Snarly Marlee, taking a break from snarling at Decimus!
She’s doing quite well, actually. She’s been sleeping with me more often, and has even been making like she wants to leave the room, though when I open the door for her, she tends to back off.
As for Decimus, the other cats are getting used to her. I’ve seen her and Nosencrantz, both on top of the cat cage, next to each other. They were eyeing each other, but not being aggressive in any way. Even Butterscotch seems to have accepted her presence.
When other cats try to come into the room, though, they are not sure what to make of the new family! Leyendecker has come over to the cat cave, sniffing at Decimus, only to leap in astonishment and run away when the kittens started mewing. Other cats dash in ahead of me, see Decimus, freeze, then run out of the room again.
Very strange!
Meanwhile, today we continue to catch up on house stuff. One of my daughter’s goals is to mop the kitchen floor (a difficult thing, since the lino is worn down to the subfloor in places) before we put the interlocking foam mats down in front of the sink and the stove.
Last night, I came into the dining room to find this.
*sigh*
It’s not even out of the packaging yet, and already it’s being torn up by the cats! I’m hoping it will at least last until the next Costco trip. I believe they still have the heavy duty shop mats in stock. The cats shouldn’t be able to claw those up. At least, not right away. If Costco doesn’t have them in stock anymore, I did see them at a local hardware store, though that was months ago, and I don’t know if they regularly stock them.
There is just something about these mats that the cats can’t resist!
I stepped out for a moment, and came back to find Decimus had left baby jail, and was exploring my office/bedroom.
Which gave me a chance to get this photo.
Just look at that adorable little tongue blep!
Decimus was willing to sniff at my fingers when I held out my hand, but was very nervous and skittish.
Then she found the other food bowls that still had wet cat food in them, and cleaned them all up!
I left the room again for a while, and when I came back, she was curled up with her kittens again.
While she may not have been willing to let me touch her while she was out and about, if we reach in to give her ear and neck scritches while she’s with her kittens, then pull our hands away, she will actually reach out and grab our hands to pull them back for more pets!
She seems to be coming around to this whole “humans might be okay after all” thing.
We had an almost quiet night with Decimus and the babies. At one point, I was awakened by scratching that I thought for sure was Nosencrantz at the window again… but Nosencrantz was curled up next to my head!
It turned out to be Decimus. She had gone up onto the bed above where her kittens are (the cat cage has four “rooms” on two levels along one side) and was scratching at the cardboard on the roof. The carboard is under some towels, as cats like to sit on top of the cage, but their feet were pushing the towels through the open squares.
When she heard me moving around, Decimus stopped clawing at her “ceiling”. Soon after, though, I heard more useful scratching – in her litter box! So she has most definitely figured out what to do with that.
Babies having breakfast!
Motherhood suits her. She’s absolutely blissful and content, and enjoying when we reach in to pet her. A complete switch from the cat that would run away any time we came close, unless we managed to start scritching her neck and ears while she was busy eating and didn’t notice us coming close.
Her entire back is one huge mat of fur. Like armour plating.
Last night, I briefly took the kittens out and lay them together on my bed. Decimus stayed in the cage and rolled around to let me pet her belly. I managed to get her out and put her on the bed with her babies, but she got nervous and tried to go back into the cage! She was a bit confused on how to get in, though, as the “door” is on the second level, and she didn’t realize she needed to jump it. I picked her up and put her in, and she immediately settled down.
Also, she is really, really enjoying wet cat food. While the other, fussier cats turned their noses up at the food bowls when I did the evening feeding, she not only finished off her own share, but when I switched bowls and gave her what other cats ignored, she ate that, too. In the end, she had almost an entire can, all to herself. Usually, they get split 3 or 4 ways, depending on how many cats I have in the room at the time.
In doing my morning rounds, I counted only 14 adult cats. One of them was The Distinguished Guest. Then I saw Sad Face coming across the outer yard. So there’s a recipe for cat fights starting. 🙁 The mama with her two kittens are still in the cat house, which is good.
Of course, I checked all the garden beds. The transplants seem to be doing all right. The raspberries we planted this spring are starting to bloom! We might actually get raspberries off of them. I would not have expected that until next year. The raspberries that predate us, growing around the old compost pile and among flowers near the main garden area, are also blooming. Looks like we’ll have quite a bit, this year. I even found one of the Sweet Chocolate peppers has started to bloom!
