For the most part, the other cats have been ignoring the kittens. Sometimes, they’ll come over and peer into the nest, but that’s about it.
Then Beep Beep started taking Nicco out to a new spot under my crafting table, repeatedly. I thought I’d gotten her to stop, but one of my daughters found Nicco under my table – with David! The two of them were looking very confused at each other.
David is now very curious about the babies.
This morning, that curiosity got the better of him!
The kittens immediately went over to check out this furry new visitor! The tuxedo, now known as Leyendecker (I remembered it! LOL), was especially interested in burrowing into that luxuriant fur.
David was a little freaked out by that and left. He ended up on top of the nest, looking down at them. :-D
The babies, meanwhile, are now very active, if still very clumsy, running around, wrestling, climbing and generally being very playful.
And now I have to get some things finished early today. I am taking the van in after dropping my daughter off at work, for an oil change and getting the summer tires put on, so I may as well stay in town and have lunch with my daughter. :-) We’re supposed to hit 18C (64F) today, and while it will likely be cooler so close to the lake, we might actually be able to eat outside. Of course, if she ended up with a really early lunch again, and the van isn’t ready yet, we might not have much choice! :-D
They are quite liking the new set up. The kittens will wobble their way all over, then go back to their little bed for cuddles with Mom.
So far, it looks like all the kittens are male. There is only one, mini-BeepBeep, we haven’t been able to see.
While doing my rounds, I noticed these other babies.
This is a chokecherry. As the leaf buds unfurl, they reveal baby future berries! Those little clusters will eventually bloom and, if we have a good year, we will have lots of berries. This little tree is just sort of by itself in the middle of a grassy area on the North side of the garden. There are two more, among the lilac hedge. In the last couple of years, those ones produced berries, but this little one, not really. It looks like this year, it has reached production maturity!
The kittens have been noticeably more active, and I’ve been finding one orange one in particular, at the furthest end of their little nest box, looking out into the rest of the basement.
They are still very quick to bunch up again, though!
Lately, when I got downstairs, I have been leaving the basement door open. Beep Beep goes upstairs to explore, while other cats follow me downstairs. To explore.
Including Keith.
We’ve put the twin size bed frame against the wall for storage, and they quite enjoy climbing up to the top, to check things out from on high! :-D
While doing my rounds outside this morning, I spotted something new on one of the crab apple trees.
It looks like a fungal disease. It seems to be only on the one branch, so I hope that pruning it off will do the trick, but this tree has already had quite a few branches removed due to infection, and trees on either side of it have as well. It might be better to remove the entire tree, to prevent it from infecting the others. I will also be working on the areas we spotted a potentially deadly (to apple trees) fungus, so I might do it all at the same time.
Quite a few of these trees are just not doing well at all. I don’t know that the type of crab apples are particularly prone to fungal disease, or if it’s more a matter of their age making them more susceptible.
The important thing will be to prevent the spread of the fungus, and that means burning the wood. As some of the infections are in stumps already cut level with the ground, I plan to bring one of the metal rings we’ve got lying about to put over where these stumps are, and making a small fire on top of them. We are already under fire ban right now, but it’s not a complete ban, so contained fire pits and burn barrels are still okay.
Something else to add to the to-do list for outside!
Today was a day to work on a whole bunch of little things that needed to be done or started – and a surprise breakage. Rather than do one huge post, I’ll split them up into a bunch of little posts.
But first, here’s something that cheered me up this morning.
Of course, there was checking on the babies.
It’s going to be interesting in the basement, when these guys start getting more mobile!
While doing my rounds, I had my furry escort, including Creamsicle…
He’s about 10 feet above my head in this photo! Of all the cats, he seems to be the one who loves to climb the most. :-D
I got to spend a bit of time outside this evening, just to try and get the goat used to us being about.
I wasn’t able to get a photo, but I actually got her to eat out of my hand!! She wouldn’t let me touch her, though. As soon as I moved, she would take off.
