Hard to get a head count, when they move around so much.
But I think I saw 13 cats in total this morning, out of the 18 yard cats we have outside right now.
I’ve been in touch with the Cat Lady recently. Yesterday was Cabbages’ day to be spayed, at the special vet that works with cats that have had neurological problems.
If you would like to contribute to our fundraiser to reimburse the cat lady for Cabbages’ vet bills, click on the button below, or click here. If you would like to read more about it, click here.
Cabbages seems to have recovered completely, however, so that’s amazing news. The original plan had been for her to stay with them for another 2 weeks, then go to someone she’d found to adopt her, that works in animal welfare. It’s looking like that won’t happen, though. Cabbages has adopted her daughter, instead, and it looks like she will be staying where she is!
Saffron and Nicco should be on their way to fosters, and the adoption process will begin. It seems that the three of them remembered each other, as the Cat Lady found them all sleeping together in a big pile. :-)
With her help, we’ve had 6 cats spayed, vaccinated, etc. at a steeply discounted price. The amount we pay for can be done as we are able. Two had already been paid for, and I let her know that I’d made a payment for 2 more, and would be able to send a payment for the last two at the end of this month. She let me know that we do not have to make the next payment.
It was already paid for by donation!
I asked for our thanks to be passed on, if possible, and it will be. It turns out that someone had bequeathed a donation to the organization for spays and neuters! That was so thoughtful of them, and much appreciated.
There are some issues going on, partly in regards to the vet bills with the clinic we use, partly due to finding fosters, so we do not have any more appointments set up, yet. The Cat Lady is trying to find us an alternate clinic we can take cats to. Worst case scenario, she would pick up cats from us to stay with her for a few days, they would have their appointments with a vet, and then they might have to stay with us for a while until fosters can be found and the adoption process started. Which works for us. We’re already taking care of them all, so there wouldn’t be much change. We still have several females to do that are indoors, but we should also be able to start catching some of the outdoor males, as well. Of all the outdoor cats that we can actually catch, Rolando Moon is the only female left, and she’s already fixed. Oh, and sometimes Rosencrantz, depending on her mood. It would be better if we could have started with the females, but that would require trapping, and we’re not going to do that until the temperatures are safer.
The Cat Lady will contact us as soon as she has information, and then we’ll decide on which cats are next in line for a vet visit.
We’re okay with any delays. At least the process is happening, and we will slowly be able to find forever homes for most of the cats.
We’ve had a busy day outside our living room window!
We’ve had quite a few deer visiting the feeding station, and just plain hanging out. The piebald has been standing around the old junk pile (maybe we should start calling it something else, since we cleared out the junk and there’s just old stacked boards now), chillin’ for at least a couple of hours. Others have just been wandering around the area, sometimes at the feeding station, sometimes nibbling lilac twigs, sometimes among the spruces, nibbling whatever underbrush they happen to be next to.
Keith had front row seating to watch them all, with his ever tragic expression!
Now that Saffron is gone, other cats have been sitting on the warm light fixture over the seedlings. Especially Fenrir and, pictured above, Beep Beep.
It must feel nice on their still nekkid bellies!
Today, I finally got around to sterilizing bottles and equipment, and bottling the second carboy of hard crab apple sider.
The one I meant to bottle months ago!
The other other we had fermenting was bottled back in August. If you follow that link, the post has links to the whole process of making it, starting from when we picked the apples back in September, of 2020. We had no apples in 2021, so no new crab apple brews of any kind, sadly.
So… yeah. This carboy has been fermenting since September of 2020.
When the other carboy was bottled, we didn’t do a hydrometer reading, so I did that from the last bottle we’ve got of it, while preparing to bottle the second batch.
I really hate doing hydrometer readings. I can’t read the tiny numbers and have to take pictures to be able to see them – but the camera does NOT want to focus on the hydrometer.
Anyhow.
After – hopefully – reading the hydrometer right, the ABV calculator I’ve got came to 10.5% Alcohol By Volume.
For the second carboy, I did a reading before starting to bottle, and the calculation came to 11.8% Alcohol By Volume.
Not too shabby!
The jug we’re using as the carboy after racking the initial brew was repurposed from a 3L wine bottle. I was able to fill three 750L bottles, plus a 250ml bottle, before it was down to the dregs.
Of course, we had to do a taste test to compare the two.
The first thing you’ll notice in the pictures, is that the cider I was about to bottle is a darker colour compared to the one already bottled.
The previously bottled cider had a strong, almost bitter, taste to it. It tasted stronger of alcohol, too, though it had a lower percentage.
