inside cats

An awesome surprise

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

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.

Yeah, I’m geeking out over these lights!

Also… I’ve got the best friends!!!

The Re-Farmer

Some good – but very expensive! – news!

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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.

The Re-Farmer

Well, crud

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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.

We’ll find out, soon enough!

The Re-Farmer

Morning kitties

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The wee hours of the morning!

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! 😊

The Re-Farmer

So this is a thing that happened

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*sigh*

Today, I tried to have the door open in my room while I was doing stuff on my computer. I don’t expect Nosencrantz or even Marlee to leave the room, but I’m getting really tired of the constant interruptions of the “safe” cats scratching at the door to be let in or out. In fact, most of the cats are okay coming in, even if Marlee snarls at them. Nosencrantz even stayed on her window shelf rather than hiding somewhere. Marlee parked her butt under my printer table and snarled at any cat that went at the food bowls, and they basically ignored her. Butterscotch was settled under a foot stool I have near the heat vent under the window; a favourite spot for many of the cats.

But then, there’s Turmeric.

She was creeping around and snarling beside the cat cage, which is how I found out Butterscotch was under the stool, enjoying the heat vent. I shooed her away and she wandered on and around the bed for a while. I even pet and cuddled her for a bit, to calm her down, before settling at my computer again.

Then the fight happened.

Turmeric attacked Butterscotch.

I got her away, but not without some damage.

I’m glad we picked up those large gauzes, not long ago! I ended up with two long scratches under my arm, and a few puncture wounds on the top. The gauze was large enough to cover all of them.

Tissue also tends to be snarly when she comes into my room – she really hated being isolated in here when she was healing. But not even she tends to actively attack one of the ladies.

Turmeric, on the other hand, will actively try to search out, stalk and attack Butterscotch, Nozencrantz and sometimes Marlee. I can’t understand why. I mean, we’ve brought Potato Beetle in, he’s never been kept away from the other cats, and she’s never gone after him like that. She especially gets along well with Grandma, who moved out here with us, and let Turmeric “nurse” after Beep Beep decided weaning was going to happen, whether her kittens wanted it or not.

Oh, for crying out loud!!!

I just got interrupted while I was writing the above. Nosencrantz was on her window shelf on my craft table, as she often is, when Leyendecker… LEYENDECKER!!! suddenly jumped onto the table and attacked her. WTF???

I just don’t get it.

Yes, we have too many cats in the house, but it’s a big house, and many of the cats don’t even bother coming in when my door is open. There is nothing to explain why we are having so many cats specifically targeting Butterscotch and Nosencrantz. Especially Nosencrantz. Not even Marlee is as much of a target, but maybe that’s because she is the snarly one and, having survived being abandoned and on her own for 2 years, is no soft target. They are not “new” cats anymore.

I just. Don’t. Get it.

Well, at least this time, I didn’t have to physically separate the cats and end up with more unintentional wounds!

The Re-Farmer

Pushing her limits, and changes of plans

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Now that we have the living room barricaded to the cats and turned into a plant room, we’ve decided that we will work on bringing Nosencrantz and Marlee in with us every now and then, to try and get them used to being outside of my office/bedroom, but not have to worry about other cats.

Yesterday, I was able to grab Nosencrantz and give it a go.

She was not happy.

I set her on the couch while setting up my tea and trying to find something to watch on TV for a while. Ended up watching The French Chef, because absolutely nothing newer appealed to me! Once I settled on the couch, I shifted her over against my leg, she leaned hard against me and did. Not. Move. for nearly an hour. When she finally did move, it was to tuck her face against my leg.

Which is an improvement from previous times we tried bringing her out. The last time I did, she crouched onto a step between the old and new parts of the house, frozen in panic, even as other cats had to basically jump over her to go through the doorway. She was so stressed, she shat herself. *sigh*

With no other cats around, she was definitely stressed, but not to that point. We’ll need to do this more often.

The frustrating thing is that, if I could just leave my door open, I’m sure she would eventually go exploring. As would Marlee and maybe Butterscotch. Unlike the other two, Butterscotch is not the least bit stressed out, has zero interest in leaving the room, and is very happily living her best life. If the door is open, some – not all – of the other cats come in and out, which would be fine…

Except for Turmeric.

