So… this is what we have to entertain us when we’re using the bathroom.
The nice thing is that, while we are at -22C/-8F outside, the thermometer in the sun room was reading 0C/32F at the time I took this photo.
In other things, we got an email from the financing company about the Caravan. For proof of income, I’d sent a copy of the annual letter my husband gets from Sun Life, confirming our payments for the year, but for CPP Disability, all I had to sent them was a pdf of our automatic payments into our joint bank account. As of yesterday, the lady with the financing company thought everything looked fine.
Well, almost.
The pdf I sent was for only 60 days. The lender requested one for 3 months.
So I sent them in a 90 day statement. I even thought of doing that from the start, but they were asking for pay stubs as proof of income, so I was just hoping a bank statement would be good enough. Ah, well.
Considering the time right now, I figure if we’re going to hear anything either way, it’ll be tomorrow at the earliest.
Once again, I’m really REALLY hoping this pans out. I had to make a quick run into town today and, once again, the van did NOT want to start. For all its problems, though, I’m more comfortable driving the van in this cold, then my mother’s car.
We’re looking at going into the city for our first big stock up shopping trip for March, on Friday – the day after tomorrow. Which would be a van trip, due to the sheer volume and weight of such a trip being too much for my mother’s little car. It would be so awesome to be able to make the trip in the replacement vehicle, and not worry about whether or not our van will start!
My goodness, where did the day go? I just realized it’s past 6pm, but it feels like it should be 2pm. This, even though I ended up doing the rest of our monthly stock-up shopping today.
The mamas were out in full force when I came out to do my rounds this morning – and so was Sad Face! I just had to try for a picture of him on the shrine. I couldn’t get any closer, as he runs off. Which I’m good with, because he has been beating up Potato Beetle and The Distinguished Guest a lot!
He is, however, waiting his turn for the food, letting Rosencrantz eat her fill, first!
It’s entirely possible she’s pregnant with his kittens.
Before coming in from my rounds, I paused to get eaten alive by mosquitoes while picking the rest of the garlic scapes in the main garden. There are only a couple that weren’t ready to pick. Looking forward to using them!
With the other garlic so far behind, we should have more scapes to harvest in about a month or so. A bonus to that garlic coming up so late!
While I was putting food out for the cats and the birds, Potato Beetle appeared in the sun room, enjoying his very own private breakfast. When I was leaving to do the shopping, I found him like this.
Awwww… So cute!
He’s still really skinny again, so I hope he stays around long enough to put some meat back on those bones. And with both Sad Face and The Distinguished Guest prowling around, I’m much more comfortable with him safe in the sun room!
The last of our stock-up shopping for the month was a Walmart trip this time. Partly because I finally wore out my last pair of jeans and needed to get new ones.
Very little of what I needed to get was food times. I got four 7kg bags of kibble; hopefully, we now have enough to last the month. With the skunks and the racoons also eating the kibble, I’ve taken to setting out less kibble, more often. Hopefully, the cats will get more of it that way, and the kibble will last longer.
We needed to stock up more on paper products, in non-Costco sizes. We’re slowly building up an inventory of non-perishable products, with a goal of having at least a 3 month supply by winter. That way, if we get snowed in, or vehicles break down – or if we get another spring of flooding and washed out roads – we will be set. We need to be doing that with cat kibble, too, but with how many big bags we need just for 1 month, stocking up extra is much more difficult!
The brand of bug spray I bought last time didn’t seem to work well at all. During the cookout, we all used it liberally, but the mosquitoes were practically mainlining the stuff instead of being repelled by it. I was able to find the brand that we find works best and bought a couple of cans – along with more AfterBite!
Finding a new pair of jeans was annoying. I tried on a couple of pairs and found ones that fit – on the upper body. Unfortunately, it seems the popular style is skinny leg jeans. The only reason I could get them on my calves at all was because the fabric was part Spandex. Went through rack after rack before finally finding one style that were regular cut on the legs. Thankfully, they had some in my size, too.
It shouldn’t be this hard to find clothes that fit! Honestly, I think the next time I need to get a pair of pants, I should just go to the men’s department. At least if they’re too long, I can get my daughter to hem them for me or something.
I did have a small splurge today. Nosencrantz and Butterscotch still refuse to leave my office. I have a scratch board for them that they completely ignore. Nozencrantz has been using my office chair as a scratch post. Usually, we get the scratch pads made out of corrugated cardboard, and I was originally going to get two of them, but I found a cheap little cat tower that I got instead of a second scratch pad. Hopefully, they will figure out how to use that, instead of my constantly having to stop them from clawing either my chair, or the carpet!
