Critters

Another step forward, and don’t eat THESE berries!

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First, some adorableness!

When I came out to feed the outside cats this morning, I spotted these three. The tabby was curled up and asleep when I came over. I reached in to pet them, and the other two started purring before I even touched them! I got to pet the tabby while it was asleep, but once it woke up, it would not tolerate pets and ran off – though I did manage to pet him more while he was trying to get out of the bin and onto the shelf above!

As I was finishing my morning rounds, I decided to pick the potato berries from the large volunteer potato plant from last year’s potato patch. The frost has killed the plant off completely, which is interesting, because the potato plants in the grow bags are still undamaged by frost and barely dying off for the end of their growing season.

Potato berries are toxic, but these all should be full of potato seeds. I will do a bit more research on what to do with them, but during one brief search, I read that the seeds need to be fermented, much like tomato seeds. Which makes sense, since they are related.

For now, though, they are tucked away in the cat proof living room.

This morning, my husband had his meet and greet medical appointment with a new doctor. That went better than he expected, and he now officially has a new primary care doctor. The paperwork to transfer his medical files have been signed, and he’ll need to update the pharmacy and disability insurance company.

Some of the medications my husband is on are not at all familiar to her, so she’s going to be doing some research. We will probably do a follow up appointment with her in the near future, if only because some of the blood test results from yesterday are not in yet.

My husband was happy with her. More so than the interim doctor, that’s for sure. I had my issues. The first being, she was the only person I saw all day wearing one of those useless masks. After years of being surrounded by mask nazis, being treated like trash, and having an ever shortening list of places I could go without risk of being physically or verbally assaulted, either by customers or staff, spending so much time around a faceless person is still something that triggers anxiety. That we still have medical professionals, who should know about the mountains of data and research showing how wearing them are more harmful than beneficial, also immediately lowers my opinion of their competency. There were a few other things that came up when I asked questions about medication that are red flags for me, such as her response on my husband being on statins (he should not be on statins) or Ozempic (the side effects can be very… messy), neither of which have actually done anything to improve his health. But, this is a first time visit, and beggars can’t be choosers.

After the appointment, I did ask at the desk about any other doctors taking patients, which my mother in mind. It turns out that no, even this doctor we just saw is already closed to new patients. My husband is basically the last one. Not that I would ever make an appointment with her for my mother. She has a hard enough time with a doctor that is black (and has an accent strong enough to make it difficult for my mother to understand what she’s saying). This doctor may be the “right” colour but, in a passing comment, she mentioned her wife, and that would just be too much for my mother to handle!

The receptionist suggested I ask again in a few months about doctors taking new patients. Which is much the same situation in the other clinic. As much as I’d like to have the same doctor as my husband, since I go to all his appointments, anyhow, I’ll see if I can have the same doctor as my mother for the same reason. It’s just convenient to have the same doctor.

After the appointment, we were going to try and get my husband’s photo ID, since he has no up to date photo ID right now. Unfortunately, there’s a public sector union strike going on right now, so he decided against it. Even if we got the ball rolling locally, who knows when the processing will actually happen. So he decided to skip that – though I think the state of the streets might have had something to do with his decision. They are rougher to drive on than our gravel roads, and his back feels every bump!

Our daughter was a sweetheart and send money for take out. We were going to get Chinese food, but the place was closed today, so we ended up getting a whole lot of fried chicken, instead. It’s good, but we got less food for her money with that. Ah, well. It was still delicoius food that someone else cooked for us!

After we got home, I found a couple of messages from the financing company. I called her back and she told me everything is proceeding well. We have a conditional approval, and there are two banks vying for our file. She will choose the one that gives us the best deal, then negotiate the best contract for us. Meanwhile, we’re at the stage where we have to send in our ID, income confirmation, etc. She had tried to email us already, but the emails bounced back. Turns out she misheard part of mine, and had the wrong language spelling on my husband’s – pretty common problems with our emails, to be honest! 😄

One thing I’ve never heard of before is that they want an “ID selfie”. Basically, a photo of ourselves holding our photo ID next to our face. Which does make sense, with everything being done electronically, but it’s the first time I’ve heard of that being requested.

