember.

So… now I’m wondering if we’re feeding foxes in the kibble house, too!

One of these days, I’d love to set up a critter cam facing into the cat shelter area, just to see what visitors we get! Any camera there would have its motion sensor constantly triggered, so I’d be looking for something NOT on batteries.

Maybe some day.

Anyhow.

After going through the files, I tried to get other stuff done on the computer, but was falling asleep at my keyboard, so I finally gave up and tried for a nap. After fighting the cats for space on my bed, they converged on me as soon as I was lying down. Potato Beetle was really cuddly! He kept shoving his face into my hands, and ended up sleeping curled up around the top of my head, with his face snuggled up against my forehead. It was so sweet!

I’m happy to say that, at some point, PBC joined the pile and napped with me, too! She’s getting quite socialized. She still gets a bit standoffish, but likes pets, purrs lots, and cuddles with the other cats.

Speaking of cats.

I heard from the Cat Lady last night. She has someone that’s looking to adopt. It’s an older person who is healthy and living on her own, but is lonely. So she’s looking for a calm and affectionate cat. Given her age, her family has already said that they will take care of the cat when she passes, but that’s unlikely to happen soon. The Cat Lady told her about Ginger, but asked if we had others that might fit the bill. So we sent her pictures and told her about several others, including Cheddar and Potato Beetle. Ginger would still be top of the list. She asked about PBC, but while she’d be great to adopt out, I don’t think she’d be appropriate for someone that’s elderly.

So that information has been passed on. It would be good for Ginger to be away from so many cats, and to have his very own human. Things like his needing help to clean his ears, since he can’t do the ear on the side of his missing leg – something Toni manages to not have a problem with! – have been mentioned. If he gets picked, he will first stay with the Cat Lady as he gets vet checked and shots, etc. first. With our history with cats, that makes me nervous. The vets always seem to find some hidden but major health problem! Okay, so it hasn’t been all of them, but enough to be rather alarming. Not that Ginger has shown any signs of health problems, but then, neither did some others that got adopted out.

Gosh, I feel teary just thinking about giving up Ginger! He’s so sweet. It’s better for him, though.

I just have to keep telling myself that.

So we’ll see how that goes. For all I know, the Cat Lady might have other cats that would be a better fit with this potential adoptee. Whatever happens, happens!

The Re-Farmer

What else could we do?

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First, my apologies for the terrible picture, but it was the best of the lot.

Meet our new baby.

This is the kitten, sibling to Soot Sprite, Tiny and Pom Pom, that I’ve had to bring inside every now and then, to wash its eyes. It’s the only kitten right now with such messed up eyes.

When I got back from town, I unloaded the truck by the door, then my daughter started taking things inside while I parked in the garage.

It’s rather difficult to haul things through a pair of doors while one cat inside – Big Rig – is trying to get out, and another cat outside – Rolando Moon – is trying to get in. So she got her father to do door duty while she went back for the 5 gallon water jugs. This time it was the one orange tabby kitten of the year that was trying to get in.

As she came out again, this little black puff ball came over. Purring.

It tried to get in, too.

So my daughter ended up picking it up, and it was so very happy. This was the first time she had handled it!

As I came around, she asked me what I thought about bringing it in. It’s eyes were getting messy again, and it’s basically skin and bone. I’ve been debating keeping it inside, every time I brought it in to wash its eyes, and after finding 2 dead kittens we didn’t even know were particularly sick… well…

What else are we supposed to do?

So my daughter took it to the isolation ward – my bedroom – while I did the evening cat feeding. While I was doing that, the girls did the evening cat feeding in my room, too – both were being done hours early – including wet cat food.

The kitten was purring non-stop already, but once there was wet cat food to be had, it was in heaven!

Also, they were able to take a peek, and it seems we have a little girl on our hands! Which is awesome, because we’ve had such bad luck when it comes to socializing the females, so we can get them fixed and help with population control.