We have a bit of a mystery between the Sweet Chocolate peppers, and those last tiny shallots I stuck into the end of the bed. A squash has sprouted! I have no idea what kind it is, or where it came from. The soil topping up this bed was from the pile of garden soil we bought. I’m curious as to what it might turn out to be. I’ll probably transplant it, though, because a squash in that spot would end up covering the shallots and probably the peppers and nearby thyme, as well.
The down side is those horrible Chinese Elm seeds are starting to sprout. There are so many of them, I think they choked out the bok choy and lettuce we planted next to the peas. There’s just no way to brush or scoop away so many seeds. We’ll be pulling seedlings out of the garden beds all over the place for the next while.
I really look forward to when we can take down all those Chinese elms. I think I’ll start with the smaller ones on the north side of the main garden area. I’m okay with leaving the maples in there for now, but those elms have got to go!
Well, Decimus and her babies had a very quiet first night indoors!
One thing that has always been distinctive about Decimus is her teeny, tiny quiet meow. Which really isn’t much louder than her kittens!
When I did the wet cat food last night, she absolutely devoured her share. She has been allowing head pets – we can’t reach much else in the cage – and enjoying them. We’ve been handling her babies, and she’s been okay with that, too. At one point, I even found her in another part of the baby cage, while her kittens were asleep in a pile, enjoying a bit of a break. I could tell that the litter had been used, as well. So she is settling in and figuring things out.
When I did the outside cat food this morning, I checked through the cat house window, and could just make out the two kittens sleeping inside. The mother was outside, eating, at the time. So far, so good, with them.
The only trouble I’ve been having lately is with Nosencrantz. The cat that refuses to leave my room has increasingly tried to claw her way out the window. This morning, I was awakened by the noise and found her somehow behind the box fan that blocks the window andthe extra screen I’ve got to cover a gap on one side and the piece of cardboard to help keep the screen in place. Thank goodness we replaced the window screen with cat proof screen! So far, it seems to be holding up. My main concern right now is that she’ll simply pull the mesh right out of the frame.
Things have really cooled down. Last night, it was almost chilly! We’re coming up on noon as I write this, and we’re still at only 15C/59F. It’s gorgeous! Now, if the wind could just die down a bit. I’ve actually moved all the transplants off the picnic table under the old market tent and put them back on the laundry platform set up. The tent sheltered them, but they weren’t getting enough sunlight for too long. Some of the Spoon tomatoes were so gangly that, when Gooby decided to be really, really friendly while I was setting the trays down, two of them ended up breaking off at the stems. I just replanted them. They’ll probably be fine. We have so many, though, and may not get enough space to plant them, so we can afford to loose a few, if it comes to that.
Yesterday’s transplants are looking good. No sign of transplant shock, so far.
It’s coming up on 7pm as I write this. We’re finally down to 24C/75F, from reaching 32C/90F earlier. All the thunderstorms we’re getting warnings about are going around us. We haven’t even been getting a smattering of rain.
The house is getting ridiculously hot and muggy. Even the cats are feeling it.
They moved before I could get a picture of Cheddar and Ginger, sleeping with their foreheads pressed against each other. My room is one of the coolest in the house, but not by much. The upstairs has been getting so hot, my younger daughter woke up this morning feeling sick from the heat. Cold showers and baths help, but only so much.
I called my mother last night and arranged for her to come out to the farm, now that the grass is cut and she can actually get around in her walker. She’s been talking about wanting to see the new roof she paid for. When I actually called to arrange it, though, suddenly she was hemming and hawing, as if trying to find some excuse not to. I guess she would have preferred to have my sister bring her out for an unplanned visit again, instead, like that last couple of times she came out here. Then she can get mad at me for being in my work clothes, or interrupt any work I was doing so I would have to drop it to tend to her, then complain because the work wasn’t getting done…
She did finally agree to come out, so we arranged for me to come to her place after church, and have lunch at a restaurant before coming to the farm. She started insisting I not to bring food from the Chinese restaurant like I did last time, so said we could go to a different restaurant and she was good with that. She has gone from really liking the Chinese restaurant, to not wanting food from there anymore, and I’m at a loss as to what’s going on. I did try asking her, and she made a comment about seeing a lot of cats running around lately…
???
