Crazy kits and cat strangers

Just before I headed out to my mother’s to help her with some cooking, my husband starts laughing out loud in the living room, calling us over.

If you’ve seen his previous post, you know why!

I managed to get some photos on the DSLR, too.

Too funny!

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What a handsome boy he is!

While he was going around the platform feeder, birds would start flying over, see him and abruptly change directions.  It looked like they were dive bombing him!

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He so wanted to get onto the hanging feeder, but it kept moving! :-D

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I don’t know what he found to nibble on up there.  We saw him chewing on things a few times.

I probably don’t want to know what he was eating.

He also was standing on his back legs, trying to climb even higher, but I wasn’t able to get photos.

While Corvo was busily entertaining us, Doom Guy and The Outsider also came over and hung out at the bottom of the planter.  We couldn’t get pictures at the time, but my older daughter caught this one.

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He’s here all the time, now, and seems to have made himself at home.

My daughter also got a photo, a few days ago, of one of the mystery cats that sometimes shows up.

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This is one of two strange adult cats that have been showing up now and then.

He seems pretty chill. :-D

Beyond getting entertained by cats at home, I spent some time with my mother, doing some cooking that will be used by home care when they come by for meal assist later on.  I noticed that another jar of the chili we made for her finally got used.  She told me I should take it home, because it wasn’t “fresh”, and she needs to only eat “fresh” food, for her health.

Well, she eats plenty of stuff that isn’t “fresh” all the time, so I know that’s just something she came up with to excuse not eating the chili.  I explained again to her that the reason I put them up in jars the way I did, was so that it last longer.  It didn’t matter.  Like the chicken my sister-in-law made for her, that ended up going to the cats, she’s simply decided it has gone bad, and that’s that.

So much of the fresh food that was prepared for her ended up being thrown out, because she wouldn’t eat it for some reason, and it actually did go bad.  Such a waste.

I had a chance to show my mother some photos of the clean up I did along the fence line up to the gate, because of a concern she brought up when she phoned to ask me to come over.  It seems “people” have been telling her that I was not just cutting down dead branches, but taking down living trees.  Now, I’ve been keeping my mother in the loop about what I’m doing, including clearing trees from the fence line, because we will need access to it to repair it.  Then she started talking about her lilacs.  She had planted special lilacs by the gate.  I told her on the phone that they’re still there, I just cleaned out the dead stuff and the poplars that were growing in the middle of them.  She seemed taken aback when I mentioned poplars, but she was really upset that I had apparently cut down her special lilacs.  I assured her I hadn’t, then asked who it was that was gossiping about us that she was listening to.  I found out, and was not at all surprised it was the person that is the reason we have to lock our gates.  *sigh*  Ah, well.

So I showed her a picture of the area by the gate I had cleaned up.  Including this one.

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I don’t know what kind of lilacs those are (I wasn’t sure they were even lilacs; she has the usual purple lilacs on the other side of the gate).

It turns out, this wasn’t the gate she was talking about.  She thought I had cut down her white lilacs.

These ones.

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We cleaned up this area, months ago.

She has seen this area since I’ve cleaned it up, so she knew what I had done with it.  But when she was told I was cutting by the “gate”, she thought of the gate into the yard, not the gate at the driveway.

I’ve made a point of keeping my mother in the loop of what we’ve been doing, showing her photos every chance I get, until she is strong enough to come and see for herself.  Yet, all it takes is one person, who has no clue what we’ve done or what we are doing, to start gossiping, and she starts to panic.

So disappointing.

She saw the pictures, however, and I talked about the repairs to the fences that are needed, and the section with posts that will need to be replaces, and so on.  She was happy with what she saw.  It worked out well in the end. :-)

The Re-Farmer

 

 

How long had this been here?

While walking through the yard with my brother and nephew, we reached the garage, and my nephew noticed this.

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Best guess, it’s been hanging there since this side of the garage itself was painted.

I have no idea when this side section was added to the garage, since it happened during my years living in another province.  I don’t even know which time I lived out of province it got added on!  Suffice to say, probably a couple of decades.

Yeah.  It’s still there.  At this point, it’s just entertaining. :-D

The Re-Farmer

Digging

In the early light of the morning, I could just barely see something odd in the west yard, through the bathroom and sun room windows.

A dark something that I thought might be a lounging cat or something, at first.  Except it didn’t move.

So I made sure to check when I was outside in better light.

You know those shallow holes I’ve been finding around the yard?

