inside cats

Morning in the garden, and good cat news!

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What an incredibly moody atmosphere this morning!

This photo was taken shortly after 8am.

It was this wild combination of fog and bright sunshine. Just beautiful!

We were supposed to reach a low of around 11C/52F last night, but when I checked my phone at about 7am, one app was telling me it was 7C/45F. Another was saying we were at 10C/50F, but I think the 7C was the more accurate one.

With that sort of chill, I was not expecting to harvest anything this morning. Certainly, no tomatoes ripened overnight! Yet, I did find this!

There were quite a few larger Gold Ball turnips (they are being thinned by harvesting), and a single radish was ready to pick. In that bed, there are almost no beets coming up, and I’m not really seeing any spinach, either. I think the slugs got to them. But the radishes are coming up, at least. The others are still looking small, long and skinny. There was just this one that was ready to pick.

I also spotted this sleepy guy.

It was barely moving in the colder temperatures. It’ll be warmed by the sun, soon enough. According to my computer’s weather app (I really should get a thermometer for outside my window!), it’s 13C/55F, and we’re expecting a high of 21C/70F.

While checking the purple corn (which we are leaving to dry on the stalks, to collect seed), I could see the Red Swan beans we’d planted among the corn are getting bigger, with lots of flowers. I also finally spotted these!

These were planted late, specifically for their nitrogen fixing properties. I was not expecting to actually get a harvest from them, yet here they are! We should be able to start harvesting beans in a few days! I hope they taste good, because we ended up with a lot of these.

While checking on the old kitchen garden, one of the things I regularly do is look up into the lilac bush that the luffa is climbing, and try to see the little bitty luffa that are developing. There’s one that’s resting on a lilac twig, and it looks like it’s been damaged by the wind rubbing them together.

As I was trying to see among the leaves, I realized there was a much larger gourd developing, high up. I went around the other side of the wattle weave bed to try and see it better, only to discover this one.

It’s huge! Easily a foot long. It is completely hidden by greenery on the other side.

With a gourd this big, we might actually have a fully mature and tried out luffa to harvest by the end of the growing season! As long as the frost holds off.

As I was finishing up around the sun room before going inside, I saw a few of Octomom’s babies emerging from under the cat house. I also saw the black and white garage kitty, way off at the bowl under the grape vines. Nice to see that one coming to the house, finally!

I was in the sun room, just about to go inside, when another cat came up, wanting attention.

It was The Phantom! She’s back!!!

It took a bit of convincing, but when I opened the doors, she came into the house. I let her explore for a bit – and get sniffed at by other cats – when my daughter was able to pick her up and we put her in my bedroom.

The “isolation ward” is getting very crowded.

She’s settling in, though, and loving attention. As I write this, she is behind me on my office chair, keeping my butt warm!

The new kitten we brought in has no problem with her. They would remember each other. I think Decimus still recognized her, too. I’m not sure about Ghosty; they would have met before we brought Ghosty in, but she was so sick, and it was long ago enough that I’m sure she doesn’t remember Phantom anymore, even if her scent might still be familiar.

A couple of Decimus’ kittens were making themselves big, and Tin Whistle even hissed at her, but they now seem used to her and are ignoring her.

Snarly Marlee has been practically living on the window shelf. She is not happy with so many cats in the room.

I’ve no idea how TTT is; they would know each other, too, but TTT is in her favourite sleeping spot in my closet.

Speaking of TTT.

I am not happy with her.

I slept on the couch again last night. I had my mattress uncovered, with “Pet Fresh” carpet powder on the damp spots. I hoped it would be left alone, but when I came in this morning, there was a huge new pee spot, right in the middle of the mattress. There was also a “gift” next to the litter box under my desk, with a puppy pad all bunched up around it.

I ended up taking the box fan out of the window and found a way to set it up directly on my mattress. If nothing else, the breeze it’s creating is making most of my mattress an unpleasant place to be! There is one corner that’s got their bed blanket on it, and they’re not even using that, all that much. The kittens are playing around the fan, though, but they’re more interested in the cave it creates in my wall shelf behind it. A spot they are allowed to play in.

I chatted with the Cat Lady this morning, very happy to pass on the news about Phantom. I also told her about what TTT is doing. She told me that this is apparently common with cats that lose a front leg. They can’t dig in the litter, so they go just anywhere. We didn’t have that problem at all with Ginger. After he had his removed and came indoors, he used a litter box right away, even though he’d never seen one before. As for TTT, considering how much she digs at the puppy pads to bury her poop, clearly, that is not the issue with her.

Butterscotch, meanwhile, is happy the box fan it out of my window. She’s contentedly laying on the window ledge, looking outside. I expected it to be Nosencrantz, considering how much she’s been trying to get behind the fan, but Butterscotch is more Alpha that Nosencrantz. 😄 Nosencrantz is in her favourite spot in the shelf beside the window.