Well, that didn’t take long! As soon as there was a space while unpacking the shopping, Tissue jumped right in!
I gave the cardboard scratch pad to the other cats, but kept aside the cat nip that came with it. After assembling the new little cat tower, I put cat nip all over it, and on the other scratch board they’ve been ignoring, then gave the last of the cat nip to the other cats. Which is always hilarious.
Butterscotch and Nosencrantz seemed happy enough with the cat nip, and mildly curious about the little scratch tower. Then Cheddar wanted in and discovered the tower. It’s barely taller than he is! It has a curved portion with a “comb” under it for cats to rub up against, and I’m not sure he can even fit through it, but he was certainly enjoying the hanging toy and bell, while going into a cat-nip fueled frenzy over the thing. Nosencrantz just sat on a nearby foot stool, looking at Cheddar like he was crazy!
Well. He was a bit high on catnip, so I guess in a way, he was!
They’re all sleeping it off on my bed right now.
I still don’t know if they’ve figured out they can scratch at that thing, yet.
When I next went into the dining room, I found cats splayed all over the place, in a stupor, with Susan all curled up on the cardboard scratch pad (which got its own catnip application), taking a nap!
Aside from the regular monthly shopping, my husband asked if I could get some prices for dimensional lumber, so I stopped at a hardware store on my way home. It’s in the town my mother lives in, and I know they deliver. After getting the prices, I remembered to pick up some new clothes line to replace what broke this spring. I hope 100 feet will be enough. I also got proper clothesline spreader. Two of them, actually. There’s a lot of distance between the poles! I’d been using S hooks, and they don’t slide very well.
When I headed into the city, I drove into a deluge of rain, and by the time I got home, the rain had reached our place. Enough that we have water all over, again. I’m not complaining, though. It means the garden doesn’t need to be watered, and it’s not so much that things are drowning again.
One of the things I was able to get done yesterday was finally prune away some large branches from the ornamental apple trees in the old kitchen garden. Where we have the bunching onions planted is not doing well, and drying out faster, because of the thick mat of interlocking branches above. There was one large branch from each tree that I wanted to take out but, once those were down, it uncovered a whole lot of dead branches. By the time I got that all cut away and cleared out, it was looking much more open and bright at the end of the garden. Which means the retaining wall blocks and the bed along them all got today’s rain better, too!
Oh, my goodness! I am so happy!
Just moments ago, I had to stop Nosencrantz from scratching at my chair again. She left – and then I heard her using the new scratch post directly behind me! She’s figured it out!!! Yay!
Okay, time for me to get my butt back outside and do my evening rounds.
Because even though it still feels like it should be the afternoon, it is well into the evening right now!
I have started to leave my door open during the day, in hopes the cats will start getting along with Butterscotch and Nosencrantz. If nothing else, they are just too hot to fight!
Cheddar always steals my butt spot. Turmeric joined him. They are such a matched set! Cheddar is about 3 times her weight, though. 😁. Turmeric is such a tiny thing, and Cheddar is a burly beast.
Turmeric is the one that has been the most dedicated to going after Nosencrantz. We have no idea why. Meanwhile, she gets along so well with Cheddar. Of course, Cheddar gets along with all the cats. He’s a special one!
On a completely different topic, my keyboard woes just got worse this morning. Out of the blue, while I was in the middle of doing stuff on the computer, I suddenly lost use of the y u i o keys. I ended up making drafts of posts with just the images I want to use in them, and am now using my phone to complete them.
I really dislike using a touch screen! But, hey. Whatever works!
We’ll be getting an identical replacement ergonomic keyboard as soon as pay comes it, since I can’t seem to be able to use any other type right now. Meanwhile, I tried cleaning the keyboard. Pulled out a small animal’s worth of cat hair. Made no difference.
My younger daughter snagged Nosencrantz and ended up sitting on the couch for a long time, just holding her. Nosencrantz even fell asleep. For a while, she had Fenrir (!!!) on her lap as well, with no fighting happening, and Cheddar on the armrest.
Cheddar then slithered down beside her, and began snuzzling Nozencrantz, who seemed quite alarmed by this.
Clearly, she got over it.
They’re still like this, as I am writing.
This is some major progress. Being out of my room AND cuddling with another cat!
Ginger and Turmeric were so cute, making sure I couldn’t get at my pajamas last night. 😀
As I write this, Turmeric is at the corner of my bed STARING at Nosencrantz in her cubby hole behind my nightstand. Not in a friendly way, either. 😦
We are still closing Nosencrantz and Butterscotch up with me for the night. That’s when they come out and relax, eat and drink, use the litter box (I think I finally got that set up so Nosencrantz will actually use it, and not crap on the carpet!), and even play. Butterscotch is then more than content to return to her bed in my shelf, but I now wake up to find Nosencrantz sleeping next to me.
