Critters

A good day to burn things

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We’re still having slightly above average highs lately. It’s been quite nice!

The outside cats think so, too.

I counted 21 this morning. I also found both heated water bowls completely dry, which hasn’t happened in quite a while! We had some very thirsty cats, this morning!

The tabby in the above picture is from the oldest litter, and one of the shiest cat, so it’s rare to get a decent photo of it. I love that pattern on the sides of its nose, the way the black lines are split, and those black, black lips.

The little one drinking water lets us pet him. I’ve even been able to pick him up and give him a cuddle! He’s one of two of that seem to be staying really, really small.

We had a pretty quiet day. Because it’s so nice out, my daughters got the fire pit going, getting rid of the clean burnable garbage in the process, then having themselves a cook out.

My younger daughter has been working really hard on cleaning up the new part basement. My “work shop” is down there, where I was hoping to be able to regularly do wood carving, but it’s gotten increasingly painful for me to navigate the stairs. That basement is where most of the litter boxes are, and most of the food bowls. Unfortunately, the cats have been making a mess down there, including peeing all over the work table. My daughter has been cleaning that up and even taking apart the table – which is basically a sheet of plywood laid on top of some legs, but not attached – and sanitizing all sorts of things. She brought up a bunch of burnable garbage, so today I took that to the burn ring (the burn barrel is no longer useable and needs to be replaced), to get a fire going and get rid of the accumulating wood pellet litter. I was even able to dig one of the old, rotten pallets from the junk pile out of the snow and get that burning. The sawdust from the pellet litter takes a while to smolder away, so I like to get a decent amount of wood burnt down to coals, then cover the whole thing with a sheet of metal, leaving a small gap for the air to get in, and letting it smolder. It can take several days before the sawdust finally smolders itself away.

I got that to the smoldering stage at about the same time the girls were finishing up at the fire pit. We’ve been keeping clean wood, such as maple and non-diseased apple branches, stacked between the tall stumps of three dead trees I took down, our first year here. We’ve been making a point of using it up lately, as some of it is getting pretty old and starting to decompose – we’ve had various levels of fire bans our first four summers here, so last summer was the first time we got to use the fire pit for any decent amount! As we were packing up their chairs and cook out supplies, they told me they’d been talking about building an actual firewood shelter. Those three tree stumps have been so handy to hold the fire wood, they were thinking we could keep using those, and just put some sort of roof over them, instead of the scrap sheet of fibreglass we’re currently using. We don’t want to build anything too elaborate, since we’re planning to build an outdoor kitchen in a different area – one that doesn’t have overhanging branches or trees nearby! – that will incorporate the fire pit, too. That might take a while, so slapping together something for firewood by the current firepit certainly won’t be a waste of effort.

Between the fire pit and the burn barrel, we spent several hours outside, burning things! It was perfect weather to do it. We’ve got maybe another week of these milder temperatures before we’re supposed to start getting below average highs, which will probably continue into February. Nothing extreme – it looks like Western Canada is going to be hit with extreme cold again, but by the time the system reaches us, it won’t be as severe. Of course, the different weather sources give different forecasts, and one of them is still saying we’ll have above average highs for most of February.

I’m happy, either way. After the extreme cold we had the past few winters, this is really, really appreciated. Not to mention easier on the vehicles. I wish I could say it was easier on the heat bills, but the rates keep going up, so we’re paying more with our equal payment plan now then ever. 🙁 Ah, well. I’ll take what we can get!

The Re-Farmer

Accepted… sort of

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Oh, look! I got a picture of Ginger!

Ginger has become accepted as one of the few cats Nosencrantz, Butterscotch and Marlee, will accept in the room with them. Almost. Nosencrantz will still hiss and run off. Butterscotch ignores him and keeps her distance. Marlee will sometimes hiss at him and block his way when he tried to go for the door. He’s more intimidated by her, than she is of him! Overall, though, we’re able to let him into the room to enjoy a nice soft bed to nap on – and an extra feeding of wet cat food in the evenings. Better than having him trying to hop down the stairs to join the other cats at feeding time in the basement! Even if he’s not in my office, the girls will make sure to bring up some wet cat food for him, after feeding the cats downstairs, so he doesn’t have to push his way through other cats to get some.

I think he’s quite appreciating the special privileges he’s getting!

Yeah. We love spoiling him!

The Re-Farmer

Can you tell?

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Where the warm spot is?

There were actually four cats squeezed onto the warm spot above the heat bulb, but two of them were Pointy Baby and Gooby, who decided to climb me when I stopped to take a picture.

Do you know how hard it is to line up a shot while a cat is manically trying to lick your nose?

The Re-Farmer

Streeeeetttccchhhh!!!

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Would you look at this lady!

I caught her, mid stretch!

Marlee has been doing quite well. I’m starting to find her sleeping in my bed more often – even with other cats on the bed! When I took this photo, there were four other cats sleeping on the bed.

She’s been hissing and growling at the other cats less often, and showing more interest in actually leaving the room – though she is very nervous about it! At some point, she snuck out of the room while I was sleepily making my way to the bathroom. I had no idea she was gone until one of my daughters messaged me to let me know her sister had found Marlee, sitting in a loaf, on the bath mat. Being half asleep herself at the time, and without glasses, she was thoroughly confused by the sight of a “strange” cat in the bathroom. She returned Marlee to my room, and I never heard a thing!