I mentioned that my husband does not have current photo ID, which may be a problem. He does have his old driver’s license, which is expired, but still a government approved photo ID. He also has his Metis card from when we lived in this province before. That has no expiry date, but I don’t think it counts as government approved. So for him, we got pictures of the fronts and backs of 4 different IDs, when only 2 are needed, plus a picture of him holding both his old photo IDs next to his face. I had to get one of those for myself, too. Then there’s the proof of income, which was his annual letter from the insurance company saying “yes, you’re still disabled, yes, we’re still paying you!” , etc.

So that’s all sent in. Hopefully, it’ll be enough. One bit of info I did include was that the vehicle will be in my name only; with all his medications and pain levels, my husband simply doesn’t drive. Even when he still had his license, he voluntarily stopped driving, long ago. That might also make a difference. It did with a previous company, and my husband’s name was removed from the application completely.

Either way, we’re one step closer to approval, and getting a replacement van.

Which we really, really need. The check engine light on my mother’s car has turned on again, plus I had to pull over at a gas station to top up the air in one tire. It might have a slow leak, and will need to be checked. I did a cursory check, myself, but could see nothing. I’m so paranoid about tires. We’ve had way too many problems with tires, on three different vehicles, over the years!

The Re-Farmer

You, too, Little One! Plus, some vehicle progress?

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I already posted a photo of the new kitten on the block. This is a photo I took, just before I caught it.

The kitten in the back is the one I caught. The puff ball in the front is also on the list for kittens that are so tiny, they need to come indoors.

It is not at all cooperative.

There are two more black kittens with white spots on their chests from this litter (plus a much bigger one from another litter that is more catten then kitten, now). One of them should be fine and is bigger, but the other is staying teeny tiny. I don’t know why there is such a difference in sizes in the same litter, but the littles are at far greater risk, so if we can snag them for indoors, we will.

In other things…

My husband and I headed out fairly early today to get our blood work done. The results should be ready in time for his appointment with a doctor, tomorrow. Hopefully, this is a doctor that will take him on as a new patient. Once of the requirements for his disability income is to be under the care of a doctor, and he doesn’t have one right now.

These were fasting blood tests, so after it was done, we had to go for breakfast. With all the medications my husband is on, he doesn’t feel hunger anymore, but I was at the “getting dizzy and nauseous” stage of hunger. There was one restaurant we’ve been to before that I thought would be open, but it turns out to open just before lunch, not for breakfast, so we stopped at a hotel café not far away. This is one of those places that has been around forever, and where locals go to regularly for breakfast. I haven’t been there in years!

It’s not accessible, though, so my husband had to cane it up the stairs. Once we were there and settled, looking at the menu, I happened to glance across the room and saw a familiar face I hadn’t seen in years! It was an old friend of ours from high school! The last time I saw her was before she’d moved up North to one of the territories! It was really great to run into her like that!

After breakfast, we made a stop at the pharmacy to pick up prescription refills that would normally have been delivered today, then headed home.

My husband told me to go ahead and park in the garage, rather than drive up to the house, once we got home.

Then he fell, trying to get out of my mother’s car.

Well. More like a half fall. He ended up with one knee on the ground, one leg still in the car, and stuck in a most awkward position. After some struggling, he managed to get himself up. There was little I could do to help him.

He thought he was fine at first, but after a few hours, that knee that hit the ground (we have a dirt floor in our garage) was starting to really hurt.

Thankfully, he has plenty of really powerful pain killers, including one that’s “take as needed”.

I had intended to wait until closer to the end of the month but, after this, I sent a message to our mechanic, who also used vehicles available for sale. It’ll be 6 months at the end of September, that I’ve been using a low limit credit card to rebuild my credit score. Which means I should be able to apply for financing on a vehicle and have payments we can actually afford. The last time I applied for financing, the terms and interest rates were insane, they wanted a high down payment, plus the payments would have been $700 a month!

We messaged back and forth for a bit. He actually has a truck available right now. I had walked over to see what he had available, the last time I was at the grocery store across the street, and it’s a really nice truck. We could certainly use one but, for our primary needs, we need another minivan, though we could possibly get away with a SUV. He told me he would look for something for us. He knows our needs by now.

