The cats got into one of the aloe vera we moved out of the large aquarium greenhouse, to make room for seed starts.
They even went after the one that was the most barricaded! As you can see by the aloe looking like it was carefully set aside, it’s not the plants they want. It’s the dirt!
Repotting that and figuring out how to protect it, is a job for later today.
The new location for the mini-greenhouse seems to be working well. It was getting direct sunlight this morning, on all levels. With the aluminum foil around the sides and back, the seedlings were getting light from all sides. I’m rather pleased with that.
We had a much warmer morning today, almost no wind, and lots of sunshine, so I took advantage of that.
So did the outside cats! I counted 17 of them outside, plus there was one in the sun room, so they are all accounted for.
I startled our usual 3 deer away from the feeding station, but they were running back almost before I finished putting out the seed.
I then took advantage of the conditions and got the burn barrel going. It’s a lot harder to burn off the wood pellet cat litter, when it it’s too cold for it to dry out.
Then, in between tending the burn barrel, I started clearing out the paths that were blown in by the high winds we’ve had recently.
I actually enjoy shovelling, so I just kept going, and ended up clearing all the paths, in both the inner and outer yards.
I found Potato Beetle enjoying his sun spot, when I cleared a path to the front of the garage. :-)
I even took the time to break up the ice and snow near the cat’s house to haul it away. There was no more room for the ice from the metal water bowls anymore. With things warming up as they are, I also cleared the roof of the cat house of most of the snow, and even the snow overhang on the kibble house. I considered clearing the kibble house roof, too, but by then, I was done for the day!
The problem with doing all the shovelling is that, once I stop, that’s when things start to hurt! As soon as I sat down, my entire body started to stiffen up and ache. *sigh* Thankfully, though, there was a hot breakfast and a pot of tea made. Between that and some painkillers, I’m going all right. :-)
We had another colder than predicted night, with a bitterly cold wind chill. It’s supposed to warm up quite a bit today, though not until this evening. After that, things are supposed to keep getting warmer.
We’re also supposed to be snowing, as I write this, and it isn’t, so… yeah. We’ll see.
I counted 14 or 15 outside cats this morning. Then I spotted Ghost Baby later on, so we had a headcount of possibly 16 of the outside cats.
They are most definitely appreciating having access to the heated water bowl in the sun room. As you can see in the above photo, the outside bowl is completely empty. Likely, the piebald visited the kibble house again, and finished off the water, too.
Speaking of which…
The three regulars were at the feeding station when I came around with seed. They ran off, but almost immediately started to come back. So I paused to see what they would do.
As usual, the piebald would chase off the other two, but they kept coming back.
They came within 20-25 feet of me!
I’m happy my phone was able to pick up that huffing sound the piebald makes.
I was making them nervous, though, so I moved on and let them be.
Chadiccus does not approve of my taking his picture, instead of petting him!
Oh, what a loaf Rolando Moon makes!
They keep breaking and knocking out the rigid insulation. I’ll have to think of something better to use, if we are going to keep using this old shelf as a cat shelter.
I had been talking about doing our Costco trip today, but one of my daughters has been suggesting that Costco on a Saturday might not be a good idea. Looking at the weather, we might not be snowing here, but it’s sure to be snowing to the house of us, and I’d rather not drive in it, if I don’t have to. So that will probably wait until Monday, then.
I’ve been keeping a close eye on the seedlings, and today we’re going to be doing some major changes, from re-planting to replace losses, to physically re-arranging a whole bunch of things. I’ll post about how that goes, later.
Today was a deceptive day. Beautifully bright and sunny – and colder than forecast! As I write this, we have warmed up to -19C/-2F – with a wind chill of -30C/-22F.
Oh, look at that. We’re supposed to warm up a few more degrees, but as I typed the above sentence, my weather app’s desktop icon just dropped to -20C/-4F, with a wind chill of -32C/-26F
We’re supposed to warm up over the next few days, until we reach above freezing, where we are supposed to stay for almost a week before dropping a couple of degrees below freezing again. Considering how off the forecasts have been, with the cold hanging on longer and colder than predicted, I’m not holding my breath.
