Critters

This and that

/ Re-Farmer / 6 Comments

You know, I’m really glad we’re having such a relatively mild winter right now. The past two years, it got so cold, we had issues with the vehicles and were basically stuck at home. This year, I’ve had to do more unexpected running around than I’ve done in months!

But first… some cuteness!

Tissue’s recovery continues, and she is absolutely thrilled to no longer be in isolation in my office. She has been almost non stop cuddling my younger daughter, or sleeping on her bed, or both at the same time! About the only thing giving her issue right now is the dead skin coming off her frost bitten paw pads, which seem to be itching her a bit. No signs of any infection or other potential issues.

My daughter has been working on an interesting project of late. When my late brother was in his teens, or even just under his teens (being the youngest, my time-scale memory is a bit off!) he had carved a wooden ship. When we moved out here, it had been sitting on top of the closet in the entry for several decades, at least. When the cats started jumping up there, we took it down to protect it from damage.

There already was some damage, though. A piece broken here, other pieces missing there.

My daughter has spent the last while cleaning up years of dust and dirt, sanding it, and starting to repair it. Among the missing items is one of the small boats on the deck. She’s been using my wood carving kit and some maple we had in the basement to carve a new one.

Not an easy job, considering how tiny it is! It’s the same length as the others, but slightly wider.

Next, she’s going to carve a couple of cannons to replace the missing ones, and figure out how to repair/replace a couple of yards and topsails. She’s doing a really great job of it! I think her uncle would have been quite pleased. 😊

In other things, I ended up going to my mother’s today. She phoned me a couple of days ago to tell me her TV stopped working, but told me not to come over to check. Yesterday, my brother had called her and tried to talk her through finding the power button the the TV, so she would at least test to see if it was the TV that was the problem, or the remote. She couldn’t find any and kept saying it was too dark to see, etc., much to my brother’s frustration.

So this morning, I called and told her I’d be coming over to check the TV. I’d already offered to help her with groceries or whatever she needed, the first time she told me not to bother coming out. Today, she started telling me that she was okay with no TV, it was giving her more time to herself, and watching too much TV wasn’t a good thing. I told her, just because you have it, you don’t have to watch it (speaking as someone who completely forgets we even have a TV! 😄). Oh, but it’s a temptation! True enough, but I told her I was coming over, anyhow.

I was going to pick up lunch before getting there, but when I called, she was having a very late breakfast, so told her I wasn’t going to bother. I then got a lecture about how it was wasting money to be buying take out, and how it’s so much better and cheaper to cook our own food. I told her, I eat my own food all the time. This is a treat. I’m allowed to have a treat!

Then as we talked about her TV again, she started saying she could just buy a new, bigger one, because my brother had suggested she would enjoy a bigger TV. Or, as she put it, he told her she should get a bigger TV, which I know full well is not how he’d said it. He just thought it would be easier for her to see what’s on the TV from her chair with a larger screen. Her TV isn’t much bigger than my desktop monitor.

I told her that buying a new TV when the problem might be as simple as needing new batteries on the remote would be an unnecessary expense. Oh, I can do what I want, she tells me. I just had to laugh and pointed out that she was just lecturing me over “wasting money” for buying food, while buying a new TV over what might be just dead batteries in the remote would be an even bigger waste of money! Let me at least come and check it, first!

So that was arranged. I came over and the first thing I did was see if I could turn it one manually. My brother had even sent me an electronic copy of the user’s manual, so I had some idea of what to look for. The manual was for several models, so there could be anywhere from 4 to 7 buttons. For her TV, I was expecting four – input, volume up, volume down and power – and I first checked where my brother had been asking my mother to look.

No buttons.

The other corner?

No buttons.

The top? Underneath? The back?

No buttons.

I changed the batteries on the remote and tried that.

Nothing.

I kept looking for buttons. The closest I could find was a button in the recessed area next to the cables that was labeled “source” and had the power button icon beside it.

It did nothing.

I picked that thing up and was flipping it in all directions to look.

No other buttons!!

It’s so bizarre!

I ended up unplugging it, plugging it back in, and trying again with the remote.

Once that was done and I sent messages to update my brother, I again offered to go to the grocery store for her. Because she’d told me she didn’t need to go to the grocery store before, I’d gone over in our van, which still has the summer tires on the back and nothing else. It looks like we aren’t getting financing (still no word one way or the other), but we haven’t put our stuff back in the van yet, but I could still pick up some milk and bread or something for her.

