feral kittens

Melting kitties!

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After coming home from the Costco shop, it was late enough to feed the outside cats – which also lured them away from the truck that I parked by the house!

The cats didn’t have much appetite, though, and no wonder. As I write this, it’s just past 5pm. We’re at 28C/82F, with a humidex of 32F/90C The cats did come to eat, but it wasn’t long before they were all splayed out in any cool spot they could find.

Some kittens took advantage of that!

The above image has two short videos in the slideshow. Poor Adam, trying to keep cool on the dirt, and she’s covered in littles!

That kitten on top of all the others, with the splotchy white and black fur on its back, it currently the only one that has eye troubles. Just one eye has been stuck shut. I’ve been trying to get at it for a while. This morning, I finally did – sort of! I was able to basically hold it in place with one hand, while it hissed and spit and tried to bite me, then started wiping the stuck eye with a sopping wet paper towel.

The kitten stopped fighting me and let me get its eye cleaned up and open!

While doing the evening feeding, I saw its eye was stuck shut again. It too a while, but after it had an Adam snack, it went into the shade under the kibble house. I was able to make it come out, where I could grab it and hold it down. Once again, it hissed and spit at me, right up until I started washing its eye. It immediately settled down and let me finish. The goop had dried pretty hard, so it took a while, and it was very patient about it!

I saw a few among the influx of littles that started to get sticky eyes, but most of them cleared up almost immediately. There’s still one that looks messy in both eyes, but that one is already doing better. This kitten has just one sticky eye, but otherwise looks fine.

And yet, we are still loosing kittens. I found another one in the new cat cave this morning. Of the three littles I had to bury so far, none of them had looked sick before hand. I was pretty surprised by which one I found this morning. What I did notice when gathering them up to bury them, however, is that they all seemed to have had diarrhea.

So is this still that endemic herpes virus, or is something else doing them in?

I don’t know, but I did notice that there’s one kitten with a messy butt – I actually expected to find that one this morning! It’s still puttering around and playing with its siblings and cousins. There are a few that look super tiny and super skinny. That doesn’t mean much. Grommet and Sir Robin both still look super small and skinny for their ages.

[pause for an almost 2 hour power outage]

Well, now… that was fun.

Okay, what I was going to do next was show Blot (as in… ink blot…), blocking my access to the old kitchen!

According to one of my weather apps, we actually hit 30C/86F earlier today – higher than was in the forecast, and I don’t know what the humidex was at the time. The old kitchen manages to stay a bit cooler. I wasn’t able to close the outer door as I went out to feed them. When I came back to put the kibble bowl away, I was blocked! Blocked by an adorable ink Blot.

Blot is one of the super tiny, super skinny kittens. I’ve managed to sneak a pet while s/he has been eating, but that’s it.

Okay…

So…

The power went out as I was working on this post. I had to go outside and wander around to find somewhere with data signal strong enough to log into the power company’s app, where I could report the outage and check for any others. The map even loaded this time! There was something like a dozen other outage reports in our area, so it was pretty widespread.

While I was outside, I suddenly hear a tiny, distressed sounding… squeak?

I headed into the outer yard, trying to fallow the sound, and eventually pushed my way through the jungle of tall weeds in front of the shed with the collapsed roof. I then pinpointed the noise to one spot.

More the roof had collapsed, with parts of it right on top of a couple of old, broken lawnmowers that had been pushed in, against one wall, before the roof fell in. After more poking around, I spotted some orange fur sticking out from under a board.

It took a while, but I was able to get the kitten out.

It was distressed at first, of course, but as soon as I had it in the palm of my hand and close against my chest, it settled right down.

In the process, I heard another squeak. There was at least one more kitten somewhere in there.

I went back to the house, kitten curled up in my hand still, and called for my daughter through the door to give me a hand with finding kittens. I then went and got one of the carriers from out of the sun room.

By the time I wrestled it out of the shelf it was in, my daughter was outside around the cat shelters, wondering what kitten I needed help with.

Then she saw the orange fluff I was holding!

Off we went to the shed together. We put the kitten into the carrier and started looking around for another. We had only a single squeak to let us know we were still in the right general area.

We tried moving out some of the pieces of broken roof, but some were just too large and still attached to each other. I ended up getting a saw out so we could cut away broken truss pieces.

While my daughter was cutting the first piece, she saw movement.

In the opening of one of the lawn mowers, where the grass clippings would fly through.

I was able to go over, reach in and grab it.

It hissed and spit a bit, but I handed it to my daughter to cuddle before putting it with its sibling, and it calmed right down.

Meanwhile, I took the saw to cut through the next piece of wood. As I was doing that, we saw another kitten emerge. My daughter caught it and we snuggled it a bit before adding it to the carrier. This one was totally chill!