As I write this, the feeding frenzy is over, and she’s on my bed, loafed next to the tiny cat bed that has Soot Sprite and Pom Pom in it. So she’s getting reacquainted with her long-lost siblings!

My daughter was able to wipe her eyes while they were setting up for feeding, but we’ll give her a bit more time to settle before we try to wash her eyes again. My husband and I did her eyes this morning.

Aside from a couple of surprised moments that brought out quiet growls, there was been zero issue between her and the other kittens. Even the adult cats in the room were barely even curious.

It looks like the only thing we’ll have to deal with is making sure she figures out the litter boxes.

I’ve already sent this picture to the cat lady and told her why we brought her in. I don’t expect a response for a while, since they’ve got so much going on right now. Nothing is going to happen until after their house is sold and they are settled in their new house, so some time in December, at the earliest.

Which will give us plenty of time for us to get her healthy, and get some meat on those bones!

She is tiny, long haired, black with some white on her chest, and tiny patches of white in other areas. I think she will find a forever home very quickly, once she’s ready for adoption!

The Re-Farmer

Saying goodbye

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Oh, my goodness.

This was an unexcepted thing. I was connected with someone last night, we got together this morning, and it’s done.

Nosencrantz no longer has to be constantly stressed out being around so many other cats. She has a new forever home, and she’s already settling in nicely. When feeding the cats this morning, she came out of her hiding places as usual, and I was able to get her into the carrier. She got treated to some wet cat food while I finished my morning rounds, then off we went to meet her new family.

I am feeling really good about the family she went to. You know how, when you sometimes meet someone and there is this automatic connection? That’s how it was when I was introduced to someone who was looking for a new cats. Nosencrantz checked all her boxes, and she checked all of ours!

This is a hard one for me. Of all the cats, Nosencrantz is the one I connected with the most. She, however, was so stressed out. There’s a reason we also called her Anxiety Bear! Too many other cats. Both inside and out, she had specific cats that targeted her, too.

Now, she has a safe, warm “suite” to stay in for a couple of weeks as she gets used to her new home, before they let her out to explore. She’ll have one other sweet and friendly cat to get used to, and cat loving children to dote on her. They also have other cats that are completely indoors, including a rescued tripod. I have been promised lots of pictures, and look forward to getting to know the family more!

It feels like this family was put in our path at just the right time, too. I am going to miss Nosencrantz, but this was the right thing to do for her.

The Re-Farmer

A few surprises

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I forgot to mention this less than happy surprise I found while doing my rounds yesterday morning.

One of our highbush cranberry trees has been eaten. Again! This is the one that has an old saw horse over it to protect it, yet it still got eaten! The other, unprotected one was ignored. Why are the deer so determined to eat this one cranberry bush??? It was left alone all summer, too. With the damage being done so late in the growing season, I doubt it will survive. We shall see in the spring, I guess.

I had another surprise when I headed out to feed the outside cats for the evening.

Butterscotch emerged from wherever she’s been hiding out and came running for pets and cuddles. She still wouldn’t go near the other cats, so I ended up leaving some food on the ground on a cat path near the storage house. She did eat some, but then other cats came to investigate, and she took off.

One of those cats was Sad Face (aka: Shop Towel).

Sad Face has been around a lot more often lately, and he has NOT been going after the other cats. In fact, I’ve seen him eating along with them. Nosencrantz doesn’t like him, though, and takes off when she sees him, and so does Butterscotch. He and the other cats seem to be starting to get along; still not sure about Judgement, but Judgement tends to stay in the sun room more often then not, curled up in a cat bed and covered in kittens.

Eventually, Butterscotch just left entirely, disappearing into the maple grove, which meant there was still kibble in the grass that Sad Face was very interested in. As he was eating, with his back to me, I slowly started to approach him.

I’m sure he’s at least partially deaf. Likely due to ear mites.

Then came the surprise.

When I reached out and put my hand on his back, he flinched a bit – then kept on eating!

So I started to pet him, and he still kept eating.