My guess is, one of her neighbours made a disparaging remark or joke about Chinese food and cats, and she now thinks they are serving cat meat. And now she’s suddenly noticing cats running around outside her building which, in her mind, confirms it (though you’d think seeing a lot of cats around would mean the exact opposite, but this is my mother, we’re talking about here! 😄)
I left a bit early so I could pick up some drinks and a snack we could have outside while she was here. While driving out, I passed a farm with a full dugout right near the road. It was full of cows, just standing in the water, trying to cool down!
When I got to her place, she already had the table set and microwaved Costco perogies and kielbasa for us to have for lunch. When I mentioned I thought we were going to a particular restaurant, she just said, “to heck with [restaurant]”.
Aside from not wanting to eat her supply of food, my mother’s cooking habits have always been very hit and miss, and today was more miss than hit. There’s a reason we tend to take my mother out or bring food in when we visit her!
Anyhow.
After a bit of a visit, we headed off to the farm.
*sigh*
Just from how conversation went before we left, I knew there would be issues, but then, there pretty much always are. An odd one was when she suddenly started saying, “we can take that road!” indicating in the direction of a road we just passed, and then a driveway that looked like it rarely gets used. I was totally confused when she kept insisting we could take a different road to get to the farm. At this point, we were driving through a set of curves about half way between her town and the farm. It wasn’t until she added, “so we don’t have to drive by [our vandal]” that I figured out which road she meant.
I told her, we’re still driving through the curves. We’re nowhere near the turnoff to the farm. Plus, I don’t take that road. It’s not kept up as well, and is hard on her car. On top of that, I don’t think our vandal even recognizes my mother’s car. When we finally did reach the road she meant, she did recognize it, but it was very confusing for her to suddenly suggest a different route, never mind getting our location so mixed up!
Once at the farm, I made sure to drive right into the yard and park in the shade. I got her walker out and she settled under a tree. She had insisted we bring along two ice cream buckets of vegetable peelings, etc. for the compost pile. For “Mother Earth” she now says. She also brought along a couple of plant pots; one with some flowers that were blooming, and one with a couple of little trees she removed from her own little garden plot, insisting that I need to plant them somewhere here on the farm. One is a maple, the other an elm. I don’t know what kind of elm, which makes me very hesitant about planting it.
After I got things settled, my mother started walking around the house. For someone who wanted to see the new roof, she showed zero interested in going anywhere where she could actually see it.
The next while was… challenging.
Let’s see what she came up with…
Quite a few times, she would ask “what’s that?” or “why is that there?” while being very vague on her directions. When I didn’t understand she was indicating the box beds in the west yard, she then declared that those had nothing planted in them this year. Once I figured out what she was talking about, I told her that they had carrots, corn and spinach in them. She couldn’t see them from the house, therefore there was nothing there.
While sitting in the shade in view of the main garden area, knowing she wouldn’t be up to going any closer, I described to her what was in each of the beds, and what was in the grow bags. I could tell she wasn’t really listening to me when she suddenly asked “Is that garlic?” I told her (again), yes, and that we lost a lot of them over the winter; there was far less than we planted. She then said that I needed to give her some. I told her they’re not ready yet. That’s okay, she told me. She eats the greens.
Some of the soft neck garlic was coming up in clusters instead of single bulbs, so I went ahead and thinned a couple of those and gave them to her.
Over the next while, I was told I should have weeded around the raspberries (the self seeded ones in her old flower bed) and loosened the soil around them, and I should have cut down that dead apple tree, and I should not have cut the suckers away from the (now very healthy looking) chokecherry tree, and I should remember what those still small flowers she planted there more than a decade ago are called, and I was laughed at for growing potatoes in grow bags. Then as we moved to another area, she squeezed her walker in between the pile of bricks that used to be the chimney and a stack of wood, rather than going around where there was more room, and I was told they were in the way and I needed to move them… even though I just told her we were going to move them once we figured out where we wanted to use them. Nope. I must move them out of her way for purely aesthetic reasons. I tried to show her the potatoes that are doing so well in the old kitchen garden, but she was only interested in her invasive Periwinkles. Had zero interest in anything we were actually growing. Moving on, why is that fence there? I’d told her a few times about it being there to protect the tulips and the new apple tree from the deer. What tulips? They were done blooming, so I guess they no longer existed. Then she saw some white flowers that are blooming. What are those? I have no idea, Mom. You planted them!
