Critters

Again? Plus, a dilemma we need to face

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So, I ended up having to make a trip into town this morning.

This bugger is part of the reason why.

If she would only let us near her, Brussel could be adopted out right away! She’s such a beauty, too, even if she does look ready to bite off my face. 😂

It’s interesting how the different cats have their preferred eating spaces. I try to spread things out, both inside the sun room and outside. I started putting kibble on the well cap, and the calicos – especially Brussel, here – prefer to eat there over the kibble house or the cat house roof. They almost never go into the sun room, or even the cat house. I don’t know where they hide out during the day, but I think it’s somewhere in the outer yard. Brussel will at least come to the well cap and closer to the house, regularly. Her sister, Sprout, barely even does that, and prefers to eat under the shrine – and even then, only after I am well away!

It’s chillier out, so the yard cats need more food than in the summer, which means we were running out of kibble again. Even with giving them lighter feedings, the bin would have been emptied this evening. I could have taken from the bin for the inside cats, but that one was getting low, and I didn’t want to empty it, too. The problem is, my husband’s CPP Disability payment doesn’t come in until tomorrow, which is when I will be doing our Costco shopping trip. His SunLife payment comes in on the last business day of the month, so that’s when I’ll go into the city again to do the other stock up shopping. I could have juggled some numbers; when I worked out the budget for the month, I always round up, so that there is wiggle room. Unfortunately. At least there would be, if there weren’t some odd purchases coming out. For example, for the second month in a row now, we got two Audible payments processed. One appears to be from a Canadian account, and one from a US account. My husband has an Audible subscription, but only one, so why are we being billed twice, with one clearly being converted from US dollars? I’ll have to call the bank about that and see what’s going on.

Anyhow.

My daughter was a sweetheart and was able to send an e-transfer that was enough to get some more kibble. We also just switched out one of our 18.9L/5 gallon drinking water jugs, so we had two empties that I refilled as well.

After I was done at the grocery store, I started the truck and the check engine line was on again. So I turned it off and set up the OBDII scanner. I didn’t do a full scan, though. The one we have now allows other options, including scanning just the check engine light. It took maybe a minute or two, and I got the same codes as before, that I already talked to our mechanic about. This is a “too rich fuel” reading that turns itself on and off. When it was on before and I got him to check it, he said it should clear itself. Which it did, after I filled the tank. Then it turned on again after another top up, only to be off the next time I used the truck. It’s been off ever since, until today. This time, when I cleared the codes, it turned off and it stayed off.

While doing a scan, the engine is off, but the key is in the half way position, where you can use the electrical system and see the displays on the console. Which is why I got a surprise warning on the onboard computer.

“Battery is low. Please start the engine.”

!!!???

Again????

Of course, this battery is brand new and was fully charged when it was installed. I started the engine, and the battery gauge showed me it was charging just fine. The alternator is not the problem.

Since it was just across the road, I drove over to the garage to talk to our mechanic – leaving the engine running while I went in!

He is perplexed. He’s gone over the truck a few times, now, and he can’t think of anything that would be draining the battery. I know we didn’t have any lights left on or anything like that. It’s not the first vehicle he’s encountered that would have these warnings come up, for no reason he could find. The last one he had it happen on was an Escalade. After talking to him for a while, it basically came down to, watch and see, and if it happens again, call him.

As we were talking, he remembered a gadget he now carries that he thinks we might want to pick up. A portable booster. We have booster cables, but they’re not much good if you don’t have another vehicle to connect with. Especially living in the boonies like we do. The one he showed me was a power pack with booster cables as well as other things, like the ability to charge devices with USB. Something like that would definitely be good to have in our vehicle emergency kit! I’ve since had a chance to look some of these up, and found a larger portable device that included an air compressor as well. The price was good, too, though it’s not something we can get any time soon with our current budget.

The truck seemed just fine in all other respects. For all I know, it could be a sensor issue.

While there, I remembered to ask about my seatbelt problem. He remembered I’d asked him about it in a text, but wasn’t sure what I was talking about. I described to him how the driver’s side seatbelt just doesn’t want to click into place. I keep having to push and wiggle and push again until the buckle finally latches – though I’ve had it come undone a couple of times, even then. Never while driving, though, but immediately after it latched and I was adjusting the seatbelt tension around my body.

This is not something he normally fixes at all. He did have a suggestion I didn’t even think of. Use a flashlight and see if something had fallen into where the latch is. Yeah, that could cause the problem! Then, if we didn’t find anything obvious, try a bit of WD40. Something to do tomorrow, before I head into the city.

Meanwhile, once I got home and things were brought inside, I was able to give the cats another light feeding, so I could safely drive the truck out of the yard and park it in the garage!

We need to do something about these cats. I counted 34 or 35 this morning. We’re spending more on cat food now than we are on truck payments. It may even be more than we are spending on actual food for ourselves. Our trips to the grocery store usually includes non-food items, like household products, persona hygiene products and the like. With how much food prices are going up, we haven’t been able to get the extra stock up items of the pantry the way we used to. I’ve even tried looking up Canadian wholesale pet food suppliers, and the few places I found that had online sales, the prices were no better than retail prices in the stores, so there’s no point. Even Amazon prices are higher than what I can get at Costco. I suppose I could go to that livestock feed store again and get the 16kg bags they carry that’s cheap, but the quality is so low, even the outside cats didn’t like to eat it. It’s much the same with the economy bags of kibble at Walmart. Sure, it’s cheaper per kg, but that doesn’t mean much if the quality sucks so much, the cats don’t want to eat it unless they’re practically starving. Which means it’s also likely to be quite unhealthy for them, too.

But what can we do? This year, we actually have people wanting to adopt some of our outdoor female cats as mousers on their own property, and they’ve have a better living situation than we can give them, but we have been unsuccessful in socializing them – and no one wants male yard cats, who are more likely to roam, no matter how friendly they are, it seems. It’s gotten to the point where we are going to have to seriously consider looking at how to humanely euthanize them. We could contact the municipality, and they’d send someone over with a rifle. Which can be humane, but only if they are a really good shot! Even then, no matter how good a shot they are, these are small, moving targets.

