This is the black and white kitten from the very first litter we found. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s this one…
We found this one alone in the yard, soaking wet, and no mama around. Likely she dropped him while moving him, then ran off when I came outside. We brought him (her?) in, and my husband kept him warm while we looked around and, eventually, were able to reunite it with its mother.
I am increasingly convinced that, of the 4 kittens in that litter, this may be the only survivor. I know there was a tuxedo in the litter, and a couple of tabby looking kittens, but this is the only older kitten we are seeing.
It’s also incredibly shy and runs off as soon as it sees me, no matter how far away I am. That is why I put some kibble out on the step, and on the ground in front of the grape vines. What I might end up doing is moving one of the smaller kibble containers over by those steps and putting food out there, regularly. The down side of that is, the skunks are more likely to get it before the kitten does.
Well, if it’s a lone survivor or if its siblings are even shier than this one, I hope they will eventually start coming to the kibble house for food. Leaving food farther out for a while will help get them more comfortable coming over.
I popped out to see if the weather would allow some lawn mowing, and discovered a whole bunch of adorableness, just outside the door!
When I first opened the door, they were next to the water bowls (while mama was inside the kibble house, eating), and all four of them were moving towards me, all in a row. :-D Then they went around the back of the cats’ house, stopping long enough for me to get a couple of pictures.
There was a mama cat and kittens on the laundry platform steps, and they all started towards the cats, like they were synchronized. :-D After getting the pictures, I shooed the mama out of the kibble house and they all left.
Once the skunks were gone, the kitties were a lot more relaxed.
Except Sad Face, with his permanent tragic expression, and always looking ready to dash off.
Checking the weather radar, we had our frequent climate bubble in effect. The severe weather system split, with the large portion of it going to the north of us, and a smaller portion to the south. I was able to get some mowing down around the garden area, though it was so hot and sunny, I stopped when I ran out of gas, rather than filling and continuing.
Further south, however, another system went through. My brother’s place got hit with driving rain and hail! Everything is okay, though.
In other things, I called the tree company that cleared our power lines and roof a few years ago. Someone will be coming out over the next few days to give us an estimate. My plan had been to take down dead spruce trees myself, but considering where some of them are in relation to the house, and to each other, it would just be more efficient to hire someone. They can do it all in a day – and with greater safety! When I first called and left a message, I made a point of mentioning that I want to keep the wood for building with. I also mentioned getting things chipped.
With that in mind, before I started on the mowing, I got out the orange marking paint I remember to pick up more of at the hardware store. I then went around and marked the ones closer to the house, as well as the one by the garage. I’d marked as many dead trees as I could get to, last year. The marks have faced, but I could still see them. Last year, I’d counted about 22 or 23 dead spruces, with the possibility of more that were not accessible, in total (I hadn’t bothered marking some of them at the time).
We lost more trees over the winter, though. This time, I marked 22 dead spruce trees, and that was without going around the East side of the spruce grove, and trying to get through some of the underbrush.
That’s a lot of trees that can be used to build more high raised beds! Assuming they are all still solid, and from the looks of it, they are, though a couple of them have been dead and drying long enough, they have split lengthwise.
That spruce grove is going to look really empty once all the dead trees are cut down. Once things are cleared up, the plan it to turn part of the area into a sheltered seating area, with trunks supporting benches and tables. Fruit or berry trees that need more shelter may then be planted, as well as more spruces transplanted into the spruce grove.
Once those dead trees are down, though, we can get back on track for building the cordwood outdoor bathroom, with a composting toilet rather than a pit, that we were looking to do as a practise building. After we no longer need to use the space to access and drag out the dead trees, we can start working on building up a foundation for it. This year’s flooding showed us that, while the space we’d chosen for it didn’t end up underwater, like so many other spots, it did eventually get very muddy. We definitely need to build things up at least a few inches. Though the plan is to make an outdoor bathroom, it will have a solid floor, and the composting toilet will be easily removed, if we ever want to repurpose the building to be just a regular storage shed.
The dead trees we plan to use for building high raised beds had been intended for building the cordwood shed, but garden beds have become more of a priority. I expect we’ll still have plenty of wood that can be used for it, anyhow. Plus we’ll be making bottle bricks to use for light, instead of windows.
This is a project that will take much longer to get done than we originally planned. At least we still have the old outhouse all cleaned up inside and can use that, if we lose our septic again!
Also, if we do the floor right, we won’t have to worry about groundhogs digging dens in the pit, like we found under the outhouse!
Last night, I had to get this picture through a sun room window, as they would run off as soon as they heard the door open.
There are three kittens nursing in this photo. We usually see 4 kittens together, so this suggests to me that the third kitten – the almost black one – is from another litter. I had thought the one that looks like it’s going to be a long haired cat was from another litter, but it’s in the photo, nursing with the calico and the tabby.