The newly bottled cider had a fruitier, smoother taste.
Both tasted good, but I prefer the one that stayed in the carboy for 1 1/2 years. That extra 7 months seems to have made a positive difference.
I do hope we have crab apples this year. I look forward to making this again!
We are supposed to be warming up, and predicted highs and overnight lows were all forecasted to be above -20C/-4F at night, and around the -15C/5F range during the day. Pleasant stuff, really.
At the same time, the app on my phone had a warnings that the cold spell would through to today. I’d read that, look at the forecasted temperatures, and wonder what “cold spell” they were talking about.
This morning, the actual temperature was -28C/-18F before wind chill.
We’ve already warmed up to -16C/3F as I write this, but it’s frustrating to see such wildly different predictions, at the same time, within the same app.
For the outside cats, this is spring, already.
And by “spring”, I mean “mating season.” This morning, I looked out the kitchen window and saw Tuxedo Mask, whom you can see by the water bowls in the above photo, getting lucky with Broccoli.
We don’t know how many female cats we have out there right now; most of the newest cats that are reaching their first birthday in the next couple of months, are cats we haven’t been able to get close enough to see. Of the ones that we could, only Nosencrantz, who is now fixed and indoors, and Broccoli, whom we can’t touch, were identifiable as female. Of course, with the older cats, we know that Ghost Baby, Junk Pile and Rosencrantz are female. Tuxedo Mask is Junk Pile’s baby, while Broccoli is Butterscotch’s, and with both tuxedos and calicos showing up in litters only since we’ve moved out here, we’ve at least got some new bloodlines being introduced. When we first moved here, it was mostly orange tabbies.
By the time the Cat Lady is ready to start taking in outdoor cats for adopting, we’re probably already going to have more kittens. Which I don’t mind, really. If they got taken earlier, they’d probably still get spayed, and I’m not okay with kitty abortions any more than I am human ones. They can be spayed later.
While setting food out under the shrine, I found myself being watched! I’m not sure which if the ‘iccuses this is, other than it’s not Chadiccus, who was busily trying to trip me over by the kibble house, or Bradiccus, who it the only one with a white tail tip.
Speaking of trying to trip me…
Agnoos really wanted attention!
When I came into the sun room, he had the prime spot in the window, on the pillow lined box. :-D
We’re leaving the sun room doors propped open regularly now, with the heated water bowl in there kept on. The outside heated water bowl had ice across the top, but was not frozen solid, which suggests it is still working, at least a bit. Very odd. I look forward to being able to being able to pick it up and give it a thorough examination. Since we know the extension cords are fine and the water bowl is still plugged in, that leaves the cord to the bowl itself, and most of it is under packed snow. Maybe the deer stepped in it or something and damaged it somehow. There is nothing obvious that can be seen, without being able to actually pick up the bowl and looking under it. At least we’ve got the second one’s cord taped up and it’s working fine, inside the sun room. It just means we can’t close the outside doors completely! With things warming up (if we can trust the forecast), that should be okay now.
In other things:
We have our van back. The tensioner got replaced and, so far, that seems to be making a difference – though I get the sense that there is something draining our battery while the engine is off. No idea what it could be. The mechanic wasn’t seeing anything obvious.
Our wipers are working again. Something got misaligned somehow – possibly accidentally knocked about while the alternator was being replaced. With the wipers mounted so low and under the hood, that’s entirely possible. It took next to nothing for him to fix it, and there was no charge for it. The cost to replace the tensioner was on the low end of the estimate, so we are still under budget on that, which is nice.
As for my mother’s car…
We’re still hopeful it’s something minor setting off the check engine light. After I’d sent him the codes my scanner showed, he’d done his own research. If it is related to the transmission, he couldn’t do the work himself. With one code’s possibility, it would have to go into the city to get the work done. With the other, it might have to go to a Dodge dealership for recalibration after the part was installed – a part which he might be able to find second hand, for $1200.
That would be the less expensive of the potential problems.
Not going to happen.