She had a shopping list she’d made, since I was coming over anyhow.

She also decided she needed to do the shopping herself.

If I’d known that, I would have used her car!

We did remember to grab her little stool, so she could get into the van more easily. She also decided to just use a cane, not her walker, to get to and from the van, since at the grocery store she uses the shopping cart as a walker. I wasn’t too happy with that, and could have at least rearranged the tires to make room for her walker, but she insisted.

She did okay but, towards the end, her knee almost gave out. Next time, I need to insist on bringing that walker!

She ended up doing a rather large grocery shopping trip from her usual. So much for not needing groceries!!

Meanwhile, I heard back from my brother. He bought this TV from her not long ago, and it should still be under warranty, but since she wants a larger TV, he’s going to pick one up for her and bring it out, then take her current TV home to see if he can find what’s wrong with it – or return it.

He is such a good man. She treats him so horribly, and he still goes out of his way to do super nice things for her! He’s only been back in the province for a few days, too.

At least now we do know it wasn’t just the remote needing new batteries!

Meanwhile, I’m going to have more running around to do tomorrow. We’re going to have to get those tires out of the back of the van and make a much delayed trip to the dump.

I do wish we’d been able to get that Escape. Ah, well. We’ll manage.

The Re-Farmer

(edited for typos: many thanks, MP!)

They are judging me!

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Because I completely forgot I hadn’t made a post today!

I counted “only” nineteen outside, this morning.

It’s been an almost disorienting day today. The pain in my neck/shoulder area is actually making me feel kinda nauseous and a little bit dizzy. I wasn’t up to doing the third batch of lard. It can wait another day, in its semi-frozen state. Not much productivity for me today at all, and the day seemed to be gone before I knew it.

Time to pain killer up and go to bed!

The Re-Farmer

Cuteness and carnage!

/ Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

This morning, I was able to do a head count while feeding the outside cats.

Including this little Pointy Baby, who decided to climb up my back.

It’s a good thing my parka is so puffy, otherwise it would have been a very painful climb!

The first time I counted, I got 21, but when I counted again, I got 28!

Then I saw Sad Face skulking away in the distance.

I think I know why he’s skulking. He’s been a bad boy again.

I found a couple of spots like this one, filled with tufts of black fur and spots of blood. There were also blood trails up some of the paths, and more tufts of black fur.

Sad Face seems to be earning all those scars and scratches on his face – and it looks like he’s the winner of this battle!

I think the fur tufts are from The Distinguished Guest. I saw him briefly, yesterday. With the amount of fur and blood, I would not have been surprised to find a body somewhere. 😥

Thankfully, none of our own cats look at all injured. Sad Face seems to be leaving them alone. Including this handsome boy.

I forget what name the girls gave him, but he actually came over and allowed me to pet him! Of last summer’s long haired kittens, he has the most black, and he has no injuries at all.

I am not happy about this, but I am happy that Potato Beetle is inside. The visiting toms would always go after him, and he’s had more than a few injuries over his 4 years of life.

When we brought him in, he explored for a while, then disappeared. Yesterday evening, while I was walking back and forth in the hallway, working on something, I started tripping over a cat that decided it was a good time to start weaving around my feet. It turned out to be Potato Beetle! He was wanting attention, so my husband took him for a bit. Later on, he claimed one of my daughters and would not let her do anything but hold him and pet him! This morning, he was out and about while I got ready to head outside, and continued trying to kill me by weaving around my feet!

While some of the other cats have hissed at him, there have been no altercations. He’s completely accepting of all the other cats, and most of them are just curious about him.

Which really makes me wonder why they still won’t accept Butterscotch and Nosencrantz. They haven’t really been exposed to Marlee, who hisses at everyone, so there’s nothing to say there, yet. So bizarre!

While in isolation, Tissue would hiss at the other cats whenever she saw them. Sometimes, even Cheddar and Leyendecker, when they came in. If Nosencrantz – who seemed to actually want to make friends! – came closer, Tissue would start spitting, and even lash out.

Yesterday, we gave Tissue one last doze of pain medication, which she took so very well. Soon after, I let her out of isolation. Since she’s been out, there has been zero hissing or lashing out from her. She made her way upstairs and reclaimed her favourite place on my daughter’s bed!

