errands

A much longer day than expected

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

First up, the cuteness. I actually got this photo, yesterday. I wanted to get a good photo of Kohl for the rescue, as they will be taking her in and getting her ready for adoption, later this month.

What a gorgeous lady!

Also, in giving her a cuddle, I found that the fur on her chest is so matted, it’s like an armored breastplate! That’s on top of the mats I have also been finding when petting her back.

Whoever adopts the beautiful Kohl is going to have to help her take care of the glorious coat! Hopefully, she will discover she likes being brushed. Unlike David. It’s been years, his fur mats like crazy, and he HATES being brushed. Currently, he has a bald spot because the only way I could get a big mat out was to take the clippers to it!

Since I was going to my mother’s today to do her errands, we went over what we missed picking up during our stock up trips, so see whether I’d be going to town, or to the nearest Walmart. The list had a few things on it that made going to Walmart worth the gas. My younger daughter ended up coming along, with a shopping list from her sister. My older daughter has had her annual pre-Christmas special for quick commissions and has been plowing her way through them for the past while.

I wanted to get to my mother’s early enough that we could get her list and be doing her shopping when her Meals on Wheels arrives, and she can have a peaceful lunch. Even with extra trips to the post office and pharmacy before doing her groceries, it was a really fast trip.

While at the grocery store, though, I spotted some sales and ended up asking my daughter to grab another cart for our own shopping, even though we were going to Walmart. Every now and then, this grocery store has prices better than any of the city stores on some things.

That done, we were back and my mother’s, just as she was finishing her Meals on Wheels. My daughter and I put her things away and did a few other things she needed. I was trying to be efficient about things, which came across as being in a hurry, which my mother wasn’t happy about. I’d told her we were doing to do our own errands after, so that we couldn’t have to make another trip, just to avoid driving as much as possible. She wasn’t happy about that, even though she did get it, as I explained it to her, but she started to grill me about if I had an appointment that we were rushing off to, and what was it we needed to do?

If I were asking her those same questions, she’d be telling me it was none of my business. 😄

I told her, we just needed to go to Walmart, but wanted to get it done earlier, so it wouldn’t be dark when we were driving home – and it gets dark really early right now! (Sunset today was 4:23pm).

Then she started asking if I could do her laundry (Friday is her laundry day, and I did just tell her we needed to do our own errands…). I told her I didn’t have time for it today, but my sister is supposed to be coming out this week, so maybe she could do it? My mother just sort of scoffed, so now I wonder what terrible laundry crime my sister committed. My mother had been very happy to tell me that my sister had done her laundry for her, in the past! My brother had come out this weekend and done stuff for her, including the sweeping, so there wasn’t much left for us to take care of, but she mentioned that she’d like someone to mop her floors some time before Christmas. So I ended up making a calendar date to come back on Friday to do her laundry and her floors, unless my sister manages to do them when she comes out before then. Unfortunately, while we’re supposed to be slightly milder over the next few days, we’re supposed to have a hard temperature drop, starting on Friday.

Yet, Tuesday, a week from now, we’re supposed to hit a high of 1C/34F!! That’s in the 10 day forecast. In the monthly forecast, it says to expect a high of 3C/37F. Christmas day is now expected to be -2C/28F, then the next two days are supposed to be 0C/32F!

That’s in between expected highs down to -22C/-8F and expected overnight lows down to -32C/-27F.

Those sorts of temperature swings will absolutely destroy our roads.

We’ll see what actually happens.

Overall, the visit with my mother went well, and she seemed actually happy to see my daughter. No snarky comments about her PCOS beard, but instead complimented her on her beautiful and very curly hair. She definitely takes after her dad when it comes to hair!

From there, we made a quick stop for gas – prices have dropped to $1.149 right now – then headed to the nearer city and their little Walmart. At first, the reduced visibility in the distance was fog, but it wasn’t long before it turned into snow. I’m really glad we headed out when we did. By the time we finished our errands and had loaded up the truck, I caught an update on the weather group I follow. Parts of the TransCanada highway had just been shut down. As we were driving home, the visibility from blowing snow got really bad at times. Thankfully, we seemed to have driven through the system before the final stretch home. Taking advantage of going to my mother’s today means we don’t need to make any other trips for some time, other than my newly scheduled trip to my mother’s on Friday.

Looking at the weather radar after I got home, I could see the huge system that is sweeping across Canada and the US. The US seems to be getting the brunt of the system, though as I check again, things seem to have already improved – most of the swaths that were listed as “extreme conditions” are now mostly “severe” and “moderate” for snow. The bulk of the system looks like it’s missing us entirely, so what we’re getting now, and through tomorrow, is just the blustery edges of it.

With the extra errands for ourselves after doing my mother’s errands, we were gone several hours longer than typical. Which means that I haven’t even started my next garden analysis post. This morning’s post took hours of going back over old blog posts, photos and videos, and remembering how things did. I’m pretty tired and will probably head to bed early, and save working on the next one for tomorrow instead of tonight. I had a very interrupted night night, and am just too foggy to try and analyze anything right now. It’s just past 6pm as I write this, and I’m already fighting the urge to go to bed right now!