Well, I hope things work out over the next while. Just a little while longer. Then Decimus, the no-name outside kitten and Phantom will all get spayed, then taken to their new home.

It’s a start.

The Re-Farmer

Making tomato sauce

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Well, it took several hours longer than expected, but the tomato sauce got done!

I filled my large colander with the ripest of the Roma VF we have laying on a screen in the cat free zone, as well as the ripest Indigo Blue Chocolate and Black Beauties, filling the colander to almost overflowing.

After going through a number of recipes, I decided to not blanch them first. The Roma got topped, halved and seeded first, then went into my larger stock pot. I considered doing the other tomatoes separately, but didn’t want to mess with more pots and just mixed them all together.

When we processed tomatoes last year, we blanched and cooked them, before running them through a sieve, so any seeds were no longer viable by the time they went into the compost heap. This time, I seeded them first. I expect we’ll be having some volunteers in the compost pile, next year! 😄

For the seasoning, I kept things simple. I harvested some fresh yellow onions, picking ones the cats rolled on and broke the stems, since those were not going to be getting any bigger. They were a decent size, though, and I only used three of the bunch I picked. The rest got braided and are now hanging in the cat free zone (the living room) with the garlic to cure.

I grabbed a garlic bulb that turned out to have two huge cloves, as well as a bunch of fresh thyme from the pot in the living room. Along with that, I added some freshly ground salt; my husband picked up new salt and pepper grinders to replace our old and breaking ones, and got a container of Himalayan pink salt chunks for the salt grinder, too. I also added a bit of sugar and lemon juice.

Once the tomatoes had stewed long enough that the skins could be easily removed, I sautéed the onions and whole garlic cloves in some ghee until the onions were translucent. I was going to strain the tomatoes through a fine colander I have, but I couldn’t find it, so it went through a large sieve, instead. This sieve has a quite fine mesh on it. I don’t know how much difference it would have made if I’d used the colander, since there really wasn’t a lot of pulp in there, but the end result was more like tomato juice than tomato sauce!

Which is why it ended up taking much longer than expected to cook it down to a more sauce like consistency.

All those tomatoes had filled my larger stock pot. By the time I strained out the skins, it barely filled half of my smaller stock pot. I cooked it down until it seemed thick enough, then poured the sauce into sterilized 750ml canning jars. I was able to fill two, plus maybe a third of the last jar. That one got a twist off lid. In the photo, the whitish chunks are the broken up pieces of garlic cloves. Mmmmm….

They are now sitting out to cool over night, and then they’re going into the fridge. There isn’t enough there to bother actually canning the sauce.

I think with the next batch, though, I might take the time to make tomato paste again – this time on the hot plate on the dining table, to free up the kitchen, like we did last year. I don’t expect to be making as much as we did last year, and we only got a dozen 125ml jars of paste at the time. They went over so very well, though, they didn’t last long. That’s why my original intention had been to grow so many paste tomatoes this year, and it just didn’t happen. Hopefully, we’ll be more prepared, next year!

Altogether, this took about 5 or 6 hours to finish. If we’d been working with more tomatoes, I would have broken out our giant stock pot – the one that’s big enough to brine a turkey, with room to spare – to cook down the tomatoes. That’s what I used to make the paste last year.

We still have plenty of tomatoes resting on the screen in the living room and, of course, lots more on the vines, so we will be doing this again, probably a couple more times.

I did get a bit of a nap in before I started, but I am still so very tired. I’ll expect I’ll be sleeping on the couch again tonight, too. The family did keep checking on my room, and my husband even had Snarly Marlee in the living room to give her a break from the kittens for a while, and there were no new messes. Hopefully, things will stay that way, but my mattress is still damp from the previous ones.

I so look forward to getting cats and kittens adopted out!

Speaking of which, still no sign of The Phantom. The Cat Lady and I have been discussing alternatives if she doesn’t show up, and tomorrow she plans to drop off a trap for us.

Still no interest in the kittens she shared photos of.

Since they are friendlier and easier to catch, she’s going to see about booking us to get a bunch of males fixed, next.

As much as I’d like to get the outside cats fixed and adopted out, we really need to adopt out more inside cats. Some of them are inside only because they were going to get taken and adopted out, and it just didn’t end up happening.

Ah, well. We’ll figure it out.

The Re-Farmer

Some good news… with a bit of a snag

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Well, I did end up going to town today with one of my daughters, with some of their own shopping to do. We got home just in time for a brief thunderstorm to pass over us. We’re still getting rain, off and on.

Meanwhile, I was chatting with the Cat Lady, as she passed things on to me once they were arranged. The woman who was looking for mousers was very excited that we had cats we could send her way soon. Three of them – Decimus, The Phantom and one of the older kittens; a black and white we’ve been able to socialize quite well.

We now have an appointment to have all three of them spayed. I will drop them off on the morning of the 30th, and the Cat Lady will take things from there.