Not long after, I got a call from him. He told me he was with a new financing company now. One that specializes in helping people rebuilding their credit. He’d talked to her about our situation, and that we were living on a disability income. She told him that they could do pre-approved financing. That would go a long way in helping him know exactly what he could find for us, and not be stuck with a vehicle to sell to someone else, if we can’t afford the financing.

So I gave him permission to pass on my contact information and I got a call from the company already. The initial process has been started. The next step at our end will be to send in our ID and probably proof of income, etc., like we had to before. We should know in the next couple of days, what we can get for financing. From there, our mechanic will be able to look for something that meets our needs, and falls into the financing parameters.

I pray this all works out. As much as I appreciate having my mother’s car to use, it meets my mother’s needs, not ours. Plus, that thing needs to be replaced, too! My mother has already told my brother and that we should just sell it, but it’s too difficult for her to get into a larger vehicle, so a small car is needed for her. She won’t buy another car, though. She doesn’t drive or even have a license anymore. She’s got no problem with the idea of us buying another car for her, though… Not that we could afford to have two car payments!

We shall see how it works out!

The Re-Farmer

Caught… and settled in

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My computer was misbehaving, and I think I discovered the cause. There was an operating system update waiting for me to power down the computer.

So while that’s doing it’s thing, I’ll just use my phone to share this bit of adorableness.

Can you spot the new face?

There are now 8 kittens in there. I managed to snag the tiniest outside kitten. This is one of the 8 that were born in the barrel, almost 2 months ago. Some of them are really tiny, still. We now have 3 of them indoors.

I was able to catch Pom Pom only because of a dislocated arm that, thankfully, reset itself.

I had been able to catch and hold Soot Sprite before, so he was a bit more used to human contact. He adjusted to indoors faster than Pom Pom.

The new baby (in the top middle) was a providential catch. I managed it shortly after I headed outside to get some work done, so it was just a quick drop off in my room.

It almost immediately found the food bowls.

When I came in again later, all 8 kittens were curled up in a pile on my bed. It took a while before I could get a picture.

Not only was the new kitten immediately absorbed into the creche, when I walk past, it allows me to pet it, along with the other kittens, as I go by!

They are all solidly asleep right now. Which likely means another sleepless night of mayhem and destruction by the older kittens, while the Littles watch in stunned disbelief!

There are at least 2 more really tiny kittens that need to come in. In time, I will take photos of all of them to pass on to the Cat Lady to share among her contacts for adoption.

The Re-Farmer

Apparently, I’m a “stupid fat f***g b****”.

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But only behind my back.

We’ve been hearing a lot of commotion on the roads lately. Some of it is expected. It’s harvest time and the renter’s corn is being done, so they’re big equipment and trucks are going by. Other farmers are bringing in their hay bales, or just plant going back and forth between home and fields.

On the trail cams, however, I’m also seeing a lot of regular vehicle traffic doing strange things. We’ve also been hearing lots of voices and shouting. The gate cam is set to record stills and video, so I’m seeing vehicles drive slowly, then reversing, then going forward again, etc. During some night time shots, a vehicle driving by triggered the camera and, in the background, I could see people walking around my brother’s field (the younger of my brothers) with flashlights. If I hadn’t also seen my brother’s wife in some of the images, I would have been more concerned.

It does mean I’ve got a lot of files to go through when I switch out the memory cards!

Late this morning, I was having an early lunch before heading outside to get some work done when I got a phone call from my mother. She was struggling, physically, today and wanted to know if I could come over and help her with some house work that was getting too much for her.

So of course, my plans changed.

As I was getting ready to head out, I walked over to open the gate before opening the garage, so I would only have to get out of the car once, to close the gate behind me.

Which is when I saw a guy set up in my brother’s driveway into his field, across from ours. That driveway is rarely used, so it’s quite overgrown. The guy was in one of those folding chairs with a canopy, half hidden in the tall grass, with stuff that looked like blankets on the ground beside him, and a gorgeous Great Pyrenees at his side.

As soon as the dog saw me reach the gate, it got up, all excited to see another human, and started barking.

This did not go over well with the guy, who started trying to shush the dog.