She did go into the pen we made, but I think she realizes that it can be closed up behind her, because she leaves as soon as we move near, even just to walk past.
One of the things I did was go around, sweeping away her little round presents on the steps and concrete. Somehow, she even managed to poop in one of the cat food bowls!
While I was doing that, she did this…
Too funny!
Cats like to hang out at both windows, and she is very determined to get close to a cat!
As I went around the yard, she started to follow me around. She always kept her distance, but was very curious.
Once inside, I left the inner door open for a bit, so she could say hello to Fenrir. :-D
What a cutie!
Meanwhile, we still need to think about the offer the owner made, to give us both milk goats. I don’t know if we’ll be able to set up a pen of them in the next while. It’s something I will need advice on, just to know what we need. Not just for the two goats, but their kids, as well!
I am waffling back and forth on this, by the minute!
This morning, when I opened the basement door to check on Beep Beep and the babies, I found her right on the top step!
I had a crowd of upstairs cats eager to go downstairs, and I think she was rather taken aback by the sight of them. :-D I headed downstairs and she did go up into the entryway, but then turned around and followed me, as I topped up her food bowl.
All of the babies have wide open eyes now.
No, there isn’t a missing kitty. The fifth one is just hidden away, in the corner, buried in siblings. :-D
After luring the other cats out of the basement so Beep Beep wouldn’t be surrounded by exploring cats, I headed outside to do my rounds.
Looking out the windows, earlier, we couldn’t see the goat anywhere, but she turned out to be curled up on the concrete in front of one of the sun room windows. She still wouldn’t let me anywhere near her. I checked the pen we made, and from the pile of poop in front of the open end, I could at least tell she came close. I couldn’t tell if she had been drinking any water (there was a layer of ice across the top I had to remove!), and the only food we had to give her was sunflower seeds for the birds, and that looked untouched. I know she’s grazing, but there just isn’t a lot of grass in our yard. Especially this time of year.
I continued my rounds, with Potato Beetle doing his usual.
He does this over and over. He runs in front of my feet, then throws himself to the ground and begins rolling around, wanting me to pet him. He seems utterly indifferent to the fact that I’m walking, and how close he comes to getting stepped on, every time!
Once I finished my morning rounds, I headed into “town” to our little general store/liquor store/post office/gas station. This is where we usually get our deer feed and bird seed. I knew they had feed for chickens and such, too, but have never looked too closely at the stacks.
I had swung by there on the way to picking up my daughter from work, just to let the owner – who sees just about everyone in town at some point – know about the goats. She didn’t know who had goats near us, either, but if she had anyone come in, saying they were missing goats, she would be able to tell them they were at our place.
As soon as I came in, she asked me if I’d found the owner. :-D I told her who it turned out to be, and she said she had taken a look at a map of the municipality, so see the different farms near us, trying to see who might have goats. I told her we still had one at our place, about our inability to catch her, and said that I wanted to try using food, and asked her what she had that was good for goats.
It turns out there is one brand of animal feed that has many different feed mixes, all in identical green and white bags. They each have a label sewn into the top (all the feed bags are sewn shut; this way, you just pull at one end to undo the stitching, making it much easier to open the bags). The labels give the names of the mixes, and nutritional information. Thankfully, she has a price list for these, organized by animal! :-D So she was able to tell me which ones to look for. It turned out there were two types for goats; a nanny mix and a kid mix. I grabbed the nanny mix.
When I got home and the goat saw me carrying the bag on my shoulder, she got so excited, and started running to me! I am guessing the original owner bought feed from this same store, and the goat recognized the bag. I went into the sun room to be able to put it down to open it, and she actually started to go into the sun room with me! I couldn’t let her come in, though; it’s not safe for her in there, and she’s not safe for my seedlings! I scooped up some feed and headed out, and she followed me around as I emptied her own feed container of the sunflower seeds, then added the new feed.