We were able to move out more pieces of wood by then, which is when we were able to spot and catch a fourth kitten.

When my daughter pulled that one out, she commented on how cold and damp it was underneath!

We cleared away more bits and pieces until I could lift out one of the old lawn mowers. I didn’t dare try to roll it away, in case there was a kitten under it. Finally, my daughter was able to use the handle to lift the second mower so I could check under it.

No more kittens!

We checked some more to be extra sure, but that we could not hear or see any more kittens.

We then took them to the sun room, and put them in the bed in the cat cage.

The almost completely orange one is the one I first found, under the rotten board. Then my daughter found the orange and white one, and finally we got the little tortie and tabby. They all look strong and healthy, but can’t be more than a couple of weeks old.

The question is, who is the mother?

The only cat I’ve been seeing in that general area has been Brussel. I suppose it’s possible she had a second litter, considering how early in the year she had her first (only Sir Robin remains of her two kittens). She had her two right in the cat cage, so it’s an area she’s already familiar with.

In the next picture, you can see where we found them. I had to pull the one mower out completely and, once we were sure there were no other kittens, I pushed it back. It’s the other mower that can be barely seen in the photo that the kittens were under.

We ended up putting a food bowl with wet cat food right in the cat bed with the kittens. They’re too young for solid food, but I hope it will be a tempting reward for the mama when she finds them.

I can see the kittens in the critter cam, all curled up together and sleeping.

If nothing else, they’re warm and dry now!

I do hope we don’t end up having to hand feed them, though. That’ll be rough!

Well, we’ll figure it out!!

The Re-Farmer

Power is out

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The power went out again, today.  I was in the middle of doing a blog post, too!  Ah, well.

It’s been more than an hour, as I write this.  Not sure if I have enough signal to post this.  I might have to go outside again.

I did that earlier to try and log into the power company’s app.  There are outages reported all over our municipality.

Then I heard the noise.

Long story short, we found four kittens, just a few weeks old, under a junk lawnmower under parts of a collapsed roof.  They are in the cat cage in the sun room, with some wet cat food.  They are too young for it, but the mama’s all come to the sun room, eventually, so it will be a treat for her!

Hopefully, the mother will accept the soft and comfortable nest they are in, too.

The Re-Farmer

Power is out

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The power went out again, today.  I was in the middle of doing a blog post, too!  Ah, well.

It’s been more than an hour, as I write this.  Not sure if I have enough signal to post this.  I might have to go outside again.

I did that earlier to try and log into the power company’s app.  There are outages reported all over our municipality.

Then I heard the noise.

Long story short, we found four kittens, just a few weeks old, under a junk lawnmower under parts of a collapsed roof.  They are in the cat cage in the sun room, with some wet cat food.  They are too young for it, but the mama’s all come to the sun room, eventually, so it will be a treat for her!

Hopefully, the mother will accept the soft and comfortable nest they are in, too.

The Re-Farmer

Well, crud

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But first, the cuteness…

Some of the littles have discovered the inside of the cat house.  Much better than hiding under it!

I’m happy to say, I’ve been able to pet and even pick up more of the littles today.  Ar least, among the ones near the house.  The ones that use the shrine feeding station are still totally feral.  Alas.

One of my goals for today was to get some mowing done.  I wasn’t up to doing the overgrown area with the push mower, so I broke out the riding mower my brother went use.  I was able to get lots done with it.

I was working on a section of the outer yard in front of the garage when I ran out of gas again.  I was close to done for the day, but wanted to finish that one last bit.  I refilled the tank and got the mower started again…

… it wouldn’t move.

Now, with our old mower, we had that happen when the drive chain would fall off.  This mower is a very different, more modern, design.  Also, it was moving just fine until it ran out of gas. 

After trying several times, I finally just pushed it back into the garage.   I used my phone’s camera to try and get some pictures of the underside and sent them to my brother, telling him what happened.

Then I finished with the push mower.

My brother won’t be coming out this weekend, so it’s going to be a while before he can check it out.

This place murders lawnmowers.   It’s  bizarre! 

Nothing we can do about it for now.  Tomorrow, I’m off to the city for our first stock up shopping trip, so I really wanted to get the mowing done.  The rest of the outer yard will just have to wait!

Crud.

The Re-Farmer

The kittens are showing up!

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I was really starting to wonder!