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This one was not so shallow. LOL

I wonder what’s so tasty in our dirt that’s worth this much effort? :-D

The Re-Farmer

Not moving for anything…

While coming out of the house through the sun room, I startled a whole bunch of kittens that were at the food bowls.

All but two ran off, and I just had to laugh at what I saw.

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Corvo was lying IN the food bowl, looking at me, before going back to eating.  Then he cousin joined him.

Too funny!

The Re-Farmer

A long, but good, day

Today we made a trip into the city to play tourist, run a few errands, then pick up some stuff for my husband’s birthday.

It made for a very long, but enjoyable, day.

We started off with an early lunch, taking advantage of being in the city.  It turns out that Le Burger Week started today (I’d never heard of it before), so I tried the burger offering at an Asian fusion type place.

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I can’t even remember what it was called, but it was SO good!  Even better after I realized it had jalapeño in it, and took it out.  I love the flavour, but don’t do spicy well at all, due to damage to my tongue. :-(  That spiral cut potato in the background was delicious, too!

It was really hard to choose from the menu, though.  I had originally intended to have a bento box, and as good as the burger was, I’m still not sure I made the right choice.

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My daughters both ended up choosing a sushi and sashimi bento, while our guest chose the shrimp one I had been eye-balling.  The only sushi we have available out here is grocery store sushi.  I’ve tried it.  It’s pretty… dry.

Choices like this is one of the things we do miss about city living!!!

While playing tourist, one of the places we visited as a prairie garden filled with native plants.

It looks a lot like our outer yard, except with all the varieties in a much smaller space. :-D  Mind you, there were a few things I’ve never seen before, but most of it was quite familiar.  I’ll post some of the better pictures I got, later on.

As we ran errands before heading out, my darling daughters found, then got, something for me.

Meet my new friend.

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I think I will call him Yorick.

Alas, he is too big for my dash.  As I write this, he sits on my printer, looking at me.

He is soft and squishy and marvelous.

The Re-Farmer

Taking advantage

With a house guest staying with us for the next while, we have been making use of the king size mattress that’s been leaning on the dining room wall since my husband got his hospital bed.

It’s now set up in a corner of the dining room (we can even still use the dining table! :-D ).

The cats have taken advantage of this new arrangement.

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The first day it was there, they claimed it as their own.  Though no longer quite as novel, after a couple of nights, they still take it over, every chance they get. :-D

The Re-Farmer

Let’s face it. Cows are dumb

Today, I give you a story, in pictures and video.

I like cows.  Cows are wonderful creatures.

They are also not exactly intelligent creatures, though I know some breeds are smarter than others.

I was sitting in my office when I started to hear the sound of cows, mooing nearby.  I realize the renter has cycled his cows back to our quarter section, and they are nearby.  Happily, I go outside to see them.

The cows are spread out around the barn, including some in the old hay yard.

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The hay yard is now cluttered with a number of abandoned vehicles and equipment.  Including several old snowmobiles, I’m told are being kept for their parts.

Hearing an odd sound, I look in between various items.

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Can you see the cow’s nose in there?

It took me a few moments to see that the noise I was hearing was of that cow, trying to eat the snowmobile.

To be more specific, the remains of the seat on the snowmobile.

I ended up going through the barn to the hay yard, to get them away from the snowmobiles.  Which turned out to be a good thing, since I found the door to the lean to was open.  There is a tree growing near it that blocks us from seeing it from the house, so who knows how long it was open!

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This is what the cow was chewing on and licking.  In the second video, you could see the cow going for something on the far side of the seat, too.  That would likely be the foam from the seat that it was trying to get at.

Afterwards, I went out the back door of the barn.  Some cows were around where an old shed had collapsed, and I could hear them getting into the metal roofing material that’s in there, so I wanted to check on things.

This is what greeted me out the back door.

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Most of the cows and their calves avoided me, but these two were curious enough to stick around.

I then made my way over to the junk pile, starting to pick up and move over sheets of metal that had been blown over by the winds we’ve been having in the last while.  As I get around the back side of the collapsed shed, I see…

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Yeah.  That black cow with its butt facing me is right on the junk.  There is no grass or weeds there, so I have no idea what she’s after.

I really look forward to when we can get rid of this pile of junk!!

I continue around, which convinces the one cow to get off the junk.  Some move away from me, while others come closer to check me out.  I pick up and re-stack some of the sheets of metal siding, finding things to put on top of the pile to hopefully keep it from blowing over again, and make my way around between the pile and the shed.