My office/bedroom is much quieter now.😊

Tissue still has some recovering to do. Her tongue looks healed up, and she’s been eating dry kibble, so her jaw must be healing up well, too. She gets a bit snorky at times, and walks a bit oddly. I can’t blame her for that at all! She had some frost bite on her foot pads. As it heals, her pink foot pads have all gotten a very dark red in patches, and the dead skin is starting to slough off. I can’t tell if her feet actually hurt, or if the healing/sloughing is just really uncomfortable to walk on.

Now that Tissue is back, Marlee has joined us and Potato Beetle has been brought inside, we’re back up to 16 cats in the house.

*sigh*

Sixteen inside, at least 28 (not counting the visiting toms) outside, and I didn’t see Rosencrantz this morning. This is after we’ve adopted out a total of nine kittens from outside.

…

That’s just too many cats.

The Re-Farmer

Looking rough, Baby kisses, and the sweet fat of the hog

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Before I headed out to do my rounds this morning, I checked on the sun room kitties though the bathroom window.

I saw this, looking back at me.

That’s Sad Face, aka Shop Towel, on the bottom.

His face is looking rough and even more beat up than usual!

I want to feel sympathy for him, but yesterday I had to chase him off from attacking Junk Pile, repeatedly. Even when I managed to come in between them enough that Junk Pile ran off towards the house, he actually ran past me to try and get at her, and attacked her again, near the kibble house!

He doesn’t seem to have a problem with the kittens. Does he recognise that many of them (there are more, outside the photo) are clearly his progeny?

I really want to love on this cat, but he can be so aggressive towards some of the other cats! He’s one of the reasons I was worried about Potato Beetle being outside after he got fixed. He’d be more of a target and less prone to defend himself.

I can’t say how Potato Beetle is doing inside right now. Once we let him out of the carrier, he explored the house… and then disappeared. He found some hidey hole to sleep in, and I’ve yet to see him. I’ll have to ask the girls if he came out when they did the evening feeding in the basement.

While I was doing my rounds and coming back from switching out the memory card in the driveway trail cam, Pointy Baby came running up the driveway towards me, as if he hasn’t seen me in ages and was excited by my return from beyond. 😂

Then he gave me nose kisses when I picked him up!

Such a sweet little baby he is!

Once back inside, I started putting the solidified lard into the jar box for storage, remembering to get a picture, first.

I find it interesting that the darker coloured cracklings lard became so much lighter as it solidified, while the pale yellow fat became darker. I think if I’d taken the fat off earlier, it would have been more white than yellow. The solidified fat on the spoon rest I used when stirring the crock pot was certainly much lighter in colour. It should still be pretty neutral in flavour, though, compared to the cracklings’ lard.

Or, as my daughters call it, the pure, sweet fat of the hog.

Which is apparently something that became quite the viral meme on reddit and Tumblr. You can even get T-shirts with it.

I don’t recommend looking it up, though. Some of the people who ran with it went a bit… creepy on the theme. One of the t-shirt designs is funny, though.

Anyhow…

While putting the jars with canning lids on them away, I took the rings off and tested the lids. All of them are sealed tightly. I’m still keeping the one with the plastic lid, and the not-quite-full one aside to use right away.

I made a cast iron skillet corn bread with breakfast this morning. I added some of the cracklings to the dry ingredients. They want to clump together, of course, but I broke up the clumps while stirring them into the dry ingredients. They tasted really good in the corn bread!

Later today, I’ll start cutting up more of the leaf lard so I can run the slow cooker overnight. It should be interesting to see what the final tally is, when all the fat has been rendered.

The Re-Farmer

Returns!

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So my progress on rendering lard has seen a few delays. Thankfully, using the slow cooker means I can leave it on warm for quite a while, if I need to. I did add several more hours on low, too.

The first delay was while I was preparing the soft cat food before my daughter came to help medicate Tissue. While I was doing that, I heard a strange sound coming from my bed.

Tissue was digging around my pajamas, near my pillow.

Yup. She’s just peed on my pajamas!

I guess that confirms it really was her that did it last time.

So I had to strip the bed and start another load of laundry, use paper towels to soak up as much pee as I could (thankfully, it was much smaller than last time! Or maybe it just didn’t have time to spread, yet.), and set up a fan, then help my daughter with the meds.

Tissue is very good about taking her meds, at least. When the syringe comes close, she opens her mouth and lunges at it! She does try to bite it a bit, but mostly, she just happily takes her medication.