I’ve seen several nursing moms show up during feeding time. Normally, when their kittens get old enough to wean, the mamas bring them to the house and feeding stations and basically leave them here. That hasn’t been happening. One of the moms, Ink, clearly has a pretty large litter, judging from how her underside look, and how many teats seemed to be full and swaying. I could never get a good look to judge how many, though, but figured more than four. Lately, though, her belly is starting to return to normal appearance, which means she’s not really nursing much, if at all, anymore, and there’s no sign of kittens.

Well, that changes this morning.

When I came out to feed the cats this morning, I found four new babies in the sun room!

That black and white one in the back is particularly hissy-spitty. BUT they did not run away. They had been playing when I opened the door, which means they’d already been there for some hours, at least. Long enough to start to feel comfortable.

Lady Hypotenose is her mom, and she seems to have contentedly moved her babies into the sun room.

Everything else was as usual while I did my rounds, and when I left to meet up with my brother and his family to take my mom out for lunch.

That changed when I got home.

There were no kittens in sight when I parked the truck in the garage, but when I got out of the truck, I was hearing distressed meowing! My first thought was that I somehow hurt a kitten, but it wasn’t a pain meow. It was more of a panic meowing.

I went around the truck and saw a kitten run out from under and around my brother’s riding mower that’s parked to one side. The kitten saw me and ran behind some stuff to hide.

Which is where I saw a second head pop up, see me, and disappear again.

These kittens are much younger than the garage kittens.

It was late enough in the afternoon that I decided to quickly get changed, then feed the outside cats. Lately, I’ve been doing just kibble, but this time I made sure to do the upgrade from kitten soup. Before, I would use a couple of cans of wet cat food, mixed with hot water until smooth and thin, and then I mixed in dry kibble to soak up the water and wet cat food gravy. The cats love it to the point that I have had to kick the adult cats out of the sun room so the kittens could get some.

I also grabbed an extra container to use as a bowl in the garage.

Well, that worked out different than expected.

After I’d put the garage food out, I saw the little kitten I’d seen first, running around behind the garage and meowing. Pinky – the garage kitten mom – seemed unsure about these new additions and a little stressed out.

Still, once the food was set out, I saw her eating together with one of her own kittens, plus the new one.

The new one was eating very enthusiastically.

Looks like we have a boy!

Just after I got that first picture, though, Pinky promptly started batting at his head. He was so hungry, he mostly ignored it and went back to eating, but Pinky was NOT happy with him there.

He was so busy eating, I was able to come over, pick him up and carry him to the isolation shelter. He hissed at me, but that was about it. Once I put him down, he almost immediately dove in for the food.

I finished up with the cat feeding and put things away. By the time I was done, the new kitten was out of the isolation shelter and running around in the grass, meowing in distress. He seemed to be trying to follow other cats. For a moment, I thought maybe Ink was the mom after all, but she took off, ignoring the kitten as he tried to follow her.

When the kitten started wandering to the outer yard, I had to do something. It’s dangerous for a kitten out there! Thankfully, I was able to catch him. This time, I took him into the sun room and into the cat cage, then gave it his own food and water bowl. He tried to get through the cat cage walls for a while before the food became too irresistible for him. The cat cage has a kitten sized opening under the “door”, so it would eventually find its way out, but for the moment, he settled. Some of the kittens that showed up this morning were nearby, and that seemed to relax him a bit. Which is when I was able to get that last photo in the above slide show.

After a while, though, Lady Hypotenose showed up to nurse her own kittens. While she was moving around to get their attention, I took a chance and got the new kitten out of the cat cage and put him with Lady Hypotenose and her babies. I don’t think she nursed him, but he was definitely calmer around the other kittens, and already seems to have picked a friend!

In the second picture, you can see Lady Hypotenose taking a break from the kittens!

Two of her others like to hand out around that cat bed. The last one, the black and white, is definitely the spiciest of them all. I kept hearing him growing, hissing and spitting, at any of the bigger kittens that come near.

Later on, I’ll go out and see if I can spot that other kitten I saw in the garage. I’d really like to get it into the sun room, too. Whichever cat is the mama, at least in the sun room, they will have access to food and water, even if the mama has simply left them here.

Our total kitten population is now at 14 or 15, and the new ones in the sun room now have a MUCH better chance at being socialized and hopefully adopted out!

Which is a good time to point out that we do have a donation button at the top. All donations go towards the feeding and care of the cats.

The Re-Farmer

A day of kitties, dentists and… of course

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My husband and I had joint dental appointments this afternoon, which meant – of course – I couldn’t sleep last night! I got maybe three hours of sleep before I finally got up to take care of the outside cats and do my morning rounds.

I had company.

Gotta love the murder mittens! 😂

Once the outside stuff was done, I had enough energy to grab a couple of PB sandwiches for breakfast and then crashed for a couple of hours, so I would at least be safe to drive.