Then she made her way to the fire pit area, where the trays of transplants now live. We no longer take them indoors. I was then chastised for having so many tomatoes, and they need to be planted right now, and everything should be planted, and what are those big things over there? And I should sell my extra tomatoes because they are very healthy looking, and I could make some money from them. Don’t the girls help you with the garden? Then she got mad when I showed her the tiny strawberries I started from seed, because there’s not fruit there! They don’t have fruit! They’re not going to have fruit! I finally said, “next year!” and suddenly she was mollified.
And on it went.
Finally, we settled in the shade of the south yard, and I set up a bench to use as a table, and we had our drinks and a snack.
Judgement joined us, staying nearby and rolling in the cool grass!
I was chastised for the cranberry juice (I chose it because it’s what she buys for herself), but when I went to add Ginger Ale to make a punch, she was suddenly happy. Juice bad. Ginger Ale, good. She then refused to eat the blueberry mini strudels I brought, because she really avoids sugar now.
…
As we sat and chatted, she then got quiet before saying, “I guess the girls don’t want to see me.” I’d already told her that my older daughter was in bed after working last night, my husband was in bed because the heat makes his pain so much worse, and my younger daughter was doing laundry (she was also sick from the heat and trying to cool down with cold baths and showers, but I wasn’t going to get into that). Ah, but they don’t know! If they came to see me, I would give them money!
…
I reminded her of what I said before, but she dismissed it, of course.
Shortly after, I got a message from my younger daughter, letting me know she was almost done and about to come out, soon.
I told my mother this.
Suddenly, she was ready to leave.
We had been hearing thunder for a while, and the wind had picked up, and my mother kept saying the rain was coming closer. It wasn’t, but weather does what it does. I started to put some things away, then turned around to find her putting herslef into the car. She wasn’t going to wait for my daughter!
I kept putting things away, though, taking enough time that my daughter could make it out. She then suggested she come along with us for the drive, which I happily accepted. The back seats on my mother’s car are laid down so we can put her walker in without having to fold it, so while my daughter went to open the gate, I quickly moved things around and got a seat up for her.
The conversation during the drive was only slightly uncomfortable, with my mother asking my daughter odd questions, then switching to Polish to tell me I need to have the girls help me put transplants in the garden, so they know how to do it.
They, of course, know full well how to put in a garden.
Once at my mother’s place, we stayed for a brief visit, until my mother suddenly veered into a racist rant, and my daughter suggested it was time to leave!
Which we did.
We stopped to get gas first, and I picked up some fried chicken for my daughter, as she had been too sick to have breakfast. We then parked the car with the AC going to eat. That gave me a chance to decompress by filling her in on how the visit went.
The whole thing left me feeling more tired than the 8 or so hours working outside in the heat, yesterday, did!
My husband and daughters all question why my brother and I haven’t just cut my mother off completely by now. Which we won’t do, because that would be wrong. Plus, my being here helps my brother out. He’d be the target of all her venom and bizarre behaviour, otherwise. She doesn’t really do it with our sister anymore, for some reason. But my goodness, it does get hard to “Honour thy father and thy mother” at times!
Well, it is what it is, and there’s not much we can do about it. Chances are, it’s going to get worse as she gets older, too. Or, I should say, keep getting worse.
We will handle it. That’s all we can do!
I am sure glad to get this over with, though, and I hope she won’t find another reason to want to come out here. Quite a difference from when we first moved here, and she still owned the property, when she told me that now that we were taking care of the farm for her, she never wanted to go back here again! Now when she doesn’t own it anymore, she still wants to use it to try and control me and my brother.
Ah, well. Such is life in our corner of the world.
Before I get into today, I just had to share what I saw yesterday, while doing my evening rounds.
One of the things that got done was switching the winter window to the old basement to the summer window. This spring, things are wet enough that we are starting to have moisture seeping through the concrete floors, and the sump pump is going off every now and then. Nothing like what we were dealing with last year, of course, but more typical than the dry years we had previously.
The summer window is one that I built a few years ago to replace the makeshift cover that was being used before. Having air circulation through there helps keep the old basement from getting too damp and humid. My brother built a platform on the inside to hold a box fan to blow air out of the basement that helped, too, but that disappeared before we moved in.