Today is supposed to be her last dose, but it looks like there’s one dose left. Based on her behaviour, I am thinking we’ll keep her isolated a bit longer and give her that last dose tomorrow. It’s a pain killer, and while she is clearly doing very well, all things considered, she does still seem to have some pain issues at times. She’s also still not eating as much as I would like, so her tongue and jaw may still need a bit more time to heal up.

That done, my daughter stayed to cuddle Tissue while I headed outside.

While doing my rounds this morning, I was very happy to see a furry face that’s been missing for at least a month, now!

Rosencrantz is back! Rolando Moon was around, too, though she’s been disappearing for only a few days at a time, lately.

Seeing Rosencrantz gave me some hope that Potato Beetle would show up.

I was wrong.

After doing my rounds, I headed out to finally get that Purolator package. I was just backing out of the garage when I started getting messages from the Cat Lady. The local vet was trying to reach us, but they were trying to use my cell phone number, so I wasn’t getting anything. Instead of trying the land line, they contacted the Cat Lady, whose information is on file as the emergency back up number. From what little information she could give me, it sounded like the needed another update on Potato Beetle, the last cat they neutered for us through the rescue. I mentioned my daughter was near a phone, so the land line would be the most reliable option, then continued on my way.

I was able to confirm the new Purolator drop off depot, got the package and had an excellent chat with the guy that runs the place. After a quick stop at the grocery store, and then the post office, I got home and was able to finally start prepping space to sanitize jars for the lard.

I didn’t get very far, when the phone rang.

It was the local vet.

They were, indeed, calling about Potato Beetle.

Someone had found him and they matched his tattoo on file!

They gave me the name and phone number of the person who had Potato Beetle, so I called him up right away. After getting directions to his place (gotta love country directions: “go down the road that says “no through road” until you see a driveway….”) I grabbed a cat carrier and headed over.

My goodness, they are so nice and far from the road! We may be in the boonies, but the house is right near a surprisingly busy intersection. It does mean less driveway to clear, but I’d rather have less traffic!

Just look at me, complaining about traffic, after living downtown in a major city for so many years! 😂

After finding the house and managing to turn the van around, the guy came out and we started chatting. They’d seen this new cat for quite a while, but couldn’t get near him at first. When they finally did, he was incredibly friendly, and they could finally check for a tattoo.

Turns out, he’s been inside with them for some time, and would actually sleep with the guy! They already have nine cats, though.

The cat had gone outside again, though, so we went around to look for him. They built a cat shelter against the back of the house, and sure enough, up popped a familiar face! It was, indeed, Potato Beetle. Once he recognized me, he came right over for cuddles!

We spoke for a while, while one of his cats kept jumping in and out of the cat carrier, which was open from the top. Aside from their own cats, they get others that show up from the neighbours. Potato was a new one to them, though. While relatively close for driving, it’s quite far for a cat to wander beyond their own territory.

When he mentioned growing up in the area, I had to ask his last name. It was a very familiar one. It turns out I went to high school with his aunt! We were very good friends!

Small world!

Potato Beetle is now back again, though not at all the way I expected.

He’s inside the house now.

We figure if we let him out, he’d just disappear again, and since he did so well indoors at out neighbour’s place, we’re trying him indoors.

Yeah. We’re sucks.

We left him in the carrier for a while, as other cats sniffed at him, then let him out to explore.

So far, so good.

Maybe now, I can finally get back to finishing with that first batch of lard!

After I make lunch… It would be a very good idea to actually eat something today!

The Re-Farmer

Running around

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Today is the first morning with actual sunshine instead of fog for quite some time!

It’s been sunny all day, but while the high of the day is supposed to be warmer than yesterday, it doesn’t seem to be happening. According to the hourly forecast, we’re supposed to be -7C/19F right now, but in reality, we’re -14C/7F, with a wind chill of -26C/-15F Quite the difference!!

A while back, my husband told me he’d ordered a new heater. I had just picked one up to replace one of the heaters the girls use upstairs that stopped heating. The fan still works, just no heat. So we talked a bit about letting the girls decide which they wanted to use. He mentioned setting a heater up in the sun room, but personal heaters aren’t supposed to be left unattended, so that didn’t seem likely.