Needless to say, I was not looking forward to going out today.
The outside cats were happy to see me. Or at least the fresh kibble I brought out for them! Even the kibble in the sun room was all gone. As cold as it got, the outside heated water bowl still had liquid water, and not even a layer of ice over the top. I’m not sure if that means it started working again, or if there was simply enough water in it to keep it from freezing over.
I left really early to go to my mother’s, giving myself time to shovel away the small snow drift that formed overnight, in front of the garage doors where her car is parked. I wanted to make sure to get to the post office before it closed for a couple of hours for lunch, as my daughter got notice that a parcel was delivered.
It wasn’t there.
Then I went to my mother’s town with plans to get some gas and pick up some take out chicken and wedges for lunch. Had a small heart attack when I saw the gas prices had gone up another 10 cents per litre, to 174.9. That works out to Cdn$6.63 per US gallon, or US$5.21 at today’s exchange rate.
Ouch.
My mother doesn’t do meat on Fridays for Lent, so we shared the potato wedges for lunch, and she saved her chicken for tomorrow. I gave up most social media for Lent, which is a heck of a lot harder for me than giving up meat!
With the lockdowns, a lot of the social activities my mother so loved about where she lived had ended, but after a while, people started just making their own coffee nights in the lounge on their own. Which may be why events are starting up again. (We’re supposed to open up completely in a few days, but the powers that be are already talking about locking down and imposing restrictions again.) Today, the social workers from the senior’s centre were going door to door (happily, I didn’t see a single mask in my mother’s building. What a relief that was!), letting people know there would be coffee and cake in the lounge this afternoon. My mother was quite excited about it, so we headed out as soon as we finished lunch. Once her errands were done and her groceries put away, it was early enough that she still had time to watch Mass on TV before her coffee date, so I didn’t stay very long. She was in very good spirits, and was even moving around better on her bum knee than I’ve seen in a while. So that was encouraging.
This meant I was on my way home a lot earlier than I expected, giving me time for a quick stop at the post office/general store again, to pick up more deer feed. A full bag is more than fits in the bin we use for the deer/bird feed, so I put an extra bucket of feed out. I’d startled a deer in the yard when I got home, so I figured it wouldn’t be long before I saw one or two out the window once inside.
It was more than one or two! We had five of them out there, in no time at all!
After taking a few pictures, I sat at my computer to upload them when my daughter called out, asking me if I saw the seven deer outside the window.
Seven? No I hadn’t! So I grabbed my phone to get some pictures and…
There was a LOT more than seven.
Where did they all come from?
This is our fifth winter here. The most deer we’ve ever seen outside our window at one time has been seven. Today, we counted at least fourteen!
I’m guessing some of them came from my brother’s farm, across the road, as he puts a bale out for them. He’s had as many as 30, during some really severe winters. I’ve driven by and seen as many as eight that I could count while driving. But fourteen? Wow! The down side of that is, the coyotes start coming in, and he’s seen them take down a deer, right by his house.
I only scoop out enough feed to fill a 1 gallon container at a time. That’s barely a snack for the few deer that usually show up, minus what the birds manage to eat. I’m not sure how this tiny bit we put out has managed to lure so many deer!
We are definitely going to have to take this into account when we plant our berry bushes this spring. The buggers are doing a number on the chokecherry and Saskatoon bushes we found between the spruces near the feeding station, after cutting away some self-sown elm and maple, and the invasion of spirea. They never went for the spirea twigs and branches. Berry bushes must taste better!