I can’t believe I’m even considering this, but the situation is getting untenable. It’s not just a matter of the cost of feeding them. It’s not healthy for them, either. The more there are, the more sick cats there will be – and we’ve lost so many more this year, than any year before! Without those losses – the ones we know of! – we’d probably have more like 50 yard cats right now.

*sigh*

I hope to be able to talk to the Cat Lady about it before any decisions are made. They’re moving to a new home seems to be falling through. They got financing for the new house, but have not been able to sell the old one. They’ve had many offers, and every one has fallen through. People just have not been able to get financing. They have until the end of the month. If they don’t get a buyer before then, they have to give up the new place and stay where they are. Meanwhile, they are still paying to board almost all their own cats, too!

Which reminds me. One of the sick kittens they took from us, got vet care for, then adopted out, came back. This is the white and grey one. While it was recovered, it was going to have a lifetime of relapses, which would have required antibiotics probably a couple of times a year. Which turned out to be too much for the woman who adopted him. So, the Cat Lady said she’d take him back. !!! Their dog is very happy about this, it seems. They had really bonded, and he was clearly missing him. This was a kitten that they fell in love with and really struggled to say good bye to. This does however, make the 5th cat from us, if I remember correctly, that they are keeping permanently! I’m afraid to tell her about any other cats or kittens we have to adopt out! By the time they get the cats fixed and get vet care, too many of them are turning out to have invisible health problems, and no one wants to adopt them. They also have pair of bonded kittens from us that they tried to adopt out together, but one of them turned out to have heart problems, so they’re keeping both.

*sigh*

Once their situation settles down, I’ll talk to the Cat Lady again about borrowing a trap and trying to get some of the female yard cats. This has been a mild enough winter, we could risk it. We could even rig up shelter around the trap somehow, but we really need to try and get them caught and spayed before they go into heat again.

It’s either that, or we start looking into more permanent actions, and I really don’t want to go that route.

The Re-Farmer

The breakfast crowd, and technology frustrations

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Today is supposed to be a chillier day. We’ve already reached our expected high of -9C/16F Which wouldn’t be too bad – especially with how bright and sunny it is – but the wind chill brings it down to -19C/-2F The wind is just whipping around the house, too, so areas that would typically be more sheltered, aren’t.

We got a light snowfall overnight. Just enough to cover the ground. Tomorrow, we’re supposed to have a high of -10C/14F, then reach 0C/32F and 1C/34F over the next two days! So much of it will probably be gone before we dip below freezing again.

No surprise, that the cats were preferring the sun room to have breakfast in, rather than the cat house roof, or the kibble house!

This is 10 cats eating out of 2 bowls! There was another 5 eating behind me as I took this photo. All total, I counted 33 or 35 cats this morning.

When I was about to head in after finishing my rounds, I spotted a whole crowd of heads in the cat bed, watching me. A couple ran out as I stopped to get a picture, but I did manage to catch the runners in the shot.

I cropped out the second one that ran off. I don’t think anyone really wants to see that particular side of his anatomy. 😂 That calico in the back won’t let us come near her, but my goodness, she is not at all shy about telling us it’s feeding time! She is an unusually talkative cat. Especially for a yard cat.

We can sometimes pet that orange and white cat. There was a second orange and white kitten, but it disappeared a couple of months ago. The fluffy black kitten with the white blaze on its face is also getting better at letting us pet him, and even pick him up.

Barely visible behind the orange and white’s head is the little tortie. She won’t let us just pet her, but if we manage to pick her up, she will allow us to cuddle her. Being one of the only females we can actually touch, we have plans to bring her indoors as soon as we can. The calico is a priority, though, as she’s old enough to go into heat. Something that might actually happen earlier in the season, with our milder temperatures. That one, we just can’t get close to at all. Not even while they are all eating. With some of the other stand offish cats, I’ve managed to pet a few backs while they are eating before they run off. All seem to be males, of course. It’s hard to tell at times, because they move around to fast, but the older ones are a bit easier to spot.

You can see the little one with the cloudy eye. The pupil seems to be dilating the same as the good eye. There’s just that cloudy patch across it.

With the racoons being such an issue, I asked my daughter to give the cats their evening feeding earlier in the day, after we loaded the truck so I could make a garbage run. Sunset these days is around 4:30, so this not only got the cats away from the truck so I could leave, it meant they could finish eating while it was still light out. At night, I “arm” the motion sensor recording on the critter cam. When I checked the files this morning, I did see a couple of racoons go in, but there was no food left, so they didn’t stay long.

Meanwhile…

Yes!! I finally made it to the dump! It was even still open. I got so busy working on something else, I lost track of time. Thankfully, on Saturdays, they are open for 8 hours instead of 4.

After I tossed all the household garbage into the pit (they have bins for recycling, and various sheds and storage areas for electronic waste, paint, batteries, oil, etc., as well as separate areas for tires, large appliances, construction waste and other large stuff like that) and was closing things up, the woods on the other side of the pit suddenly started screaming. There had to be at least a dozen, probably more, coyotes back there! Coyotes have such a piercing howl, and some of them really did sound like they were screaming. Then there’s that yipping noise they make. Yikes! I’d hate to have a farm with livestock in this area. We do have coyotes here, of course, but I’ve never heard that many, all at once!

On a completely different note, yesterday evening I got to get some more progress on my garden analysis series of posts. I’ve got them planned out and organized into drafts, but each posts takes a lot of time to work on, as I go over my old posts and photos in the process. This year, I also have a number of videos to go over, as well. With my WordPress storage so close to maxing out, some things only got covered in video, or images are on my Instagram page, instead.

I think WordPress was having issues last night, Thankfully, it seems to not be happening today, as it hasn’t happened while I’m working on this post. As I was writing in my drafts last night, every now and then, it would simply disappear. Everything in my browser window would suddenly go white. The rest of the browser was still visible and uneffected; my tool bar was still there, the URL was unchanged, my tabs were still up. Just the contents of my WordPress editor would disappear. I’d have to reload the page to get it back.