I started to call out and ask if everything was all right, but he started trying to shush both me and the dog at the same time, and asked me to back away. Then he saw something down the road and started talking into this phone (I’m amazed he had enough signal to use it!), saying things like “I see him! He’s right there!” and telling someone they should be able to “see him” right at that moment. The someone turned out to be his dad, and I was not impressed when he started swearing at his dad for not seeing what I figured out was another dog, and telling his dad he needed to come get the dog because someone (me) had come out, the dog started barking, and the other dog got scared away.

While that was going on, I opened the gate as quietly as I could. I even tried to open the garage door as quietly as possible, and that thing gives off metallic screams, squeals and squeaks like nobody’s business!

Then, of course, I had to drive out and close the gate, which I tried to do quickly, so as not to scare off this other dog, if at all possible. Thankfully, I needed to go the opposite direction from where he’d seen his dog.

When I stopped at the intersection, I saw a new sign not far from our own, so I took a picture.

I removed the phone number, of course.

The next time I stopped, before getting on the highway, I sent the photo to the family and let them know what was going on, then continued on to my mother’s.

When I got there, I checked my messages.

My family was not sympathetic to the guy with the lost dog.

It seems there was a lot of shouting after I left, loud enough for my daughter to hear me being referred to as a “stupid fat f*****g b****”. Apparently for using my own driveway and scaring off an already scared dog.

I wonder what he thought about the big harvest trucks, trailers and combines that had to go down that road to the fields the dog was hiding in!

The shouting they heard was enough for my daughter to warn me to be careful when I got home, and for my husband – my broken husband! – told me to let him know I was on the way, so he could meet me at the gate.

Things apparently calmed down by the time I was done at my mother’s. The guy was no longer set up across from our gate, and they weren’t hearing shouting anymore.

As I turned the corner to get home, though, I did see a truck parked on the side of the road, not far from our driveway. As I drove past it, I could see an older gentleman in the driver’s seat, but there were too many reflections on the glass to see if someone was with him. About a quarter mile down the road, though, I could see the canopy on the folding chair set up.

After I opened the gate and started back to the car, though, guess who came out of the truck?

Yup. It was the same guy, coming over to talk to me.

He was quite polite to my face!

Turns out his 8 month old Great Pyreneese that he recently acquired broke out of their house, along with the other one I’d seen earlier. That one, they caught quick enough, but the other was apparently quite happy to be running around outside, and not wanting anyone to come close. They’ve seen him eat the food they left out for him, but still wouldn’t let them come close, disappearing into the corn field, instead.

He mentioned my cameras and asked about them. I let him know that the motion sensors are set on the gate and the sign, so while I can see things on the road, it’s limited. He asked if he could set up cameras, indicating the easement between our fence and the road, and I told him to go right ahead; that areas is public land, anyhow. I did say he could use a fence post or something, if he wanted to.

He also mentioned where he lived, should we happen to see the dog. Turns out he’s right in the middle of our little hamlet, a littler more than 3 miles away. Which makes me wonder about his dog being out here!

Since they were all over the place, looking for the dog, I mentioned we had 3 lost cats and described them. So far, though, he’s only seen a black and white one – likely Adam – crossing the road. Unfortunately, their being all over the place looking for the dog, they are likely scaring the missing cats away completely.

Turns out he’s a cat person, as well as a dog person. He asked me if I knew someone, who turned out to be the guy that found Potato Beetle, last winter! It turns out they are great friends, so I asked him to extend my greetings, and let him know that Potato Beetle is now an indoor cat. 😁

So it was quite a friendly exchange we had.

Not bad, considering I’m such a stupid, fat f*****g b****.

No, I’m not angry or anything like that. More amused than anything else!

The Re-Farmer

Count the kitties!

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Well, the little Soot Sprite is definitely settling in!

Can you find it?

There are seven kittens in the photo. 😊

I’m happy to say that I’ve not had a single mess on my bed in quite a while, though I did just catch TTT about to take a dump on it. I got her off in time, but she couldn’t stop herself from making a mess on the floor. She just happened to be over plastic take out lid that I’ve been using as a kibble container, so at least it was an easy clean up.

However.

For some reason, there are kittens that insist on using the puppy pads. They use the litter boxes. All of them. However, for some reason, they’ve started to use two spots under my desk, too. Right next to the litter box!