So, there will be a break in my garden analysis series.

Until then, I hope you all have a good and restful night!

The Re-Farmer

Planned and unplanned outings, and sooo many kittens!

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

The morning started out as usual, with the feeding of the yard cats and my morning rounds.

Oddly, I seem to be seeing fewer kittens? I think? Meaning the littles that have been showing up in the past couple of weeks. They tend to hide so quickly, I’m not sure, but it just feels like there are fewer of them. The older kittens are still around, but I just can’t get a handle on how many littles there are.

Even though I’d picked up another 9kg back of kibble for the outside cats recently, we were already running out. I was already scheduled to pick up my mother’s bubble packs and do her grocery shopping today, so I decided I would keep going from her place and hit the Walmart. Plus, my husband is having issues with his cracked tooth that won’t be worked on until the middle of next month. So I wanted to pick up foods that were safer for him to eat.

My younger daughter was able to come along with me, which was nice.

My brother, SIL and their older grandson were staying in their trailer this weekend and were going to be heading back to the city soon after I needed to head out, so we made a quick hello and goodbye visit. My great-nephew will be heading home next weekend, before school starts, so I wanted to make sure we got our hugs in!

My daughter and I got to my mother’s town early enough that the pharmacy wasn’t open yet – but the gas station with the best fried chicken and wedges in town had their chicken ready – so we picked up a meal for my mother boxed up separately, then got some for ourselves to eat in the truck. The truck’s seats are more comfortable than the chairs and tables they have in the station. 😄

We still got to the pharmacy just minutes after it opened. My mother’s bubble packs were ready, and most of it was covered this time, so I had very little to pay for it this time. I’m glad I made sure to pick them up today. When I put them in my mother’s lock box, I checked what was there. She had only enough for this evening, plus tomorrow morning. The pharmacy’s records show she should have had enough to last until Wednesday. However, with so many messed up times with her meds, and her abusive behaviour towards the home care aids for not using the partial packs of meds because they were the wrong days, etc., I have taken a few old partial packs back to the pharmacy. They were required to dispose of the meds, which I haven’t mentioned to my mother, or she’d blow a gasket, but it was that or have her constantly harassing the care aids about them. I’ll have to call the pharmacy tomorrow and talk to them about that. They do the bubble packs on the weekends, and that’s cutting it really close for my mother at this point. Better to have her meds prepared earlier. Normally, she would have had them delivered, but that leaves her medications outside the lock box, and she’s already tried hiding a week’s worth of meds away because she doesn’t trust the home care aids.

When we got to my mother’s, it was still not much past noon. Mass was still going on in the church across the street, but I was able to find parking. I wasn’t sure if my mother would have had the energy to make it to church or not, but thought it was unlikely.

I was right. My mother was home and praying the rosary, with her table all set up in preparation for when someone from the church would come by with communion for her. The interruption of us coming when we did messed her up a bit. Which I totally get. When I’m right into something and get interrupted, the mental shift can actually be physically painful.

My brother had given me a new drip pan specifically for my mother’s model of stove, to replace one she has that is completely rusted out for some reason, so I popped that in for her while she got out her shopping list. It was really short this time! We went over it and I asked a few questions, but she said she was well supplied with everything I remembered to ask about.

She was happy to see my daughter, though, and didn’t make any of her usual rude comments, which was nice.

She told us to take our time because she didn’t want to be interrupted when the guy came with communion, but her list was so short, we were back just as church was letting out. My mother was once again thrown by us coming in when we did. I told her that people were just starting to leave church, so we were quick about putting everything away, and making sure her mild carton was opened for her (the local grocery store no longer has 2L milk in plastic jugs, just cartons, and with my mother’s hands, it’s a real struggle to open a carton). My mother was a bit upset about the rush. She had been expecting me to come later, and had been looking forward to being able to “talk for hours and hours”… ??? Especially since my daughter was with me. So she said, no more Sundays for grocery shopping! Which is fine, but I was there today, on a Sunday, so that she could get her medications before running out!

We were in and out quickly, though, and soon on the road to the Walmart. I didn’t take a photo, but it totaled almost $200. Ouch! We got two 9kg bags of kibble, and a package of XXL (30″x30″) puppy pads, plus some on sale TP. Peanut butter, bananas and bread for my husband at times when no one is available to cook for him, and hot dog wieners/hoagies for times when there is someone to cook for him. He can’t chew “real” meat right now, no matter how tender! We got some water flavour packages for him as well. We remembered to grab a couple of containers of popcorn seasoning, and found a charging cable for my daughter’s older phone with a micro-USB port. After that, it was some cheese mini-croissants to snack on for the ride home, and some $1 chocolate bars for each of us as a treat.

I keep thinking I’m forgetting something, but nope. That list is all it took, to cost almost $200.