Thankfully, WP automatically saves draft quite frequently, so I didn’t lose more than a sentence, but when it started happening more and more often, I had to stop for the night. I’m hoping to get more progress done on the drafts tonight. I’ve got the first completely post scheduled to post on Tuesday, and if all goes well, there will be a new one posted every morning for 10 days, altogether.

Which means I need to get my butt in gear. These analysis posts can take hours to write!

It does, however, help me get my thoughts together and make plans for next year, so it’s worth it.

The Re-Farmer

A closer look, and my daughters are funny

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As I was finishing up my morning rounds today, I spotted that kitten with the strange looking eye. I still can’t get close to it, but it was at some food, so it didn’t run away when I stopped to take a picture. I still had to zoom in on my desktop to see. This cropped image is the best I was able to get.

It’s still hard to see, but it looks almost like it has a cataract. Most likely, this eye got infected with the unusually bad strain of herpes that hit so many cats in our province this year. Whatever the cause, it was over with by the time this litter started showing up at the house.

I counted 36 cats this morning.

That critter cam we have set up in the sun room kept me busy last night. Those racoons are very persistent! They no longer really pay attention to my using the microphone to shoo them away.

Racoons make the strangest, snarling, piggy noises.

One of the first times I went into the old kitchen, I was surprised to find several cats in it! The outside door to the old kitchen from the sun room has a screen window. It’s old and torn and needs to be replaced. There is a window that slides down over it, but the slide locks have broken off, so the only way to move the window is to jam something like a screwdriver or a knife into the space, slide the latch and try and hold it in place while adjusting the window, so we just keep it all the way open.

Well, with the racoons making them rather nervous, the cats tore a hole in the corner of the screen in the door. The inner door was mostly closed, just to keep the cold out a bit, so they had no problem getting through.

Once the racoons were out, the cats left the old kitchen, but once they knew they could get through that screen, they kept at it! We tried closing the inner door completely, but that just meant cats got stuck between the doors. I opened it to chase racoons out again, and there were three cats between the doors! So we left the screen door open and closed the inner door. The last thing we needed was for the racoons to discover they could get through the screen and tear into the garbage bags stored in the old kitchen until we can finally get to the dump.

Which is open again today. With the battery replaced in the truck, we can finally get the garbage and recycling out!

We are going to have to do something about those racoons. Several times, it wasn’t enough to just chase them out of the sun room. I went outside and chased them out of the kibble house – then chased away the other three that were eating kibble under the shrine! From the noise, some were running under the storage house, so they weren’t going far. The time I chased away the ones by the shrine, I’d counted 8 of them altogether.

*sigh*

Ah, well.

One a completely different topic, my daughters are funny.

This is how they mark off the days on our calendar.

Every month, it’s something different. Sometimes, it’s geometric patterns. Sometimes, it will be a theme based on the month. Flowers in the spring, vegetables at the end of summer, that sort of thing. This was started off as marine life, then went with a food theme, and even some kelp!

I love the axolotl at the top. And the coelacanth! Two of my favourite sea creatures!

The Re-Farmer

That was fast!

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First, the cuteness.

Toni is healing up nicely and doing great. When we first brought her in and she was recovering from her amputation, we kept her isolated in my room. Once it was safe to let her out, she had zero interest in coming back. Lately, though, she’s started to come back into my room and will stay there, even overnight. Sometimes she’ll cuddled with the kittens, or will get into wrestling matches with Clarence – who is starting to be bigger than she is! Mostly, she seems to just enjoy being on my bed.

While doing my morning rounds, I was surprised to see there was actually still a bit of kibble from last night. Which means, no visits from the racoons! I saw only about 23 cats when I did a head count.

I did find one other, though, just towards the end of my rounds, and it was a sad find. I was coming around the west side of the house, and could just see the tail end of a cat under the cat house. That in itself is unusual. We see them going under on that side, or peeking out, but not lying on the ground. Even before I moved around a piece of insulation we have under there, to see if it would move, I knew it wouldn’t. I can see that it’s a tabby, but that’s it. We’ll have to pull it out later and cremate it, but it’s too windy to get a burn going.

I find myself wondering if this was the result of injuries from a cat fight, just because of how and where I am seeing it. I won’t be able to see if there are any obvious injuries until we get it out.

I didn’t have much time to think about it, either. We had a tow truck booked to get the truck. I’d called CAA last night to make the arrangements, making sure to tell them the tow could be done in the morning. I was told they would release the call at 8:30. Once a tow company accepted the call, they’d let us know and give us an ETA. Once that was arranged, I messaged our mechanic to let him know what was arranged and asked him to check the fuse box along with changing the battery, just to be on the safe side.

I got an automated call just before 8am, with an estimated arrival time for the tow truck at 60 minutes.

He got here before I finished my rounds! I thought I had at least another half hour, so I hadn’t unlocked the gate, yet.

Getting the truck was a bit of an issue. He could back up to it, but only at an angle, because of trees. The truck, however, was also parked at an angle, so it worked out. What he ended up securing it just enough at the front of the truck, to get the road. Once on the road, he unhooked it, drove around to the other end, then hooked it up and secured it properly from the back.

As he was pulling in, I went to put the truck in neutral. I turned the key to light up the dash, so I could see the display, but there was nothing. No dash lights or any sound at all. That battery was stone cold dead! I still put it in neutral; I just couldn’t see to confirm.

I hadn’t had much sleep last night, so once that was gone, I was going to try and get a bit of a nap. I ended up messaging with my SIL, which reminded me to send some photos for my brother that I took this morning.

I couldn’t close the garage door last night.

The top of the frame has been slowly sagging, so when we open and close the door, it hits the frame. That’s why there are pieces of metal under it; they help the door slide across without getting caught and damaging the wood. Over time, we found we’d have to push the door inwards in the middle, so the handle could clear.