With the tinies in the room, I’ve got the small, low pan that fit in Baby Jail when the kittens were all in there. I ended up putting it on top of one spot by the litter box. There is no space around it for them to use instead, so that is working. The other spot, however, is one I can’t put something on top of, because it’s right next to where I put my feet. If I put something there, I’d be constantly kicking it or dropping a foot in it.

I could understand it if was the tinies, as they haven’t been using a litter for long, but it’s not. I’ve actually caught one of the bigger kittens as it just finished making a mess on the puppy pad next to the litter box – then go into the litter box to pee! It doesn’t matter if the litter has just been changed, either.

I’m at a loss for ideas on what to use to convince the kittens to go into the litter boxes, not make a mess t next to them. The only thing I haven’t tried yet is cayenne pepper, and I don’t want to actually hurt them.

At least it’s an easy clean up.

The Re-Farmer

Trellis bed progress, and we have a soot sprite

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Since I ended up driving around again today, once I was home to stay, I took advantage of the cooler temperatures and calmer winds to work on the trellis bed.

One larger base log was ready. The next step was to use a garden fork to loosen the soil from one marker to the other. Aside from pulling out as many weeds and roots as I could, I was also able to use a hoe to try and adjust the soil height. The log is, of course, wider at the base, plus the ground has a slight dip at one end, so I brought loosened soil from one end to the other, to try and make it to the log would be more or less level once on the ground. Plus, with the loosened soil, it wasn’t going to roll around out of position on me. Once that was on place, I could start debarking the log that would be set on top of it.

Debarking is pretty fast. It’s all those branch bits and lumps that slow things down!

After doing the top half, it started to get pretty painful on the back, so I used one of the poplar logs that will be vertical posts to raise the end. It worked for helping the back, but the saw horse kept rocking, and the poplar log kept wanting to roll! 😂

Once the smaller log was debarked, I use the baby chainsaw (electric pruner) to sort of flatten the base log from end to end. Mostly to get rid of some lumps where branches used to be. The smaller log was naturally flat next to a couple of branch stumps, so I took advantage of that and flattened the rest of the lot a tiny bit, to match the naturally flat part. It’s not a perfect fit, but I wasn’t really trying for one. I might level things off a bit more, but if I do, it’ll be when I have the chain saw set up, so I’m not killing the batteries on my mini chainsaw so quickly.

Next, it was time to work on the large log that will be the base log for the other wall of the raised bed. It had more branch bits to cut off than the other two, but once those were trimmed, debarking went quickly.

At that point, it was time to stop for the day – and for the draw knife to get a good cleaning and sharpening!

I expect to actually be home all day tomorrow, so I’ll be able to finally make more tomato sauce. When I get back to working on the bed, I plan to make use of the pieces of rebar I’d picked up for the shelter we could never get set up. I’ve got auger drill bits in that size. Once I’m satisfied with out the side logs are resting on each other, I will drill a pair of holes, then hammer in the rebar, so hold the logs together. When the time comes, the ends will be joined with 4′ logs, but first the ends of the side logs will have to be trimmed even. That will be much easier if I can do that while they are already secured into position.

As for the vertical supports, I am changing my mind on how to do those, again. I’d been planning to set the posts inside the raised bed, before they were filled. Setting them in the middle of the beds would result in a trellis tunnel that is 6′ apart across the top, and would give access to both sides of the bed for planting and weeding.

The more I think about it, though, the more potential problems I can see with doing it that way. Primarily, I’d have to treat the bottoms of the posts to prevent rotting. I was planning to debark and char them. With the winds we’ve been having, though, the chances of being able to get a fire going to do that don’t seem pretty good. Also, finding straight horizontal pieces that are 6′ long is going to be harder. I have enough vertical supports to have 4 posts for each of what will be 4 beds like this. I could try to harvest more poplar to have more verticals, but finding nice straight ones in the right size has not been as easy as I thought it would be, and I don’t want to be wasting trees. So if we have 4 verticals per bed, they would need to be 6′ apart, and I would need three 6′ pieces per bed – or 12 in total, for the 4 beds we plan to build here. If the trellis tunnel sides are also 6′ apart, that adds another four 6′ pieces needed per tunnel, making 20 horizontals in total.