One of the cows is braver than the others, and starts coming closer to me, watching what I’m doing.

I quickly realized that she was not chewing on grass, nor her cud.

She was chewing on a foreign object.

You might need to turn your volume up to hear this…

Now, this is concerning, because as far as I can tell, based on what’s lying around, she might be chewing on either wood or metal.

I tried to come closer to her, little by little, hoping to be able to see what she’s chewing on.

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That’s one heck of a side-eye she’s giving me!

I kept trying to move around and get closer, without chasing her away, still trying to look into her mouth and see what she’s chewing on.

After a while, I start getting really concerned, because she’s got foam around her mouth from the chewing, and every now and then looked to be in some discomfort.

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Then the object fell out of her mouth.

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That, my dear friends, is a bone.

A beef bone.

I can’t say I was all that surprised.  This is not the first time I’ve seen a cow chewing on a beef bone.  When I was a kid, I remember walking past one of our cows and seeing her chewing with her head extended weirdly.  She was familiar enough with me that I could walk up to her and reach into her mouth, where I pulled out one of the dogs’ beef bones.  It was not as thoroughly chewed up as this one, though!

I have no idea where she found it, but I wouldn’t let her pick it up again.

She was displeased with that.

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Ooh, this girl had attitude!

I proceed to kick the piece of bone away until I got it to the junk pile.

Once I was away, she started looking for it.

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She wanted that bone back!  She just kept snuffling and snuffling the area.

At this point, I decided it was time to head out and went back around the junk pile to go to the barn.  Where I found…

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This was not here, the last time I tried to clean up around the pile.  In fact, I don’t remember seeing it just a few minutes before, when I went past here to go around the pile and found the cow standing right on the junk.

It is, I believe, from one of the snowmobiles.

I took it into the barn when I went in and closed up the doors again.

As I come out the front doors of the barn, I look back and see…

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Can you believe it?  That cow, with company, actually found where I’d kicked the piece of bone!

I’m hoping she wasn’t able to get it out, but she seems quite determined!

I know it’s a running joke that goats will eat anything.

So will cows.

Including the remains of other cows.

Herbivore fail!

The Re-Farmer

Turtle Victory

I spent a lot of time in our previous van.

It wasn’t unusual for me to be out and about, several times a day, and to spend a fair bit of time just sitting in it, waiting for a daughter to get off work or some such.

So I made it my happy place.

I decorated the dash with all sorts of bling; mostly using white “pearl” stick-ons from the scrapbooking supplies section, in lines and swirls and patterns. I also had things like glow in the dark “rocks” and numerous creatures, held in place with FunTac.  Dinosaurs.  Fish.  Turtles and tortoises. Glow in the dark insects.  At Christmas, I would add in a miniature Christmas tree or two, complete with miniature, battery operated lights.

When that van died and we got our new one, I salvaged all but the sticker gems, intending to start over on the dash of our new vehicle.

I started to do it, but quickly discovered that the vinyl was not the same, and the adhesive on the sticker decorations, as well as the FunTac, didn’t stick.

So I stopped.  At some point, I want to continue.  Maybe.

Until then, I enjoy the few that I have up.

My mother, however, hates them.

For some reason, she believes that if these things are on my dash, that means I worship them.  I should have statues of Jesus on my dash, not frogs or turtles.

We’ve had some… *ahem* … discussions about this.

The night I picked up my mother to drive her to the airport, as she settled into her seat, she suddenly told me to “not look”, reached out and grabbed…

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… my turtle with the wiggly legs.

Much to my surprise, considering it’s held in place with nothing but old FunTac, it wouldn’t budge.

My turtle won the battle, and remains on my dash, watching me as I drive, nodding its head, wiggling its legs, and putting a smile on my face.

The Re-Farmer

Fun photos

A couple of fun photos to share with you today.

This one is from yesterday, after picking my daughter up from work.  She rescued a snowberry clearwing moth, aka hummingbird moth, while at the pharmacy.

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Then it just sort of chilled on her hand and didn’t want to leave! :-D

I got this one just a few minutes ago.  I noticed the water in the cat bowls outside was completely gone (it was another hot one, today, and the bowls are right in the sun), when I came out to see why Beep Beep was being so talkative.

After filling the bowls, I looked around for her and found her…

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I guess she didn’t want to wait! :-D

I don’t think I’ve ever seen any birds use that thing.  Maybe now I know why! :-D

The Re-Farmer