I don’t think my husband was able to eat anything at all this morning. He meds really mess with his appetite, so he doesn’t typically have any sort of breakfast.

Which turned out to not be a good thing!

His appointment was at 12:45, and the plan was for us to go for a late lunch after we were done. We both had changes in our medical information to update them on before our appointments, so we headed out early to have time for that.

Thank God for AC in the truck. For all the rain we’ve had, it’s still hot and muggy, with the humidex making it so much worse. Stepping outside of the house or truck was like walking into a wet wall of heat. The rain doesn’t seem to have done much to reduce the smoke in the air, either. We’re just as smokey today as we were yesterday, and yesterday was the worst I’ve seen since we moved out here.

We had a bit of a surprise during the drive to town. For some distance, we could see something on the side of the road. A whole bunch of large somethings.

They turned out to be Guinea hens! About five or six of them! Someone’s flock had escaped. 😄 I had no idea anyone in that area kept Guinea’s.

Once at the dentist, I had a form to fill out with my new information. For my husband, he brought printouts and we just handed it to them to input into his file from. None of these forms ever have enough space for the number of medications he’s on. The first time we filled one of these forms out for him, we wrote the list out on the back and it pretty much filled the page.

My husband got called in first, and I had a while to wait before I was called in. Long enough for him to get his Xrays done, and then inform us they had to double the freezing to do what they had to do, so it was going to take longer than expected.

My own visit was actually a pleasant surprise… I think. I had a couple of teeth that have been bothering me, and I thought I had a cavity starting under a crown. After the Xrays were done, they found no cavities. In fact, other than needing a cleaning, my teeth are great.

So, why the problems I’ve been having? The dentist was perplexed. In the end, the only thing he did was the slightest of grinding and polishing of a sharp edge that I was feeling that I thought was the edge of a cavity. I didn’t even need freezing. He tried all sorts of things to try and track down the source of the issues I was describing, and everything was testing out fine. About the only thing he can think of is that there is a crack under a filling, too small to show up on an Xray, but he really couldn’t tell.

I will have some other work done another time, and eventually get to talking about what to do about my missing teeth, while we still have insurance, later on.

So my husband and I are booked for another double appointment next month.

My husband, unfortunately, needs more work. Today he got a temporary fix, but he does have a confirmed cracked tooth under a filling. He was in the waiting room by the time I got out, and still so frozen, going for lunch was out of the question!

We booked the next appointment, but had a problem settling the bill. For some reason, our insurance wouldn’t go through. My husband’s did, but not mine. This has happened before, and not just as the dentist. After fussing with it for a while, she ended up just printing out the invoice/receipt for both of us for our records. They’ll keep working on whatever is going on with the insurance company and if there’s anything not covered (I believe we are covered 90%), they’ll mail us a bill. I seem to recall they did this for me the last time I was there and had a tooth pulled.

From there, we made a quick stop at the grocery store. My husband stayed in the truck – he was in no shape to walk around! – and I dashed in to pick up something he could keep in his medication fridge to eat once the freezing wore off.

My the time we got home, it was time for me to head out to feed the outside cats and start my evening errands.

Which is when my cell phone rang.

*sigh*

Of course.

It was home care.

They didn’t have anyone for my mother’s med assist for tonight and tomorrow night. I confirmed the times she was scheduled for. I had enough time to update my siblings in our group chat, call my mother, grab a food and go.

When calling my mother, I found out that my sister had left not long ago. She had been able to come over to do my mother’s laundry during her scheduled time, which was really nice. I would have done it, if we didn’t have our dental appointments. Given what happened with the med assists, if I had done it today, I would have gotten home and had to turn around and come back almost right away! My sister is normally not available, so she doesn’t even have the lock box code.

Unfortunately, every time I call my mom to let her know I have to cover the med assist again, she starts ranting at me. Why are they calling me? Why don’t I tell them I live far away? Like it’s somehow my fault. I tell her, don’t take it out on me! She says she isn’t; that I’m the “victim”, so she doesn’t seem to realize that yelling at me every time really is her taking it out on me, even if it’s home care she’s mad at.

The call was short, though, as I told her I needed to have my supper (lunch, actually), then go.

Including the time it takes to get ready, open the gate, get the truck out, then make the drive, it takes about half an hour or slightly more to get to my mother’s. While there, I give her the supper time meds, then prepare her bed time meds for her to take herself, later. She’s supposed to take her supper time meds with food. She had her Meals on Wheels at noon today, but didn’t really have much she was up to for supper and ended up asking me to get some instant oatmeal started for her, and prep her milk that she likes to add to it as well. Even so, I was there for less than 10 minutes, and then it was another half hour to get home.