Now I’m thinking I should attach the vertical supports to the outside of the beds, along each side of the tunnel space. I can see a few advantages to this.

First, I won’t have to dig any post holes.

Second, if they are attached to the outside of the beds, they won’t be buried in soil and I won’t need to treat them to keep them from rotting.

It will also be easier to find shorter, straight pieces for the horizontals, plus it will be easier to reach and work on the tops to attach them. Right now, I’m just aiming to do one low raised bed with a trellis wall. Even if we manage to get the second half done, the horizontals at the top don’t need to be until later. Plus, it will be much easier to attach 4′ lengths onto the verticals later on, than 6′ lengths with half a garden bed to work around.

By not having the verticals in the middle of the beds, they won’t take up growing space. Also, these beds are 18′ long, and 4′ wide on the outside. Our raised bed covers are intended to be interchangeable, at 9’x3′. Without the verticals inside the bed, we’ll be able to fit a pair of them over one 18′ bed, if needed. The logs are wide enough that the actual growing space will be closer to 3′, so the covers will have frame support.

The main reason I wanted to put them down the middle of the bed was to be able to reach the growing space from both sides. It had been my intention to reuse the hardware cloth and chicken wire from the old squash tunnel for this. However, as long as we use something with large enough openings, we’d still be able to tend the bed, through the trellis, just like we’ve been able to do with the cover currently on the high raised bed, made with the stronger fence wire and larger openings.

The one real drawback is now to secure the verticals to the walls. I might still have to dig post holes.

I’ll figure that out, when the time comes.

In other things…

I did the running around I had to do; since I had to go to Staples to get the printer ink we needed, and it shares a parking lot with a Walmart, I took advantage of that and picked up a few things, including more of the shredded cat food the cats in the isolation ward prefer. Or maybe it’s me that really prefers it. It’s much easier to divide into bowls than paté.

Once we had the printer ink, we could print off the label we needed (frustrating to have to buy colour ink to print something that is black and white text!), then pack up the RAM that didn’t work with my husband’s computer and drive to a Purolator depot.

There is one thing that’s new right now.

When feeding the cats outside for the evening, I was able to catch a little black kitten.

I brought it inside.

It’s just the tiniest little soot sprite!

My younger daughter has always wanted an all black cat. Now, she will have one.

So far, it is not too keen on this whole “indoors” thing, and being surrounded by strange kittens. It doesn’t even seem to recognizes its brother. However, it quite enjoyed its first taste of wet cat food! I can hear it wandering around behind me, sometimes giving out a strange, hoarse little meow.

It will take time, but Pom Pom is starting to warm up to attention now, and hopefully that will encourage Sprite to accept attention from humans, too. If things go well, I hope to have it well socialized by the time my daughter gets back from house sitting. 😊

The Re-Farmer

It’s a Puff Ball (Updated: oops…)

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We’ve settled on a name for the new little guy.

He’s such a puff ball, we decided to call him Puff Ball.

Or was it Fluff Ball? Suddenly, I’m not sure what my daughter suggested! 😄

I’m really tired.

Edit: Man, I must have been more tired than I thought!
It wasn’t either of them.
It was Pom Pom.
Hello, Pom Pom.

Also, I’m about 95% sure he’s male. I was able to pick him up and cuddle him, but he’s so fluffy, it’s really hard to tell at this age.

I just got a message from the Cat Lady. She’s on her way. Time to put Turmeric in the cat carrier!

The Re-Farmer

This crab apple bites back!

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While doing my rounds this time of year, I like to grab some crab apples from the one tree that has tasty apples to nibble on as I walk. High winds have knocked down a lot of the apples, so I don’t know that we’re going to bother harvesting them this year, but there are enough in reach that I can snack on them.

I grabbed a couple this morning, buffed the dust off one of them on my shirt, and was about to take a bite, when I saw something move!

This wasp had been asleep in the apple! It was still very groggy in the cool of the morning, and eventually squeezed itself out and promptly fell to the ground. 😄

Gotta be more careful when I pick things!

The Re-Farmer

Tiny harvest, kitten update, and a mystery

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I will start with the kitten update!