After a bit, with other cats coming over to see what was going on, he did move away and turned to face me – but didn’t run away. Instead, he started eating again, with me and 8 other curious cats around him. I moved forward and he backed off slightly, until I reached my hand out.

He came over to sniff it.

Then he came closer for pets.

And more pets!

He actually started purring, and rubbing around my legs!

We have never been able to approach him before, and have actually had to chase him away because of how aggressive he was to the other cats. I’m sure he’s the one that killed that poor long haired ginger I found in one of the old dog houses by the outhouse. I’ve broken up a number of fights between him and The Distinguished Guest, and TDG was usually on the loosing side. We don’t see him anymore, just as we don’t see any of the other visiting toms anymore. I’m pretty sure he’s why Gooby is gone, too.

And yet, when given the chance, he was incredibly friendly with me and loving the pets!

Also, that cat is a solid brick of muscle.

That was yesterday. What about this morning?

Well, as I brought the food out, Nosencrantz was in among the other cats, but – as usual – waited for kibble to be left in the bowls under the shrine. That was always her favourite spot to eat, before we brought her inside, and she doesn’t like eating closer to the house. By the time I was done putting food out, I saw Butterscotch come running from somewhere beyond the storage house, so I made sure to leave a bit of kibble on the path again, just for her. She was more interested in getting pets, though, which was fine.

I counted 36 cats, cattens and kittens. No Sad Face, at the time.

I did the rest of my rounds and when I got back to the house, there was Sad Face. He was milling around with the other cats, going into the old kitchen garden as I came closer. When he had his back to me, I was able to approach him again and start petting him. That was going well, until he spotted Butterscotch near the storage house. I tried pushing him around to face another direction, but he was utterly focused on Butterscotch.

Yeah. He went for her.

Butterscotch already saw him and went straight up a tree. I had to chase Sad Face out of the yard. Unfortunately, by the time I finished up and was ready to come inside, she was still up the tree.

I really want to bring her back inside, but even when I’ve been able to pick her up and carry her, she doesn’t want to go near the house. Not even for food.

Maybe as things change with the kittens, we can bring her back in. I’ve been chatting with the Cat Lady, about the discounted spay day next month. The vet really wants to do females, not males, if at all possible. Which makes sense for population reduction. Toni is booked for sure, which we will be paying for ourselves, and she will be coming home with us. The rescue would have paid for 2 yard cat males to be done, and they’d have come home with us, too. However, she has found a home for Ghosty, so she’s asked us to bring Ghosty to get fixed, along with the two males, and Ghosty would go home with her. Which makes a booking for four cats instead of three! And these bookings have to be used, or the clinic will be less likely to accept appointments from her on these discount days in the future.

As we talked about the clinic wanting to do females, I mentioned that Tin Whistle and Mitsy could both be done. If they were done, she would be taking them to adopt out, as she has people wanting female cats. They’d take the adult yard cats, but we can’t get hold of them.

So we will have to figure that out as the time gets closer. We only have 3 carriers, with two of them soft sided carriers that a yard cat could probably tear out of pretty easily. With the kittens, we could easily put two, or even three, into one carrier without any issue, but there would be no sharing of carriers with the adult cats.

I’ve also shared photos of some of the yard kittens with her. She may have found a home for the little black puff ball – one of Soot Sprite’s, Pom Pom’s and Tiny’s siblings that we’ve been able to socialize quite thoroughly, just recently. There’s also a friendly black and white catten that looks so much like Decimus. Mostly by his permanently stunned expression. He would be a good one to adopt out, but I had to remember to let the Cat Lady know that he is probably not a well cat. His lungs rattle when he breathes. I made sure to tell her that this is probably a deal breaker, and not to feel she has to take him in. Some of the people who have adopted cats from her work in vet clinics, though, so I thought perhaps one of them would be willing to take him in, as they would be in a better position than most, to find what’s going on with him and give him the right care. She will pass his picture around and let people know.