Talking to my older daughter about the situation just a little while ago, she pointed out that we won’t be able to do this in the winter, and I’m the closest! We’ve already had one call where the person who was supposed to do my mother’s med assist wasn’t going to come into town because it was too dangerous to drive on the highway during a storm. I told the person calling me, if the aid couldn’t come in because the roads are too dangerous, neither can I! (Which was completely true that day.)

That’s something I’m going to have to remember to bring up with the case coordinator. There’s a reason my mother’s meds are in a lock box, but if med assists are so unreliable due to staff shortages, this is going to be a real problem.

Unless, of course, they finally get my mother into the nursing home, like she wants so much!!!

So that was done, and I’ll be back tomorrow. My brother and SIL will be out this weekend with their grandkids, if all goes well, so maybe my brother will be able to come with me, too. With how she treats him, he doesn’t want to, but she behaves better when I am there.

Anyhow.

Once done and back home, I was able to finish my evening rounds.

Which has its perks!

Sometimes, those perks have blue eyes.

That smokey coloured garage kitten is getting darker as s/he get bigger. I still wonder where the blue eyes genes came from! There has to be a cat at a neighboring farm. It certainly isn’t from one of the males that lives here.

The white and grey is becoming increasingly curious, and allowing me to be closer. The smokey one runs away, which actually surprises me. After that one time I was able to not only pet it, but pick it up and hold it, I thought it would be the easier one to socialize. Instead, it’s been the harder one!

It does help that the mother allows me to pet her and starts purring. If she’s around, like she was when I got the above pictures, they are less prone to simply running away and hiding.

Once the evening stuff was done, I could finally settle in for the day. It’s not even 8pm yet, but I’m seriously considering going to be, with how little sleep I got last night. The only reason I have against it is that it’s so hot and muggy in my bedroom/office. The AC doesn’t affect this part of the house, and there’s only so much the fans can do, even with I have the box fan set to blow the hot air and smoke OUT the window during the day.

Tomorrow is supposed to get just as hot as today, with some rain in the late evening. Then we’re supposed to get about a week with little change in the temperature, but no more rain. Also, no change in the ongoing severe air quality warnings.

I do have to make sure to make a dump run tomorrow. I’m really dreading it. The conditions have gotten so bad there, I skipped going last week. I did as on a local group if anyone knew if they’d brought out the front end loader and pushed all the built up trash into the pit, but no one confirmed either way. Considering it’s been at least two months since the trash accumulating at the edge of the pit has been pushed in, you’d think it would be done by now.

I truly doubt it.

Our new council is really dropping the ball when it comes to this particular landfill. There are two others in our large municipality, but I don’t know their conditions, I’m not sure where they are, and it’s really not worth the extra cost in gas to drive the distances to them.

It needs to be done, though.

What a pain.

Ah, well. We’ll deal.

For now… yeah. I think an early bed time is definitely a necessity.

The Re-Farmer

Alert kitties, and an update

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I was able to record all four of the feral kittens that come to the shrine feeding station, together with Mom, all in one shot!

As you can see in the video after the image in the slideshow above, they are all very nervous and alert!

Sadly, I ran out of canned cat food last night, so no kitten soup this morning. I can tell they were waiting for it! That got taken care of with our first stock up shop, today. I’ll follow up on that in my next post.

I completely forgot to do an update after I got home from meeting with my friend, then seeing my mother, yesterday.

This turned out to be one of those “fine threads” situations. Since no one in my family was available to drive me to my mother’s town and pick up the truck from the garage, my friend was a sweetheart and drove me.

Being paranoid about vehicles the way I’ve become, I had to ask her about the noise her car was making. She said it was her transmission. Her car, a Toyota, has a recall on transmissions, and it hadn’t been done yet.

I suggested she talk to the guy at the garage about it. Which turned out to be a really, really good thing.

After talking to him, and going for a spin, he thought it might be the wheel bearings, except it wasn’t acting like it was the wheel bearings. So an appointment was booked, accidentally missed, then rescheduled for yesterday.

Originally, my friend was going to pick me up at 8am and we were going to drive in together. After doing my mother’s med assist on Sunday night, I realized I would have to run errands for her. I suggested to my friend that I take my truck and meet her at the garage. So that was arranged.

Since the garage opens at 9, and that’s when she was booked, I didn’t leave until about 8:30. I got to the garage before 9, yet there she was, watching as her car was already on the lift!

When I got there, the owner/mechanic was manually turning her rear driver’s side wheel, which is where he narrowed down as the main source of the noise, though the front tire was also making noise. He was really excellent as explaining to her what we were hearing, which was a normal sound, as he spun the tire. What he couldn’t do was spin is fast enough to hear the other noise. He was going to have to take the tire off and try to see what was going on.