So once we were home, I did the evening cat feeding and went looking. Still no sign of The Phantom, but the black and white kitten was lounging on one of the “beds” we have for them in the sun room.

I was going to bring her in but, just to be on the safe side, I checked.

Oh, dear.

There was too much movement, but I was pretty sure those were testicles.

I ended up getting my daughter to help. I held the kitten while she checked. Sure enough, she turned out to be a he!

There was another kitten, a grey and white tabby, we’ve been able to socialize quite a bit, so we snagged that one to double check, too. Confirmed female.

So I brought that one in.

The problem is, she’s too young to be spayed.

This is her with Tweedle Dee. There’s almost no difference in size!

She was pretty nervous about being inside, but I did the evening wet cat food feeding, and she was more than happy to have her very first taste of it! The other kittens were quick to check her out and wanted to play with her until the food came out. Once everyone was done eating, she explored a bit, and is now hiding under one of my shelves. Every now and then, a kitten will go over and try to play with her.

The adult cats don’t seem to have even noticed there’s an extra kitten in the room.

I spent some time outside, playing with the few kittens that will allow it – all confirmed males. With the other kittens, I just can’t get close. As for the adult cats, the only ones I’ve had any luck touching are Junk Pile and Caramel, both of whom look pregnant, and Beep Bop, who hasn’t weaned her nurslings yet – and her nurslings include Caramel’s three. It would be ideal to grab Adam and Brussel, who have the oldest litters. Adam is one of the creche mothers, content to nurse any kitten. Brussel won’t let anyone near her.

There is Broccoli, a calico. When she’s eating on the cat house roof, she will sometimes let me pet her, but usually not. She would be an ideal candidate. She is the mother of the calicos, Brussel and Sprout – Sprout is even shier than Brussel – and Phantom, the tortie. They all need to be spayed, but only Phantom is friendly. We’d definitely have to trap Brussel and Sprout. Possibly Broccoli, too.

*sigh*

Well, we still have some time. At the very least, I hope The Phantom comes back soon! I’ve updated the Cat Lady, but she hasn’t seen my messages yet, so we’ll see what she has to say. They may be able to take the kitten anyhow, and have it spayed later. It’s just that she made appointments for spays for 3 cats. We might bring TTT in for a spay, instead, though she will likely come back home later, even though she’s on the adoption list.

Speaking of TTT, I haven’t been able to get her into her coat, but I did get to look at her incision this morning. She’s going to have one heckuva scar in one part of the incision, I think. It’s still very red, but it’s staying closed. She has been spending most of her time in the closet cave, so it’s not being stressed at all, and air is the best thing for it right now.

Oh, my goodness! Things were very quiet behind me, so I took a look. Decimus’ kittens and Ghosty are all asleep together on my bed, Butterscotch sleeping beside them, but I can see the new kitten has settled on another makeshift cat bed on top of a bin, and looks like she’s taking a nap, too!

I hope this works out.

The Re-Farmer

Before and after – all is well!

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TTT had her trip to the vet and, generally speaking, all is going well.

Here she is, ready to come out of the carrier in the examination room.

She was quite content in there and didn’t come out on her own at all. When the tech came in, I had to take her out!

The incision site is a sort of Y shape. She took the staples out of one section without any problems, but it looked as if there were some leaking at some point, and a few were harder to get out than others. As she went on, there was a section she decided the vet should see, so she moved to the other end. There, the skin was sort of folded and tucked in. She moved things around and started to take out staples, and there was more skin than expected, as well as some gunk. There was also a floppy area that looked like it might have fluid in it. Or just be floppy skin (I actually have similar under my arms, from when I had by breast reduction but elected not to pay extra for liposuction under the arms).

The vet did end up taking the rest of the staples out. She doesn’t usually do staples. She had considered removing more skin during the surgery, but decided to leave things a bit looser, and a bit more got tucked in with the staples than usual. The gunk was just that; stuff that normally would have sloughed off naturally from the skin, but couldn’t. The incisions looked really red as a result, but they were all closed up and healing well. Everything got a good cleaning, and she got a slow release antibiotic, just in case. What the incisions really need right now is air. However, just to be on the safe side – especially since she likes to lie on that incision site – we’ll be putting her back in the coat she was wearing when we brought her home.

I did get a chance to talk to the tech about her refusal to use the litter. After asking some questions about what we use for litter, she suggested we try using a clay litter instead of pellets, as it would be more like the dirt she’s used to. Though she has no problems using the puppy pads next to the litter box! I’m willing to try it. We might just use both and transition back to pellets over time.

Overall, though, she got a clean bill of health, and the vet is quite happy with how she is doing. We’re all quite amazed by how calm and accepting she is, considering she hardly had any direct human contact at all until just a couple of weeks ago. I held her while the staples were being removed, and she was trembling like crazy, but she didn’t try to run away, didn’t meow or complain, or anything like that. At most, she squirmed around a bit and the vet brought the V shaped bed to make it easier for her.