As for Decimus and the others, I’m told that Decimus is getting quite fat from all the mice she’s catching, and is the best cat the woman has ever owned! Phantom, however, has no interest in the outdoors anymore, and is now an indoor cat. Turmeric (they all have new names now), on the other hand, is making strange. She’s staying outside, even at night (the woman keeps them indoors at night, but hasn’t been able to with Turmeric). She’s very sad about not being able to make friends with Turmeric, but at least Turmeric is staying there.

Meanwhile, it turns out she has a neighbour on a farm nearby who has no cats, and is interested in getting some. I am amazed by this, to be honest. I’m used to cats just showing up on the farm, but that isn’t happening where they are. The Cat Lady joked with her that she should move to our area; she’s have lots of cats show up!

If this neighbour wants outdoor cats, it would be nice if they would be willing to take some males. We have four of five adult males that we could bring over right now, and probably another 3 or 4 friendly kittens and cattens, if they wanted youngsters from this year. I’ve even been able to start petting Driver regularly while he eats on the cat house roof, and he’s only been back about a week.

I’m trying to think of ways to lure the female cats over and try to socialize them, but every idea I can come up with would lure in the friendly males even faster and they mill around so much, the females wouldn’t be able to come any closer. The only exception is Caramel, and she’s often even pushier than the males, while also trying to bit the hand that pets her! Trapping is always a possibility, too, but you just never know what cat would end up being trapped, with so many around. The friendly males would be more comfortable investigating the bait in a trap than the females! Of course, once I have a cat in a trap, I’d have to take it somewhere right away. With how we have the sun room set up as shelter this time of year, we can’t use it as an isolation room anymore, and we certainly couldn’t bring a mostly feral yard cat indoors until we could get it out. At least with the Egg Lady, if we catch a cat, we can bring it straight to her place. She has a chicken coop set aside for them to get used to their new home, and to stay in until she gets them to a vet to get fixed.

Normally, the Cat Lady doesn’t pass on personal information, like where people live, other than a general sense, but with the way things are… I wonder if we could work something out? From what I know, the lady that took in our three isn’t all that much further away than the Egg Lady, and has an isolation ward set up, too. If I could get the cats directly to her, where they could stay in isolation under they get fixed, that would also give her time to socialize them in a more controlled setting – something we just can’t manage with our set up.

Hhmm… I’ll run that idea by the Cat Lady.

If things work out – if we could just catch these cats! – we could potentially adopt out 6 or more outdoor females to homes where they would get spays and vet care right from the get-go. Plus, there is interest in some of the kittens, indoors and out. That would make a HUGE difference in our own population issues, and be much better for the cats, too.

We shall see.

Plus, if we can get friendly with Sad Face, we should be able to get him fixed, too! Hopefully, that would make him less aggressive with the other cats, and we could finally make him one of our own. I really hate having to chase him away.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden, pre-frost harvest, and good grief, what a day!!!

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So this day turned out completely different than planned!

The morning was pretty routine. While doing my usual morning rounds, I did a harvest. We are dropping close to freezing tonight – every time I check the forecast, it keeps changing, but not enough to make a difference. Even if we don’t get frost tonight, the few things that are not cold hardy out there are unlikely to continue to ripen, with a few possible exceptions.

One thing I was hoping to do was get one of our few friendly female cats, probably Beep Boop, into the carrier. If I’d managed that, I would have taken her straight to our egg lady for adoption. Of course, this would be the morning when she didn’t show up! In fact, “only” 17 cats showed up this morning, which is a little unusual these days. Caramel showed up and was being friendly, but when I tried to pick her up to put her into the carrier, she would have none of that!

So I let her be and did the rest of my rounds and the harvesting.

I harvested all the remaining melons. Most of them are probably not ripe, but we won’t know for sure until we cut them open. There’s also the last couple of patty pans that were large enough to be worth harvesting.

We had only three of the purple Dragonfly peppers, and I grabbed them all. All the other peppers in the grow bags, I left. The Sweet Chocolates in the old kitchen garden had a fair number of ripe peppers, but I also harvested most of the green ones, too. There are still a few on the plants that I didn’t bother with.