Once we got home, it was late enough that, while my daughter put away everything else, I refilled the kibble bin and did the evening cat feeding.

Which brings me to the cuteness!

I’ll actually start with a couple of pictures I got, yesterday.

First, there was this cuddle puddle!

Can you spot the Little in there? One of them has figured out how to climb up to the platform and discovered the cat beds up there. Here, it’s being snuggled by Eyelet on the left, and The Grink on the right.

Can you believe The Grink is about 2 years old? He’s barely bigger than Eyelet!

Then there were this two.

That black kitten was absolutely snuzzling its face into the tabby. This cat bed is in the back of the water bowl shelter.

When opening the door into the sun room to do this morning’s feeding, I found a while pile of kittens – large and small! – waiting right under the threshold, making it very difficult to step through! I need to be careful, as Sir Robin in particular REALLY wants to be inside. He managed to sneak into the house while my older daughter and I were bringing the cured garlic in, after covering the eggplant for the night, and my daughter found him in the kitchen!

Most of the kittens scatter as I step through, but one kitten didn’t. It stayed loafed and moved its head around, as if confused.

It turned out its eyes were stuck shut, so it had no idea what was going on around it!

I finished putting the food out but, when I got back to the sun room, I couldn’t see the stuck eyed kitten. I finished my rounds and tried looking again before heading inside. That’s when I spotted a little white kitten bum through the opening of the new cat cave.

It’s a bit difficult to get close, since it’s in a shelf, and I need to step around food trays and the little plant stand that’s there for the cats to use to get to the platform. I was able to reach in and felt a couple of kittens in there, but managed to get the white butted kitten. Once I got it out, I could confirm it was the one with the stuck eyes. It wasn’t happy, but I was able to get it to the bathroom and into the bathtub to chill a bit, while I ran the hot water in the sink while getting something to wipe its eyes with.

The kitten wasn’t happy about being picked up again, but stopped fighting me once I started washing its eyes. Once both eyes were cleared, it just started up at me for a while. This kitten is mostly white with grey “eyebrows”, like Button, Eyelet and Grommet – but where Button and Eyelet have blue eyes, and Grommet has yellowish eyes, this one has really dark eyes!

Once done, I took it back to the sun room and tucked it back into the cat cave. Then I used my phone’s camera to take a picture and see who else was in there.

Wow!

There were AT LEAST six kittens in there! Including another one that could have used an eye wash. It’s amazing I was able to grab the right kitten right from the start!

That little tabby with white in the foreground… he always looks so furious! 😄

As we were getting ready to head out, I went to open the gate first and spotted this adorableness, under the truck.

This is the garage kitten that will sometimes let me pet him and pick him up.

Still no such progress with his sibling (I’m about 98% sure the smokey one is a female).

Yes, we ALWAYS check the truck before starting it and driving.

After we got back from errands and the evening feeding was done, I did my evening rounds. As I was heading in, I spotted Lady Hypotenose on top of the cat cage… and what was that not far from her?

Oh! Hello!

My goodness, these two have such thick, thick black eyeliner!

Then there was the platform kitten, no longer in a cuddle puddle. I just had to get a picture.

It has claimed that bed for its own!

Last of all, I’ve got two pictures of this adorableness. The second one was taken yesterday.

We already have a cat we call Ink, because she looks like she got into a pot of ink with her mouth and paws. This one also looks like it got into some ink.

We’re debating whether to call it Spot or Blot.

What do you think?

I did try to do a head count of the littles this morning, and I think I counted twelve but, as I mentioned earlier, I’m pretty sure some are “missing”. Especially the ones that showed up in the junk pile by the chain link fence, instead of the sun room or cat shelters by the house. It could be that they’ve been moved on by their mothers, or they simply didn’t happen to be out while I was putting the food out.

The next few weeks will be ones to keep an eye on them. This is the stage where, if they are going to get hit with the local variant of herpes, now will be it. That’s the ones with the leaky eyes, and that’s what did in Kale and, I’m sure, Zipper. This year, though, not all the kittens got it. Poirot’s babies have had zero issues, nor have the outer yard kittens that started out coming to the shrine feeding station (they are now willing to go right into the sun room!). The garage kittens have shown no sign if it, either. It looks like some of the littles are resistant.

From what the Cat Lady told me, that would be because of the lysine we’ve been adding to their food for the past year or two. For the cats that are already struggling with the virus, I’m told it’s “lysine for life”, and if they stop getting the lysine, they can get really sick again. BUT, it benefits the next generation, and they can not need it at all. That’s what I seem to be seeing now, with the littles. In fact, at this point, it seems like more of them are resistant than not.

Still, if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen over the next few weeks. Which means we might start finding losses.

Well, it is what it is, and there’s not much we can do about it, that we aren’t already doing.

The Re-Farmer

[addendum: I was curious as to what WP’s AI image generator would come up with based on the contents of this post.

This is what I got.

What’s with the two headed kittens????]