Every now and then, I see the black and white kitten from the first litter. It runs off as soon as it sees me, no matter how far away I am. I have not seen the other 3 from that litter. Hopefully, they have all survived, and they’re just shier.
My goodness, where did the day go? I just realized it’s past 6pm, but it feels like it should be 2pm. This, even though I ended up doing the rest of our monthly stock-up shopping today.
The mamas were out in full force when I came out to do my rounds this morning – and so was Sad Face! I just had to try for a picture of him on the shrine. I couldn’t get any closer, as he runs off. Which I’m good with, because he has been beating up Potato Beetle and The Distinguished Guest a lot!
He is, however, waiting his turn for the food, letting Rosencrantz eat her fill, first!
It’s entirely possible she’s pregnant with his kittens.
Before coming in from my rounds, I paused to get eaten alive by mosquitoes while picking the rest of the garlic scapes in the main garden. There are only a couple that weren’t ready to pick. Looking forward to using them!
With the other garlic so far behind, we should have more scapes to harvest in about a month or so. A bonus to that garlic coming up so late!
While I was putting food out for the cats and the birds, Potato Beetle appeared in the sun room, enjoying his very own private breakfast. When I was leaving to do the shopping, I found him like this.
Awwww… So cute!
He’s still really skinny again, so I hope he stays around long enough to put some meat back on those bones. And with both Sad Face and The Distinguished Guest prowling around, I’m much more comfortable with him safe in the sun room!
The last of our stock-up shopping for the month was a Walmart trip this time. Partly because I finally wore out my last pair of jeans and needed to get new ones.
Very little of what I needed to get was food times. I got four 7kg bags of kibble; hopefully, we now have enough to last the month. With the skunks and the racoons also eating the kibble, I’ve taken to setting out less kibble, more often. Hopefully, the cats will get more of it that way, and the kibble will last longer.
We needed to stock up more on paper products, in non-Costco sizes. We’re slowly building up an inventory of non-perishable products, with a goal of having at least a 3 month supply by winter. That way, if we get snowed in, or vehicles break down – or if we get another spring of flooding and washed out roads – we will be set. We need to be doing that with cat kibble, too, but with how many big bags we need just for 1 month, stocking up extra is much more difficult!
The brand of bug spray I bought last time didn’t seem to work well at all. During the cookout, we all used it liberally, but the mosquitoes were practically mainlining the stuff instead of being repelled by it. I was able to find the brand that we find works best and bought a couple of cans – along with more AfterBite!
Finding a new pair of jeans was annoying. I tried on a couple of pairs and found ones that fit – on the upper body. Unfortunately, it seems the popular style is skinny leg jeans. The only reason I could get them on my calves at all was because the fabric was part Spandex. Went through rack after rack before finally finding one style that were regular cut on the legs. Thankfully, they had some in my size, too.
It shouldn’t be this hard to find clothes that fit! Honestly, I think the next time I need to get a pair of pants, I should just go to the men’s department. At least if they’re too long, I can get my daughter to hem them for me or something.
I did have a small splurge today. Nosencrantz and Butterscotch still refuse to leave my office. I have a scratch board for them that they completely ignore. Nozencrantz has been using my office chair as a scratch post. Usually, we get the scratch pads made out of corrugated cardboard, and I was originally going to get two of them, but I found a cheap little cat tower that I got instead of a second scratch pad. Hopefully, they will figure out how to use that, instead of my constantly having to stop them from clawing either my chair, or the carpet!
Well, that didn’t take long! As soon as there was a space while unpacking the shopping, Tissue jumped right in!
I gave the cardboard scratch pad to the other cats, but kept aside the cat nip that came with it. After assembling the new little cat tower, I put cat nip all over it, and on the other scratch board they’ve been ignoring, then gave the last of the cat nip to the other cats. Which is always hilarious.
Butterscotch and Nosencrantz seemed happy enough with the cat nip, and mildly curious about the little scratch tower. Then Cheddar wanted in and discovered the tower. It’s barely taller than he is! It has a curved portion with a “comb” under it for cats to rub up against, and I’m not sure he can even fit through it, but he was certainly enjoying the hanging toy and bell, while going into a cat-nip fueled frenzy over the thing. Nosencrantz just sat on a nearby foot stool, looking at Cheddar like he was crazy!
Well. He was a bit high on catnip, so I guess in a way, he was!
They’re all sleeping it off on my bed right now.
I still don’t know if they’ve figured out they can scratch at that thing, yet.
When I next went into the dining room, I found cats splayed all over the place, in a stupor, with Susan all curled up on the cardboard scratch pad (which got its own catnip application), taking a nap!