I didn’t harvest the eggplant, and I hoped to be able to put up the one hot pepper in the wattle weave bed, as it seems to have the most mature peppers on it.

I also picked through the last of the ripening tomatoes and brought them in, along with the yellow onions that were curing beside them.

Once inside, I had breakfast, then started on some dishes. With the hot water tank dead, we’ve been heating up kettles of water to use for everything. I was starting to heat more water for another batch of dishes when my mother called.

I’d mentioned to her that I was taking her car in to the garage, so her first question was, how was the car? Turns out, she thought it was still at the garage. Why, I’m not sure, since we only have her car now, so I’d have no way to get home if I left it at the garage!

Once she knew it was running find, she asked what my plans for the day were…

*sigh*

Yup. Even though I ask her repeatedly if she’d need a shopping trip, every time we talk, she always tells me no, she’s fine, she doesn’t need anything – even when I try to preplan a shopping date. She refuses to, because she still has food, so she doesn’t need to. And she doesn’t want to shop before she runs out of things, because then it’ll all go bad unless she eats it all right away…

*sigh*

Honestly, I think she just likes the idea that she’s messing with my day when she does this. It’s a control thing. Of course, part of the reason we’re living here is so that I’m available to help her with this stuff, and she’s not making my brother book time off work to come over (with my sister, she goes out of her way to only call on the days she knows my sister isn’t working).

So I was soon on the road to her place, earlier than usual, as she also needed help with some household chores that are getting too hard for her to manage on her own.

I don’t know that my mother was all that happy with me today, to be honest. I helped her with her household stuff, then we sat for a bit to chat. She started going into her usual manipulative rants, and I was having none of it. At one point, she started off on how everything is so expensive, and it’s because all the stores are cheating people. I tried to explain inflation to her, but nope. It’s because all the stores are cheating people. She knows this because, years ago, someone at the grocery store helped her with her shopping, and when she checked her receipt at home, she found she had been charged for a watermelon she didn’t buy. This happened probably 10 years ago and frankly, I don’t think it happened the way she claims. The grocery store by her place prints receipts that include featured specials. One time that she went through her receipt while I was there, she thought she was charged for a pie she didn’t get, but when I looked at the receipt, I found she was looking at the featured sale on pie and thought it was part of her purchases. Or, the maybe guy made a mistake about the watermelon, and punched in the wrong code. She got mad at me for not agreeing with her, then tried to blame me for her being cheated “last week”. I’d helped her with shopping and she wanted to get a case of mushroom soup. They’d been on sale the week before, but they’d run out. There were no cases, but I found a staff member and asked. She found one for my mother in their stock room. The cheat? My mother looked at the receipt and the price was not the sale price she wanted it to be – a sale that was over already. I’d even told her it was over, but in her memory, she now thinks I told her the price was the sale price from the previous week. I never told her a price, because I never saw a price for cases, only singles. This also happened more like 2 or 3 weeks ago, not last week, as she claimed, because my brother had visited and helped her with shopping last week, not me.

Then, after going on about how this guy had cheated her over a watermelon she never bought, she turned around and tried to make excuses for our vandal, of all people. She still tells me how we all need to get along and forgive each other, yet still allows him to talk to her in spite of all he’s done, and his open expression of hatred for me in particular, not to mention blatant lies to her about me. Somehow, my siblings and I are at fault that we all don’t get along like we used to.

Things even went sideways when I made the mistake of telling her about the truck we have been trying to get financing for. This was her cue to say that my FIL, who lives on a pension in an assisted living building, should be “helping us”. She’s got it in her head that he’s got a “good pension” (whatever she things that is; I don’t care to find out), and if she can help us out, he can, too. He does help us in other ways, but when I said that, she demanded to know in what ways. I told her it was none of her business, just like his finances are none of her business. Oh, and she even tried to use the fact that she paid for the new roof as ammunition against me! We’ll be getting that one rubbed into us for the rest of her life, I’m sure. She never does anything good, without finding some way to use it as a weapon. She and our vandal are very much alike in that regard.