Those are the worst case possibilities, and our mechanic knows we wouldn’t be able to afford that kind of work. It’s my mother’s car, but I already know she wouldn’t pay for it, even if I asked her to, which I won’t. I’m sure he remembers how difficult it was to get her to pay for the major work that needed to be done, the first time we brought her car in to him. He’d owned the garage for less than a year, at the time, and her car was stuck on a lift, with parts and pieces removed, for about a month before my mother finally agreed to pay for it. My mother firmly believes that all garages lie and cheat little old ladies like her, so even if work clearly does need to be done, she doesn’t believe it. My poor brother put up with a lot of abuse from her, when he was the one getting her car taken care of for her. He’s much kinder and gentler than I am, and her behaviour was very hurtful to him. I’ve become an old crone with very thick skin and, as frustrating as her behaviour can be, at least she can’t hurt me anymore. My brother is a much better person than I am! :-D
All that over a car. :-/
We shall see what the garage finds. I don’t have any expectations for when he can give it a thorough check, since he’ll be working it around the appointments he already has.
All in good time.
Meanwhile…
When we discovered the belt broke on our new vacuum cleaner (probably my fault… LOL), I ordered replacement belts from Hoover in early February. They sent me a USPS tracking number, but it always read, ‘information unavailable’. Once we got a running vehicle and I could check the mail, confirming it was not in, I contacted Hoover about it not being in.
I got a response saying that, according to their information, it was delivered. It turns out that, once the package got to Canada, it was shipped by Purolator. I got a new tracking number and…
According to Purolator, it was delivered to us on Feb. 28.
We did not get any deliveries.
I wrote back saying we don’t have it; wherever they delivered it to, it wasn’t us. I also mentioned we might not even be in their delivery zone.
This morning, I got a new email. They’re sending it to us again – with a different delivery company! I also got an order confirmation for the re-order. I made sure to write back to explain our physical address won’t show up on GPS because our road is not labelled on maps, asking that our land line phone number be available for the driver if they need to call for directions. I also made sure to mention we are in a cell phone dead zone, so a driver might not be able to get a signal in our area.
I recognise the delivery company name, though, only because companies my daughter has ordered from have used them. They are not common here. If I remember correctly, they were one of the delivery drivers that left her package tied to the gate.
We’ll see how that works.
I think it’s time for me to send another edit to Google Maps to get our road properly labelled.
The tow truck arrived much, much earlier than expected!
Thankfully, the dispatcher called ahead of time and worked out exactly where we were on his map. It’s a good thing, too, because he was a mile off. The paved provincial road that runs through our little hamlet ends at the highway, then restarts again on our side of the highway, but north of us, so it’s a frequent error.
They came from a town much further away, too, which was a surprise, but I guess CAA could only call whomever was available.
Hopefully, some time tomorrow, we’ll get a call from the mechanic to confirm what’s wrong, and get an estimate. That will decide if we can get it fixed right away, or have to wait until the end of the month. :-/
Thank God we have my mother’s car to fall back on at times like this!!! Having a working vehicle is essential out here.
We got some wonderful updates on how Cabbages is doing today, and I am beyond thrilled.
She has regained 2 pounds!
At her lowest, she weighed in at 1.65kg/3.63lb, and today she weighed in at 2.55kg/5.62lbs
I don’t think she ever weighed as much as 3kg/6.6lbs to being with.
She is still on medication and is not allowed out of the cat cage she’s kept in, unless she’s being held. She should soon be allowed out to wander around, though.
Next month, she will be getting spayed by a special vet, due to her neurological history. She will then spend 2 weeks with the cat lady and her family, before moving on to her forever home. She will be living with someone who has been in the animal care industry for 44 years!
Which means Cabbages will be with the cat lady and her family for at least another month. I’m just blown away that they took her – and her unexpected expenses! – on without hesitation, and fought so hard to keep her alive. The costs must be well over the $1200 she last mentioned to me, and not a penny of it is from the organization she is associated with. They would have contributed to the euthanasia cost, though. :-( Cabbages was such a very sick kitty, it’s amazing she was able to pull through!
The cat lady has never asked for anything in return, but she and her family have been so amazing. Even her 5 yr old spends time with Cabbages, every day, making sure she eats and massaging her legs.
*melt*
I do want to do something for her and her family, though. That is why we started the fundraiser, which is to be a surprise to reimburse her for most of the costs. I’m sure the final total she’ll be spending on Cabbages will be more than the $1500 goal we have set. We’ll be contributing as much as we can ourselves, too, of course.
If you would like to contribute to the fundraiser for the awesome cat lady that saved Cabbages, you can go to our Ko-fi donation page.
(There is supposed to be a donation panel under this paragraph. I see it in preview, but not when I publish. Please let me know in the comments below, if you see a donation panel. Thanks!
Update: trying a button this time. Do you see it?)
This fundraiser is intended to be a thank you surprise, so she knows nothing about it or this blog. Since it’s a surprise, I’ve carefully cropped these photos she shared with me today, to remove any identifying features.