Now, it just bashes onto the frame. While I could probably push the door inwards and get it past, that’s just going to make things get worse, faster. You can just see in the picture, to the left of one of those pieces of metal on the frame, that there is a crack in the wood. That crack is getting bigger.

I think it can actually be fixed, still. We’d need to jack the frame up until it’s level again, then secure and support it from the inside. We might not even have to remove the door. Once the frame has been raised back to where it’s supposed to be, the door can be closed, and we’ll be able to access the inside of the wall and roof above. The problem is, we have absolutely nothing to do this with. My brother has the tools needed, and would know how or where to get the things he doesn’t have.

Anyhow; he now knows about it, and might be able to come out some time before Christmas to fix it.

That was my conversation with my SIL when I should have been trying to sleep. 😄 Of course, there were various interruptions during my attempt to get some sleep. Mostly involving a Snorri, using me as a bed! At one point, I decided to check my texts, just in case. Sure enough, there was a message from the garage, saying the truck was ready! It had come in half an hour before I saw it. For some reason, my phone doesn’t give me text notifications. 🤔 He sure got that done fast!

So my daughter and I headed out to get the truck. My daughter just dropped me off and headed home. Since I was in town anyhow, I did an errand and got some gas (the prices have gone down to 149.9¢/L) before heading home. I’m glad we had the cash from selling those scrap cars! Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to get the new battery until next week, and the truck would have been sitting in our yard the entire time.

It cost less than I expected. Our mechanic wasn’t there at the time and I only talked to one of his staff, so I couldn’t ask details, but clearly he found no problem in the fuse box. He charged me for the battery, but not for labour! When my husband looked up batteries for our year, make and model, the retail prices start at $250, for a mid range quality battery. Even including taxes, we got a better price by getting it through our mechanic.

As much as I would have preferred to wait until next week, I’m glad we got it done, and that we were able to get it done now!

So that means tomorrow, when the dump is open again, we can FINALLY do a dump run! We’ll also be set and safe for when we do our stock up shopping next week. Yes, there are other fixes that we are discovering – it’s a well used 2011, after all! – but they are relatively minor and do not affect the safety or function of the vehicle. Everything identified during the safety inspection got done before we bought it.

Meanwhile, we are supposed to warm up again, even reaching a high of 0C/32F tomorrow. We’ll have one day with a high of -8C/18F, and then warm up again. In fact, in the first week of December, we are supposed to reach highs above freezing. How many days above freezing changes with the app I look at, but they all say we should be getting at least a couple of days above 0C/32F in early December.

This may turn out to be the nicest winter we’ve had since moving out here!

The Re-Farmer

Not the day that was planned

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First of all, Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends in the US! I hope you have a wonderful day filled with family, friends and food!

As for our day…

Oooh, boy.

Things went pretty normal this morning, plus I had some errands to run this afternoon. The pain I was feeling yesterday has subsided, so I was able to do my morning rounds, as usual. As always, they start with bringing out kibble and warm water for the outside cats.

I did a couple of head counts and reached 34 and 35. Including this battered beast.

Sad Face was looking sadder, with a fresh wound on his nose. He may be much less aggressive with the other cats these days, but at least one of our own males is not happy with him around and regularly growls at him. I suspect that cat is responsible, but there’s really no way of knowing. Ironically, perhaps, it’s one of the white and greys from last year’s kittens, which means Sad Face here is almost certainly his daddy!

There’s a fluffy smaller kitten that looks a lot like Pom Pom I’ve been trying to get a better look at. There’s something weird about one eye, but every time I come near, the kitten runs off. Today it was in the kibble house while I was refilling the big heated water bowl right next to it, and I got the best look at its face so far. That one eye appears to be clouded. I don’t think it’s blind in that eye, but I do think it’s partially blind.

Unfortunately, so many of the cats just will not let us socialize them. Unlike this handsome boy.

Syndol quite enjoys being held and cuddled.

Hypotenose in the background is not quite there, yet. He did let me place a hand on his back, as I was petting Syndol, but only for a moment, before he moved away.

One of the goals of the day was to make a dump run. The landfill is open only 3 days a week. I’d gone there on Tuesday, only to find it was closed. That’s when I realized I was looking at the Thursday winter hours, not the Tuesday winter hours. On Tuesdays, they are open from late morning to early afternoon. With winter hours, they closed at 1pm. I thought they opened at 2pm, which is when they open in the winter on Thursdays, so I got there an hour after they’d closed. *sigh*

One down side of having a box cover on the truck instead of a cab. We couldn’t leave the garbage in the back, because the racoons could easily tear through the cover to get at it. So, back into the Old Kitchen the bags went.

Today is Thursday, so I was planning to do the dump run, then head to Walmart for a couple things, including more cat kibble. *sigh* I can’t even blame the racoons for that one. I didn’t realize how low we were on kibble for the inside cats, when I made the last Walmart run, on Monday. If we refilled the inside cat bin from the outside cat bin, there wouldn’t be enough left to last the rest of the month for the outside cats.

With the dump opening at 2, I headed out shortly after 1 to back the truck up to the house and load the garbage bags. Then I headed inside for a bit before it was time to head out. My younger daughter was going to come along, as she needed to go to the Walmart as well. Sweetheart that she is, she also went ahead to unlock the gate. With the warm weather we had recently, the driveway is mostly ice. Especially under the gate, where water tends to pool! She had to be so careful just walking to the gate, never mind opening it.

Meanwhile, I went to start the truck and…

Nothing happened.

Crud.

It started without any problem when I took it out of the garage! I even considered leaving the engine running while loading the back but decided against it, since I wasn’t sure how long I would be inside before we headed out.