She almost came into the pen to get the food, but the open end is narrow, and I had to go past her to leave the pen, which spooked her away. She was clearly very hungry and eager to eat, but rather than go into the pen, she followed me, eyeballing the container of feed in my hand. I ended up leaving a bit in front of the pen, then some more near the sun room door.
Once she saw that, she came right up and started eating, even though I was still standing there.
Yes!!! I was able to pet her!
Not for very long, mind you. Once she’d eaten a bit, she started to become skittish again, so I let her be.
I am guessing this feed, which looks quite different from what the owner had brought over, which was not crushed fine like you can see in the photo, is what she is used to. It was very gratifying to see her eating, and being willing to come so close to me.
Once I was back inside, I sent a message to the owner, letting him know the progress. I told him about our plans to use the new feed to lure her into the pen and, at some point, gently close her in. He was very happy to hear this. (As I was writing this, I was informed by my daughter that the goat has, indeed, gone into the pen!)
Then he told me that, once we catch her and he brings her home, he will put her in with the ram. After that, if we want them, he would be willing to give us BOTH milk goats, once we have a proper pen for them.
!!!!!
Now, this would be a sort of a win win for both sides. He had mentioned that these two goats have been nothing but trouble for him. He has meat goats, not milk goats. With these two being so wild, and so many other goats to care for, he just would not be able do too much about them. We, on the other hand, have no other high needs animals. We could spend the time to get them used to people, and finally be able to do things like trim their hooves. For us, we’d get the milk goats we were wanting to eventually get – for free. If we build a moveable paddock, we can do what I hoped to do by borrowing goats, first; have them grazing in areas we can’t keep clear otherwise, that end up becoming fire hazards. We can even use them to help clear some of the bush for us. Goats can be very useful animals for permaculture.
We have to think about this, though. It’s not just about building a pen for them. If we’re going to be milking goats, we need to build/buy a milking stand, to make it easier to reach, get food grade containers for milking and storage, and a way to deal with surplus milk – cheese making had been one of my thoughts for that, but that requires supplies, too. There is also, of course, the buying of feed. Especially in winter.
There would be a pretty steep learning curve.
We can do it. I have no doubt about that. The question is, are we up to it, at this point?
I am leaning towards yes, but it’s not up to just me!
I spent a bit of time sitting on the bench by the door, hoping to get her interested in some pieces of apple. While I was hoping to help the owner with her this morning, my husband helped in a way that he could: doing research on how to catch a runaway goat.
Short answer?
You can’t. :-D
All the reference he found said that you have to get them to come to you, and suggested luring with food such as fruit or raisins.
I’d already tried a carrot, which she ignored, and it was no better with the apple!
Still, I wanted her to get used to the idea of us being around, and maybe getting curious enough to come close. Since she is absolutely attached to our door, I decided to do some work in the future garden plot. I wouldn’t normally be doing something like this on a Sunday, but being out there was needed.
I had the idea that, if the owner came back with one of the tamer goats on a leash, this goat would probably follow it all the way home. It’s not much more than a mile away, and it would be slow going, but I thought it would work better than trying to catch her and put her in a car! I was able to send a note to the owner with the suggestion, but he said he would try coming back after lunch with some chicken wire to try and corral her.
So I got some progress on the garden while I waited for him to come over, and to let the goat get used to me.
The darker area is what I got done today. I won’t go much further than this, as I don’t want to go too close to the elm tree.
There are so many roots in there! I could go back over the same area over and over, and keep finding more roots!
Also, see the little green dot on the left?
That’s our new soil tester.
For some reason, I thought it tested soil temperature, but no, it doesn’t. It tests for moisture, sunlight and pH.
There is a little switch at the bottom for each setting. Moisture and light were not things I was too interested in at the moment, since I’m still digging roots out.
This is what I was really wanting to know, right now.
