We had some concerns about a red spot on the incision showing up, but it seems to be almost gone now.
Beep Beep is one of the cats we’ve been allowing in to “meet” Nosencrantz and Butterscotch, even though she tends to be one of the meaner cats. Butterscotch has snarled at her just like any other cat that goes by, but Beep Beep has been pretty laid back about the whole thing.
Doing the morning rounds today was surprisingly painful. Yesterday was colder, but there was pretty much no wind and bright sunshine. I did the shoveling without even wearing gloves. This morning, though we were at a much milder -19C/2F, the wind chill was -32C/-26F. It still is the same as I write this, several hours later. That wind burns!!!! My fingers got colder in the time it took to set out kibble and water this morning, than in all the time it took me to shovel, yesterday.
We had snow all night, but not a lot of it. Mostly lots of wind. The bulk of the system passed to the south of us. We still have blizzard warnings, which is supposed to hit us tonight and through tomorrow. Tomorrow, we’re supposed to get 10-15cm/4-6in of snow and high winds. They’re not saying we’re supposed to get a high of -9C/16F, but with 42km/h winds (26mph), it’s going to feel a LOT colder!
Looks like we’ll be digging all the paths out again.
Potato Beetle is still in the sun room. My husband spent some time cuddling with him, because he was lonely. Potato Beetle, I mean. Not my husband. ;-) That gave me the chance to get a good look at the wound on his neck.
I got a better look at the older wound on his forehead, and that’s healing up quite nicely. He’s managed to clean himself up, so there was no longer a big dark patch of dried blood on his neck and ear. I also could not find the wound! I could feel a small lump on his neck, but not see anything but a bit of matter fur. Potato Beetle let my husband skritch his neck in the area, so it’s clearly not hurting him. This is encouraging. From the size of the blood patch, I thought he might need stitches, but it looks like he lucked out again. The last time we thought he might need stitches and took him into the vet, he had several puncture wounds on his back leg – likely from a coyote – but did not need stitches.
This boy has probably used up a few of his nine lives!
Still, we’ll see about keeping him in the shelter and safety of the sun room for a bit longer.
Well, I’m happy to say that I did make it into town today, and was able to pick up some more wet and dry cat food.
But, before I get into how that went, I have Cabbages news!
The cat lady contacted me about her wanting to drop off her own carriers in town for me to pick up and use, since the next cats that go to the vet for their spay and vaccinations will not be coming home with us. This way, we won’t be trying to figure out when/how to get our carriers back for the next pair of cats.
She also let me know that Cabbages is doing very well right now. In fact, her husband is saying she’s starting to get too fat! She’s still on a special diet, and getting weekly vet checks to make sure her brain is okay, and that there is no relapse.
Now that she’s better, she has no time for the cat lady anymore! She only has time for her 5 yr old daughter, who dresses her up and has tea parties with her, every day.
*melt*
As we were talking, I found out something surprising. I had understood that, after the adoptable cats had their visit with the vet, they would be going to fosters for recovery, then adoption. No! They will be spending 2 weeks with the cat lady to recover, then going to the fosters while they await adoption!
As the intake person, she is not allowed to adopt any of the cats, as that would be a conflict (the organization she’s with pays for all the food, etc. for the fosters, who are volunteers, not employees). She mentioned saying goodbye to a tuxedo they had for 30 days that just went to a new home this week, and how the entire house was in tears over it. She sent a picture, and he looks SO much like a tuxedo we had years ago, it was disorienting. This was something the family and I have been talking about; how hard it must be to spend to much time caring for cats, then having to say goodbye to them, over and over.
Cabbages is a different situation. They took her in without the usual process, because Cabbages was sick, then took on all the expenses themselves. Cabbages will have been with them for a lot longer than 30 days by the time she’s ready to go to the forever home the cat lady found for her. This is not through the organizations normal adoption process, either.
Which just blows me away, because they spent a LOT of money out of their own pocket to save Cabbages’ life!
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.
What an amazing family. I am just so happy we connected with them when we did!!
Meanwhile…
Before heading out this afternoon, we set up the sun room for Potato Beetle, who is being beat up by other cats and getting injured. My daughter had gone out a few times to find him, but it wasn’t until I headed out to the garage that I spotted him in the outer yard and was able to grab him. I left him to my daughter’s care and headed into town.