Well, it came in, and it turned out to be something entirely different. Why he didn’t correct my assumption, I have no idea, but he’d picked up one of those radiant “chicken coop” heaters we’ve been seeing on Amazon. I’d already looked at them and decided against getting one, but… well… now we have one.

I wasn’t up to setting it up at the time, having had a bunch of things to deal with already, so he ended up setting it up himself. Except he didn’t notice the open plug in the old kitchen wall, so when he ran the cord through the window, he use a power bar he’d taken from the kitchen, which we have to keep the breaker from tripping if we have two things being used at the same time. He unplugged the extension cord to the cat house so he could plug the power bar into the power bar on the wall, then plugged both the extension cord and the heater into the power bar he took from the kitchen.

Heaters aren’t supposed to be plugged into power bars at all. That was even in the instructions.

Then he set it up in the sun room, turned it on and left.

Without securing it.

I found out about this when he told me to go into the bathroom, leaving the light off, so I could see into the sun room. The heater was lying on it back, and there were three or four cats trying to crowd onto it.

Nothing is supposed to be on the surface, which the sheet that came with it warned could get as hot as 75C/167F

!!!!!

Needless to say, I went out and changed things around.

*sigh*

There’s a reason I’d decided not to get this, and now there are more reasons.

For starters, it’s really small. The images all have chickens photoshopped beside it, with no perspective, making it seem larger than it really is.

But that would not be a problem if it actually worked.

I’ve got that thing set as high as it goes, but when I touch the surface, I feel only low warmth in one patch off to the side.

The instruction sheet, meanwhile, is in pretty bad Google Translate. Especially the “Profile” part at the time. As for the operational instructions…

  1. Turn the switch clockwise to turn on the heating panel
  2. Keep turning the switch clockwise to raise up the power and it will heat up faster
  3. The heat-sensitive sticher will turn red when the panel heated up
  4. Turn the switch anti-clockwise to reduce the power or turn off the heating panel.

Oh, and in the other warnings and instructions, it says to “Keep out of the water or wet area” and “Keep out of children.”

It’s number three that has me perplexed the most. First, I don’t know what a “sticher” is supposed to be. I figured I would see something turn red and that would tell me, but there is nothing that turns red. Anywhere.

There is so little warmth coming off that thing, the cats only go in front of it because I’ve moved a food bowl over.

So that was a waste of money. Yeah, we could probably try to return it or something, but considering the janky email included, I wouldn’t expect anything to come of that. Mind you, it wasn’t exactly cheap.

Ha! I just looked up the order. Check out this picture!

So… the panel itself is supposed to start glowing? Bahahaha!

And look at how big they try to make it look, behind those chickens. Some of the other pictures are even worse! Like this one!

Bahahahahaha!!!!

According to the listing, 50% of reviewers gave it a 5 star rating, with a total rating of 3.8 stars. It’s also supposed to be suitable for chicken coops, dog houses, or under your desk.

Oh, too funny. I’m looking at the reviews. There are quite a few from Canada, saying “no heat” and “would never buy again” – but those reviews have 5 stars on them!

Several say they had terrible customer service and weren’t able to get refunds.

Why did my husband buy this again? 😄

Anyhow…

Today I headed out to help my mother with shopping. Normally, I buy lunch first, but she told me not to, so I made sure to eat first, but still headed over early. I needed to run some errands, and also wanted to get a visit in, since I had to drive to another town to pick up a package at a Purolator depot. More on that, later! I wanted to get a visit in with her before we did the shopping, since I would need to leave once we were done.

I got there just after she finished calling me to come over sooner, because she was hungry. She was waiting for me, before having her own lunch! I reminded her she’d told me not to bring anything, and she was all, no, I made lunch! I told her that, because she said no to lunch, I ate before coming over. I’d just have a cup of tea.

She made me eat.

There’s a reason I prefer to bring take-out.

*sigh*

At least we had our visit. My mother wasn’t feeling up to the trip, though, so she had a list ready for me. I headed out and got everything on her list, which makes for a much faster shopping trip!, and was soon back. After helping put things away, I started to head out, only to get the usual lecture about how we’re always in a hurry, and if we come to see her, we need to not be in a hurry and be prepared to stay. I reminder her that I’d told her from the start that I needed to go somewhere else. That’s why I came early; to get a visit in, first.