Things went down hill from there, and instead of rising to her bait on so many things, I pointed out that she was being psychologically abusive, and I wasn’t going to accept that. She then tried to gaslight me, and I called her on that, too. Finally, she just stopped talking and sat with her eyes closed for a few minutes, apparently praying. Then she started doing a few other things in preparation for running errands, and wouldn’t answer me when I offered to help or asked her questions.

Then we just went and did the errands, and everything settled down. We even went out for lunch part way through. I made sure to pay, because she never tips.

By the time we were done, my mother was quite tired. I did stay for a little bit of a visit after everything was put away. Since I’d gone to her place to much earlier than usual, though, I decided to do our last stock up shopping trip. I needed to go to Canadian Tire and Walmart, and her place was already half way there.

Before heading out, though, I messaged my family about the change in plans. That’s when my husband updated me on the plumber situation.

He’d called our usual guy again, and it went straight to voice mail. So, he called another company we’ve dealt with and left a message there. That company called back.

I think we know why we haven’t been hearing from the first place.

This is the time of year when everyone is getting their cottages ready for winter. Which includes draining the plumbing, so nothing freezes and bursts pipes over the winter. This second plumber is fully booked draining cottages for the next two weeks. Given how many cottages there are around the lake, every available plumber would be booked solid right now.

We are going to be without hot water for a while! Over Thanksgiving, at the very least.

I have not told my brother we don’t have hot water at the moment. I didn’t want him to worry as they go to visit their son and grandsons for Thanksgiving. If we don’t hear anything after Thanksgiving, though, I’m going to have to ask him if he can come out and install the new tank. The frustrating thing is, it’s really not a difficult thing to do. We just don’t have what we need to do it. Particularly with the electrical part of it.

Ah, well.

On that note, I headed out and did the final shopping I needed to do, and even picked up a couple of treats for Thanksgiving dinner. The only other stop was to get gas on the way home. It doesn’t look like getting the air filter and new sparkplugs done are helping with the poor mileage my mother’s car has been getting, though it does seem to be running noticeably better! Also, that tire with the slow leak they couldn’t find is still holding air, so that’s good. Mind you, it took about 3 weeks before it leaked enough to be noticeable, last time, so it’s really too soon to say, and I need to keep an eye on it.

When I got home and drove up to the house to unload, the yard was just filled with cats! All the ones that didn’t show up for breakfast were very hungry.

Beep Boop was among them.

So after everything was unloaded and the girls were putting them away, I fed the outside cats, which lured at least three of them out from under the car! The carrier was in the sun room, and Beep Boop was among the cats eating kibble in there, so I put some in the carrier, then picked her up and dropped her in through the top (I love that this carrier opens up at the top!). She immediately started eating again, so I closed it up, then messaged the egg lady to see if she was home.

She was, and eager to welcome a new cat!

So, off I went again! Beep Boop was not happy once she realized she couldn’t get out of the carrier, but she did eventually settle in for the ride.

She now has one of the chicken coops, all to herself! It’s roasty toasty in there. Food and water were already waiting for her – and she’ll have all the mice she can catch! Just getting into the coop, which has a small vestibule with some feed storage in it, we saw several mice running around. Beep Boop (who will surely be renamed!) will get to stay here for a while, and arrangements will be made to get her spayed right away. My friend’s mouse problem is so bad, she thinks she might need three more cats! So we will work on trying to get some of the other females, as she doesn’t think her one male would be happy with more males around.

By the time I got back from delivering the cat, it was getting dark. I was just able to get the eggplant and the nearest peppers covered for the night. I had a couple more covers, so I went ahead and covered the peppers in the grow bags, too. As I write this, the forecast says we will stay above freezing, but the “RealFeel” will be below freezing.

We shall see what we get for real!