We have a cat barrier between the two basements. The opening in the old basement wall was basically bashed out, so it’s uneven on the sides, making it impossible have a proper door. We have a wire mesh frame over it that was meant to be easily moved to one side if we needed to cross through. The old basement has the pumps, sump pump reservoir and breakable stuff, so we want to keep the cats out. In the end, we have had to brace the barrier with stuff on one side, while having Bungee cords holding it in place on the other.
Well, it wasn’t enough.
I was trying to see what Gooby was finding so interesting down there, and found a Susan on the window’s platform, looking back!
I messaged the picture to my family and my younger daughter went down to take care of it. She found David and Big Rig in there, too!
They could get in, but couldn’t get back out, and were very eager to leave when she opened the door!
Later, with her in the new basement and me in the old basement, we managed to secure the barrier a bit more. Hopefully, it will be enough!
I had a different surprise this morning, when checking the gate. When the snow melted enough that we could finally close it, it was like this.
They had shifted quite a lot over the winter!
If it had shifted a small amount, we could micro adjust the nuts on the J pins that make up the hinges, but for that distance, the gate posts themselves would have to be adjusted – once we brought out a level to see which one had moved the most.
Well, that’s no longer an issue. This is what it looked like, this morning!
I haven’t been able to slide that pin through so easily in probably a year!
That’s a lot of shifting in less than a month!
The funny thing is, I got a call from my sister in law this afternoon. She and my brother were on their way with the arm chair they were passing on to us, plus my brother was bringing tools so he could fix the gate! I was happy to tell her, it no longer needed fixing!
And that was our big change in plans.
After dropping off the armchair, they were going to visit my mother and take her out to dinner and invited me to come along, which I decided to do.
But first, we had to clear a path from the door to the living room for a rather wide armchair. Then, when they got here, I was on both door duty and cat duty, while my brother maneuvered it through. My SIL can’t come into the house, though, as she is quite allergic to cats. So my brother just left the chair on its side in the living room, waiting for the legs to be put back on. After a quick visit to the sun room to see all the transplants, they headed out and I followed in my mother’s car.
The plan had been for my SIL to be dropped off at a restaurant first, then my brother would take his truck over to pick up my mother. They even brought a footstool to help her climb in. Since I was there with her car, though, my brother took that, instead.
When he got there, he first made a point of setting up her air conditioner for the season, and testing it out. The batteries in the remote were dead and my mother didn’t have the right size, so he brought it with him as he took her to the restaurant.
She was very perplexed when he took her to her car. Was that her car? How did he get her car? Then she saw me when they got to the restaurant! It was quite a surprise for her.
While we got her settled in, my brother quickly ran to a store across the street to buy the batteries needed, and then we had a nice dinner together.
Mostly.
I’m glad I decided to come along. It took all three of us playing interference to keep the conversation from getting derailed into a racist rant or a political diatribe from someone who doesn’t actually understand politics very well, guilt tripping, or the many other ways she makes things difficult! It takes a lot of energy, but we managed to actually have a very good time. After a while, though, I could see we’d reached the limit of what we’d be able to do, and she was winding herself up, so I suggested to my brother it was time to go!
Since he wanted to test her air conditioner, now that he had fresh batteries in the remote, he drove her back while my sister in law and I stayed and waited until he got back. My mother was all surprised we weren’t all going to go to her place to visit! As if we’d all fit comfortably in her tiny apartment to begin with!
So, off they went, and my sister in law and I got to have another excellent conversation with just the two of us. For longer than expected. When my brother finally came back, he looked so frazzled! On the way, my mother first had him stop to pick up a few groceries, then while he was testing the air conditioner, she gave him a hard time because she thought he was fixing her TV remote, and she didn’t care about the air conditioner! Then she tried to keep talking to keep him from leaving, but he finally had to tell her he needed to go, because we were waiting for him. Of course, she tried to guilt trip him over things. It always amazes me how he does the most for her, yet she gives him the hardest time about anything and everything. He has such a good heart, and she stomps on it without even realizing what she’s doing, half the time. The other half, she knows exactly what she’s doing! I was very glad to be able to keep that down, at least somewhat!