When she was put on the scale, she actually settled down and stayed there while the vet went out to get the injection!

As for the puffy spot, the vet tried to see if she could get fluid out of it, and got nothing, so it’s just a floppy bit.

This is her in the carrier, back in the car and ready to go home. She was completely calm and quiet for the entire drive, and didn’t complain until I took her out of the car and carried her to the house. Once inside, she stopped complaining.

I’ve started to put the word out that she’s available for adoption, once she’s healed up. I figure another 2 weeks to keep an eye on her and the surgical site. She has certainly adapted to her situation really well!

The kittens are now at adoptable ages, so I’ve taken some new photos to pass on to the Cat Lady. All be putting the word out myself, but she has a lot more resources than I do.

Snarly Marlee will be very happy once the kittens are gone! TTT, too, though they don’t interact much and keep their distance. When it comes to the kittens, though, all she has to do is see them from across the room, and she starts growling and snarling at them.

Just hearing a noise behind me. It’s Nosencrantz.

I’d really like to know why Nosencrantz has suddenly taken to using the kitten sized litter pan all the time now, instead of the adult sized litter boxes!!!!

The Re-Farmer

Plans changed… and I’m not surprised

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First, the more pleasant stuff!

It’s a wonderfully cool morning today. The entire time I was doing my morning rounds, it was gently misting instead of raining. And would you look at this!

We still have strawberries, blooming and ripening! Recovering from being eaten by deer has resulted in very late production. I’ll take it! 😄

I wasn’t able to get pictures, but I did have a small harvest today. I wasn’t expecting to, so I didn’t bring my colander and ended up using my shirt. I really ought to keep at least one of our harvesting colanders by the sun room! I was actually able to harvest some ripe looking Black Beauties today, as well as a few Indigo Blues. I left the Romas for later. There were some more summer squash to hand pollinate, as well as a couple large enough to harvest.

In looking over the winter squash and the melons, I just have to shake my head. The melons have been blooming like crazy, with both male and female flowers, but there are only 3 melons forming that I can find. This morning, however, there are suddenly a plethora of female flowers! Too many to even try to hand pollinate. With the size of the flowers, I’d have to use something like a cotton swab, anyhow. Hopefully, the insects will take care of it, though to be honest, it’s coming up on the end of August, so not much time for any fruit to reach maturity. Our first average frost date is Sept. 10, but with the strong El Nino this year, we might actually have a chance.

As for the winter squash, there had been two new Honeyboat Delicata forming, then one shrivelled up. The remaining one is getting noticeably bigger, every day. This morning, however, one of the other plants suddenly has a whole bunch of female flowers! Until now, it’s been all male flowers. One was open enough that I could hand pollinate it. The others should open over the next few days. Will they have a chance to mature? During a typical year, no. It would be way too late in the season. But if the frost holds off… we might just have some.

On a slightly more frustrating note, I saw Junk Pile again this morning. This photo is from last night.

That is one round belly.

I saw Caramel walking by this morning, too, and she’s looking pretty round.

More kittens at the end of August/beginning of September?

Crap.

Junk Pile has had a strange year. She had a litter of kittens extremely early and lost them. For a short while, she would follow me as I trudged through the snow to do my rounds and allow me to pick her up and carry her. She was clearly upset about losing her babies. After a few days of that, though, she went back to making strange. She will sometimes allow me to pet her when she’s on the cat house roof, eating, but that’s about it.

I’m sure she had another litter, but not being able to tell her and not-Junk Pile (now Two Toes Tony) apart, it was hard to tell. Once we saw not-Junk Pile/TTT with scratching wounds behind her ears, we could tell them apart, so I could see that it was TTT had a litter of six, though by the time we found her with the broken leg, it seems she was down to three. I would sometimes see that Junk Pile had active nips, but I never saw her with kittens. If her kittens are here at the house now, I don’t know which are hers, and the creche mothers – mostly Adam and Beep Bop – will nurse any and all kittens by the house that want to. Beep Bop is often seen nursing Caramel’s three – so I guess it’s no surprise that Caramel is pregnant again, too, even though her kittens are not old enough to be weaned.

*sigh*

Now, on to the main change of the day.

I’m not going to my mother’s.

I was indisposed when the phone started ringing, and it wasn’t even 7:30 in the morning yet. We get only two types of calls before 8am. Scammers, or my mother! 😄 I found a message from my mother, sounding very conciliatory, saying I didn’t need to come over. I could go to my appointment. She would be all right. (As if I needed her permission to go to my appointment??)

So I called her back. She told me she would take the shuttle bus for her errands. I could go to my appointment. She’d be fine. It’s only $6. She absolutely insisted I did not need to come over.