Oh, and while all this was happening, I started getting messages from the cat lady. One of the last kittens will be going to her new home tomorrow. There were 17 people interested in that one tiny kitten – but none interested in the other that’s not so tiny. That one doesn’t want to leave them, anyhow, it seems. There’s also someone interested in Ghosty, but that person wants a male, and Ghosty is female. I’ll find out tomorrow, if it’s still a go. I passed on a picture of Tiny, Pom Pom and Soot Sprite to pass on – make sure to mention Soot Sprite is not up for adoption, and she’ll put the word out for them, since the tiny ones seem to have more interest.

So not only are we looking at having as many as 3 more female yard cats adopted out soon, we might have some kittens adopted out, too!

She’s also going to let me know when one of the clinics has their neuter discount day, to start getting some of the outside males done.

And now it’s almost 10pm, and I need to see about some supper! I just realized, I haven’t eaten since having lunch with my mother at noon. Nothing involving the oven, though. My daughters prepped the ripe Sweet Chocolate peppers while I was gone and now have them dehydrating in the oven.

Hopefully, tomorrow I’ll get to do the work outside I’d intended to do today!

The Re-Farmer

Treed

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Nosencrantz was eagerly among the other cats when I came out to feed them this morning! She even let me pet her, but she was far more interested in food.

I counted 37 again this morning. Unfortunately, that includes Shop Towel. As soon as Nosencrantz saw him in the yard, she did this.

She was still up there when I finished my rounds and came inside. The kibble under the shrine, where she prefers to eat, was already gone, though there were still some in the kibble house. I shooed Shop Towel away, but I know he’ll come back.

I so wish he weren’t aggressive with the other cats. I hate to have to chase away a hungry animal, but he’s already chased off the other toms permanently, and I think some of our own males that have moved on have been driven off by him.

Well, we might be down a few more yard cats, soon. The homesteader we have been buying eggs from has only one cat. Quite a lovely gentleman, too. However, with having feed for so many animals around, she has a lot of mice, and he can’t keep up with catching them all! I’ve offered some of ours. Depending on how her schedule is, I’m hoping she can come over to choose. She would rather have females, as she thinks her cat (yes, he’s fixed, and yes, she’ll fix any cats she takes) would be more accepting of females. Of course, males are the ones that are the most socialized around here! However, there are a couple of females that we can pet fairly regularly. I would much rather we reduced the population of females here, too, since it’s so difficult to get them fixed. I was able to pet Beep Boop this morning, and even feel under her belly, and she has no active nips, making her a good candidate. Adam and Broccoli would also be great to go. I have been able to pet Broccoli while she’s eating, though I couldn’t check to see if she was nursing – she did bring her second litter to the house, and I’ve seen them together, but I’ve never seen her actively nursing them. They definitely are old enough to be weaned. As for Adam… she won’t let us near her at all. She was creche mother for so long, along with Beep Boop, I don’t think she would have gone into a second heat, like Broccoli did. Then there’s Caramel. She’s been an odd one, lately! If I’m going around the cat house, for example, she will run around on the roof, following me, meowing for attention and even grabbing at me to pay attention to her – but when I do, she attacks my hand, scratching and biting! Yet if I pull away, she starts meowing for attention again.

Nosencrantz is another possibility, now that she actually comes up and lets me pet her. She doesn’t want to go indoors anymore. I don’t know how good of a mouser she is, after being indoors for so long, but she would be much happier around fewer cats. Especially to get away from Shop Towel. Plus, she’s already fixed.

I miss her nightly cuddles!

Well, time to get to other things. I’m taking my mother’s car in to the garage today, so I’m leaving much earlier to stop at the clinic and drop off my husband’s medical files, first. Then grab “breakfast” somewhere. Maybe the new Dairy Queen is open by now? If it is, I’ll definitely give it a try.

The Re-Farmer

Who are you? Plus kitty update

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With the increasing heat over the next while, and no rain in site, I made sure to water the garden beds this evening. While the sprinkler was going in the main garden area, I used a watering can and the rain barrel by the sun room to water the south garden beds. The barrel was no longer full, but with the potatoes harvested, and other beds not needing watering anymore, it was enough to water what needed it, and not be stretching to fill the can at the bottom of the barrel.