This morning, I rolled over and stretched my arm out, so she slithered over, putting her head in my hand for skritches, then began to roll around, luxuriously.
Rolling herself right off the edge of the bed, with a thud!!!
Poor thing!
She didn’t come back.
Later, I found her on the window sill, possibly watching deer. When I opened the door to go to the washroom, cats immediately began pouring in, faster than I could stop them, so I just let it be.
Nosencrantz was not happy.
This is her partially in her “I’m so cute, please don’t hurt me!” position. She curls her head right down and sideways, looking up at whatever it is she’s viewing as a threat at the moment.
Which was this, at the time.
For some reason, Fenrir does NOT like Nosencrantz, but at least she was just sitting in one of her favourite spots on my shelf and just watching, not going after her.
Turmeric is another one that actively dislikes Nosencrantz (though, to be honest, she can be a real b*** to other cats as well. Much like her mother! LOL). Turmeric was sitting on top of my jewelry box, which the cats use as a step to get onto the windowsill from my vanity, staring at Nosencrantz from one side, while Fenrir was glaring at her from the other.
I did actually pick up Nosencrantz to move her away from the cats, but she jumped out of my arms and right back to the windowsill, so I let her be.
As much as I will miss Nosencrantz when she is adopted out, I think she really needs to be in a home with fewer cats. Or no other cats at all. She seems to prefer human company.
Which we don’t mind giving her at all! She’s such a soft, round potato of a cat, and incredibly placid when you pick her up. Like a Ragdoll, she just droops. She will make some lucky human a very lovely companion.
This morning was warm and sunny enough that my husband set up the cats’ favourite perch. He opened the inner door in the dining room and set up the little folding step ladder, so they can bird watch out the window of the outer door.
It immediately got claimed by the two biggest boys.
That’s Layendecker and Cheddar. What a matched set those two are! Their sizes and shapes are so alike, if they weren’t wildly different colours, we’d have a hard time telling them apart.
Then there’s tiny little Turmeric underneath, having tried repeatedly to get up on the ladder with them, but unable to squeeze in.
The size differences are almost disorienting. Cheddar is just this huge, Costco-sized block of cheese. Then there’s his waif of a baby sister.
They’re a year apart in age, but Layendecker (who spends most of his days upstairs) matches Cheddar in size, and he’s Turmeric’s litter mate. They both started out really small, too.
Also, they are both Beep Beep babies, almost exactly a year apart in age. Turmeric is getting cuddled by her big brother. Sometimes, we see them in a pile together with their mom, too. 🙂
I’ve made a post that’s now pinned to the top of the main page on this blog, while we’ve got a fundraiser going for the Cat Lady. I got a call from her while I was outside this morning and got some other news.
With her new cat rescue organization started, she had an interview with a community paper. Not one we get in our area, though. Anyhow; she wanted to let me know about it, because they had asked a lot of questions about Cabbages’ history. She assured me she was careful and tactful about it, to respect our privacy, but also used our situation to illustrate the need for affordable spay and neuter programs in rural areas. Which I greatly appreciated.
She also expects to be able to take another cat to the vet she has worked an arrangement out with. It sounds like it will be one at a time, at first. It will be Turmeric. She has Saffron and Nicco listed on her new website, and has noted that Saffron’s sister will soon be available for adoption, too. She was asking me about keeping Saffron and Turmeric together or not. Saffron is apparently the most chill and adaptable cat she’s ever worked with. Nicco has been getting along well, too, but there doesn’t seem to be any bond between her and Saffron. Which doesn’t surprise me. Nicco never really had a chance to bond with any of the other cats here, as she was on the bottom of the pecking order here. I think she will be much happier somewhere with much fewer other animals around! The Cat Lady will contact us again when she has timing worked out between the vet and the foster families.
Speaking of bonding…
Check this out!
Nosencrantz joined a cuddle pile!!!
She was snuggled right up to David’s butt.
A lot of the cats like to snuggle up to David. 😀
This is HUGE, because Turmeric and Beep Beep are right there, and they tend to hiss at Nosencrantz pretty regularly. They hiss at the other cats, too, but as the new kit on the block, Nosencrantz hasn’t learned to just roll with it, yet.
There was another cuddle pile happening.
It involved me.
Fenrir decided to snuggle into my arms and take a nap on my chest while I was at the computer earlier.
This is Fenrir being all sweet and cuddly.
Yeah. She always has that “murder” look in her eyes.