While other cats will sometimes go for Nozencrantz in particular, or maybe even act aggressive towards Butterscotch and Marlee, it’s not much different from when they get ticked off at each other. Even with Potato Beetle added to the mix, aside from the rare altercation with one of the other males, his integration into being an indoor cat has been seamless. Why it’s so different with both the ladies, I just can’t figure out. Especially since, when Butterscotch and Nosencrantz were first brought into the house, Nosencratnz did leave the room and start exploring. Then some of the other cats got aggressive with her, and she’s been a bundle of stress and anxiety ever since.

Turmeric, however, is the one cat that is most aggressive. She’ll be absolutely fine, but as soon as she comes into my room, it’s like she’s hunting for the ladies. I tried having my door open last night, just because I was tired of having to get up every few minutes to let Leyendecker, Cheddar or Fenrir in and out, over and over. The other cats ignored the open door. Only Turmeric came in, saw Marlee in her favourite spot in Baby Jail (we still have the cage set up, simply because Marlee likes going in there so much, and Butterscotch likes to sit on top of it), and made a beeline straight for her, snarling away. She wouldn’t stop, and I had to close my door again. *sigh*

So we’ll see how it works, bringing them out for supervised time in the plant room. Marlee doesn’t like to be picked up or carried, so it might be a bit harder to get her in there.

All in good time.

Meanwhile…

My plans for the day changed a bit. I was debating whether or not to go to my mother’s today or tomorrow, as I had some things for her. Then I got a call from my brother. He just had a very strange call from my mother. She started talking to him about some disturbing dreams she had, then said she thought he should come visit. He told her he was taking a test right then, so that wouldn’t be a good idea.

The line went dead.

He tried calling her back, but her line was busy. After about 7 times trying to get through to her, he finally called me.

Only then did he realize he’d forgotten to pause his test. It’s a timed exam!

He’s really stressed out about this exam. The last I talked to him, there were no exam times available until next month, so getting to do it today had to have been a pretty last minute thing. He’s been working on this course for some months now, and he’s concerned that if he doesn’t pass it, it might actually put his job at risk. I can’t imagine him failing the exam, but understand the stress he’s feeling. His employer has paid thousands of dollars for this course, and the exam along costs over a thousand dollars – and if he fails, it’s another thousand + to take it again later.

My mother would have no ability to understand what he’s going through. It’s so completely out of her experience, and outside her ability to comprehend.

So he was quite concerned about her. He wasn’t sure if she’s accidentally hung up by pressing a button on the phone with her face, or if she deliberately hung up, or of something else happened. Especially with the line being busy immediately after. Even with calls between him and I in the past, we’ve had weird things happen with the line, and one of us would try to call back the other only to get a busy signal because, at the other person’s end of the line, it hadn’t been cut off yet.

I told him I was considering visiting her this afternoon, and promised I would check up on her. He, meanwhile, did try to call her again, and finally got through.

It turns out that yes, she did hang up on him, and immediately called our sister, because she “didn’t hear what she wanted to hear”. So was our sister going to come over? Oh, no. She’s working today. I don’t think my mother even asked her to come over.

First, our sister works nights. She had plenty of time to come over for a quick visit.

Two, since he was in the middle of this test when my mother called, she was actually calling him while he was working, but still expected him to drop everything and visit her.

On top of all that, I don’t think she even considers how badly she hurt him, a few months ago. Frankly, it’s a testament to what a good man he is that he hasn’t cut her out of his life completely.

Yes, it was that bad.

And she totally doesn’t get it.

*sigh*

I had other errands to run, so I did those in my mother’s town instead of the one closer to us – things are noticeably more expensive where she lives, but for the amount I needed to get, it wasn’t worth the cost of gas to go elsewhere.