The pH. The range for that is marked at the bottom, and I can see that it’s at about 7.5
With 7 being neutral, I find it interesting that is goes down to 3.5 on the acidic side, but only up to 8 on the alkaline side. I guess soil is more likely to be acidic than alkaline? I’ve never really thought about it before! :-)
Anyhow, this will help me know if I need to amend the soil in any way, before I plant in it. I’ll be testing the soil in the old garden area, where the squashes will be planted, later.
When the owner of the goat came back, we used his chicken wire and whatever we could find around the yard, including the saw horses, to hold it up around the front steps. When she went to have some of the food he brought, he tried to close her in, but she ended up plowing through the wire. After that, she figured out what it was and didn’t allow herself to get corralled in there again.
Several times, we just stood off to the side, avoiding looking directly at her, quietly talking and waiting. I ended up telling him about how we were planning to have milk goats in the future, but in the shorter term, were thinking of perhaps borrowing some goats and have them in a moveable paddock to eat our grass in the outer yard, where I can’t mow. He agreed that goats would be very efficient at that! He also gave me some information on what we would need to do to have a milk goat producing; I hadn’t known, for example, that the kids were weaned at 3 months, and that the goat would need to spend some quality time with a ram right away. She would continue to produce while pregnant, then the cycle would start all over again.
I also told him about our trying to tempt her with apple, but that she ignored it. He told me that she’d never had anything but animal feed! At least now, there is grazing available, but she wouldn’t have had even that for long, in the pen she and the other goat were in, with their original owner. It would have been all gone, quickly, and this was not a moveable pen.
After a couple more attempts to corral the goat, he had to leave for the city. I had assured him that we are quite enjoying the goat, and would happily take her if we could (we just aren’t ready to own a goat!), and I think that was a relief for him. No more talk of shooting the goat for meat! He does have the other milk goat with his ram right now, and he’s really like to get this one in, next. We are absolutely okay with her staying in the yard for however long she needs. It’s not good for goats to be alone for too long, though, so for her sake, I am hoping it will be sooner rather than later.
As we were chatting, and he was talking about wanting to breed her, he even brought up the possibility of giving us some kids!
Before he left, leaving the chicken wire behind for us to use, I assured him that he didn’t need to worry about her, and we would keep him up to date on how things went.
What we did, however, will be for another post! :-)
She spent the night sleeping in front of our door, ignoring the shelter I rigged up for her.
Shortly after 7 this morning, I looked out the kitchen window to see a very chilled man in a hoodie, sitting at the front step, very diligently not making direct eye contact with the goat, a container of feed in front of him. Later, I saw him almost manage to lure the goat into the garage.
No success.
Thankfully, we have multiple doors.
I went through the sun room to bring food out for the cats. When it came time to put feed out for the birds, I went around the house from the other side.
The poor guy doesn’t know what to do. He can’t catch her, and he can’t stay around here, trying, when he’s got a farm to run. I assured him again that we were okay with her being here. There is someone here all the time, so we can slowly work on taming her. The only problem is, we don’t have any feed or shelter or anything. He commented that he’s running out of the feed mix he was trying to bait the goat with and, like so many, money is tight. He won’t be able to get more until Wednesday. The goat can at least graze now, if she wanted to. Except she really doesn’t want to leave that door! He said he would come back later, and hoped we would be able to at least lure her into the garage, where he’d left the container of feed, but I think she’s already forgotten about it. As he was leaving, he commented on how he’d really like to get her back (I think our being so okay with her here has ended any notions of killing her for meat!) and had hoped to breed her, and just doesn’t know what to do. Then he made a passing comment of, well, she was a free goat for him, she might be a free goat for us. !!
We shall see.
Meanwhile, I was able to do my morning rounds, followed by not one, not two but three boys!
Yes, I was finally able to confirm that Pump Shack cat is a boy. Not only was he following me around with the other boys, he was coming closer to me than ever before.
They weren’t following me for any sort of affection for each other. Not at all, as you can see.