Just look at her! She’s looking almost like she did, before she got sick!
The poor little thing has been through so much, in such a short time. It just amazes me, how quickly she is bouncing back. Care is still being taken, of course, and I do wonder what sort of permanent damage she may have sustained. Particularly since it was her brain that was affected.
She may have some company with her, soon. The cat lady mentioned she’d picked up another frozen cat today. It has lost its ears, but will be fine. Once the results of the blood work is in, and they get the all clear, it will be joining Cabbages. She will have a recovery buddy. :-)
I just wanted to make a quick update post, before writing the post I intended to. :-D
I have been in contact with the cat lady. I let her know that Butterscotch and Nosencrantz are snagged for their trip to the vet tomorrow. I had gone to spend some time with them, just before I contected her. They were both loafed on the swing bench and, to my surprise, Butterscotch was all over me, purring her heart out, wanting pets and skritches. So much so, she was bowling right over Nosencrantz, who was looking pretty stunned. :-D
I was able to give Nosencrantz some attention. This is the first time we’ve been able to do more than just pet her and occasionally pick her up, outside. I was noticing her behaviour while skritching her ears and gave them a closer look.
She has ear mites.
*sigh*
It’s not a surprise, but with all the yard cats we’ve brought inside, we’ve never seen ear mites before. We have been very fortunate, that way. I called the vet clinic to let them know, and it turns out treatment for ear mites is on the list, along with deworming and vaccinations. All of that, plus getting them fixed, for only $75 a cat!! Oh, how I appreciate connecting with this organization. After all this is done, I plan to continue donating to them, as we are able.
We’ve got these two booked for tomorrow, then Beep Beep and Fenrir on Feb. 7. Talking with the cat lady, we confirmed Feb. 23 for two more inside cats for adoption; we will need to decide which ones go first.
She also passed on the e-transfer information, which is to the organization that is covering the rest of the vet bill. Since my husband’s disability payment came in early, I was able to make a payment in advance. I can make payments as I am able, as long as it’s paid off by the end of the year. She has a budget from this organization, and I know any payments made allows her to have more budget to help more cats, so I was happy to make a payment now. That, and I don’t like unresolved line items in my budget.
The payment for my PAL is driving me nuts. I have no idea when my license will be processed and the payment will come out. All I know it that is should be within 4 months, and I’ve got about 3 more months to go.
Anyhow.
She also updated me a little about Cabbages. She is eating roast beef!
She sent pictures, which I am not asking permission to use right now, but the difference in her is amazing! She has quite clearly regained some weight. In one of the pictures, she was eating shredded pieces of beef. The last pictures we saw, she was eating meat mush. So that is another encouraging sign!
Cabbages and Turmeric
The photo above was taken just after New Year’s. According to the vet, she would have been already starting to get sick, but we saw no signs of that at the time. She’s isn’t back to how she looked then, but being such a little cat to begin with, even this little weight gain makes for a very dramatic difference.
She is set to visit the vet again, soon. I really look forward to hearing what he has to say!!
If you would like to read more about Cabbages and our fundraiser to surprise-reimburse her for vet expenses, click here. Or, you can go straight to the fundraiser page here.
I am so very happy and encouraged by how she is doing. What a fighter!
Oh, my goodness. The stuff going on with Cabbages leaves me feeling like I’ve got mental and emotional whiplash!
When we got the call this morning, we were fully prepared to be told that Cabbages had either passed during the night, or was euthanized.
Neither happened!
She is not out of the woods yet, by any means, but she is apparently a real fighter!
One of the things they were trying with her was a new and rare antibiotic that can cross the blood/brain barrier. There is only one, it’s administered through IV, and it seems to be helping. Cabbages’ vision is starting to come back, and she is eating from a spoon. She is also wanting to eat which, to me, is the major sign of progress. This vet is not one to make animals suffer for extended periods just to do different things, so he would not have decided to keep trying to help her if he didn’t think she had a chance to make it. At this point, she will be staying at the hospital for two more days, with the staff spoon feeding her.
Also, they have figured out what’s wrong with her.
It’s toxoplasmosis. Which basically all cats have, but rarely get sick from. The way the vet apparently put it, it’s like a unicorn in a sea of zebras. She was likely already weak, and somehow, it made its way from her gut to her bloodstream, her spine and finally her brain, causing the neurological problems they were seeing. It was compared to meningitis in humans.