Once we start cutting down all the dead spruces, that whole area is going to open up quite a bit. We want to get rid of all the spirea in there, allow the wild roses and red osier dogwood take over as undergrowth, reduce the chokecherries, and increase the Saskatoons. We also intend to plant fruit trees that require more protection from the winds in there. It’ll all be a waste, if the deer just come in and eat them! We’ll have to figure out the best way to protect things, while still following our plants to turn some of the tree stumps into benches, seats and tables. My long term goal is to create a little park-like sanctuary in the area behind the stone cross, surrounded by rose bushes and dogwood, and whatever wildflowers re-emerge once things are cleared out and the ground starts getting more sunlight again.
So… deer, racoons, groundhogs, squirrels and birds are all critters we’ll have to take into account. Probably black bears, too. They haven’t shown up in our yard, but one of my neighbors about a mile away from us had them raiding and destroying his bird feeders all last summer. With the drought, they were pretty desperate for food.
More reason to plant forage trees, well away from the house. Near the newly dug out gravel pit, which should be able to hold a lot of water for a much longer time now, would probably be a good place. If they have enough food and water elsewhere, they won’t have reason to come close to were people are.
Inside, outside, we are surrounded by adorableness.
Like this majestic beast.
Of all the cats, he likes this plant stand the most. He’s so fluffy, he fills it out the most, too!
What a handsome boy!
As for the new additions inside, we have some progress with Butterscotch!
Not only is she starting to come out more often for some cuddles, she actually stayed on the bed after her human of the moment left – while other cats were on the bed, too! No hissing or snarling to be heard, either.
Speaking of cuddles…
Here was have Beep Beep, dwarfed by Cheddar, her son of 3 years ago, snuggled by her daughter of 2 years ago, Turmeric, who is still slightly smaller than her mother, if heftier, and finally, Beep Beep’s grandson, David. Who is the same age as Cheddar.
I think Beep Beep and Butterscotch will both be very happy to be done with kittens. :-D
Before heading outside this morning, I popped into the bathroom, glanced out the window into the sun room…
…did a double take…
I couldn’t tell which cat it was while looking through the window but, from the photo, I’m thinking this is Caramel.
Before leaving the bathroom, I glanced through the window to see if he (she?) was still there.
Suddenly, there was more!
Also, that’s a different cat in the bowl. I recognize Agnoos and Potato Beetle. I half-think the one in the box might be Junk Pile, but she is really shy and doesn’t tend to go into the sun room, ever, so I’m likely wrong about that.
There were seven in the sun room, in total. Along with the 5 in the photo, where was one in the box nest in the shelf above, and one more was on the top of another shelf, in the corner by the old kitchen window.
Once outside, I think I counted 14 cats this morning, but I’m not quite sure.
While putting some kibble out under the shrine, I got a giggle out of this.
Deer tracks… of a sort! A deer went galumphing through the snow, instead of using the cat paths, leaving big holes.
You know what else is amusing?
The fact that my spell check accepts the word “galumphing.” !! :-D
In other things, I’m looking to finally go our Costco trip into the city today. We’re at -21C/-6F right now, with a wind chill of -31C/-24F. We are supposed to warm up to -12C/10F with a wind chill of -21C/6F this afternoon, so I’m going to wait a bit before I head out. Looking at the long range forecast, this is supposed to be our coldest day for the rest of the month. In fact, after the middle of the month, we’re supposed to have several days above freezing!
Wouldn’t that be nice.
I’ll believe it when I see it.
Hhmm… the more I look at the weather, the more I’m thinking, maybe I should just wait until tomorrow to go to Costco.
Can you tell I really don’t want to go at all? :-D
Hard to get a head count, when they move around so much.
But I think I saw 13 cats in total this morning, out of the 18 yard cats we have outside right now.
I’ve been in touch with the Cat Lady recently. Yesterday was Cabbages’ day to be spayed, at the special vet that works with cats that have had neurological problems.
If you would like to contribute to our fundraiser to reimburse the cat lady for Cabbages’ vet bills, click on the button below, or click here. If you would like to read more about it, click here.