There were a couple of things I brought for her, and one that I made for her. I wasn’t sure how she would handle it. She kept saying she needs a new chair, to replace the one she uses at her little dining table. She said it was breaking, but it turns out that only the vinyl seat is starting to crack. So I got some blanket yard and crocheted a cushy for her tushy. Just a rectangle in waffle weave stitch, so it’s twice as thick as ordinary single crochet. I made ties at each corner, even though I couldn’t quite remember how the legs were on this chair. It’s got a metal frame, and the legs are all one piece of metal tubing, forming a triangle shape on the sides from the back for the legs. Turns out there’s just open space under the front half of the seat, so my ties at the front were too short, but I could at least tie the back to the frame. I told her it would hide the cracks until she can find a suitable replacement chair. She did laugh about it, but accepted the cover. I knew it would be either that, or she would get angry and rant about how she’s worth having a new chair, or that I wasted yarn or something. There’s no in between with her!

The bottom of the triangles that form the legs has also been leaving black marks on her flooring, from being slid back and forth constantly, for years. So I got some self adhesive felted floor protectors that came in a long, narrow strip that could be cut to size. I cut a couple of pieces and stuck those on the bottom of her chair, and she seemed happy about that, too.

Overall, it was a very good visit. She was definitely having one of her better days. It wasn’t until I was almost ready to leave that she started to tell me about her dreams. They were definitely nightmares, where she thought she was losing her mind, and needed to get home – but home was an area of the city my parents lived in, before they bought the farm – and so on. Then she started asking me if I knew what these dreams might mean. Which seems to be the crux of the problem. It’s not just that she had these nightmares (it turned out she woke from one nightmare, couldn’t sleep for hours, then when she did fall asleep, she had another nightmare). She thinks these dreams had some sort of prophetic meaning.

So we talked a while about dreams, and how sometimes things you worry about in the back of your mind can lead to disturbing dreams. I also described similar dreams that people often have, about needing to get somewhere, or trying to run away from something, but it’s like something is holding you back and keeping you from getting where you need to go. She practically lit up as I described these, as it was familiar to her. Knowing other people get dreams like this was a sort of revelation for her.

I think she felt better by the time we were done talking about it and I headed home. It’s hard to know. She might feel better about it now, but start feeling bad about it again, later.

Needless to say, as soon as I got home, I sent a message off to my brother to reassure him. As far as I know, he was still working on his exam at the time, so I don’t expect to hear back from him for a while. He’s got enough on his plate, that’s for sure!

Hopefully, she’ll ease off on giving him a hard time. Probably not, but it would sure be nice!

The Re-Farmer

Don’t let the cuteness fool you!

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Check out Nosencrantz, all tucked up on her window shelf.

She had her face tucked into her front paws, but my trying to take a picture disturbed her.

This is her, in abject terror and anxiety. She freezes like this, and hardly moves.

I was vacuuming, and all the other hiding places were filled with other cats, so she just stayed on her shelf, frozen into an adorable loaf of anxiety.

She got lots of love and comfort after the vacuuming was done!

The Re-Farmer

Pretty much done…

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We’ve got a beautiful day today! Bright and sunny and mild. While we did have high winds and blowing snow last night, there was just enough new snow on the ground for the fresh deer tracks around the cat houses and paths to stand out. Unlike other parts of the province that got hit with blizzard conditions last night!

I counted 23 yard cats this morning.

Perfect timing. Not only did I catch that grey tabby on the top left, just as he jumped up onto the roof, but I got a perfect tongue blehp on Pinky! Gosh, His fur looks so orange in the picture.

I picked up more cat food at Walmart yesterday, though there was still almost a whole bag left of the kibble I got at the feed store. For the outside cats, I got a 10kg bag of Meow Mix (they were out of stock for the 11kg bag in another brand), which is still pretty cheap per kg. I mixed up the two brands in the kibble bin, so they got a bit of both, and I can really see how much they prefer the other brand to the feed store branch.

Yesterday, I also finished assembling the cat barrier for the shelf, but as its held together with wood glue, I had to let it sit overnight.

I have only one clamp, so I taped the halves together, put the clamp over the side that was wonkiest, then weighted it down with the told tool box on boards laid across the frame. I did that in the morning, then in the afternoon, I removed the clamp and tape, flipped the frame around, then put back the boards and weight to finish drying.