She was not mollified. She simply cannot accept that we aren’t retired like she is, and have things that need to be done. She also can’t appreciate that we *do* take time for her – the fact that we’re there at all (my brother gets this lecture a lot, too) demonstrates that. In her mind, I guess we’re supposed to stay with her all afternoon. Of course, she is completely unwilling to reciprocate. She also expects us to call her frequently, but if we happen to call while Joel Osteen is on or something, she cuts the call off completely. Meanwhile, she does the guilt tripping thing, with how we won’t have her around forever, and when she’s gone, we’ll remember what she said! I’m glad we’re out here, so I can be the one dealing with her the most, rather than my other siblings! That doesn’t work on me. It does make my brother absolutely miserable. She has no idea how badly she hurts him with the things she says.

Overall, though, it was a good visit. She just saved the psychological manipulation for the very end, when she didn’t want me to leave. 😄

But I wasn’t sure where I was going, or the hours of operation. My daughter had placed an order from somewhere that had mailed her stuff out before, so they accepted our box number. However, it went to Purolator this time. They don’t accept box numbers. When my daughter got the notification, she tried to input our physical address, but it wouldn’t accept it. Which, of course it wouldn’t. Our physical address doesn’t exist on maps. According to them, we’re on an “unnamed road”. She tried the live chat and explained the situation to a real human being – who told her, they don’t accept box numbers. My daughter explained that she new that, but they don’t accept our physical address, either. Apparently, the person couldn’t understand that, and we’re out of their delivery are so…

In the end, my daughter said to send it to a depot the next town over.

The problem is, the place that used to also be the depot suddenly closed. Last I’d heard, the Purolator deliveries were switch to a garage, right next door. My daughter had sent me a screen cap of the delivery notification, which had an address, but no location name. Most of the places on that stretch don’t have addresses visible from the road. It was on the same highway, though, so maybe it was still there?

So I went there and…

It was closed. Not open on Saturdays at all.

There was no sign in a window or anywhere to show that this was also a Purolator drop off depot.

Also, I couldn’t find an address anywhere on the building. I ended up just putting it into my map app to look it up and…

It was clear across town. In fact, it was well out of town.

So I drove over there anyhow. The place turns out to be some sort of … marine garage? There were fishing boats parked on one side, and RVs parked on the other.

It was also closed.

They had been open today, but closed about an hour before I got there!

Again, there was no sign anywhere to show that this was a Purolator drop off depot.

I went home.

Purolator was supposed to phone after the package was delivered to the depot, but they never did, so we couldn’t even ask them directly. It’s not like there’s a number we can call to find out. All we have is a delivery notice.

I’ll have to try again on Monday.

Which leaves my daughter in a conundrum. She has to order things for her business. If it goes by post, it’s fine. It’ll get to us. But a lot of places are like this order: they accept a box number when you place your order, but then it goes to a delivery company instead of the mail, and they don’t do post offices. However, they also don’t deliver to our physical address, because we’re often out of their delivery zones (though not with all companies).

In the end, she’s going to try what my husband sometimes does. Give the physical address for the general store the post office is in, and have our box number as the “unit” number. Which explains my confusion, because I know I’ve picked up Purolator deliveries at the store, when I was expecting a mail delivery. Purolator, it turns out, does deliver to our little hamlet. Just not to us, because we are “out of town”.

What a pain in the butt!

Hopefully, I’ll actually be able to pick up that parcel on Monday.

At least I’ll have something better to pick up tomorrow.

I was wanting to make a trip to Costco to pick up some quality proteins, so we have more variety in our freezer. Well, I don’t have to do that anymore. At least not for meat. I had been buying pork from a homesteader that lives not for from us, who had been selling at one of the local summer markets. He wasn’t doing that at all last year, and we sorta lost touch. The last I spoke to him, we were talking about getting a half pig in the fall, but never got back about it. Then I saw him posting on a group we’re both on, about having whole chicken available.

Long story short, I’m going to be picking up a variety pack of pork and chicken, tomorrow.

We’re going to have to rearrange the chest freezer to make space! I don’t actually know what we’ll be getting. I just told him how much my budget was and asked him to surprise me with a mix of things to meet that amount. Since I’m picking it up tomorrow, I will finally have a chance to see their homestead! I’m quite looking forward to it. They’re doing a lot of things we’re still slowly building up to.

Meanwhile…

Still no word about the vehicle financing. I’ll have to send an email to see if I can get an answer, one way or the other, so we can just get on with things and start using the van again.