Aside from the regular monthly shopping, my husband asked if I could get some prices for dimensional lumber, so I stopped at a hardware store on my way home. It’s in the town my mother lives in, and I know they deliver. After getting the prices, I remembered to pick up some new clothes line to replace what broke this spring. I hope 100 feet will be enough. I also got proper clothesline spreader. Two of them, actually. There’s a lot of distance between the poles! I’d been using S hooks, and they don’t slide very well.
When I headed into the city, I drove into a deluge of rain, and by the time I got home, the rain had reached our place. Enough that we have water all over, again. I’m not complaining, though. It means the garden doesn’t need to be watered, and it’s not so much that things are drowning again.
One of the things I was able to get done yesterday was finally prune away some large branches from the ornamental apple trees in the old kitchen garden. Where we have the bunching onions planted is not doing well, and drying out faster, because of the thick mat of interlocking branches above. There was one large branch from each tree that I wanted to take out but, once those were down, it uncovered a whole lot of dead branches. By the time I got that all cut away and cleared out, it was looking much more open and bright at the end of the garden. Which means the retaining wall blocks and the bed along them all got today’s rain better, too!
Oh, my goodness! I am so happy!
Just moments ago, I had to stop Nosencrantz from scratching at my chair again. She left – and then I heard her using the new scratch post directly behind me! She’s figured it out!!! Yay!
Okay, time for me to get my butt back outside and do my evening rounds.
Because even though it still feels like it should be the afternoon, it is well into the evening right now!
Some of them now seem to actually prefer eating kibble on the roof of the cats’ house rather than from the trays!
Rosencrantz is also in the picture, out of frame, at the food dish under the shrine. She and at least one other cat look pregnant, and I’m sure the rest of them are mamas.
Potato Beetle showed up this morning. He’s been away for a few weeks, but has been making appearances within the last few days – looking very skinny and hungry! This morning, as I went out of the sun room, he dashed through the door and went straight for the kibble bowl we still keep in there.
We’ve been seeing less of The Distinguished Guest lately, and more of Sad Face. They have been fighting, and Sad Face looks to be getting the upper hand. TDG has a big chunk of fur missing from one shoulder, but he won’t let us near him, even while in the kibble house, anymore. Otherwise, we’d be putting anti-biotic ointment on the wound. Sad Face, meanwhile, keeps his distance from us, even as he skulks around the outskirts.
Which means I’m quite happy to see Potato Beetle going into the sun room to eat. If he would just hang out there more often, that would mean Sad Face can’t go after him, too! Alas, he did no such thing today. He ate like he was starving, but then contentedly let the sun room and soon disappeared.
Later on, as I was about to go out the sun room, I saw a strange cat in the kibble house.
No. Not a strange cat.
A much larger black and white kitten! This would be the black and white from the first litter we found in the cats’ house.
The kitten was in alarm mode, though, it’s back arched and leaning against the middle board framing the kibble house, looking off into the corner. That corner is hidden from view by the cats’ house, but it was no surprise when I came out and saw a skunk in there. I chased off the skunk which, unfortunately, chased off the kitten, too.
Later on, I saw mamas and kittens going in and out of the hole at the bottom of the pump shack door. I know the oldest kittens were moved somewhere beyond the pump shack, but as they are getting bigger, the mamas may have moved them closer again. For sure, the kittens that have been under the cats’ house and the laundry platform are in there now, and seeing the growling mama, I’m sure the newest litter is in there, too.
Hmm… With the kittens gone from the cats’ house, this would be a good time to finally open it up and clean it out!
Yesterday, I was doing as much advance prep as I thought useful, for tonight’s company cook out (weather will). That meant a lot of back and forth-ing from the house to the fire pit.
When I first started and walked past the storage house, I noticed something strange at the back window the cats and skunks use to get in and out from that side.
Something big, round and puffy.
Then, this happened.
A bandit face poked out of the hole in the boarded up part of the window, to watch me.
That tail and that face are one big racoon.
This big bruiser seems to be a regular. We don’t usually see the racoons, as they tend to be nocturnal, but I’ve seen this one heading towards the kibble house in the morning. When it saw me coming towards it, it ran under the storage house from the side opening, and I saw it peeking out this window when I came around the back.
We definitely want to discourage their visits, but my goodness, they are so cute! It’s the same with the skunks. There’s at least three of them that go for the cat kibble regularly. I figure at least one of them is a hungry mama. One of the little ones looks to be a male – unlike the cats, the skunks give us a full view of their nether regions! LOL We’re having to chase them away pretty frequently. It’s gotten to the point that if I see one heading towards the kibble house and start my usual “hey, skunk! Go on!”, they will actually stop, turn around and leave!
I also had some other observers as I was doing my thing outside.
Squeeeee!!!
They still won’t let me near them, though. Especially the little calico.