Now, we’ve been talking to the garage about that battery. When we were first looking to buy that truck, he thought he’d replaced the battery, but when he checked his files, it said the previous owner had changed the battery. When we realized there was a problem with it, he looked it up and the battery was from 2019, so past warranty. The other thing that has been odd is the tire monitoring system, which keeps telling me my tires are low when they’re fine. That is most likely the battery dying in the module. I told him we probably wouldn’t be able to get them fixed until December, and may only be able to do one, not both, depending on the cost. He told me that, if I could only do one, he recommended I put a priority on the battery. He got prices for me; a new battery would be $200, while the tire monitoring system module would be only $60, though replacing that requires removing a tire, so there’d be more labour costs on top of that one, compared to just switching out a battery.

Anyhow.

When the truck wouldn’t start, I went and got our battery charger and waved my daughter over. She got an extension cord ready for the charger while I set it up, and we got that going.

While the charger was doing its job, I remembered to look for the plug for the block heater. I found the cord, which was neatly wound and secured around the engine compartment, and followed it along. The plug end turned out to be neatly tucked into an opening in the frame, right at the front. I pulled it out and found…

Oh, dear.

Clearly, no one thought to look at the block heater cord, even during the safety inspection. Why would they?

I was able to text the above photo to our mechanic to let him know it’s something else we’re going to have to eventually fix! Thankfully, there is no hurry on that. In fact, if the forecasts for this El Niño winter are at all accurate, we may not need to use it at all this winter. I’ll get an price on what it’ll cost to get it fixed, then take care of it when the budget allows.

Unfortunately, we’ve discovered that the outside cats are incredibly curious about the truck – and the higher clearance on this truck means more places they can get into, under it! We saw them climbing onto the tires and up into the undercarriage, as well as just loafing under it. I ended up having to put a bit of kibble out, just to get them away from the truck while we tried to start it.

We got it clear of cats and I went to start the truck.

Nothing happened.

We waited a while longer.

The charger stopped charging, and an error message popped up.

I checked the connections and one seemed to have slipped off. I reset them, plugged the charger back in and it started charging.

After a while, we tried to start the truck again.

Nothing. It just clicked.

We left the charger going for longer. I decided it was time to call the garage.

As I was talking to our mechanic, he asked for readings on the charger, so I went back outside. Unfortunately, the writing on the charger is so small, I can barely read it, but I did spot the button to change the display from current to voltage.

7.4

I read that to him and got a “That’s not good!”

I switched it to battery percentage, and it only said “Lo”

Not only that but, as I was talking to him, the voltage went from 7.4 to 7.3

It wasn’t charging.

So, we talked options. He suggested we take the battery out and bring it to him, using my mother’s car, and he’d sell us a new one. Unfortunately, while I know it’s a simple thing to do, I’ve never taken a battery out of a vehicle before, nor have I even seen it done. Plus, we still had our errands to run, though going to the dump was no longer an option.

I told him I wouldn’t be able to do it today, but would call him ahead when I do.

As we were putting things away, there were a couple of odd things. The hazard lights were on. I couldn’t even remember where the button for that was on this vehicle. It was behind the steering wheel, at the top of the column – not a place where it could have been turned on by accident, unless my daughter somehow hit it while she tried starting the truck. She may have tried looking through the computer display which, unfortunately, does not include a display for the battery.

As I was putting the charger back in the garage, my daughter went to close the hood, but it wouldn’t close for her. Unlike very other vehicle we’ve owned, this hood holds itself up, without a metal bar to support it, so closing it should have been just a matter of pulling it down. For some reason, she wasn’t able to get it.

Which is when she heard the ticking sound.

As I returned from the garage, she told me about it, and it was coming out of the fuse box. I tried to open the cover, which had an arrow indicating an “unlock” position… but we couldn’t get it off. I’m sure there’s something simple we’re missing, but we just weren’t in a position to fiddle with it.

This time, when my daughter went to close the hood, it closed just fine. Because of course it would work when I was there to see! 😄

We could still hear the ticking noise.

The next thing we had to do was get my mother’s car out of the garage.

Well, that couldn’t be an easy thing to do, now could it?

Of course not.

One of the things we’ve been doing is collecting aluminum separately from the regular recycling. Before we moved out here, we kept all our pop cans and bottles to take to the bottle depot and get our enviro fees back. This province doesn’t have that, so all that just goes into general recycling at the dump. Only glass gets a separate bin. However, aluminum can get a good price at the scrap yards, so we’ve been keeping that. My brother collected aluminum to help raise funds to build a local church. We don’t typically have a lot of canned food, but we do drink canned drinks, and then we started buying canned cat food, regularly.

We now have about 6 years of aluminum stored in bags the garage, in the space in front of my mother’s car.

We meant to take it in this summer, but we lost use of the van, and then got rid of the van itself. Now that we have the truck, I was going to find out from my brother where he’d gone with the aluminum, but we’ve had other stuff that needed doing, first.

Well, just a little while ago, I came into the garage to find the entire area in front, and under, my mother’s car, filled with cans. Critters – could be cats, could be racoons – had knocked several bags down from the stack and torn them apart, and we hadn’t had a chance to clean it up, yet.

I filled three bags of loose cans. And that was just the ones immediately around my mother’s car, so it could be accessed.

After we were sure the tires were clear, my daughter backed the car out, and I could reach the cans that were under it.

Once that was done, we could FINALLY start heading out.

Of course, this is my mother’s car, and I’m always trepidatious about driving it. I found out today that my daughters have been referring to it as the Car of Damocles. Which is so appropriate, given the troubles it’s had since my mother bought it, never mind just in the years we’ve been keeping it insured for her!

The drive itself went well, though our driveway was not the only area that was sheer ice. The highways may be beautifully clear, but the gravel roads near our place are shaded by trees, so the snow never fully melted away when we had those wonderfully warm days. Instead, they turned into skating rinks.

Yeah. We took it slow! Especially on the way home. Even on the highway. It was past 5pm and fully dark by the time we were heading home, and there are a lot of deer in the area! I was glad to have my daughter as an extra pair of eyes to watch the ditches for me.

As for the truck, after we unloaded, I gave it a listen, and the ticking sound had stopped.

I’ve decided that I will use our CAA and have the truck towed. The ticking from the fuse box is likely caused by the defective battery; the circuits aren’t getting the charge they need. Just to be on the safe side, though, I’d like to have those checked out, too – BEFORE we start trying to drive it after replacing the battery.