Which is fine, but between yesterday’s call and her attitude this morning, my suspicions are almost confirmed. She didn’t want me to come at all, because she had plans for my sister. She can talk my sister into taking her places that I can’t – or won’t! – take her. Considering the things she’s been saying about my brother lately, I have a very good idea of what that would have been, and there is no way I would have had the time to drive her around for that. Also, even if I did, there are things she can talk my sister into doing that she can’t talk me into. I sometimes worry about my sister’s cognitive abilities, to be honest, because she got talked into helping my mother stab my brother in the back, and she still seems to have no understanding of the harm she’s done, among other odd things.

Well, whatever. My day just went back to my original plans.

Sort of.

A nap is now part of those plans.

I didn’t get much sleep last night. With TTT not using the litter, and peeing on my pillows, I think I found something suitable to block her preferred area. My husband got a wedge for his knees, years ago, but with his hospital bed, he no longer needs it. I brought it down from it’s storage spot and have it on my bed. I considered she might just decide to pee next to it or something, but she really seemed to be wanting to use my pillows, so I hoped it would work.

After being awakened many times by either the kittens running wild, or Snarly Marlee growling and snarling at them – even when they were nowhere near her! – I am pretty sleepy right now! I was, however, awakened yet again, shortly before my alarm was supposed to go off . A distinctive rustling sound.

Sure enough, TTT was under my desk. She’d dug around the puppy pads and took a dump, right next to the litter box.

At least it was on a puppy pad.

There was no puddle, however. I couldn’t find a puddle anywhere, which had me concered that she’d found some hidden corner to use that we can’t get at.

Then I sat in it.

I keep a towel on the seat of my desk chair. It’s fake leather and the surface has been peeling off, with more than a little assistance from cats. I have the towel so that I don’t have little pieces of fake leather stuck to my butt when I get up.

TTT had jumped onto my chair and peed on the towel.

With a litter box RIGHT THERE and easier to get to.

*sigh*

I’ll be sure to talk to someone at the clinic today about it, but to be honest, I suspect we won’t solve that problem until the kittens get adopted out. Too many kittens using all of the litter boxes.

I’d really like to adopt out TTT, too. She’s new to this indoor life thing, but I’m sure she would be better in a household with far fewer cats in it!

We’ll figure it out.

The Re-Farmer

Morning harvest, and follow up

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We actually got rain some time this morning! Not a lot, but enough to raised the level in the rain barrel, and for the ground to still be moist when I was doing my rounds.

This morning’s harvest was pretty good.

There are some green and yellow beans on the bottom. The bush beans aren’t producing a lot anymore, but there’s still enough for a meal coming off of them, every couple of days. The tomatoes are mostly Romas, of course, but there is an actual ripe Black Beauty in thee! Plus a green one that broke off when I was looking through the vines. The others are Indigo Blues. There’s just a couple of patty pans, with more ripening, including some yellow patty pans I hand pollinated. With rain collecting in the cups of the flowers, no insects were going to do it, that’s for sure!

Finally, there is a Sweet Chocolate pepper. It looks pretty green in the photo, but it’s just one little patch; the rest is deep, milk chocolate brown.

On a completely different note…

TTT got her last doses of medication last night. That’s going to make feeding the cats in my room so much easier! No more wrestling kittens to keep them away from the bowl of wet cat food while it’s being medicated, or keeping TTT from eating the kitten distraction wet cat food and becoming too full to eat her medicated food.

I’m happy to say that, so far at least, TTT has not left me a big, wet gift at my pillow since yesterday morning. I was awakened during the night by odd noises that I thought might have been her finding somewhere else not-a-litter-box to use, but the kittens were active, so I couldn’t tell what the noise was. I couldn’t see TTT anywhere for quite some time, but eventually she crawled her way out of my closet. I have some boxes stacked in there and the cats sometimes use the top as a very hidden away bed. I now think the noise that woke me was her scrambling up to this prime napping cave.

The puppy pad I put on the new litter box was wet, but I still couldn’t say it was TTT, or a bunch of kittens using it. I thought it might be safe to remove it, though, and expose the litter pellets below.

Eventually, I was able to get back to bed, though it was past 5am by then. When I got up for the day, sure enough, there was a “gift” under my desk for me – on a puppy pad right next to the litter box.

*sigh*

No sign of puddles, though. Anywhere. So maybe she’s at least peeing in a litter box now?

Tomorrow, she goes in to have her staples removed. I’ll see if I can get some advice at the clinic while I’m there. She’s not seeing the vet; just a technician, but I’m sure there will be someone I can talk to.

Meanwhile, I’m wondering what else I can leave on my bed to dissuade any possible puddles!

The Re-Farmer

Morning kitties and afternoon frustration!

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I got to see a whole bunch of irregulars this morning, and even catch and cuddle one!

Octomom brought her babies over for breakfast, though I only saw four of them. Three are at the tray under the water bowl shelter, with the tuxedo. There’s one that ran out of sight around the corner of the cat house.

I was able to catch and pick up the two black ones at the same time, but one got loose. I was able to hold and cuddle the other one long enough that it started to relax in my arms. When I put it down in the food tray again, it did not run away.