So I took my friend out for breakfast.

We had an excellent time, catching up with each other. I mentioned to her about my mother’s medications and that I wanted to go to the pharmacy and see if her bubble packs were ready. The pharmacy is right near the garage, so that’s where we went next. I had just parked the truck and we were chatting when I spotted what I thought was her car, driving by behind us. It turned the corner and drove past on the other side, so we could see that yes, the mechanic was driving her car around the block!

She walked over to the garage, just as he was pulling back in, while I went to the pharmacy. My mother’s bubble packs were ready, and I found out how much they were. I didn’t pay for them because, the last time I did that, my mother got really angry and seems to think it cost as much as it did (she expected it to be “free”) because I used my card to pay for it. The folks at the pharmacy are quite familiar with my mother and her… peculiarities, shall we say! She completely understood why I just wanted to know how much it cost. I’m glad I did stop by, because there was no arrangement for delivery, from what I could tell, and my mother didn’t have any evening meds left for Monday, though she did have a full day’s worth for Tuesday.

Once I got the information, I headed over to the garage.

I could tell as soon as I walked in and saw them talking at the counter, that the news was not good.

My friend’s brakes were severely worn out, with the driver’s side half the thickness as the passenger side.

Worse, he couldn’t do anything about it.

One problem was that his 6 month old $10,000 diagnostic computer couldn’t connect with her on board computer. They can’t talk to each other. He’s never had this happen before, even when working with other Toyotas. Since he can’t connect with her computer, he can’t do the repair. He could jerry rig something together and it might last 6 months, but he wasn’t going to do that.

She was going to have to go to a dealership, and they charge typically twice as much for everything, including both parts and labour.

My friend was really unhappy to hear that, as the dealership has been really awful to her. One of the more recent issues was about the transmission recall. She phoned them about it and the guy she was talking to said, oh, I see you’ve missed a payment. She had only two or three payments left (the last payment was made just a week ago). She said yes, I missed one payment in 4 years – and what does that have to do with my transmission? To which she was told, “we can’t do anything for you”, and he hung up on her. !!!!

I don’t think that’s even legal when it involves a recall. The mechanic didn’t know for sure, but he said it shouldn’t be!

That was just one example. Knowing the dealership she went to, he had more. Turns out he had a story involving someone that turned out to be a mutual friend. She had towed her vehicle to the dealership and they told her she needed a new engine. Which would have been $8000 at the time.

She had it towed to him and he took a look.

Her engine was flooded. That’s all.

He told her about another location in the city, but they’re franchises owned by the same parent company. The only other one he knew of that was NOT a franchise dealership is in another small city that’s a 2 hour drive away.

My friend is going to take it there, because she refuses to deal with the place in the city.

He spent time explaining to her what he did, what he was, and why he couldn’t figure out what was going on to cause her brakes to wear like that. There’s something happening that he can’t see, nor diagnose with the computer. When he first mentioned the problem, I suggested proprietary software, but he said that’s illegal. They can, however, make it so that it’s really, really hard for anyone else to be able to do anything. Whatever the problem is, he can’t tell.

For now, he says he’s not worried about my friend driving her car normally. The way he put it, he could tell she isn’t a “rally driver”. The problem would be if she had to suddenly brake to avoid an accident, the brakes might not work. She needs to get it fixed as soon as possible.

I could see my friend was getting really worried, so I asked if he could give some sort of ballpark figure on how much it will cost, so she at least had some idea. That’s the issue. If he did the work, with what he charges for labour per hour, and being able to use off label parts, it would be a few hundred dollars. At dealership prices and how long they tend to charge for, it’ll be probably more than double that. She’s probably looking at $800 or more to get it done at a dealership.

But it’s her brakes, and there’s no messing around when it comes to brakes! They need to be done!

At least we know that where she plans to go is likely to be ethical about it. The entire town (city? I’m not sure if it’s officially big enough to be a city) has a strong reputation for reputable car dealerships. A lot of people will go out of their way to get vehicles there. So she should be in good hands.

Since he had to take her tires off, he made sure to let her know she needs to get her tires torqued between 50 and 100km. She didn’t know what that was, so he explained it to her. Since she lives in the town nearest us, I recommended to go to our regular garage. We reassured her, no one will charge her for torquing her tires.

Then she asked how much she owed him.

Nothing.

He said he couldn’t do anything to fix her car. He couldn’t even diagnose it properly. He wasn’t going to charge her for anything.

She was so thankful! He spent more than an hour trying to diagnose her vehicle, and no one would have had an issue with him charging for his time. She tried to pay him anyhow, but he refused.