So I will arrange, probably tonight, to have a tow truck come by tomorrow. I just hope there’s enough room in front of the truck for the tow truck to access it properly!

Plus, we’ll have to really make sure there are no cats up under there!

Hopefully, once the truck is no longer a “new” thing for them, they will stop being so curious about it.

So… That’s how are day ended up. Not at all as planned!

Ah, well. Such is life!

The Re-Farmer

Feeling better, and critter cam update

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First, the cuteness!

Three of the four siblings, cuddling (The Beast was napping somewhere else).

Pom Pom is getting so big!! You can really see the difference between him and little Snorri. Even Soot Sprite is getting pretty big, finally, but it’s sometimes hard to tell Pom Pom apart from the older tabbies, as they run around.

I’m happy to say I was feeling better by the end of yesterday, and back to my normal routine this morning. I counted “only” 33 cats outside this morning.

Having the critter cam in the sun room is… interesting! I turned the motion sensor on in the evening. I didn’t realize just how often those racoons have been going in there! Mind you, if I hadn’t been chasing them off, over and over, they probably would have just gone in once, eaten all the cat kibble, and gone.

Part of the problem is, I forgot to feed the outside cats while it was still light out. It gets dark so early right now! Racoons are diurnal, but they tend to be out more at night than during the day. I don’t know where they have a den, but it’s clearly within earshot of kibble hitting metal containers!

It was mostly one or two that kept coming in. At first, I could use the two way talk function to shoo them out but, after a while, they started to ignore that, so I had to get up and chase them out. Eventually, I need to move on to other tasks and couldn’t be watching the live feed constantly. By the time I could check again, there were a whole bunch of little videos showing three or four of the buggers, coming into the sun room and eating all the kibble.

At least they weren’t destructive about it. It was the cats that knocked over the garbage can, not the racoons!

With so many racoons, though, we will have to do something about them.

My husband is starting to talk about learning how to tan fur, and use his leatherworking supplies to make winter hats.

Not that we’re in a position to do anything that permanent. Too many cats in the way.

The sun room is really busy at night, that’s for sure. The cats are constantly going in and out. During the day, it seems to be almost always empty! That will change as the weather gets colder, I’m sure.

While we hit 8C/46F yesterday, today’s high is supposed to be only -1C/30F. Still very mild, and I’m quite appreciating it. Especially the bright sunshine. A good day to finally make a run to the dump, once it opens this afternoon!

The Re-Farmer

A sluggish morning

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Well, it took a few days, but I’m starting to feel the effects of my fall from a couple of days ago. I woke up this morning to pain in pretty much all my joints, plus soft tissue pain along my left side. My knee that I landed on still has minimal swelling, and only hurts if I press on the area. I made the mistake of putting weight on it while getting into bed. Even though it was on a soft mattress, it hurt like blazes.

So the most I got done this morning was cat feeding.

I was able to do a head count again, and kept getting 37, so it looks like that’s going to be our number for the winter. Our usual wanderers, like Rolando Moon and Judgement, are sticking close to home. Sad Face is now a permanent fixture and seems to have stopped being aggressive to the other cats completely.

Once the cat feeding and watering was done, I skipped the rest of my morning rounds, took some pain killers and tried going back to bed. Sleep was a lost cause. The bigger kittens are now allowed out of the room which, unfortunately, means I’m dealing with scratching at my door much more often, as they keep wanting in and out. The littles are a different story. Soot Sprite keeps managing to dash out, and he’s still too small to be let out; at least at night. Snorri has also started to make runs for it, and he’s the tiniest of the bunch! The Beast (who is still Tiny, but not quite as tiny anymore) isn’t as interested in leaving the room. She and Soot Sprite, however, are balls of energy and frequently wrestling rambunctiously. Snorri is has not recovered enough to join them, and is often content to curl up on my leg or hip, or the back of my neck, and nap. He’s such a featherweight, I have to be incredibly careful before rolling over, because I can’t always tell he’s there!

I’ve given up on trying to lie down, and will work on a couple other blog posts instead.

After I take a couple more painkillers.

The Re-Farmer

What a lovely day!

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It is just gorgeous out there!

We were supposed to reach a high of 4C/39F today. We’re at 7C/45F right now! It turns out we hit 7C/45F yesterday, too. The snow is melting away, and it feels like spring!

Before I go on, though, we must first have the cuteness.

Snorri is just enveloped by David! The Beast (aka: Tiny) is bigger than Snorri! He’s all fur, so he looks bigger than he really is. I have to be so careful at night. He has a thing for curling up behind my neck, or on my legs. He’s so light, sometimes I can’t feel him there at all, and I have to check if he’s on or behind me before I try to roll over.

He does have a thing for necks! If he can get at one, he’ll climb right up any convenient human and settle into a neck, purring.

Snorri’s eyes are still really leaky, but he’s most definitely getting better. I hope he’ll start getting some meat on those bones soon! He certainly has a good appetite.

When feeding the outside cats this morning, I did repeated head counts. I kept getting 37, though I did get 38 once. I think I double counted someone. All the usuals that sometimes show up later were there – Rolando Moon, Brussel and Sprout, Broccoli, the orange and white, both Adam and Driver, Judgement – plus the ones that are almost always here; the printer babies – all the white and greys – the orange tabby, Hypotenose, Syndod, this year’s lone calico and tortie kittens, etc. Then there are the black cats and the grey tabbies. We have so many gorgeous cats this year!

One of the places I put a bit of kibble is in the space the smaller cats use to get under the cat house. While trying to count, I spotted a little white face, eating at the opening. I could only see a bit more than the nose and mouth, so I couldn’t say for sure if it was one of our usuals. There is one white and grey among this year’s kittens that I thought it might have been, but when I went to count the cats in the sun room, he was there. I can’t think of any other small, white faced cat that it might have been. I also spotted a couple of tabbies that I wasn’t sure of. It’s entirely possible they’re from this year’s kittens that are just bigger, and we were bound to have kittens from litters the shier mamas kept further away, finally starting to show up on their own. These ones are adult sized cats, though.