If our angel cat lady hadn’t taken Cabbages to the vet the very day she got her, where Cabbages got that initial dose of antibiotics, she probably would have died by the weekend. If the cat lady hadn’t taken Cabbages back to the vet so quickly on Monday morning, where they started her on this rare antibiotic, she would have probably died that day. Had Cabbages not been in the city for care, she would not have gotten that rare antibiotic, because the local vet – or any rural vets, really – simply don’t have it.
As it is, it is so rare for cats to get sick from this, the rest of our cats are just fine. It’s actually more of a danger to us. We were advised to completely empty the litter boxes, wash and bleach them, once a week, along with the scoops. And, of course, wash our hands after changing the litter. We regularly clean the litter boxes, but we don’t bleach them. With so many litter boxes, that’s going to have to take some organization, and probably doing it on a rotation. It’s not like we can have all the litter boxed out of commission for washing and bleaching at the same time.
I’m going to have to buy more bleach.
It’s too bad we have to keep the two basements blocked off. The old basement is where taps are, and it would be much easier to clean the litter boxes, there. We made the wire mesh “door” between the basements in such a way that it could be slid to one side to get through, but the cats were so determined to get through, we’ve had to rig things on both sides of door to stop them from pushing through. The old basement is where we are storing the more breakable stuff, but it’s also where the sump pump reservoir is. Yes, there is a cover (of sorts) over it, but we still don’t want to risk a cat getting into there, not to mention the other things they could get into.
We’ll figure it out.
Anyhow.
So that’s the news we got, this morning! Cabbages is still fighting!
She will be staying the night with the vet, as they try another antibiotic on her. The vet is saying he’s treating her as if she were his own cat.
They still don’t know what’s wrong with her. A full blood workup is actually showing her blood is really good. There is something neurological going on, and she can no longer see. Unless something dramatically changes overnight, she will be put down at noon.
With the blood work they’ve done, we at least know that this is nothing that the other cats may have “caught”. The vet thinks she probably started to fail at least a month ago – since before Christmas, for sure. We saw no sign of this in her, that far back.
He also thinks it is most likely a a neurological defect she was probably born with. What we were doing to try and help her – force feeding her and keeping her hydrated – was basically the only thing anyone could do for her. Though they are trying medications, they really aren’t able to do much more than that, either.
Poor little thing.
It now makes me wonder how she would have fared, if we had never managed to snag her and bring her indoors. She likely would have had a couple of litters by now or, more likely, would have been another one of those outdoor cats that just disappeared, and we’d never know what happened.
At least she had those couple of years of a pampered life indoors.
I just got off the phone with the lady that took Cabbages. The early news is good!
The initial bloodwork has been done, and she does NOT have feline aids or leukemia.
Honestly, we didn’t think she did, but it’s good to confirm.
The vet checked for a few other things, such as symptoms of FIP; Feline Infectious Peritonitis. I’d never heard of it before, but she said it was a coronavirus, which is something I did know is a large and common class of viruses. The vet wanted to know if she had been outside recently (she hasn’t been outdoors since we brought her in as a kitten), or if she had symptoms like diarrhea (no), blood in stools (no) and vomiting (no) – even if we had a dog in the household (no).
She is so very tiny, but the vet did think she was just a small cat, so we talked a bit out how she didn’t have a lot of weight to lose in the first place, so once she got sick and started losing weight, she quickly became skin and bones.
So far, they hydrated her and have her a 14 day slow release antibiotic. They even put some high fructose stuff on her gums, just to put some calories in her. Then she went home with the woman we are working with, where she will stay for the next while. They will be feeding her a high calorie version of food goo, and trying to get her to eat some salmon. Cabbages is not a happy kitty right now, though, not just from getting so many injections, but with having so many people handling her. She has never been that keen on humans. The poor thing must be pretty stressed out right now!
On Tuesday, she will be back at the vet for a follow up, and will continue to stay with this family until she is healthy. There is already a foster set up to take her; an older woman who fosters cats for longer periods, to work on socializing them. I told her that Cabbages doesn’t like to be held or cuddled, though she does get along fine with other cats! I think that, without so many other cats around, she will start taking to people at least a bit more. Then, she will move on to her forever home.
I can’t say I’m happy about her having to go through two other homes before finally being adopted out. She’s not going to be a happy kitty for a while. However, at the same time, I’m happy that she’ll be getting the vet care this organization provides.
Well. It’s done.