The kitten seems to be completely normal right now! No favouring the leg that was dislocated. No limp that I can see. The kitten stays away on its own, for the most part, but doesn’t run away when the other kittens come over to say hi. I’ve even seen TTT grooming in on the way by.

I’m also not finding any messes. Not even on the puppy pads under my desk. It looks like TTT has finally starting using a litter box. Not while I’m in the room, though, so I’m hoping she’s using the covered box in my closet – the only one I can’t see into – and not in some secret corner somewhere. I’m not seeing any tiny messes, either, so it looks like the kitten figured out litter boxes right away.

The main thing is, the kitten appears completely uninjured! I was able to sneak a pet this morning, but otherwise it stays away. Now that it’s indoors, socializing it will be much easier, so I am not concerned.

Today is supposed to be “cooler”, with a high of 27C/81F. We currently have weather advisories for smoke. I can see it on the security camera live fee, hanging in the old hay yard like a fog. It is worse now, than when I was doing my morning rounds.

Our squash flowers are very popular.

They are pretty much the only things blooming right now, other than some wild yarrow, so the bees are happy!

I wasn’t expecting to harvest anything this morning, but I found these!

I was surprised to find such large patty pans. They got missed yesterday, hidden under leaves, but this morning I could actually see them. I normally like to pick them a bit smaller, but these will still be tender, without a seed cavity yet.

I was not intending to pick the pepper, though. I had moved it to look at the back and see how much green there still was, and the stem broke off!

Some of the beans growing in the compost ring are completely dried on the vines, so I picked one of the pods. Once inside, I opened it up and found…

A mystery.

When I first opened the pod, I thought they were black, but once I uploaded the photos to the computer, I could see they are actually a deep, dark blue.

I have no idea where they came from.

I have never bought seed beans like this, nor do I remember buying dry beans like this. If we did buy some that I can’t remember, they would have been cooked; no viable, uncooked seeds would have ended up in the compost heap.

I’ve tried looking them up, but have had no luck. These had pale purple flowers, green pods, and now deep blue, almost black, seeds. I’ve found seeds similar to this, but they all come from yellow or purple pods, none green.

Well, whatever they are, we’ve got more of them with pods drying out on the vines. I’ll keep the seeds and maybe try growing them in the garden next year, and seeing if they are actually a tasty bean.

I’m considering a couple of things in the garden beds right now.

One is going to have to be done; it’s just a matter of doing it when it’s cooler in the day. The Roma VF look like they’ve picked up a fungus. I don’t know if it’s tomato blight or something else. Either way, all the remaining tomatoes need to be picked and the plants pulled. They will be burned, not composted.

I’m debating the bed along the chain link fence. The peas are pulled, but there are still some of those Czech lettuces in there that I’m allowing to go to seed. Plus the volunteer tomatoes.

The tomato plants are really small, but if the long range weather forecast is at all accurate, they still have more than a month of growing season. So I am thinking of transplanting them into the empty bed in the old kitchen garden, where the Irish Cobbler potatoes had been. I would need to protect them from the kittens that like to play or nap in there.

Once that bed by the chain link fence is clear and ready to be prepped for the winter, I’m going to make it a bit narrower. It’s too painful to reach near the chain link fence to weed. Plus, some of those pieces of concrete patio blocks I found run under one corner of the bed, and I want to dig those out.

I have those tillage radish seeds still. I am thinking, once some beds are emptied and cleaned up, I can plant some of those as a cover crop. They won’t reach full size before winter, but they should drill far enough to make a difference. These are meant to be left in the ground, where they will freeze in the winter, decompose, and add organic matter to the soil in the spring.

Amending this soil into something healthy again is definitely a years-long process.

The Re-Farmer

Kitten scare, but it’s okay now!

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Oh, my goodness. What a rush!

I headed out this evening to do my rounds, starting with feeding the outside cats, as usual.

One of the kittens from the youngest litter saw me and tried to run away, but something was very wrong.

It’s left front leg was backwards.

It was completely dislocated. I’ve never seen anything like it! It couldn’t move very fast, so I was able to pick it up and bring it inside, being very careful to avoid the injured shoulder – and teeth. It was not a happy camper!