I had been afraid of this. The big bags of kibble have been out of stock a lot for months, now. As you can see, they had a sale on, too. At Walmart, I can get big bags of dry kibble – if they’re in stock – at an better price, but driving to a city was not an option today. The big bags are typically 7kg (about15lbs) in size, which is why I like to get the Kirkland brand at Costco; they are 9kg (almost 20lbs) and a better price. The remaining smaller bags that you can see at the top of the photo are 4kg (almost 9lbs), and their full price is the same as the sale price for the big bags! I didn’t have a choice, though, and had to get 2 of them. At least I was able to get some wet cat food at a sale price, though not in a case, as I normally would have gotten, or even the types I wanted to get. The cats prefer the shredded or chunky cat food, but there was just one type of shredded left, so I got some pate as well. Enough to last us until next week, when hopefully there will be more inventory and we can get more.
After picking up a few other things while I had the chance, I sent a quick message to let the family know I was on the way – and that I’d forgotten to grab the wagon before I left. So when I got home, one of my daughters was waiting for me at the garage with the wage, to help me bring things in. I tried to quickly get into the sun room to tend to Potato Beetle so she could bring the wagon in for unloading, but he was right at the door when I opened it, and got out. It took a while, but I was finally able to get him and bring him back. At least that gave my daughter time to unload the wagon, and even refill the kibble bin. Fresh kibble was enough to distract Potato Beetle enough that he didn’t try escaping again.
I still couldn’t get too close a look at his wound; I just see a dark patch of dried blood on his neck fur. Which hopefully means there is no gaping wound hidden by his fur. Hopefully, he will be content in the sun room, with his very own food and water, litter box, cozy beds and even a heat lamp – and no other cats trying to beat him up!
When Potato Beetle came back after being missing for months, he had been the aggressive one, attacking other cats, but never to the point of injury like this. We don’t know which cat did this to him, but I have my suspicions it was The Distinguished Guest. My daughter thought it might be Agnoos.
Well, at least he’s safe in the sun room for now.
It will be good when he is finally brought in to the vet, then adopted out. He can be such a sweet, snuggly box, and I think he’ll make an awesome house cat. Plus, no more injuries from other critters!!
Ginger continues to settle in. With so many cats in the house there are, of course, moments of aggression. He has no problem standing his ground when one of the other cats decides to take out their bad mood on whichever other cat happens to be nearby. I’ve even seen him running around and tussling playfully with the spice girls.
He does have a habit of squirming around too close to the edge of the bed and sliding right off. :-D
His fur is growing back in the shaved area, but not evenly! He’s got patches of longer hair that’s surprisingly dark. Being right next to the corner where the incisions meet, it looked like he somehow got the area very dirty. :-D
Best of all, he’s now starting to actively seek out people for attention. :-)
I managed to get a picture of Ginger this morning.
This was just a moment before he leapt up and tackled my phone! :-D
He was very fierce-some this morning!
I got this picture of David the Magnificent, yesterday, and just had to share.
He is such a pretzel!
Meanwhile, I had a whole crowd, outside!
The Ghost Baby was peeking between the shelters to see if it was safe to go eat!
She finally dared!
My daughter told me that she sometimes shows up at their second floor window, describing her as a ghost baby. I figure that’ll do just fine as a name. Better than “that sort-of calico cat…”.
My daughters have also been telling me about another grey and white tabby. I honestly can’t remember (I’m losing track!), but they say it’s Junk Pile’s baby from last summer, and it looks like here, except thicker. So they call it Thickilous.
:-D
I may well have seen it and thought it was Junk Pile, but until I see them both at the same time, I have no way of knowing.
So we have these 7, possibly Thickilous, and Nicky the Nose, hanging around. We have more cats inside than outside right now!
Well. At least until the kittens are born. Only Butterscotch looks pregnant, but that doesn’t mean the others aren’t!
He’s been running around all over the house, but I managed to catch him and lure him with some cephalopods.
It’s not the squidlies he’s hunting.
It’s my phone!