Well, no matter. They are welcome to food, water and shelter! Even Sad Face has become a permanent fixture. The next time there’s a cheap spay and neuter day, I hope we can snag him!

How bizarre that the visiting tom we kept having to chase away because he was so aggressive to the other cats, is now more approachable than all the female yard cats. !!

With so many cats to feed, it’s no surprise that we were running low on kibble, so today I made a trip to Walmart. When I got there, I found that Black Friday sales have already started. Another bizarre notion. This is a US thing, since we have our Thanksgiving on the second Monday of October. Meanwhile, Black Friday doesn’t even happen in the US until the end of this week, but Canada has Black Friday, too, and the sales have started already.

I was able to juggle the budget a bit and take advantage of some of the sales. Along with the cat food I was there to get, I was able to get things like a case of 24 cans of tomato soup at 77¢ each – easily the best deal among the things I got, since those cans now cost closer to $2 each. One of the things on my list, however, was not on sale. Butter. Even their house brand butter is almost $7 a pound! It would be cheaper to buy whipping cream and make it.

I didn’t buy whipping cream, and got only 1 pound of butter. We’ll just have to use the ghee more often, until our next big city shopping trip. The next time we’re at Costco, I’ll have to stock up on more butter than usual. Another of their big buckets of ghee wouldn’t go amiss, either!

Once I got home and we unloaded the truck, I had to feed the outside cats early. I was just going back to park it in the garage when I saw a couple of cats under it; one jumping up into the undercarriage somewhere, and another jumping up onto a front tire!

Yes, I make it a practise to bang on the truck before starting it.

The sound of kibble was enough to get them away from the truck, though.

In other things…

I called my mother last night, and it was like talking to a completely different person. She went from yelling and raging at me the day before, to cheerful and pleasant. I asked how she was doing, and she went into her usual complaints about her breathing; this time, she tried to blame it on the macaroni she ate. *sigh* After she went on for a while, I more specifically asked about her mood. She was all ready to act like it never happened, and she was never angry or said all those horrible things to me. We talked about it for a bit, and I tried to stress with her that if our vandal starts calling her about me, it’s because he’s trying to cause problems between us. She did try to defend him again, saying he was just telling her what’s going on, and I had to tell her, he has NO idea what’s going on. She quickly changed the subject. She didn’t quite apologize, but she did seem to try and make amends, in her own way.

I told her about our plans to get the hand pump on the original well serviced, so that we can then change the well pump and have back up water if something goes wrong. It took some time to explain to her why the well pump in the house needed to be changed at all. It has been changed in the past, but that was more than 20 years ago. The foot valve in the well, however, is original and some 45 or so years old – I think it was dug in 1974, but it might have been the year before. She couldn’t remember the exact year.

So she’s happy with the plans. Her only thing was to tell me to talk to my brother about it first, and I told her, I talk to him about everything. No living person knows this place better than he does. He was old enough to actually do a lot of this stuff alongside my dad. My other brothers were still too young for much of it, and some of it was done before I was even born. My sister is older, but she wouldn’t have been allowed to be part of this stuff, even if she were interested, because she is female. My mother then started going on about how great my brother is, and what a good job he’s doing with the farm.

Just the day before, she’d yelled and hung up on him when he called her out for how she allowed our vandal to manipulate her and treat me like crap.

She was like a totally different person.

Meanwhile…

In checking the trail cam files, I could see our vandal trying to figure out what was going on. The day the guys where here to pick up the vehicles, I saw him pull into our driveway while the gate was open – but not far enough to be trespassing! – to turn around, then slowly back down the road, so he could better see through the trees to where we were. I even remember seeing a vehicle backing up on the road, while the guys were jacking the truck out of the dirt and putting tires on it. On the trail cam files, I saw our vandal go by again, later on. Then, after the guys were gone and the gate closed, I saw a different vehicle pull into our driveway and turn around. From another camera, I could see that the driver of this vehicle was a mutual friend he’d clearly gotten to check things out.

On today’s file check, I saw our vandal in the morning, slowly driving past our driveway, then slow down even more as he drove past the bushes, trying to see through them to the other scrap vehicles.

Needless to say, we are no longer fake locking the gate.

It amazes me how furious and possessive he is about the junk. Yeah, some of it was his, but he abandoned it years ago, and neither vehicle that was taken had ever been his to begin with. The ones he’d left are in such bad shape, they aren’t even good for parts. Just the scrap dealer. Which is why he dumped them here, instead of keeping them on his own property. He was using this place as a garbage dump.

So we’re going to have to keep an extra eye on things for the next while.

Something else we might be able to keep an extra eye on is the sun room critters. My SIL gave us a camera. It was a Superstore freebie for purchases over X amount of dollars, and they had no use for it. It’s one of those little security cameras you can link to your phone to keep an eye on things through a live feed. It is not an outdoor camera, but if we can set it up in the sun room, we should be able to confirm what critters (most likely racoons) are knocking things over in there during the night. If it could handle outdoor conditions, I’d want to set it up facing the cat, kibble and water shelters, so we can see what, besides cats, is eating all the kibble, and sometimes knocking the heated water bowl right out of the shelter! Having a critter cam in the sun room, however, would be a good thing! It mostly comes down to how the device is powered. If it’s USB, we’ve got nothing to plug it into in there. We just haven’t had a chance to even take it out of the box, yet!

Who knows. I might be posting critter cam pictures on here, soon!

The Re-Farmer

Snowcats!

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The arrival of some expected snow kept being pushed earlier and earlier. It hit us last night, so we woke to a winter wonderland of soft, fluffy snow. We were at 0C/32F while I was outside, so it could just as easily have been rain. That was supposed to be the high of the day, but by the time I was settled back inside, we’d warmed up to 1C/34F and the system had passed us by. As I write this, the system is still hitting the southern part of our province, and crossing into the next, as well as hitting the Canada/US border. From what I’m hearing, the city is getting more snow than we got, and some of the highways are getting packed snow. Enough that I’ve decided to not bother with a dump run today. It can wait until next week.