Cabbages seems to have recovered completely, however, so that’s amazing news. The original plan had been for her to stay with them for another 2 weeks, then go to someone she’d found to adopt her, that works in animal welfare. It’s looking like that won’t happen, though. Cabbages has adopted her daughter, instead, and it looks like she will be staying where she is!
Saffron and Nicco should be on their way to fosters, and the adoption process will begin. It seems that the three of them remembered each other, as the Cat Lady found them all sleeping together in a big pile. :-)
With her help, we’ve had 6 cats spayed, vaccinated, etc. at a steeply discounted price. The amount we pay for can be done as we are able. Two had already been paid for, and I let her know that I’d made a payment for 2 more, and would be able to send a payment for the last two at the end of this month. She let me know that we do not have to make the next payment.
It was already paid for by donation!
I asked for our thanks to be passed on, if possible, and it will be. It turns out that someone had bequeathed a donation to the organization for spays and neuters! That was so thoughtful of them, and much appreciated.
There are some issues going on, partly in regards to the vet bills with the clinic we use, partly due to finding fosters, so we do not have any more appointments set up, yet. The Cat Lady is trying to find us an alternate clinic we can take cats to. Worst case scenario, she would pick up cats from us to stay with her for a few days, they would have their appointments with a vet, and then they might have to stay with us for a while until fosters can be found and the adoption process started. Which works for us. We’re already taking care of them all, so there wouldn’t be much change. We still have several females to do that are indoors, but we should also be able to start catching some of the outdoor males, as well. Of all the outdoor cats that we can actually catch, Rolando Moon is the only female left, and she’s already fixed. Oh, and sometimes Rosencrantz, depending on her mood. It would be better if we could have started with the females, but that would require trapping, and we’re not going to do that until the temperatures are safer.
The Cat Lady will contact us as soon as she has information, and then we’ll decide on which cats are next in line for a vet visit.
We’re okay with any delays. At least the process is happening, and we will slowly be able to find forever homes for most of the cats.
I just had to laugh when I came into the sun room this morning, and found Potato Beetle, curled up in the window.
My attempt to take a photo disturbed him.
Gosh, he looks like such a grizzled old man!
He’s only three.
Since we’ve been keeping the sun room doors propped slightly open to allow access to the working heated water bowl, he seems to be spending most of his time in there – if he can claim their favourite bed before one of the other cats gets into it!
In total, I spotted 15 cats this morning. Even Ghost Baby flashed momentarily into view before disappearing again.
I had a bit of a surprise this morning. After finishing with food and water for the cats, I popped into the sun room to get seeds for the feeding station. When I stepped outside again, I was startled by a loud HUFFFFFF!!
The piebald deer had just wanted into the people gate in the chain link fence. I think we startled each other, and she was warning me off! :-D
This is the first time I’ve actually heard a deer make a noise.
It was funny to watch her as she ran down the shovelled paths to towards the back of the garage, then across to the compost pile, huffing away at me every now and then, before running into the spruce grove. There, she and another deer that was already there, stopped to watch while I put the feed out.
I later saw three of them at the feeding station, watching me as I moved around in the outer yard.
I got the burn barrel going again and, as usual, had company.
I don’t know why, but Agnoos just LOVES it when we are at the burn barrel. He rolls around in the snow, usually at our feet, asking for attention. Of all the outside cats, Agnoos seems to be the one that wants human attention the most, but never so much as while we’re tending the burn barrel!
I wasn’t able to stay out too long, though, as it started to snow. We were already at -5C/23F this morning, and are holding there for most of the day, but we are now under a “blowing snow advisory”.
Unfortunately, for all the shoveling on the roof my daughters did, the warmer weather has resulted in leaking at one of the windows upstairs. *sigh* We need a new roof so badly! We have the leak upstairs, and right now the ceiling in the sun room has icicles hanging from it. :-(
We’re supposed to cool down to between -10C/14F and -15C/5F over the next few days, so that should stop the leaking for a while, at least.
