Well, we finally managed it.
We weighed all the cats. All 21 of them.
Sort of.
The only way we could do it was to have my daughter stand on the digital scale to get her weight, then weigh her while holding a cat and doing the math.
The problem with that is, the digital scales reading changes based on how the feet are positioned, how you might be leaning while standing, or even what part of the floor it’s on. When my husband came over and I mentioned this, he tried getting on the scale.
My husband has no balance.
He wobbled so much, the numbers never settled, and the scale turned itself off to no display at all, like it does after you step off the scale. !!!
So we got estimates.
I’m both surprised and not surprised that Leyendecker turned out to be the heaviest at 30 pounds.
He’s not just a fat cat. He’s a tank. He’s got a skull almost as big as a softball. Hard to believe he was the smallest of his litter!
The lightest cat was Susan, at only 7 pounds.
I passed the numbers on to someone at the rescue. We will be able to buy ear mite medication through them. The kind that’s applied to the skin between the shoulders, since treating the ear canals hasn’t been working well. When it doesn’t take for just one cat, they all end with getting the mites again. We will work out getting the medication after the truck is looked at, on Monday.
Later today, I was able to head outside with the girls. While one daughter did the evening cat feeding, the other helped me with the washed cat blankets and beds, before we got the rain expected tonight. Some were dry, but most were too thick to be fully dry yet. The damp ones all got laid out under the canopy tent, most on the wire mesh curing frame, to continue drying. Hopefully, we’ll get more sunny days to set them out in, to dry and bleach in the sun.
That done, I stayed out to check the garden beds. It’s surprising to see how much survived the one night that reached freezing temperatures!
Those (wild? Alpine?) strawberries are amazingly hardy. There are still loads of tiny berries, and they are still blooming.
Even more surprising is how well the tomatoes that could not be covered are doing. Especially the Orange Currant tomatoes.
The California Wonder bell peppers were covered the night it reached 0C, and are getting quite red.
I’ll have to look it up, but I was sure they were supposed to be a yellow pepper. 😄
I took a closer look at some of the sunflowers, brushing dried petals off so I could see the developing seeds. The seed heads are all very small for the varieties, but it does look like there may be viable seeds.
After checking on things, I grabbed the loppers to prune dead and dying branches from the pink rose bush in the old kitchen garden. They are insanely thorny, but I was able to use the loppers to move the pruned branches aside, for the girls to clear away tomorrow.
While I was working on that, my brother and SIL arrived for the weekend, and I got to talk to them for a bit before finishing the pruning. I really enjoy spending time with them.
Overall, today was a good day. I was even up to making a quick run to the post office by myself. I didn’t start having pain creeping up until shortly before my evening meds alarm went off. It’s been getting worse since then, and I’m currently writing this while in bed, rather twisted up to find the least painful position. It’s not too bad… yet? We shall see.
One thing about the new dose and variation of painkiller. It makes me sleepy. My sister happened to call only a minute past my meds alarm going off. I had meant to lie down right away, but we spoke for a while. I ended up having to say goodbye, before I dozed off and dropped the phone!
Of course, now that I’m finally lying down, the sleepiness has passed. 😒
Not that it’s anything to complain about. Just something to work around.
Anyhow. I’m mostly really happy that we got the cats weighed as best we could. It’s been delayed for too long!
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 