After bringing the hard sided carriers in, we like to leave them out and open for the cats to go in and out of at will, so I quickly went and put the kitten in our carrier and closed the door. Then I went to phone the vet clinic.

They were closed, and the message said, for emergencies, to call a clinic in the city.

The other side of the city, it turns out.

I looked up other clinics, but it’s a holiday weekend here in Canada. Not only were there no clinics open, but none of them had emergency vets on call.

I did get through to the one in the city, and found out that there would be only 2 clinics in the entire province open right now.

I was messaging the Cat Lady at the same time, and she told me the same thing – adding that they are very expensive.

Getting the kitten to one of them would have been a 2 hour drive. Even for the closer one, because it’s in a very high traffic area.

Failing to find a clinic, I figured the least I could do was give the kitten some food. I went to get the carrier to bring it into the isolation ward, tried to pick it up and…

It was really, unexpectedly, heavy.

Our hard sided carrier as a door at the top – handiest thing ever!!! – so I took a look.

David and a kitten looked back at me!

Turns out David had been napping at the back of the carrier when I put the kitten in! I’m glad it was David, because he’s always been great with the kittens. I still had to take him out, though. 😄

Once the carrier was moved, I made sure to do the evening wet cat food for all the kittens, and Toni, to distract them away for the little one’s food bowl. I then opened the top of the carrier again, put in the food bowl and..

… the kitten practically crawled bodily into the container and began devouring its first taste of canned cat food.

Using both front legs.

I kept watch on the kitten for the next while, and sure enough; it’s shoulder was relocated again! It was moving its leg normally, and even putting weight on it.

After awhile, other kittens started jumping into the carrier from the top to check out the new addition. The kitten completely ignored them and kept eating.

I went and got a small water bowl for it, watched for a while longer, then headed back outside to finish my evening rounds – after updating the Cat Lady, of course!

While I was out, my husband checked on it, then messaged me to let me know that the kitten had gotten out of the cat carrier, through the top, and was busily hunting for more wet cat food! That it could climb out of the carrier through its top door told me more than anything else that the leg somehow managed to set itself and all is fine. The kitten might have some residual weakness and pain, so we’ll have to keep an eye on it.

Well… It looks like we have a new kitten in the house.

We were wanting to bring in the long haired kittens, anyhow, so they wouldn’t end up badly matted, like Decimus got.

The first picture in the above group is the other long haired kitten in this litter. The second photo is one of its black siblings that is slightly larger. The little tabby in the third photo is quite tiny, but there is a brown tabby among the litter that is even smaller. I didn’t see it to get a picture.

In the fourth photo, Octomom (aka: Slick) is nursing the other black kitten – and a couple of teenagers!

We reached 34C/93F today, and while it did cool down to 26C/79F when I first came in for the night, it is now almost 9:30pm, and the temperature has actually gone UP, to 27C/81F! So I made sure to water the garden while I was out. When I was done, I spotted the tiny black kitten in the last photo, in the water bowl shelter. Other kittens ran off, but this one just looked at me and hissed. I slowly reached in, and it actually let me pet it and scritch its ears! Once I straightened up again, it slunk out of the water bowl shelter, and I was able to get that last picture. This is the black kitten I’ve been able to catch and hold before, so it seems to not be as frightened by me anymore. Progress!

As for the little one indoors, we are leaving it to do its thing for now. It has access to food, water, litter boxes, and a whole pile of other kittens to cuddle. Who knows. Toni might even let it “nurse” on her along with the others, too!

Normally, I would not want to bring a kitten in that isn’t weaned unless we had a wet nurse, like we did with Ghosty and Question with Decimus, or if we could bottle feed it. As tiny as this kitten is, however, it seems to be really happy with solid food! The kittens in this litter are all quite different sizes.

I just went looking back to see when we first discovered them in the barrel, and that was in the middle of July. Which means the kittens are at least 6 weeks old right now!

So we now have another kitten in the house – one that is far more feral than any others we’ve brought in before – but thankfully, it doesn’t look like we’ll have a vet bill! At least nothing beyond a wellness check, if we feel it’s needed.

I am so thankful that shoulder was not broken. I have no idea what happened to pop it back in place, but I so glad it did!

The Re-Farmer