They still had an hour and a half to drive home, so we parted ways soon after. I so enjoy spending time with them! It was also encouraging to hear from my sister in law that they are quite happy with the things we are doing here. Us being here saves them from having to take care of two properties, but they are also appreciating the work we’ve been able to do, and the plans we have. I really needed to hear that today, as I was feeling particularly useless. I had a number of jobs planned for today, but I woke up in quite a lot of pain. My left knee and left hip have suddenly started giving me a lot of grief. My plan had been to start working outside early, before things got too hot, but as I was checking the files on the trail cams, I found myself falling asleep in my chair, and ended up lying down for a couple of hours, instead. When I mentioned that to her, she told me she’s been struggling with the same thing; fatigue and joint pain. Especially in her hands. Perhaps the seasonal changes are affecting both of us!
Still, I feel like I should be accomplishing so much more. It does help that they understand the challenges we’ve been having here. Particularly with my mother’s expectations and demands, even though she walked away from the farm more than 10 years ago. I do wish we could get together more often! I actually feel both encouraged and refreshed after spending time with them.
Let’s see if that extends into tomorrow! I try to avoid unnecessary work on Sundays, but right now, I’ve got a lot of very necessary work that needs to get done!
Meanwhile, my daughter put the legs on the armchair they brought over and set it up.
It may have been just an old chair on its last legs to them, but right now, it’s the most comfortable chair in the house!
I had a really rough night last night. No, not because of pain levels. Well. Only partly because of pain levels. More because of this little beast!
She even looks malevolent in this shot!
Throughout the night, if she wasn’t trying to dig under my keyboard or under my monitor (I have no idea what she is after under there!), she’s jumping up onto a craft shelf that really can’t support her, or goes right next to my head in bed, clawing at my sheets – I’m truly amazed I don’t have big holes in my sheets, yet! – before snuggling into my arms and cuddling hard up against me during the night.
She’s not the only one. I usually have her on one side, Cheddar jammed up against my back, and one or two more against my legs. It makes it very hard to roll over!
Then there were the cats determined to use the carpet as a scratching post instead of the scratching post, and the ones that do the non stop digging in the litter boxes (that includes Nosencrantz!) and generally waking me up repeatedly during the night. Oh, and of course there is the scratching at the door as various cats want in or out.
So this morning, I fed the outside cats while still in my pajamas, then went back to bed to try and get a least a couple more hours of sleep!
I almost got it, too.
Which is why I was later than usual when leaving to run some errands. We’re running low on dry kibble, and the price difference is enough to warrant going to the nearest Walmart. I left late enough that the post office had reopened after their lunch break, and my backordered seeds were supposed to be in, so that was my first stop.
Alas, my back ordered seeds did turn out to be yet another package of substitute seeds! Instead of the Improved Purple Queen beans I’d ordered, I got another package of Red Swan. That makes three packages, including the one that I’d actually ordered originally! Ah, well. I won’t bother trying to get the Improved Purple Queen again. They’re obviously having supply issues with that one. On the plus side, the seeds did come with a new catalog of garden supplies, including greenhouses. My older daughter is saving up for a hard sided greenhouse, so it will be great to look through what they have available, and get an idea of what it will cost.
I also got a surprise gift in the mail! I opened up the padded envelope to see, but didn’t open the boxes I found until I got home again. Check this out!
The insert says “Human Body Induction Night Light”. Apparently, they will turn on with body heat? Which is weird. Especially since they have motion sensors.
The box of AAA batteries to go with them was also greatly appreciated. We don’t use those a lot, and my last package got knocked behind a shelf by the cats and we have yet to be able to move that shelf to reclaim them.
I am just thrilled with these! Before moving out here, the townhouse we were living in had some dark hallways and corners. We had night lights all over the place, plus in the three bathrooms (gosh, I miss having more than one bathroom!) with motion sensors, so we could use the bathroom at night without blinding ourselves.
For me, the biggest problem is right at my bedroom door. It’s very dark on both sides, and with cats constantly wanting in and out of my room, I’ve accidentally stepped on or kicked way too many of them. I now have one attached to the wall at the inside of my door, and one attached to the basement door on the outside, both at cat height. It wasn’t long at all before they were tested out, too. Perfect!