Tissue is still doing all right. She’s still not eating as much as I’d like to see, but she is eating and drinking. Giving her her medication this morning was amazing. She was sitting on my office chair, so I was just going to brace her while my daughter used the syringe to squirt the medication into her mouth. She got most of it in, with no fight at all, and when she moved to squirt the last little bit in, Tissue actually opened her mouth to take the syringe!!

We’ve tried to see her tongue wound. All I could make out was redness. She spends most of her time sleeping, and is currently burrowed under the covers on my bed. She still hisses at Marlee, Nosencrantz and Butterscotch. Much to my surprise, Nosencrantz mostly ignores her. She’s usually the Anxiety Bear, but right now, Marlee is the Anxiety Bear when it comes to Tissue. Butterscotch just sort of puts up with her to a certain point, then leaves. Tissue will even hiss at Cheddar and Leyendecker, when they come in, and they seem quite confused by her behaviour! I think mostly, she just wants out of the room!

Just a couple more days, and we can let her out, I think.

We shall see! She’s still clearly a bit rough around the edges, but it doesn’t seem to be bothering her much. Monitoring will continue!

The Re-Farmer

A Tissue update, and a bit of vehicle news

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But first, let us enjoy this handsome blepping boy!

While I’ve managed to touch him briefly in the past, for the most part he won’t let us near him.

Sadness!

No such sadness when it comes to Tissue!

She had a quiet night in baby jail, which was actually closed up, just to be on the safe side. I had it open for a while in the evening. Tissue really, really wants out of the room. She even managed to escape briefly, when my daughter came in, not knowing she was out. Interestingly, any cat that is in the room with her, or is allowed in, she will growl at – but when she ran out of the room and was surrounded by cats, she didn’t growl at any of them.

She definitely has a hoarse “voice” right now.

She has been eating, but not very much. I imagine her tongue and jaw must be quite uncomfortable. Which means she’s not using the litter much, either. But she has her favourite spot in baby jail that she hangs out in, though just as I started writing this paragraph, she started trying to open the door. I will let her out later, when I’m able to supervise her more closely.

She got her medication this morning, which should help with the pain and, hopefully, she’ll eat more. She’s on the pain meds for a total of 5 days. I don’t know how long she’ll need to be on soft food. It all depends on how well she heals. Overall, she is calm (except towards the other cats in the room) and allows us to pet her and hold her.

Well, that’s interesting. I decided to open the door to baby jail in between writing the above. She went out, popped into a cat cave, then went right back onto her favorite bed in baby jail! 😄 She just didn’t like having the door closed.

Fair enough!

In other news…

I got a call from the financing lady about the replacement vehicle. She had good news and bad news. The good news was that we were approved for financing. The bad news was, they wanted a deposit of $3,500, first.

That’s about 40% of the cost of the vehicle!

Obviously, we don’t have that.

As we were stalking, though, she mentioned a Nissan.

Nissan?

We were looking to buy a Ford Escape.

…

Well, it turns out she was sent information about 2 vehicles, and the wrong one was applied to our application! So she input the correct information, with a much lower price, but a higher mileage, and resubmitted them to the lenders. One, she could tell me as she was doing it that it would be rejected, simply because of the mileage, and it was. It was automatic. The other one she sent it to, they had no such restrictions.

That one was tentatively accepted, pending confirmation of banking information.

Considering it was past office hours by then, that was as far as things got.

So I am expecting a call with an answer, some time this morning. She’s been trying really hard to get this vehicle for us, and it’s really appreciated! Ours has been a very unusual application.

Until then, we continue to wait. At some point, I need to go pick up some parcels at the post office. I’ll leave that for the afternoon, when the post office reopens.

I hope to get the call before then! This hanging in limbo thing really sucks!

The Re-Farmer

Tissue is home!

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This is so totally amazing. Just look at her!

You wouldn’t even know she was injured!

Yesterday, the right side of her mouth and cheek were all red. They’d cleaned her up, so that was from being so swollen. Her front paws, as well.

While she has a hairline fracture in her jaw, the cut on her tongue is actually the worst injury. We’ll have to monitor it, in case it starts getting infected. If it does, we’ll probably smell it before we see it. We’ve got medication for her for the next five days, to be given with food, and she’s on soft food only for a while. We currently have her in baby jail, with the door closed, and Butterscotch has taken it over from Marlee. This way, we can also monitor her food.