Unfortunately, so many kittens were trying to hide out in the same space under the entry to the cat house that they started to growl, hiss and scare each other. The other black one ended up running off to the spirea in full “I’m gonna make myself big” mode. Which made it’s gait rather … bouncy!

As I headed to the gate to switch out the trail cam memory card, I spotted this “stranger”. It’s very shy, so I had to zoom in quite a bit to get its photo.

This is one of Brussel’s kittens. I’ve seen two of them a couple of times, around the shed with the collapsed roof. Lately, I’ve seen only this one, skulking around the garage. Brussel has never tried to bring her babies to the kibble by the house, and they are among the oldest of the kittens. That they haven’t even come out on their own is pretty unusual, too. I’m hoping they are at least eating the kibble I’m still leaving inside the garage. That was originally for Octomom, but I kept doing it when I realized Brussel’s kittens were in the area.

Oddly, I’ve not been seeing a lot of cats outside lately. At least not all at the same time. When I came out with the food this morning, I counted a dozen, and only 3 of them were adults. More showed up later, but it just seems like there are a lot fewer cats than I would expect. Usually, when I first come out, they are swarming. Especially if I come out later, which I’ve been doing lately. I’ve been waiting until after we’ve given TTT her medications at 9am. Not only were there no cats swarming around, but there was still kibble in the food trays! Not much, but enough that I thought someone else had done the morning feeding, but no one had. Usually, if the cats don’t finish the kibble, the skunks and racoons clean out the trays by morning.

Not that I’m complaining. I would rather not be feeding skunks and racoons!

Oh, and while I was working outside this afternoon, I saw Caramel go by. She looks pregnant. Her kittens aren’t even weaned yet!!!

As for the inside kitties, I’m getting beyond frustrated.

Before going outside, I tried to find a way to discourage TTT from peeing on my bed. I found a huge spot on my bed last night. With the help of a daughter, I soaked up as much as I could with the puppy pads (I’m going through those fast, but they do a great job of soaking up the pee) before covering it with a fresh one, absorbent side down. Then we put fresh sheets on and rotated the mattress, so I wouldn’t be sleeping right on top of the absorbent pad. Then I started the laundry, which my daughters set in the dryer for me during the night.

She always pees in the same area, so this morning I ended up taking a larger skull Halloween decoration I had on a shelf and putting it there. I couldn’t find anything else that looked like it would work.

I came in from working outside just a little while ago, to take a break, upload photos and start writing blog posts. TTT was laying on my bed with a kitten, on their favourite folded up blanket and I pet her for a bit. I found the skull was knocked over because the kittens were playing in it (one kitten can fit in it, with room to spare!), but it was still in the same spot.. I looked around and everything was dry, so I straightened it out and went to my desk. I’d put a puppy pad over the new litter box under my desk, in hopes she would use that, since she crapped on a puppy pad right next to the litter box, instead of in the litter box.. I could see it had been peed on, but that could have been the kittens. I changed it out for a fresh pad. As I started settling down and uploading pictures, I could hear some noise and looked over to see the kittens rolling around in the skull.

TTT was hopping across my bed.

Yup.

There was a new pee spot.

Right next to where the skull was.

At least this time she didn’t get my pillow, but she did get my pajamas.

I didn’t even get my sheets from the drier from last night, yet!

My husband got those for me while I started taking off the sheets and soaking up the pee spot. I do have a mattress cover and, while it is pretty water proof, it’s not 100% waterproof, so I took that off for washing, too. There were already two other spots on the cover with puppy pads on them, and even the older one was still damp. I ended up finishing off a box of “Pet Fresh” carpet powder that I have for under my desk, directly on the mattress. I’m glad I ended up getting two of those, during my last shopping trip! The spots on the mattress aren’t soaking wet, thanks to the cover, but they are slightly damp and stained. I now have my fan going on full power to help get it dry.

It’s getting to the point I’m seriously considering going into the storage shed and finding that bag of mattress pads that belonged to my late father that I remember packing away. If I can lay some of those under my sheets, that would help save my mattress. The problem is, there are a LOT of bags, plus boxes blocking the way, to dig through.

I suppose I can understand why she didn’t go for her usual spot under the desk, since I was sitting at it at the time, but I’m flummoxed as to why she won’t use any of the other litter boxes. They even all had fresh litter in them! She won’t even go near them.

I don’t get it.

The Re-Farmer

Morning in the garden, and… not again!

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I ended up picking Roma tomatoes yesterday evening (more on that later), so there weren’t that many to pick this morning. Here is today’s morning harvest.

With the beans winding down, I might start picking them every three days, instead of every other day. It’s nice to be able to pick at least a couple of the Indigo Blue Chocolate tomatoes almost every day now.

Our volunteer sunflower has started to bloom, so went to take a picture. Just as I did, a bumble bee landed on it. It ended up under a petal, so I waited until it worked its way out before taking some photos.