I do have the decorative fairy lights in the hallway to light our way without having to turn on the main light, I’ve been using the leftover batteries from the trail cams for those. They each take 8 AA batteries. When the batteries are too low for the cameras, there’s still quite a bit of charge in them. Enough for the LED lights. So I’ve been keeping those separate to use in the LED lights. Now that we have the solar camera and just one other working trail cam, we’re not going through as many batteries as we used to. I’m finally working my way through the box I’ve been storing them in! Since they’re already partly used, they drain fairly quickly. With the fairy lights, they just get dimmer and dimmer.
So, I now have one of these new lights set up in our very dark hallway at about knee height. Another is set up in the even darker corner one of the upstairs litter boxes is in. There’s an old mirror we have yet to remove from the opposite wall, so the light reflects and brightens the whole space. Another went on a bathroom wall opposite the mirror for the same reason. We do have a battery operated LED light switch style light in the bathroom, but it’s a pain to change the batteries on it. We have another in the corner where one of the upstairs litter boxes it, too. They’re held to the wall with self adhesive Velcro, which would come off either the wall or the fixture. I ended up buying heavier duty self adhesive Velcro for the bathroom one, which holds in place better, but now it’s harder to remove to change the batteries. Plus, as the batteries die, the light starts to blink on and off like a strobe, so we’ve pretty much stopped using them. With these new lights, the backs slide off easily. The back stays on the wall while the batteries get changed.
The last light went just inside the old basement door, under the light switch. There is no light over the stairs, so right at the door is quite dark. Not a problem when you’re going down, but when going up, it’s hard to see, and where the new motion sensor light is set, it perfectly lights up the door knob as you reach the top of the stairs.
I am just loving these things! I’ve asked for the link, so we can pick up more! There are so many dark spaces in this house. Plus, of course, if we lose power, we will still have these lights. There are strategic places I can think to put more of them, if I can figure out how to attach them. The self adhesive mounting strips won’t work on the old basement walls, for example.
So we took David in to the vet for what I thought might be a cyst. An abscess was another possibility.
It turned out to be neither.
David had a really bad case of ear mites.
Here he is, with his freshly cleaned ears. He also got a shot of antibiotics to help with the wound he’d scratched on himself.
Then, because if one cat has ear mites, all the cats have ear mites, we got enough medication to treat all of them. One box has enough ear drops for 11 cats. The other has a topical treatment for the remaining five.
Before I left, someone came in to show me how to administer the ear drops so he, at least, has been done.
Fifteen more to go.
Most of the cats don’t actually show signs of ear mites in their behaviour, but I was pretty sure Ginger, at least, had them. I’ve tried to keep his ears clean and treated with mineral oil, but he is not very cooperative about that. Can you blame him?
Once I can get organized with the girls, we’ll start working our way through the cats. I’ll have to make a check list so we can mark off which ones are done, so we don’t loose track and forget someone. The hard part is actually going to be cleaning their ears as much as possible, first.
The life cycle of ear mites is 3 weeks. These meds are a monthly dose. One treatment should be enough, if we get them all done as quickly as possible, but if we were to stagger the treatments over a longer period of time, we’d run the risk of reinfection. Several of our cats have been treated for them before, but I don’t think we’ve ever been able to treat all of them at the same time.
The vet asked about contact with outdoors, and I did mention Potato Beetle being our newest indoor addition, however we would have had the ear mite problem before he came in.
The final bill was just over $640.
Ouch.
That’s more than what I had budgeted to for a plumber.
Thankfully, my daughter will be able to help out, though she has to transfer out of her PayPal account, first, so it will take several business days. I don’t know if she’ll be able to cover the full amount. Whatever it works out to, I hope it’s enough that we can still get the plumber to come in and replace those bathroom taps for us! I guess it’s a good thing I kept forgetting to call him back – and a good thing it is no emergency to get it done!
The most important thing is that the swelling behind David’s ear was nothing major; it was just from him scratching the one spot so much.
The vet that treated David was the same vet I spoke to about Pointy Baby after we got him unstuck from the fence. She was a bit surprised to hear he had passed, but only because when we spoke to her, he had seemed to be doing all right. Given the circumstances, it was most likely due to damage to his neck bones. It wasn’t “broken” – he could still move all his limbs – but considering how long he had to have been struggling to get free, all sorts of damage could have happened. I’m just glad we were able to get him out and he died in the comfort and warmth of my arms, and not while still stuck in the fence!
The whole thing makes having this good news with David much more of a relief.