As I was going back and forth around the rain barrel and the old kitchen garden, I was keeping an eye out for the missing ladies. I didn’t see them (though I did get to catch and cuddle a tiny black kitten, who was not happy to be caught!), but I did see someone else on a path in the old kitchen garden. Later, it moved to the area by the back water tap, and I was able to get a better picture.

I don’t recognize this cat.

I keep wracking my brain, trying to remember if one of last year’s kittens had markings like this, and I just can’t. As far as I can tell, this is a stranger.

It was also making strange. It didn’t run off while I was around, but as soon as I seemed to go closer, it got up and moved away.

Along with the watering, I ended up picking a whole lot of tomatoes, including a couple of Black Beauties, though one had already fallen to the ground on its own. The Roma are really liking these temperatures. I had considered pulling the bush beans, but ended up picking some, instead. I did pull the peas, and just dropped them where they were growing. In the process, I found more volunteer tomatoes! There is a total of 8 there now. All but one of them would be Spoon tomatoes. One is growing where we had the Chocolate Cherry tomatoes growing last year, though it might be from the Mosaic Mix we had there the year before, at the same time we grew Spoon tomatoes for the first time.

While I was outside, I got a call from the Cat Lady. Which surprised the heck out of me, because she called my cell phone, and I actually got enough signal to have a conversation! Even with Wi-Fi calling, I usually either can’t make out most of the call, or it gets dropped.

She was about to go and pick up the ladies from the vet, and wanted to update me. The spays went well, but the vet was not happy with her. Apparently, Decimus was really engorged, which made the surgery more difficult and dangerous. It went well, but she’s going to need extra antibiotics, apparently. The vet thought that she had a litter of actively nursing kittens. When I dropped them off, I made a point of telling the person doing the intake that she had kittens that she was actively and aggressively weaning, and she was going to be very glad to not be nursing. Decimus had made no effort to come to her kittens all night, nor did she want to go in, in the morning. The last time she did, yesterday evening, just before we did the wet cat food, the kittens basically attacked her and knocked her to the ground, and she was hissing and batting at them. My daughter had to actually rescue Ghosty, who was in reach of Decimus’ teeth, because she kept trying to bite Ghosty’s face! Once I started doing the wet cat food, the kittens lost all interest in nursing.

The Cat Lady knew Decimus’ kittens were older and she wasn’t wanting to nurse them anymore, and tried to explain that to the vet, but I don’t think the vet believed her. The Cat Lady promised that the next batch would be all males!

The kitten was another one with issues. As an outside kitten, it was no surprise that she had ear mites, but apparently she had an ear infection of some kind, too. We saw no sign of a problem. She wasn’t even scratching at her ears. Apparently, when they tried to flush her ears, there was a lot of puss. !!! Also, she has weird ears.

In fact, the Cat Lady has been hearing that comment from various different vets in treating different cats from our place. They all have weird ears. It seems they are unusually narrow. One vet, while treating Augustus (who is doing great now, btw, and recovered well. Even Leo is getting over his pneumonia) had even said something about how the ears looked like the cats from [our hamlet], and wondered if they were related?

Probably.

In the past she’s taken the same cat from our place to several different vets in different town and, because the first one had commented about the weird ears, asked them to check the ears. They all said the same thing. The ears are weird!

I’m not sure what to make of that.

But it’s done. The three of them will stay with the Cat Lady for about a week before going to their new home. The lady that’s adopting them is still interested in having a 4th cat, and is considering taking Turmeric, too, after the first three are settled.

The kittens are doing just fine, too. Even they seem to be happier with no adult cats around; just TTT, who spends most of the day in her closet cave, sleeping.

Now, if only we could at least catch sight of Butterscotch, Nosencrantz and Marlee, that would make a very good end to our day!

The Re-Farmer