We’re supposed to hit 3C/37F over the next couple of days, and then warm up a bit more, before we’re supposed to start getting highs below freezing next week. All I care is that the roads and weather are good for Saturday, when we’re heading to the city so my husband can finally visit his family!

The deep snow did make it a bit harder for the cats to eat on the roof of the cat house – but they insist on eating there!

It wasn’t until I uploaded this photo to my desktop that I realized I’d caught, not one, but two tongue blehps!

I didn’t even try to do an overall head count, but…

… at one point, I could see eight cats crowded together in the big cat bed at this window! Then the tabby in front came by – there was no room in the cat bed for him! – plus I saw some other movement in the background.

They do love the cat house, this time of year!

While I was out, I took advantage of the snow still being light and fluffy and shoveled around the cat shelters, paths around the yard, including to the compost ring, the back of the garage and our emergency bathroom – the outhouse! 😄 I also made sure there was a path from the house to the front of the garage, wide enough for my husband’s walker, and cleared enough snow that we can open the doors on the sides, to access my mother’s car, of where the little snow blower is stored. No point in using the snow blower at all, though. The snow may have been light and fluffy, but it was also very sticky. Nothing like trying to toss a shovel full of snow and nothing happens, because the entire load is stuck!

We’re supposed to fluctuate around the freezing mark all day today, but as we reach our high tomorrow, all those paths should melt away first and make things easier, later on.

It’s a good day to say inside and work on the Christmas decorations I am crocheting for this year’s ornament.

We have a cat free zone in the living room now. We can actually put up a proper tree, rather than hang one against the door in the dining room. The problem with that is, we’ve been using the room as a catch-all for everything we need to keep safe from the cats, so it’s just jammed full of stuff!

Wanting to set up the Christmas tree is a good excuse to finally go through everything and reorganize.

The Re-Farmer

Toni and Snorri (or Hunter?)

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I was able to accomplish something last night.

I got a decent picture of Toni!

She took a break from squirming and worming around and actually posed for me!

Like the kittens, she is recovering just fine from surgery. I managed to get a look at the incision site, and all is clean and clear.

Our new addition, however, is comically difficult to photograph.

This is the best of many attempts.

Our phone cameras simply do not want to focus on that fuzzy black fur! Especially when we try to get a photo of the face.

We’ve settled on a name. Almost.

We have a tendency to stick to a theme with names, if we can. Like the calicos: Cabbages… Broccoli… Brussel and Sprout. Then there was Rosencrantz, Nosencrantz, and Toesencrantz. That sort of thing.

With an all black kitten named Soot Sprite, someone suggested another sprite name; Brownie. I loved the sprite theme idea, but … well … this is a black kitten.

Then I heard a wet, snorking noise behind me, and I was inspired.

Snorri.

Snorri is one of the Huldufólk – Icelandic sprites – living in Gimli, Manitoba. My daughters and I have been in their attic home, and even got to meet Leo Kristjanson some years before he passed away. We even already have a cat named Freya (aka: Grandma), which is the name of another of the Gimli Huldufólk.

The girls have also been talking about names, and they have been thinking of using Hunter. A friend of theirs has an almost identical cat named Fisher, so they thought that would be funny. But they like Snorri, too.

When the girls were tending to Snorri/Hunter yesterday, they took a look and determined we had a female on our hands. Considering how difficult it’s been to socialize the females outside, this was good news. One less pregnant cat, next year!

Except…

Well, I took a good look this morning, and I’m 99% sure we’ve got a male.

The problem is he, or she, is so tiny, so fluffy and so black, it’s really hard to see!

As for his first night indoors…

I woke up during the night to find him sleeping on my hip.

This kitten has settled in like he’s always been indoors. Even when another cat gets nervous and hisses or growls, he either ignores it, or responds by head booping them.

On being introduced to David, David immediately started to groom the new baby.

As I write this, Snorri/Hunter is curled up and sleeping near Cheddar. Cheddar is sleeping in the little cat bed I got from the dollar store.

He’s bigger than the cat bed, so it’s quite amusing to see.

I have yet to see Snorri using a litter box, but my daughter noticed sawdust under his feet when she came to see him this morning, which suggests he’s at least been in one. I’ve not found any messes anywhere, either.

As for settling in, that has been pretty much instant. He’s been spending most of his time on one corner of my bed. For a kitten that was still a bit stand offish while outside, he’s done a complete turnaround. If you so much as walk close to him, he’ll start purring. While walking past him one time, I reached down to pet him, and he immediately rolled over to let me pet his belly, and started grabbing and playing with my fingers.

Which is how I now know that, along with a white patch on his chest, he has a white patch on his belly, near his hind legs, and one white armpit. 😄 Most of the time, though, he’s loafed, and we can’t even see the white patch on his chest. He also has a pair tiny white stripes at the base of his tail, right over his … brown eye, shall we say.

He’s also much tinier than we thought. It’s all that fluffy fur. He is mostly undercoat, and is more of a long or medium haired cat, unlike his siblings, Soot Sprite and Tiny, The Beast. Those two are short haired cats. He’s more like his brother Pom Pom, who is practically all undercoat with long hairs sticking out.

Snorri is actually smaller than Tiny. !!!

He’s so fluffy, he looks bigger, but he is most definitely smaller, and all skin and bone!

Now that he’s inside, he’ll be getting wet cat food regularly. When I did their morning feeding, he was right in there with all the others, milling around the food bowls laid out on a towel on my bed, along with the other kittens and Toni, as if he’d always been there. A full belly and an eye wash later, he was more than content to go for a nap. Hopefully, we’ll get him healthy, and some meat on those bones, in short order.

By the time the Cat Lady and her family have moved and settled in, he should be ready for adoption. I think he will be snapped up rather quickly, too!

The Re-Farmer