What a good man.

From there, we parted ways. Given the distance to town, she was going to go straight to our regular garage and get her tires torqued sooner rather than later.

As for me, I headed over to my mother’s.

She was surprised to see me, even though I told her I’d be in town and wanted to take care of getting her medications. I told her how much is was going to be, and she asked me to pick something else up for her as well. She gave me the cash for it, but couldn’t find her loyalty card anywhere. She kept looking through her purse, but she has so many odd things in there, and has a habit of going through it and moving things around. After a while, I told her it was okay; I could just get her stuff and she could keep the receipt to get her points later. The only thing she uses them for is to get cash back off her purchases, so they add up.

After I picked her stuff up at the pharmacy, I tried going to a small department store across the street to see if they had some sort of organizer wallet for my mother. Unfortunately, the only designs they had were not accessible for my mother’s arthritic and twisted hands.

My sister works at a Walmart, so when I updated my family, I asked if she could keep an eye out for something that would be easy for my mother to use.

Once I got my mother’s bubble packs home, I made sure to put them into the lock box, before she had a chance to hide one of them away. When I went to open the combination lock, I realized that it was already on the combination. Whoever did her morning meds forgot to roll the tumblers after they closed up the box!! Thankfully, my mother didn’t try to open the box herself!

All of this was done by 11:30am, and my mother’s Meals on Wheels would soon arrive. She was looking really tired and overwhelmed, too, so I didn’t stay for very long. My mother wasn’t the only one feeling tired! As soon as I got home, I crashed in bed and didn’t get up until it was time to feed the outside cats!

Which means I didn’t get much done at home. Laundry doesn’t count. 😄

Today hasn’t been any more productive at home, either, but at least I got the shopping done!

Which will be in my next post.

See you there!

The Re-Farmer

Feral kitties – secret kitties have been found!

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I was definitely wiped out yesterday. I went to bed before 8am and, other than a few cat related disturbances, slept until 6am.

Some time yesterday evening, it started to rain, and was still raining when I went out to feed the kitties. Nothing major; just a gentle, constant rainfall. It was enough to finally refill the rain barrel by the sunroom, though, and I had to add the diverter!

Sprout’s feral babies (and she seems to have all four of them now; I don’t see the other mama around as much) are getting braver. Now that we’ve got kibble again, I’m back to setting out the dry kibble first, then distributing the bowls of kitten soup. As I was going back to the shrine feeding station, I spotted the tortie, loafed in the upper level of the isolation shelter! She ran off when I got too close, but that she was there at all, and just chillin’, is progress.

They were very happy when the kitten soup bowl arrived.

Even Sprout is starting to go in there more often. You can see her in the second image above, with Colby on top of one of the box nests behind her.

I took some kitten soup to the bowl in the garage, just in case the secret kitties were still around. This side of the garage is where we store the lawn equipment, and is accessible only through the main doors. A hole was dug under the door, I believe originally by skunks, so the cats could also get in and out with the doors closed. My brother tried to cover up the hole with a sheet of metal when he stored their big mower in there, but it got dug out again beside it, before we knew there were kittens in there!

After I was able to pick up and hold one of the babies, the mama moved them, and I feared she took them to the barn or one of the sheds in the outer yard. I was still leaving food in where they were before, just in case.

This morning, after putting the food bowl in, I spotted the mama coming up through the garage. The middle is where we park our vehicle, and where my brother’s vehicle he loaned us is currently parked. It has a doorway to the other lean-to side of the garage, and the back door is beside that, so it’s not unusual to see cats cutting through the garage from the yard through there.

She went to eat while I continued on to switching out the gate cam memory card. When I came back, I saw the mom going around into the middle of the garage, making calling noises, while doing to a back corner of the garage. Currently, there is a wrapped and stacked pile of summer tires from the van we no longer have, sort of blocking the space into the corner, between a built in counter shelf on one wall, and a storage shelf on the other.

On a hunch, I moved the food bowl into that part of the garage, and left it in front of the shelf near that corner.

Walking by a few minutes later, I spotted the mama sharing food with her white and grey kitten, which you can see in the last photo above. I didn’t see the smokey one, but it would be in there, somewhere.

The mama had simply moved her kittens to the other side of a wall.

I am so glad she didn’t take them far!

Now, we just have to convince them to come to the shelters in the inner yard.

The Re-Farmer

The good and the not good!

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First, the good.

I was able yo use my brother’s vehicle and pick up kibble first both the inside and outside cats.  Forty pounds of kibble for the outside cats should last us a couple of weeks.