:-D
As a side note, my spell check dictionary does not recognize the word “cephalopod”. Which is weird enough on it’s own, but the alternative spelling it suggests for the plural is “hydrocephalus”, while the suggestion for the singular is “cephalic”.
Excuse me while I “add to dictionary.” :-D
I dug up the patterns to make more of these. I am in error. Neither of these are squids. The pink one is a cuttlefish. :-D
The cats love them!
But not as much as Ginger loves to attack my phone while I try to take his picture. ;-)
I’d crocheted an amigurumi squid, years ago, trying out a new pattern. When I realized we’d closed the other cats out for the night and Ginger had no toys in the room, I decided to see if he would like it.
He did.
Squidly is now Ginger’s favourite toy! The other cats like it, too. :-D
Speaking of other cats…
His sister, Cabbages, and Keith were pretty adorable, cuddling together! :-)
This morning, as I put kibble out for the outside cats, most of them eventually made their way over.
I did not see Butterscotch.
I have my suspicions that she’s tucked away with somewhere, with new babies.
If my suspicions are correct, I hope her nest is nice and cozy, because they’re now predicting another 7 inches (almost 18cm!!) of snow on Sunday! We’ll have more snow in April than we’ve had the entire winter.
The slow melt we’re having now is perfect, except with the overnight temperatures going below zero, the freeze-thaw cycle is destroying the roads! I had to run some errands today, picking up our newly sharpened and tested electric chain saw while dropping off a lawn mower for servicing, then going to another town to drop some stuff off, and the gravel roads in particular are just awful. The paved roads and highways are going to be crumbling even worse than usual in the next while.
I don’t mind the snow while we’ve got these milder temperatures. I think most people on the farms out here will happily put up with rough roads, if it means they will have enough moisture when planting their crops.
I must admit, though, it’s rather disjointing to read other people’s blogs where they talk about all the stuff growing in their gardens, or their latest transplants. :-D
Speaking of which, we did decide to start one of the squashes we’ve got now, rather than later. The Crespo squash is the only one of them that grows large fruit. In trying to find the “days to maturity”, all I can find is “harvest the the skin is very hard”. Which doesn’t tell me much at all! I’ll just assume large fruit means longer time needed to grow them, and will give them a bigger head start. I set the seeds to soak last night, and will plant them later today.
I’m not finding a lot of information about this specific variety at all, so I’m really looking forward to seeing what happens with these.
And now I have to de-cat myself (hello, Susan) and get some work done! :-D
Yesterday, Ginger discovered the joys of bedding being changed!
The cats tend to react two ways when the sheets get changed. About half the cats see what’s happening, and are all “YAY!!! IT’s party time!” and promptly make it very, very difficult to make the bed.
The others go into a panic and run away like the world is coming to an end.
Ginger, it turns out, is the party type.
There turned out to be three cats in this picture. :-D
Time to cover the freshly washed blanket in fur again!
Time to defend territory!
No worries about Beep Beep. Every now and then, she gets in a bad mood and goes after whatever cat happens to be nearby. Ginger handles himself just fine!
I should put the freshly washed blanket into the shelf, but I’ve discovered the cats love a folded up blanket on the corner of the bed, as a bed of their own. Ginger is no exception!
We’ve been closing the other cats out of this room at night, just so Ginger can get a break from the crowd and get some sleep on the good spots. ;-) The other cats are not happy with this. As I write this, there are currently 7 cats sprawled all over my bed! :-D As soon as I open the door in the morning, they all rush right in. Next thing I know, my bed is covered, they’re circling Ginger’s food and water bowls as if they didn’t have oodles of them elsewhere in the house, and take their turns using his litter box – also as if there weren’t several others on different floors available for them! LOL
As promised, here is a picture of David for Leenda. :-)
David is just as hefty as is brother, Keith, but looks like he should be all light and fluffy.
Well. He is fluffy… ;-)
Also, he has pants. Thick, fluffy pants. When he walks by, his tail is like a huge banner with wiggling pants below.
Which is a much better view than what all the short haired cats insist on giving us, every chance they get! :-D
Well now! I was hearing the sounds of a cat playing behind me as I wrote this, so I took a look. It’s Ginger, running around and batting a cat toy around! Yes, he’s found a way to run and bat at a toy with his one front leg, at the same time!
The Re-Farmer 