Early this evening, my daughter brought David over to the isolation ward, AKA my bedroom, for supervision duty. He’s been scratching a lot at one spot behind his ear to the point of irritation. I’d treated it with an antibiotic ointment, but he’s a bit hard to pin down, so it hasn’t been doing regularly. Today, my daughters noticed that there’s now a patch of fur missing behind his right ear, and the skin is quite red and raw.
I was able to put more antibiotic ointment on it while my daughter held him, but in the process I could feel that there is a definite lump under the wound. My guess is, there’s a cyst that’s bothering him.
Crud.
We were able to call the vet clinic just before it closed. After explaining why we wanted to have him checked, I was asked if we wanted to get him in right away. Of course, I said yes. It turns out they had a cancellation, so we now have an appointment to bring him in tomorrow morning.
He wasn’t too keen on not being allowed out of my room. Especially since I took the opportunity to clean his ears with some mineral oil, just to see. The right ear, with the lump behind it, was very dirty, but there was no blood, which was good. The left ear wasn’t very dirty at all. He was very unhappy with the procedure, so the next while was spent keeping him from scratching while my daughter tried to find a cone. We should have two of them, but no one can remember where they are. She didn’t find one, but after awhile, the irritation went away, and he stopped trying to scratch the area. After several more attempts to get out, he finally settled down, and is now sleeping comfortably on my bed.
Marlee is not happy with the new addition, but they just growled at each other a bit, and are now chillin’ far away from each other.
Hopefully, he will just need a cyst to be drained and that’s it.
As usual, I had a whole lot of cats crowding me during the night. Cheddar likes to lay where I usually do, and does NOT like to move, no matter how much I disturb him. Still, it was a surprise even for him to not move when Nosencrantz came over for pets, and lay right on top of Cheddar!
When I had to get up to let out a cat scratching at the door, I discovered this had been beside me.
This is HUGE progress! Cheddar is so chill, he’ll cuddle with any other cat. Nosencrantz, however, is a bundle of stress and anxiety around other cats. At best, she will lay down next to Butterscotch, or share the shelf table with her. For her to be curled right up against Cheddar like this is a massive step forward.
I didn’t get a head count while doing my rounds, as the cats were running around too much. It’s been so warm, they aren’t spending as much time in the sun room, and with so much snow melting all over, they aren’t running out of water in their bowls. Kibble, on the other hand, has been disappearing. I don’t think there are a lot of hunting opportunities right now, but we’ve got the cats, deer and skunks all cleaning the trays out! The cats, at least, eat most of it right away, so the other critters that we really don’t want to be feeding just clean up what’s left. My only concern is that if there is a cat that comes around later, such as one of the visiting strays or a mama that couldn’t leave her litter right away, they won’t have much food left for them.
Spotting this was a funny surprise.
Some of the cats are enjoying the new roof! I think this is Sprout, but it might be Phantom. She was stalking something at the peak of the roof!
Also, it has been so great to not have any leaking as the snow melts! The sun room is nice and dry, and the girls haven’t had to deal with leaking at one of the windows next to their computer desk. I’m so glad my brother was able to get my mother to finally follow through on her promise to get this done! That has taken a huge weight off our backs.
The dump is open today, so I started the van to see how it is. It’s making a noise I don’t like; I think it might be from a belt, but I can’t tell for sure. To be on the safe side, we used my mother’s car, instead. We have a mat in the back of the van to protect the floor from any leaking garbage, so I moved that over to the back of my mother’s car. Her car is narrower, but I don’t mind the mat going up the sides at the wheel wells a bit.
The down side was having to go through the “moat” with a wagon load of garbage bags. It’s a lot wider and deeper, now. Enough snow has melted that I was able to go around on one side through the snow, but the wagon can’t get through that.
My boots are set aside to dry now. 😄
Since I didn’t want to slog through water any more than I had to, I made sure have what I needed to head out right away – though I did have to turn around and come back when I realized I’d forgotten our pass card for the dump in the van. After going to the dump, I went to the post office. It’s been more than a week since we’ve been able to get to it while it was open. I got there too early, though! Just a little while ago, my husband let me know that a package had arrived. It would have been there while I was getting the mail, but it hadn’t been processed yet. Ah, well. It’s just more Lysine for the outside cats, and we still have plenty unopened containers waiting.
I did get something else in the mail, but that will be in my next post! 😊