I guess I was just too disruptive this morning, because I wasn’t able to get any pictures of the outside cats! We’re expecting another warm day, so I wanted to make sure the sidewalk was scraped and cleared, so the concrete can warm up in the sun and melt away any remaining ice and snow.
The deer didn’t seem to mind! I saw a group of three, before I headed out, then my husband saw the usual pair, before the piebald finally came around. We are definitely seeing a lot more deer lately, all over. Sadly, that also means we’re seeing more on the side of the highways, that had been hit by cars. I’ve lost count of how many bald eagles I’ve seen, scavenging the carcasses. I’ve never seen as many bald eagles as I have this year – and it’s only the beginning of March!
While checking and tending our seedlings, I was happy to see the 4 new Canteen gourd seedlings are growing very quickly. I had been wondering about the on luffa that started to sprout, but hasn’t gotten any bigger, so when I had the chance, I checked it out.
Oh. This would be why it’s not growing.
That little bit of seedling had been right against the side of the pot, but when I touched the leaves, it fell right out.
So far, there’s just the one luffa seedling we have, which seems to be surviving the cat damage all right. I’m not as sure about the one Canteen gourd in that tray, but with that one, we at least have 4 new sprouts. Aside from the one seedling that did not succeed, there is no sign of more luffa germinating. We still have luffa seeds, so I’m thinking of adding more to the pots to try again.
The seedlings in the mini-greenhouse seem to be struggling, and not just the ones with cat damage. I suspect part of the problem is that we have to keep the plastic cover on it, to keep the cats out. I’ve put the little fan we’ve got, inside the mini-greenhouse, so there is at least going to be air circulation. They may be getting over watered, too. We’ll have to watch out for that.
In other things, I got word from the garage about my mother’s car. It’s ready to be picked up. He checked it over, reset the codes and found nothing wrong with it. Most likely, the check engine light and codes were triggered by changing out the battery. Which is a relief to hear, but I still don’t know what made that “pop” noise when the car died! We’ll head in this afternoon to pick it up and hopefully, I’ll have a chance to talk to him about it.
It’ll be good to have the car issues over and done with for a while!
With all the vehicle troubles we’ve been having, we still haven’t done our monthly Costco trip and, frankly, I didn’t even want to think about it. Aside from that fact that I dislike shopping in general, the unexpected work on the van and my mother’s car has me just plain not wanting to drive, if I can avoid it. I keep expecting something else to break down!
In the end, I decided to make the shorter trip to a nearer Walmart, since some of the stuff we need isn’t available at Costco, anyhow. I’ll save the Costco trip for after my tax return comes in, which should be in less than a week.
After I got back and the girls took care of hauling things in and putting it all away, I took advantage of the -4C/25F temperatures and chipped away at the snow over the well cap.
We can at least access it now, though as you can see by the height of the snow the shovel is leaning against, we have a lot more to haul away to prevent spring flooding in this corner.
Most of the outside cats were very unhappy with the commotion I was making and ran off, but Tuxedo Mask stayed to watch me from the warmth and comfort of their shelter. :-)
Oh, my goodness! As I am writing this, a deer has just shown up on the live feed for the driveway cam. Usually, it goes down the driveway and to the road, but this time he went up the cat path to the old shed we shovelled out. It isn’t shovelled all the way, because of the things buried in the snow at the far end, but it looks like she went the rest of the way through, and disappeared into the shed!
Too funny!
Now I’m trying to remember if there’s anything in there a deer might damage. ;-)
Where was I?
Oh, right…
Tuxedo Mask had front row seating in their shelter, but I found that Potato Beetle had claimed prime real estate inside the sun room.
He was more than happy to get some attention, too! What a sweetie!
While at the store today, I did pick up something extra. We’ve still got those beef bones in the freezer, and I want to make and can bone broth. That would require using the pressure canner, which we still haven’t even tested out. It turns out we can’t use a pressure canner on our new glass top stove. I kept finding contradictory information about that, but eventually concluded it’s not something we can do.