The space it goes into has moulding on each side that made putting the frame in a bit tricky. I’d tested it out when I made the box frame half, but the extra thickness after adding the flat frame almost made it too much! I ended up not needing to add the self adhesive foam to a narrow end, and only one strip across the top to hold it in place. I pushed the box frame side right against the moulding on the living room side. This let me run the cord for the salt lamp – which is completely hidden by David in the photos! – through the wire. There are a few things we keep on that shelf, which is now all organized in a box, but otherwise, the space is available for the cats to sit on.

The girls finished the door for the entry, which took way more adjusting than it should have. There are large gaps around the door at the top and at the latch side. With the space so wonky, and even the floor being crooked, the gaps are noticeably different in size! The only problem remaining is that, when fully open, the weight of the door pulls on the box frame and it starts tipping at the top. Hooks will be added to the ceiling, and the box frame secured to the hooks, to keep the frame from tipping, while still being easy to remove when we need to.

With the door closed, only the more agile cats were getting in and out of the living room, through the shelf opening. Once I had it open to work on the small barrier, the cats took advantage of the situation. When I was done, Beep Beep was on her favourite spot on the warm light fixture over the big aquarium greenhouse, Tissue was in the sun spot on the seat of the exercise bike, with four more cats sprawled on the sun spots on the carpet below, like giant puddles, and two more on a shelf in the mini greenhouse frame at the window, all sleeping peacefully!

Oh, and two more were in the baskets on the piano.

They really missed not having access to the living room!

Well, they’re going to have to get used to it!

Once I have the heart to kick them all out again.

The Re-Farmer

Sleepy baby

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Would you look at that face!

Of all the inside cats we’ve had over the years, none has taken to cuddling with me at night like Nosencrantz has! She is very particular about it, and she has actually started to “bully” me to get with the routine! She goes to her corner of the bed which, unfortunately, she starts kneading, which I don’t want because she’s going to put holes in my sheets. Then she sticks her face into my hand, demanding I pet her head. Especially around the eyes. And if I’m doing some last minute checking of my phone before putting it on the charger, she will bash at it with her face until I pet her!

Then she spins around, shoves her head into my hand again, then drops her body down on my arm, the back of her head and neck in my hand, and stretched out to my elbow, while demanding I continue to pet her face with my fingers cupped around the back of her head! Since she also starts kneading again, I usually end up having to use my other arm to grab her front paws to stop her. End result, she’s tucked into a nest between my arms, and happily goes to sleep.

Sometimes when I get up in the morning, she stays, even after I straighten the covers over her.

Of course, all my bedding is absolutely covered in fur. It doesn’t even wash out completely anymore, it’s so stuck into the fibres!

It’s a good thing she’s so darn cute, because she’s such a pain in the butt, too! 😄

The Re-Farmer

Another step forward

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First, here’s a beautiful lady, saying hello!

Tissue is quite enjoying the warmth of the sun – and so far, none of the cats seems to have tried to destroy the smaller plants that have been temporarily moved onto the shelves that will soon be holding seedlings.

Soon, she will not be able to spend time on the window sill in this room! My daughter and I finally made it to the city to pick up what we need to make the cat barriers (which my other daughter is paying for, sweetheart that she is!).

And I’m looking forward to having a carpet that doesn’t get completely covered in cat hair and the bits of rope torn off their scratch tower, immediately after vacuuming.

We’ve got three sizes of boards. We were going through the cheap contractor grade pieces, and it was hard to find any that weren’t damaged, or wonky.

We also got chicken wire, aka: hex wire, instead of the hardware cloth I wanted to get. It was the only thing they had that was wide enough and long enough for this.

We’re actually doing a simplified version of our original plans. Instead of a box frame for the entry, then a door frame inside, and finally the door, we’re just going to do a box frame and a wide door.

For the box frame, we’ve got 1″ x 4″ boards. The frame is meant to slide into the entry into the living room, with self adhesive foam on the sides to hold it in place, but still allow us to remove it, if necessary. The problem was, we couldn’t find the thickness we needed. There is moulding at the top and bottom of the entry, so the foam was supposed to fill that gap. After debating our options, we decided to go with the thickest they had, and we’ll remove the molding from the bottom of the entry and make the box fit top to bottom more snugly. It won’t be completely snug; when the girls measured the space, they found a half inch difference between the top and the bottom!