I’m starting to think the 4 kittens under the cats’ house may not be all one litter. I’m seeing these two together pretty constantly, but the other two don’t always seem to be around. Especially the long haired one.
With the lawn mowing and other noise, the mama with the kittens in the cats’ house has moved them. I believe they, and these older ones, are now all in the pump shack. Aside from the lane I mowed to it, I’m avoiding the pump shack, so as not to disturb them.
They may sometimes be a pain in the butt, but seeing all the critters does make me happy!
I was able to get a picture of Rosencrantz while feeding the outside cats this morning.
She is looking decidedly round.
I’m positive she lost a litter of kittens, when things were still frozen and I couldn’t get into the old freezer in the junk pile where she was. Not that things are thawed out, I haven’t tried to getting into there. I don’t want to find what I’m sure is there.
So I’m not surprised that she is looking pregnant again.
Caramel is also looking really round. I would have expected her to have had a litter at around the same time as the other cats, but who knows.
While feeding the cats, I made sure to put some kibble into the cats’ house. The bowl is just inside the entry, for as little disturbance as possible. The kittens are still really close to the entrance, so I did end up startling them a bit but, so far, the mother isn’t looking like she’s going to move them away because of it.
The other kittens are out and about and playing a lot more. While they are usually under the cats’ house, I don’t think that’s their “nest”. I saw their mama calling them and leading them off – well after they’d all had time to eat. They didn’t go far, though, as I saw some of them playing on the laundry platform again.
The one downside of the kittens hanging out in or under the kibble house is that it means we can’t open it up to clean it out without disturbing them.
No matter. As long as it gets done before winter, it should be fine. :-)
The kittens that hang out under the cats’ house are getting more active and exploratory. When I came out this morning, there were three of them, playing rough and tumble on the laundry platform. As I did my usual back and forth, they would run under the cats’ house, but come out again more quickly.
This little one is being seen more frequently.
This one, we see most often. I wish I’d been able to get a photo a few second before. It had been playing on the step, and when it turned to look at me, it still had a dried leaf in its mouth! So cute. :-)
Lately, while putting the kibble out, one of the cats basically starts growling at me – and other cats. She certainly is happy to see the food, but just seems angry about it, too. Very strange.
As soon as I could, I was back outside to start mowing. I focused on the areas I wasn’t able to do before, starting with the west yard and around the fire pit area. I was even able to mow paths to and around the Korean Pine, in the outer yard. I had to raise the lawn mower way up to be able to get through! After doing the north yard, I was able to keep on going and redo the south yard, including the area that had been under water in front of the outhouse. It started to rain while I was out there, but it was a light rain, so I kept on going.
When I got to mowing near the kibble and cat houses, I saw no cats or kittens arounds, so I paused to move the water bowls away. The heated water bowl was still plugged into the extension cord leading into the cats’ house, even though there is currently no power to it, so I started unplugging it to move it away.
I got growled at, from inside the cats’ house.
I sometimes put kibble just inside the entry, but I knew the bowl had been knocked upside down. Once I unplugged and moved the water bowl, I looked to see where it was.
I found kittens, instead.
I held aside the strips of carpet to take a quick picture, then left them alone while moving the water bowls. I then made a point to quickly mow around the area, so I could be away from them faster.
When I was done mowing and ready to return the water bowls, I grabbed one of the cat beds I’d crocheted and left in the shelf shelter and brought it over, along with some extra kibble. Looking inside, there was one kitten near the entry. The others had been moved away. I put the kitten in the cat bed, straightened out and moved the food bowl, then put the kitten back, bed and all, further in from the entry. The mama was growling at me while I did this, but then I put kibble in the bowl, and left so I think she was happy with that.
Looking at the picture, I can spot 5 kittens. They look to be just barely old enough to have opened their eyes, so I’m guessing about a week or so. Which actually ties in to how long the mama has been growling at me when I do the kibble in the mornings!
So now we have 4 kittens under the cats’ house, and 5 inside the cats’ house!
And there are still the oldest of the kittens, which had been born in the cats’ house then moved away. We don’t know where their new nest is, other than somewhere beyond the pump shack. Honestly, I would have expected those ones to have been brought to the kibble house first, given their ages. I do hope they are okay. There’s really no way to find out, one way or the other, until they start showing up for food!
I do enjoy seeing them when I come out in the mornings. They really brighten the day! :-)
When putting kibble out this morning, I put the kibble for the kittens on the frame of the sledge under the cat’s house. Partly to entice the kittens a bit further out, and party to not have kibble on damp ground.
Not that it stays there long enough to be an issue.
One of the kittens is much bolder than the others, allowing me to get a bit closer. I still had to zoom in for the photo, but was not so far away that the digital zoom on my camera just messed everything up. :-) It will even sit there and watch me as I move around. For a little while, at least.
The Re-Farmer 