She was completely calm during the ride home. We had to use my mother’s car again (still no word on the financing for the replacement vehicle, so the van is still prepped for trade in), and my daughter road in the back with her. She was able to open the door and hold her paws, while Tissue used her hand as a pillow.

*melt*

Currently, she’s behind me, growling at any cat she sees. Even Cheddar! It’ll take her some time to calm down.

Her bloodwork came back perfect. We will also keep an ear out for her lungs, because she was so frozen.

Speaking of which…

… this is where she got up into the engine compartment. The car was put together (car! ha! It’s a Nissan Armada. A perfect vehicle for our winters!!) enough that the Cat Lady was able to drive it, but she still didn’t have any heat. That will be fixed later. Somehow, Tissue squeezed her way up, basically into the fan belt, and got stuck. They could only see her tail. If they had tried to start the vehicle, the fan belt would have killed her. If they had tried to put it in neutral and push it into the garage, she would have been crushed. The only way to get her out was to dismantle the engine. By the time they got to her, she was unconscious from the cold. At the vet, they had to put stuff on her eyes to protect them, because they wouldn’t close or move.

The mechanics were amazed by the damage. When they first called the dealership garage, they thought the Cat Lady was talking about a squirrel stuck in there, because the space is so small. So was the space she first got into, by the muffler. That spot, where she would have been when they drove around, could not be seen. She would have been quite cozy in there, though it would have been a tight fit, and kept warm by the muffler while they were driving, but once the vehicle was off, that metal would have sucked the heat right out her. They asked about having the space blocked off, so no other animal could get in, but it’s there for a reason, and can’t be sealed off.

She was able to get out of that, at least. The space into the engine compartment was smaller, then once she got stuck, she just panicked and started destroying anything she could reach. As for the damage to the hoses, the mechanic said that was the sort of damage a racoon might make. That it was done by a cat was astonishing.

She did $3000 in damage to their vehicle.

When the cat lady paid the bill, I hear the receptionist saying it was something over $1,300.

I feel so bad. All this over what was supposed to be a cheap spay!

Meanwhile, as far as she knows, the Cat Lady is still scheduled for major surgery tomorrow. Whether is gets cancelled at the last minute, it’s still hard to say.

While at the veterinary hospital and talking to the staff about Tissue as they called up the billing information, they started talking about how much they were going to miss her. It seems she was very affectionate, and all over the staff. My daughter described her habit of spinning around while being pet, and they just started nodding; she was doing the same thing for them!

She’s acting like she’s got no injuries at all. The Cat Lady made sure to stay out of her sight as best she could, in case Tissue associates her with trauma now. She was calm in our carrier, the whole time. Not that she’d be able to break out of this one. It has clips to lift the top off, but since it has a door at the top, we never use them, so we added the screws to hold it together. Even if the clips get opened, that thing won’t come apart without a screwdriver.

Everyone is just amazed by her recovery. Especially the staff at the vet’s.

Now that Tissue is home, she’s here to stay! Adopting her out is now out of the question, as is taking her to be spayed.

No, she’s not out of the woods yet, but it’s mostly just observing her, and giving her tongue and jaw time to heal.

Under the circumstances, we couldn’t have gotten a better prognosis.

The Re-Farmer

Stunning news!

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I just spoke to the Cat Lady on the phone. She just finished talking to the vet.

Tissue is coming home today.

Not only did she survive the night, but she looks like she has only minor injuries. She might have a hairline fracture in her jaw, which only needs time (and soft food only) to heal.

The broken tooth is basically just a chip the vet says won’t bother her.

She has a cut on her tongue but again, that just needs time.

No broken bones.

No spinal injury.

Her back legs weren’t moving much mostly because she was so cold.

She did start to have crystals in her blood, but there is no damage visible.

The doctor is going to write up a report for other vets, about how they thawed her out.

She clearly isn’t happy there, and the vet wants her to come home to us, rather then go to the rescue for her recovery. He says we shouldn’t even try to have her spayed for at least 6 months. To which I say, forget it. We’re not getting her spayed at all.

We will get full instructions and any medications when we pick her up, late this afternoon, and bring her home. She will be on soft food, and in isolation in my office during her recovery. We’ll need to monitor her, of course, but she should make a full recovery.

This, just 12 hours from being at death’s door.

The best possible prognosis we could have expected. The vet is absolutely stunned.

Thank God!

The Re-Farmer