Usually, though, she’ll sit politely by the door, looking at me, but when I go to open it, she starts spinning around. There is usually at least one cat outside the door when I open it, and that’s often enough for her to change her mind about going out. Sometimes, she’ll run out, do a quick explore, see too many other cats, and run back in.

Still, that’s more than Butterscotch and Nosencrantz have been doing!

Potato Beetle, meanwhile, has settled right in like he’s been in the house forever. He has especially taken to my husband, and will often settle on his chest and go for a nap. Keith used to do that, to the point that when a cat did that, we’d say “I’ve just been Keith’d!” My husband misses Keith, and is quite enjoying being Keith’d by Potato Beetle. 💛

The Re-Farmer

Fuzzy

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I counted 18 cats while doing their kibble and warm water this morning.

Look who was amendable to pets today!

While resizing the picture before uploading it, for a moment, I thought there was some sort of digital goof at his back end.

Nope.

The black fur with the white snow behind it is giving an excellent view of both his undercoat and overcoat of fur! It’s really quite remarkable how thick that undercoat gets in winter.

And look! There’s a tiny little face peeking up at me through the window!

Have I mentioned, I’m a suck for the cats?

Pretty sure I have. 😉

The Re-Farmer

Well, that opens up our day

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But first, the cuties!

How many cats do you see?

There’s actually five. It’s hard to see, but there are three cats along the bottom of the window. When I took the picture, I could see the one on the far left moving around. It wasn’t until I uploaded the picture to my desktop and used the auto photo fix to see if it would be any clearer, that I spotted the one way in the back!

It feels so strange to look out our bathroom window and see only a couple of cats on the swing bench, instead of dozen or more. In fact, yesterday I actually looked out once and saw NO cats in there at all! The cats are definitely enjoying the relatively mild temperatures, and using the cat house instead of the sun room. This morning, I counted only seventeen cats, and only two of those were adults. Junk Pile and Caramel. I still can’t get near Junk Pile but, every now and then, I’ve managed to sneak a quick pet on Caramel, while she’s on the cat house roof.

She doesn’t like that, though.

In other things, my husband and I were supposed to be out today. Last month, we had consecutive appointments with our doctor (having the same doctor saves a lot of time and travel!) that got rescheduled to today. Just a little while ago, we got a call from the clinic. A very apologetic receptionist was calling to reschedule us again! She was able to book us for the earliest appointment she could find next week, though, so at least we won’t have more than a month to wait!

So that opens up my day. A trip to the doctor is about 40 minutes on the highway, plus town driving and usually a stop at the gas station along the way, too. We like to arrive early which, at this clinic, often meant actually getting in to see the doctor early. They’re good about that. We’re both going to be getting our regular blood tests done. Lab and X-ray is right there, so what usually happens is, my husband and I go in together for his appointment (I’m there to keep him honest! LOL He has a terrible habit of making light of what he’s going through, which is not a good thing to do with the doctor), then he goes to do his more extensive lab work while I have my appointment. Then I get my lab work done, which tends to be much faster. This way, we get home as quickly as possible, with the least amount of time for my husband painfully sitting in the waiting room.

Between the driving and the appointments, adjusting to make it as comfortable and least painful for my husband, it takes up quite a bit of time, and most of that time is spent driving “gently”. He feels every little bump and vibration, painfully, so I am a lot more careful about things like how quickly I accelerate or decelerate, taking turns, etc.

Gosh. Now I have a whole day freed up! What shall I do with myself?

I guess I ought to clean out the litter boxes in my office I’d asked the girls to do while we were gone.

🤨

The Re-Farmer

Smol!

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Why are you so smol???

Would you believe this kitten is about 7 or 8 months old? It’s from the same litter as Walnut (who is now named Peanut!) At this age, it would be at pretty much adult size. That second litter of white and greys are all much smaller cats, but this little boy is the tiniest!

With the warmer temperatures, we’re seeing a lot less of the cats. When checking the sunroom through the bathroom window, we no longer see the swing bench covered in kittens. Now, we are seeing only two are three at a time, and none wandering around. I am seeing them inside the cat house more often, when I come out with the kibble. Head counts have been as low as “only” 14 cats at a time, and they are eating so much less kibbled, I’ve started to feed them only once a day instead of twice, and there’s still lots of kibble left in the trays and bowls in the morning.

On the one hand, this is a good thing. The milder temperatures are less dangerous for them, and we’re going through less kibble. On the other hand, if they’re wandering around more, they’re more at risk from predators, and the females are more likely to go into heat earlier. With the Cat Lady going through major health issues right now, trapping the more feral females for spaying might not happen as originally planned. 🙁 Ah, well. We’ll deal!

The Re-Farmer

There’s a reason…

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… we call this one, Gooby.

He’s always got leaky eyes and a stuffy nose!

Yes, they’re all getting lysine. While it helps them fight off the respiratory infections and recover faster, it doesn’t stop them from still getting stuffy noses and coughing. They probably won’t recover fully until spring.

The Re-Farmer

This and that

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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!)