The stove we have is the type cycles the heat on and off, rather than reaching a temperature and then maintaining it. Which means the pressure doesn’t remain constant, either. I have used the smaller pressure cooker on it, as a sort of a test, and it did have some issues. I noticed that when we did water bath canning, it was difficult to keep the water to temperature as well, because of the cycling.
We can make it work with the little pressure cooker and with water bath canning, but the potential problems with a pressure canner ranges from not being able to maintain the correct pressure, to shattering the glass cooktop. !!
So, when I spotted this, I decided it was worth the splurge. It was only about $25, anyhow.
We actually do have a two burner countertop cooker we found while cleaning the new part basement, but I have not yet dared to test it out. It looks like sometime from the 70’s. It might be useable, but not for something as large and heavy as a canner.
This new one should be safer to use, and with a more controllable temperature. We’ll test it out the next time I use the little pressure cooker, first. I might even find something to use our big stock pot as a water bath canner again. If it can handle the size and weight of that stock pot, it won’t have any problem with the size and weight of the pressure canner!
When my daughter bought the new stove, none of us expected to have any sorts of problems like this! We thought the glass top would make things easier, not more complicated! :-D
For all our efforts, a cat still managed to get into the mini-greenhouse. My daughter found Susan … SUSAN! … sitting on the second lowest shelf. I would have expected Tissue, or even Turmeric, but not Susan! My daughter got her out but Susan didn’t seem to be into anything, so she thought things were okay.
I went over to see where she got in and how to block it better, when I saw this terrible sight.
She ate the Sophie’s Choice tomato leaves! Two of them, right down to the stems! A couple others even looked like the soil was dug into.
I took the trays off the two bottom shelves, rearranged the box we put to block the back and used packing tape under the corners, taping the plastic cover to the bottom shelf. Hopefully, there are no more gaps a cat can squeeze into.
The tray with the eaten tomato seedlings then went onto the bottom, where the light is, and the tray with the gourd pots went up a level.
There is a Canteen gourd breaking soil, so there’s at least that to be happy about.
We still have some Sophie’s Choice seeds left, so we can start some again, but the instructions for these said to start them much earlier than other varieties. Hopefully, we still have time.
Hopefully, some of what we already have will survive, too.
Once that was all done, it was time to do some research and…
Yes. Tomato leaves ARE toxic to cats. However, it takes quite a bit to make them sick, and quite a bit more to endanger their lives. For the amount she ate, she might throw up or something, but nothing major.
This is just so, so frustrating! And potentially alarming.
We’ve had issues with cats going after our plants before. Usually to dig in the dirt, not to eat them, though there was that one succulent we had that they just couldn’t resist.
Notice I said “had”. :-(
We’ve got all sorts of barriers around our remaining house plants to keep them out. As much as the damage done to them bothered me, right now we’re trying to grow food, not decorations, so this is bothering me more.
Why are the cats so determined to destroy our seedlings? There are the barriers, the space around the trays is tight, the pots and trays are wet – we just refilled the bottoms of most of the trays to water from below – and you’d think something in the nightshade family would taste pretty gross.
I am not at all happy right now. :-(
I will, however, share a photo of some well behaved kitties I took earlier.
When I headed outside to get a meter reading, I spotted these two, cuddling together in the sun room. Agnoos is fine with us, but the ‘iccus he was cuddling with is one of the more feral cats. I had to move fast to get a picture before he (she?) ran away. I’m not sure which one this is, but from the facial markings, I’m guessing this is the one the girls named Sadiccus. He looks like he’s been crying!
Which is kinda what I feel like doing right now. Crying in frustration!!
The heated water bowl had a layer of ice across the top, but wasn’t frozen solid. The second one in the sun room was bone dry this morning, so it does show that the cats have figured out where they can get water.
The Re-Farmer 