For the door, we’ve got 1″ x 3″ boards. We will also need to create a barrier for an opening in one of the shelf dividers, so we got 1″ x 2″ boards as well – one of which will also be used a side jamb.

We spent some time looking at our latch options and ended up going with a simple hook and eye latch. We decided against getting a handle. We had use the latches as handles, but if we really wanted a handle, I’m sure we’ve got something lying around the house somewhere.

Unfortunately, it does look like the hinges I picked up will be too wide. Possibly. If we do have to get smaller ones, I’ll be sure to pick up three hinges, not a set of two.

Securing the chicken wire was another thing we had to consider. We’d both bounced around the idea of sandwiching the wire between boards, but we’d basically double the wood need for the door, so we’re going to make it the same was as the barriers we’ve made for the basement doors; The horizontal boards will overlay the verticals, with the wire sandwiched between, and the rest of the wire will be secured with something else.

My thought had been to use small U nails (I think some places all them staples), but they didn’t have any small ones. The alternative is to use actual staples, but our staple gun isn’t very strong, and we’ve found the staples pop out way too easily. So we looked at staple guns, only to find that ours was there, and is a heavy duty gun. So we ended up getting stronger staples, instead! We’ll see if that works. If it doesn’t, I know where to go in town, where I can get what I was originally thinking of, in bulk.

I might need to go into town, anyhow. I think what we have at home is all too large for the size of wood we are using. The cats have knocked most of the boxes off the counter in the sun room, anyhow, along with all sorts of other things now scattered around the floor in there – and we won’t be able to clean it up until we can take things like the table saw and my husband’s walker, outside, so we can get at it all.

Meanwhile, construction starts tomorrow. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get both the doorway and the shelf opening done, and we can finally have cat free space for more seedling trays, and not worry about them being destroyed! And hang the shop lights we will be using as grow lights from the ceiling without worrying about cats jumping on top of them. We have seeds that need to be started indoors 12 weeks before last frost, and that’s in four days.

In other things, I got an email from my bank this morning, congratulating me on getting approved for the low limit credit card I applied for (and approved for) last week, and letting me know it just got mailed. I was also informed that I could start using it right away – if I just get the Apple Pay app and set it up through my online banking.

No, thankyou!

For the card I chose, there is no annual fee, however there is also a 21 day interest free grace period on new purchases. As long as I pay off any and all new purchases within 21 days, and never use cash back, I could theoretically never pay interest on this card. Since I plan to only use it for purchases within budget, and pay it off right away, that should actually work out.

On another unrelated note…

One of the things we got done today was set up an eye exam appointment for my younger daughter. I was going to wait until my husband and I got our tax returns, and we’d get glasses for all four of us (which we planned to do last year, but ended up with unexpected bills, instead). Unfortunately, my daughter’s glasses have gotten so scratched up, she can actually see better without them than with! I’d been told that in our current province, eye exams are covered by the provincial health care plan, once every two years. When I called and asked about it, however, it turns out that it’s only partially covered – and the remainder that we would pay is $105. !!! I hate to think how much it would cost if it wasn’t partially covered! That is massively more expensive since we last got our eye exams. At least I’m still covered 90% by my husband’s health insurance, and I confirmed that they direct bill.

We just have to get our taxes done. I picked up different software than the TurboTax we usually use and did try to get it started, but quickly gave up. I had to manually include the T4A to their list of different T4s (I had no idea there were so many), but while I could input how much he paid in taxes, there was no line for his disability income. The line number on his T4A simply doesn’t seem to exist in the software, which makes no sense at all. There was also nowhere I could input that I qualify for the caregiver’s tax benefit, nor anywhere for my husband to include that he gets the disability tax credit.

It takes a lot to be even worse than TurboTax.

Frustrating.

Ah, well. It’ll get done, and the sooner the better!

The Re-Farmer