No, they were following me because Butterscotch was also following me. They’ve been trying to breed with her. :-( She seems very ticked off with that idea and has been fighting them off fairly easily. She’s less than 2 weeks from having kittens, so I don’t imagine she’s in any condition to go into heat right now. That doesn’t stop the boys from trying!
I noticed something yesterday that I made a point of checking out this morning, and I am very excited.
While following the goats around, I noticed that the surviving haskap bush we planted last year is leafing out very nicely.
This is the male plant. I’m impressed with how large those leaves are. All the other trees are just starting to show buds. I’ve read about how cold hardy these are supposed to be, and it definitely shows!
It was the other one that I was most happy to see.
This is the female haskap. It is very hard to see, but it has leaf buds! Each spot that has the remains of leaves from last year, when it suddenly just died off in the fall, has tiny leaf buds under them.
I don’t know what happened to it, but I am glad it survived!
With this spring actually having real moisture, unlike our first two springs here, the sump pump is doing its work to keep the basement from flooding. It doesn’t turn on often, but enough to notice. While the new part basement, with its weeping tile, is dry, the old part basement is showing some moisture this spring.
This is where wood for the furnace used to be store, and I remember well how very wet it would get, when I was a child. This is very dry in comparison. On the other side of the little wall is the sump pump reservoir, and there is a bit of a puddle there, but again, not much at all. Hopefully, it will stay that way.
On the other side of the old basement, where the floor drain it, is is drier, but still shows signs of seeping water.
Some of it is following the concrete patch over what I now know covers the weeping tile drain pipe from the new basement. There are also patches at the base of the wall shared with the new part basement. I’m glad we were able to clean that area out and elevate the things we put back.
Beep Beep and the kitties, meanwhile, are dry and cozy on the other side. I just wasn’t able to get photos this morning. Beep Beep was keeping them all warm with her own body, and I wasn’t going to disturb them. :-)
I’m a little frustrated by the long range forecasts right now. Even just yesterday, I was seeing that we would be chilly for a few days, but only a couple nights would dip below zero. Then the temperatures were expected to warm right up again. Well, the forecasts have now changed dramatically. We’re supposed to continue to be chilly for longer, with lower temperatures overall. Even when it is supposed to warm up, it’s no longer expected to warm up as much, and the nights are all expected to dip below freezing. The warm temperatures we were to expect by the middle of the month have been pushed back to the end of the month, with not a lot of sun. Which is not good for our seed starts. Even in the sun room, they will have a hard time getting full sun, and while the room is certainly warmer, I’ve still taken steps to keep them even warmer. I considered moving them back into the house but the house is actually a bit colder than the sun room is. :-/ I even turned the furnace back up a couple of degrees so it would turn on during the night.
Well, we shall see how the seed starts do. If they won’t work out, we’ll manage.
For now, though, we’ll be focusing more on taming a goat! :-D
I went to check out the goats at our gate after seeing them on the security camera – and they came to check out the weird human with the shiny thing in her hand…
As I write this, it’s 1C (33F), with a “real feel” of -5C (23F). It’s supposed to drop down to a low of -1C (30F) and feel like -7C (19F).
Not only do I have the light we’d used to keep the cats’ water bowl from freezing last year in the mini-greenhouse to keep the planting trays warm, but I just made a shelter for the goat outside our door, using the saw horses and the crochet’s blankets we’d used in the sun room for the cats.
Yes. I made a blanket fort for the goat.
I don’t know if she’ll use it. She is really dedicated to standing at the door.
I think I know why. The person who originally owned her had a pen built up against the house, where there was a side door. When we lived in that building, that door led to what was a shed to store inventory for when the front of the building was a general store. The shed is now here at the farm, being used to store my parents’ old belongings, and there is now a set of stairs under that door. I remember driving by and the only time I ever could see the goats was when one of them was at the top of the stairs, at the door. The set up we have must feel familiar to the goat!
But it is so chilly out there, and she won’t leave the door to go to any of the places around that she could bed down in. I am really hoping she’ll use the shelter I rigged up for her!!
The Re-Farmer 