When carrying the bags to the house, I spotted two of the feral kittens crossing the lawn to the cat shelters, looking for food.  The tortie ran off, but the orange one dashed to the tray under the water bowl shelter.  I fed them as soon as I got the first bag in.  They were very happy, and I soon saw Brave little Colby was back at the tray.

What a sweet little thing!

Now, for the bad.

I was forwarded that this vehicle ran rough.  It’s older than out truck and is really old school.  Manual door locks and windows, no AC, no cruise control.   None of which was a big deal.  As long as it got me from A to B.

I didn’t realize the rough ride was from the brakes!  Yikes!  When just driving slowly to the gate and stopping to open it, my initial thought way, why is the ABS doing that, when I’m driving so slow?

When braking from higher speeds, the shudder was worse.  To the point that the entire vehicle was shaking.

When I got to the feed store, I messaged my brother about it.  I then had to go to the next town to pick up prescription refills for my daughter and I, with a quick stop at the grocery store before going home.

It was so bad, I avoided using the brakes as much as possible, slowing down well in advance.  When I got to town, I parked at the grocery store so I could walk to the pharmacy, rather than hit all those stop signs along the way.

Which us when I saw the message from my brother.

The brakes didn’t have a shudder.

????

I just assumed this was one of the things they were having issues with on this vehicle. 

Well, now.

I got the prescription refills, then got some things at the grocery store, including a normal large bag of kibble for the induce cats.

Before leaving, I messaged home, asking gor the gate to be opened, and maybe help unloading, because I was going to park straight into the garage.  We leave that door open most of the summer.

For the drive home, I was able to barely use the brakes at all, and not impede traffic by slowing down so far in advance.  There was no traffic to impede!

Once the vehicle was parked, my younger daughter was there to take the grocery bags in, while I took care of the kibble bags.  Once everything was taken care of, I sat at my desktop to give a detailed description of what the brakes were doing, to my brother.

We will not be using it again, unless it’s to take it to the garage and leave it there for them to check out.

It dies leave us with a problem.

The truck is supposed to be done tomorrow.

We have no way to get to it to bring it home.

Can anything else go wrong?

Don’t answer that.

😆

The Re-Farmer

First sighting!

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Just a quick post before I head out.

I have noticed the feral kittens are starting to go into the catio more often, and even going into the isolation shelter. Last night, I saw the little calico in the bottom of the isolation shelter, but it got really spooked by me and kept trying to run through the mesh walls, even though I stayed well away. The calico and torie are much shier.

The orange one, however, is getting really brave! So is the white and grey.

They were under the shrine, eating kibble, as I came closer with the kitten soup bowls. There was a third kitten – the calico, I think – that ran off and hid behind the tree. As I came over with the bowl, the Colby (the orange one) started coming right back! The white and grey followed, almost immediately, even as Sprout sat there, hissing at me. I might even have been able to reach out and touch Colby, except Hypotenose came over to eat the kitten soup, even though I’d already left other bowls all over the place, closer to the house. I tried to shoo him away, but that was too disturbing for the kittens, so I just left them be and put the last bowl in the isolation shelter. Eyelet was napping in there again. 💕

Coming back to the house, I heard some very distinctive crunching.

A stinky kitty was already there! This is one of two very little skunks I’ve been seeing. There’s a big one somewhere, too, but it doesn’t come out as often.

The big mama racoon and her two babies were in the sun room again last night. I used the critter cam to chase them out and saw there was a skunk, too. By the time I got to the door, the raccoons were out, but the little skunk squeezed itself under the counter shelf.

I went to see how far the raccoons when, and could hear growling and snarling. I found that one was peeking through the opening that the critters use to get under the storage house. There was another hidden in the lilac bush in the corner – and they were growling at each other! I used a garden hose to chase them off. I didn’t see the little ones, so I’m guessing they were already under the storage house.

As I continued my rounds, I made a point of checking the lean to on the garage, where we store our mowers, etc.

I heard a noise and finally spotted it. For the first time, I saw the kitten my brother said he’d seen, about a week ago.

It was difficult to get a picture, and these are the best I could do. I don’t understand why the mama hasn’t brought this kitten to the house, yet. She comes over to eat regularly, before coming back to hang out in the garage. There is no food or water around this area, so the kitten is getting only what the mama can bring it – and at this size, it’s probably not enough!

My brother gave us several traps, including two small ones. Perfect to catch a kitten! I’d like to set up a camera that’s got a live feed on it, then set up a trap.

Not right away, though.

Time to get ready to head out. It’s going to be a long day at my mother’s, today, I suspect.

Ah, well.

At least today is going to be cooler. We might even get a bit of rain. The smoke is really bad, though. There are so many fires up North this year. We could really use a LOT more rain!

The Re-Farmer