It was not until I uploaded the photos that I spotted the tiny little spider!

Yesterday evening, when things cooled down, I got out the riding mower my brother spent so much time and effort to fix for us. For all the rain we’ve been having, most of the grass doesn’t actually need cutting. The south yards needed to be done. One half never got done last time, because of the weather, and the main garden area was also missed. Even then, things weren’t anywhere near as overgrown as it got in the spring.

I got the south yards done but skipped the west and north yards completely. Even the grass between the crab apple trees and the spruce grove didn’t need to be done, though around the trees themselves the growth is taller. I’ll probably do that with the weed trimmer, as well as the really rough section west of the squash patch.

When doing the old main garden area, I was taking it very slow and careful. There are a couple of more level areas where I can put the speed at the second slowest, but for the most part, I was going as slow as the mower can go. I’d done a fair bit of it when I reached a point where I stopped to shift from 2 to 1.

Nothing happened.

The mower simply stopped moving.

Previously, this happened when the drive chain would fall off, but the chain has been replaced. Also, there was no change in the sound that might have suggested there was a problem. It was running fine.

Then it wasn’t.

I’ll have to go back and see if I can get a better look under there. Maybe with my phone camera. My brother had sent me pictures of everything while he was working on it, but apparently I did not save them to my computer. I’ve been going through our old messages to find them and see what things are supposed to look like again, and it turns out we message each other a LOT. The farther back I go, the longer it takes for things to load.

Anyhow, I messaged my daughters for assistance, and got help pushing the mower to the garage. Pushing it isn’t a problem. Pushing it and trying to steer at the same time is rather awkward!

Then I got out the push mower and finished mowing the old garden area. I was also able to mow some areas the riding mower can’t fit into, including around the garden beds a bit. The rest will have to wait for the weed trimmer.

After I finished mowing, I checked on the garden beds and noticed some Romas were starting to fall off the vines, so I ended up picking quite a few of them, after checking on the rest of the beds.

Alas, I found that we have lost one of our two Boston Marrows.

We only had two surviving seed starts to transplant, and only one squash on each of them. I have no idea why the one died like that. The other seems okay, but I ended up putting a piece of broken pottery under it to get it off the mulch, making sure the curve of the pot would drain any water away from the squash.

As for the rest of the garden beds, both the Irish Cobbler and Red Thumb potato plants have completely died back. Time to dig them up and set them out to cure for a few days. We’re supposed to get rain tomorrow, so it’ll have to be under the old market tent. We just have to set them up so that the cats will stay off of them! 😄

As I was finishing up and putting things away around the house, I suddenly saw Adam go running towards the corner where the old basement window is, on high alert. At first I thought she was responding to Cheddar, meowing in my husband’s bedroom window, but then I saw she was laser focused at the stucco wall beside it.

All I could see was what looked like a leaf or something, splattered against the wall, so I went to take a closer look.

This is what the “leaf” turned out to be!

What an adorable little frog! I’m curious about how it got there. It was easily over 6′ above the ground when I saw it, and it looks like it was on its way down.

I love frogs. I’m so happy we have so many of them this year. They are good garden friends!

Last off all, I just have to share this adorable photo I got of a couple of the kittens last night.

At first, I thought it was Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, but I don’t see an all pink nose, which is the main difference between them. Which means one of them – the bottom one, I think – is Shadow in the Dark.

Gosh, they are so cute!

They are also very cuddly, and love to sleep on me when I’m in bed. They’re so tiny, sometimes I can’t even tell they’re there, until either they or I move! I love it. :-)

I’ll still be happy when they are adopted out, though! So will Decimus. She spends as little time with them as possible now! I hope to adopt her out, too.

In other things, TTT is still doing very well in her recovery. There is only one major problem with her.

She refuses to use a litter box.

Any of them.

Last night, as I was getting into bed, I found my elbow in a puddle. She’d peed on my pillow again! Thankfully, I have a mattress cover – and those puppy pads do a great job of soaking up the puddle. I still had to leave one over it, absorbent side down, and rotate my mattress, so I wouldn’t be sleeping on it.

Then, at about 5 am, I was awakened by the rustling of puppy pads under my desk. I caught her before she made a mess and put her in a litter box, but she wouldn’t use it. I tried her in a different litter box, in case she didn’t like the covered one, and she still wouldn’t use it. I didn’t dare go back to bed, knowing she would go under my desk as soon as I was asleep, so I shoved the cat carrier under the desk, then went to bed.

This morning, I found she’d left a “gift” under the chair I keep my laundry basket on.

*sigh*

I’ve never had to teach an adult cat to use the litter box before. I mean, Nosencrantz had been bad about making messes elsewhere, but she knew how to use a litter box. She just preferred to go elsewhere, until I eventually blocked off all the spots she would go in. Even the kittens have been trained to use them now. Every cat we brought indoors was able to figure the litter boxes out right away. But not TTT. She just doesn’t seem to know that that’s what they’re there for!