As for the other adoptable cats, she is hoping to have them picked up, little by little, and placed with fosters by the end of April. Which means that we will not be getting the indoor adoptable cats fixed, ourselves. The adoptable cats will be going to fosters, and all their care and feeding is provided by this organization. Which means, for the indoor cats, we only have to get Beep Beep done, because the males are already done.
As for the outdoor cats, aside from Butterscotch and Nosencrantz, then the boys we can catch, that will wait until things are warmer, and it’s safe to trap them.
For now, I’m just thankful to have an update on how Cabbages is doing. :-)
The weather app tells me it’s -25C/-13F, with a wind chill of -36C/-33F right now, but it’s bright and sunny, and actually felt a lot warmer while we were out this morning.
While doing my rounds this morning, it was time to assess just how much the storm affected us. We got most of the snow during the day, then mostly high winds overnight.
The cats that shelter under the storage house were having issues! This path was cleared yesterday morning. One spot was mostly drifted over – you can see it further back – with a bit of space the cats could get through. The other was a steep, narrow drift they had problems jumping over!
So one of the first things I did after putting food out was shovel around the kibble house, digging out the metal water bowls in the process, and opening up their paths.
Then I went around the house with feed for the birds and deer, and startled a deer that was right next to the house, almost at the dining room window! I’ve never seen them go on the house side of where the lilacs and cherry trees are. Not even tracks.
Once the food and water was done, I made my way to the gate to unlock it.
Opening it took a fair bit of effort! Most of the driveway wasn’t bad. We could have left it and driven through the snow, just fine.
We would not have made it through the end of the driveway, though.
Once I got it open (and shovelled out the path to the gate cam), it was time to break out Spewie and start blowing some snow.
I cleared in front of the garage, first, which was a more difficult area. The wind swirls around there, so the snow was deeper, and the top more hard packed. I did eventually make it to the end of the driveway, though!
I didn’t try to go too close to the ground, though, as I didn’t want to be hitting gravel and rocks, so the snow is actually deeper than the furrow made by the snow blower by about 2 or 3 inches. More than that at the end, where the remains of a plow ridge is.
The plows had not gone by yet, but it looks like some farmer cleared a lane with their tractor. At first I thought it might have been done by a truck with a plow attachment I’ve been seeing in the trail cam files lately, but those treads are not from any pick up!
I had managed to do about 4 passes with little Spewie, all the way to the road, when it stop running. I’d tripped the power bar, where it’s plugged in, in the garage. While I was trudging to hit the switch, I could hear the reverse warning sound of heavy equipment, nearby.
It was the plow.
*sigh*
You can see how much I’d done on the left, where the snow is a bit lower. There was no way little Spewie could make it through that! So I had to shovel a lot of it away. Thankfully, being almost immediately after the plow went by, it was still loose and light. Once I got a fair bit of it shoveled, then I could redo the end with little Spewie.
It was still a bit much for that little machine, and one of my daughters widened the end of the driveway with a shovel while I continued working on the rest of the driveway. I didn’t stop to take any more photos, but I was able to clear enough that we will be able to back the van up to the little gate in the chain link fence to unload. The girls, meanwhile, finished shoveling out all the paths in the inner yard. The path to the compost pile was almost completely filled in!
By the time I was done, I was completely soaked from all the snow blown back onto me. My down filled coat is not as waterproof as it used to be, and my shoulders were soaked right through the layers I was wearing under it! I was wearing both a hat and cowl, which was bulky enough to hold my hood in place, so I didn’t have to close it up in front, obstructing my breathing. They were wet, all the way through, too. My glasses weren’t just frosted over. They were iced over! I was very happy to come inside and make a nice, big pot of tea to warm up with!
While all this was going on, I got some texts from the woman who will be helping us with the cats. She told me that she will be in town on Saturday, and can pass on some cat food for us. This will be much appreciated, as the store shelves have been quite empty, so we’re not as stocked up as we should be. She also expects to be able to start taking some of our cats in the next week or two, once they have finished adopting out their current batch!
She also asked about cabbages. I told her she seems to be getting a bit better, drinking water on her own again, but still not eating (at least not while I’m there to see it), so we are feeding her with a syringe. She said she should probably take Cabbages back with her when we meet on Saturday, so that they can get her to a vet right away. This is greatly appreciated, since we won’t be able to do that until the end of the month. She said she can’t make any promises, since we don’t know why she’s sick, which makes sense, of course.
So it looks like we’ll be saying goodbye to Cabbages this weekend, and she will get the vet care she needs.
I do hope this works out for her, and I am very grateful that she offered to do this.
Which makes getting ourselves dug out just that much more important!
The Re-Farmer 