Hmm… We still have that new litter box in the cat cage in the sun room. Cats are going in and out of it at will, but none have used the litter box. I wonder if she’ll use it, if I put it under my desk?

I’ll just have to watch my feet! Which I’m already having to do, with the carrier under there now, so I may as well try it!

The Re-Farmer

Tiny harvest, and a bit o’ nip

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I didn’t head outside to do my morning rounds until after TTT got her morning medications. Somehow, I managed to not look out a window until then, so it was quite a surprise to see how hazy everything was. There’s smoke everywhere. I’ve just checked the live fire maps, and all the fires are well to the north of us. Air quality warnings say the smoke is coming from the territories and northern areas of the prairie provinces. Looking at the live feed on the security camera as I write this, I can see the smoke in the trees of the old hay yard, and my younger brother’s field across the road just sort of disappears.

I didn’t do much of of harvest this morning. I didn’t have a container, so I didn’t try to pick beans. I might come back this afternoon, but will likely leave it to tomorrow.

While pruning the Roma tomatoes, I knocked three off their vines, and found a fourth one already on the ground. I’d put them in my pocket as I found them and kept working and, unfortunately, squished one while bending over! So that went into the old compost pile. There was only one zucchini ready to harvest, and I grabbed the last two of the Sweet Chocolate peppers that had matured the earliest. My daughters had picked the third one a couple of days ago. I can certainly see why they are called “chocolate” peppers!

It feels strange to be half way through August and be harvesting so little. The peas are still having their second production, but there’s only enough that I pick a few pods and eat them while doing my morning rounds. We have yet to have a good year for peas. I think it’s time to harvest the potatoes in the old kitchen garden. They’ve almost completely died back. The purple potatoes in the grow bags are still lush and green, though.

The Roma tomatoes are ripening steadily. I could have picked more, but I want to leave them to ripen on the vines longer. The Indigo Blue and Black Beauties are still rock hard. I suppose I could be harvesting carrots and turnips, but I want to leave most of them to harvest for the winter, not for casual summer eating. With our garden turning out to be so much smaller than planned, there just isn’t much to harvest on a regular basis.

Wow. In the time it took me to write that, I can see on the security camera that the smoke has gotten even denser!

In other things, TTT is doing incredibly well after her surgery. The vet clinic called yesterday to follow up on her, and we made an appointment for her to get her staples removed. This will be just with a tech, not a vet, unless we see some sort of problem that needs to be checked.

We did have a surprise last night.

She actually nursed Tin Whistle for a while! Until now, she’s shown no interest in nursing, nor have the kittens shown an interest in her. Considering that one time, when we let Cheddar in, the kittens tried to find nip on him, I am slightly surprised. They are very close to weaning, though. In fact, Decimus has taken to batting them away when she’s done with them. She comes in just long enough to nurse for a minute or two, and that’s it. She wants out again, and spends almost no time with them at all now!

TTT, on the other hand, it quite okay with them. I’ve seen them grooming each other and now, she actually got nurse. I don’t know that she’s producing milk anymore. While she was rolling around, we could see only two active nips – possibly three. I know I saw her nursing 6 kittens one time. Did she have losses that we never saw? I know her kittens are hanging around the house now, but we’ve got other little ones from other litters, and all the moms nurse all the kittens, so we just can’t tell which kittens belong to which mother!

As for TTT and the inside kittens, so far, there have been no other attempts to nurse, but we’ll see.

There is one major downside with TTT being in my bedroom/office isolation ward.

She hasn’t figured out the litter boxes yet.

With the kittens, I had to put puppy pads under my desk, but it does seem we’ve been able to train them to stop going there. I’m not finding little puddles or tiny turds anymore.

No. Now I’m finding big, adult sized puddles and turds.

At least the puppy pads make it easier to clean up. It’s obviously TTT. Last night, I even caught her peeing on my pillow, and we had to strip the bed and do laundry. I had grabbed her and dropped her into a litter box, but she was so startled, she just ran off. With so many litter boxes to choose from, you’d think she’d figure it out, but nope. She wants the puppy pads! She waits until I’m out of the room, since it means I’m no longer at my desk, so I come back to find the results, and she’s back to napping somewhere. Frustrating!

Another, different sort of frustrating, is in sympathy with my younger daughter. She got sick yesterday evening, and is still stick now. So far, she doesn’t feel bad enough to go to a hospital. She’s trying to think what she might have eaten that could have done it to her, but she didn’t eat anything different than the rest of us, and no one else is sick. During the night, she tried to eat a piece of bread, and that didn’t stay down. She’s so hungry, but doesn’t dare eat. At least she’s feeling a bit better, but that’s not saying much right now.

Hopefully, whatever it is, will pass quickly and completely!

As for me, I’m going to see if I can escape my room, without any kittens escaping, and try and get something useful done today!

The Re-Farmer