Butterscotch has discovered the window shelf! She doesn’t spend much time there, but enough to keep Nosencrantz from using it as often. 😄 So far, the only other cat that’s checked it out is Potato Beetle, and he does just that – checks it out, then leaves.
At the moment, I’m taking a bit of a break from preparing for spending a day and a night at my mother’s. This will be the first time I’ve been away from the farm overnight since we’ve moved here! Which means I’ve been spending a fair bit of time digging around, trying to remember, where is my travel toothbrush? Do I still have a travel toothbrush? Oh, there’s a case for a full size toothbrush. What smaller bag should I use to pack into, and how much will I have to dig to find it behind the barricade made to stop the cats from using the suitcases and scratching posts? Does my husband have an extra pill case I can use for my meds and supplements?
It’s just an overnight trip, but it’s an overnight trip to my mother’s which puts a whole new level of considerations. Plus, I want to stick to my Lenten fast while also not depleting my mother’s grocery supply, so I’m not only bringing food for myself, but enough to share with her. She won’t be able to eat for at least 4 hours after the procedure, since they are going to be freezing her throat, so she’s going to be hungry.
I ended up making a quick trip into town with my mother’s car for a few things for my overnighter, plus a few extras until I can make my next city trip. That will, at the very least, have to wait until after the tire on the van is fixed. Hopefully, our mechanic will find something suitable at the auction that the financing company will accept for the loan that’s already approved. So many things are getting delayed or side tracked because of all the problems with the van!
I am so thankful we have my mother’s car that we can use as a back up vehicle. It’s been needed often enough to be worth the extra expense. Living out here, having two vehicles is a necessity, not a luxury.
Meanwhile…
While tending the seedlings in the large aquarium greenhouse, I graduated the drum gourds that germinated first. They’re getting tall enough to need more space from the lights, so that one pot has been moved to the lower tray that the onions and luffa are on. I almost, kinda, maybe, think I could see new growth in the one last pot with drum gourd seeds!
Now, in theory, I really should thin out one of the seedlings in the pot I moved. The problem is, they are both so very strong and healthy! Meanwhile, the second pair of seedlings are still recovering from being stuck in the hulls of their seeds and are not looking anywhere near as healthy yet. So I am keeping both and, when it’s time to pot them up, will thin by transplanting one out into its own pot, while the other can be potted up without removing it from the biodegradable pot. Hopefully, the one that gets thinned out will survive. The more seedlings I can keep alive until it’s time to transplant outside, the better our changes of having at least one plant survive transplanting and maybe even enjoy a full growing season!
I took a closer look at the tiny little zucca seedling. There was still just an “elbow” showing, but something seemed odd about it.
Where those roots?
Yup.
I very gently poked around in the soil and found the seed leaves were still thoroughly encased in the hull, which was trapped enough by the soil that instead of the leaves lifting up, the root end was being pushed out! So I very, very carefully and gently uncovered the seed hull encased leaves while covering the roots – only to accidentally reveal a second seedling working its way out, too! That one was also still stuck in the hull, so I loosened the soil over that, too. Once they’ve gotten large and strong enough to fully emerge and start standing upright, I will gently remove the hulls, like I did with the second pair of drum gourds that germinated..
I’m just babying these suckers! 😂
I am just itching to start more seeds but, for what we’ve got, it’s still a bit too early.
Well, break time is done. Time to go dig out a bag to pack for tomorrow.
This winter, for the first time since I lived here as a child, we started hearing a very distinctive noise in the ceiling of the “new” part of the house. The skittering of tiny mouse feet on the tiles, running from one end of the addition to the other.
The cats were most definitely interested in that noise!
The only access to the space above the addition is upstairs and blocked by furniture, and the space is full of insulation anyhow, so there was no expectation that they’d be able to get at the mouse.
Well, it’s no longer a problem.
My older daughter regaled me, in a most entertaining way, of how she came to the kitchen this morning and noticed Fenrir behaving oddly. She was growling at the other cats (which is not odd, really) and moving around in an unusual manner.
She was also carrying something in her mouth, and she clearly didn’t want the other cats to have it!
Of course, my daughter checked it out, and discovered she was carrying a dead mouse.
After confirming it was, indeed, dead, she got it away and garbaged it. The last thing she wanted was for someone to end up stepping on a half eaten mouse.
With so many cats, inside and out, this is the first mouse we’ve seen/heard indoors in the 5 years we’ve been here.
As I type this, we are currently at -20C/-4F, with the wind chill at either -32C/-26F or -29C/020F, depending on which app I look at. Our high of the day is still supposed to reach -14C/7F, with a wind chill around -25C/-13F
Yesterday, we were supposed to reach a high of -1C/30F. I have no idea if we ever did, but what we did get was incredible winds. Whiteout conditions on many highways, with some of them closed due to the blowing snow. Today is a significant improvement!
The long range forecast has changed, of course. We went from expecting much milder temperatures for the rest of February, with the coldest days having highs just a little colder than -10C/14F, to now getting forecasts with highs colder than -20C/-4F, all with significant wind chills.
Winter just doesn’t want to let go quite yet!
Thankfully, with the current wind direction, our front yard is quite sheltered, and the cats and cattens are making good use of the cat house and the sun room to keep warm.
This morning, this little guy was absolutely determined to get stepped on.
When I first go out in the morning, there’s usually several cats right under the threshold of the old kitchen door. I have to carefully push the outer door open (while holding the kibble container) with one hand, pull the inner door closed behind me, while trying not to step on any cattens trying to get into the old kitchen at the same time. They make if VERY hard not to step on them, as they keep dashing right under my boot every time I try to move around them.
There are now three white and greys, all male, that come for attention, but this one here was making life quite difficult for me in the process! Absolutely suicidal around my feet! I do wish we didn’t have to keep the kibble bin in the old kitchen. At least there, they don’t start milling about my feet until I’ve got it open and am scooping out the kibble, and I can get in and out of the old kitchen doors with less risk of stepping on a cat!
I was able to count 24 cats this morning, but then I saw Sprout by herself next to the cat house, and I wouldn’t be sure if she was among the others I’d counted or now. So there might have been 25. No Distinguished Guest this morning. I haven’t seen Sad Face (aka: Shop Towel) for a while, either. The toms are probably visiting other farms in their range. Hopefully, The Distinguished Guest is doing better. That cat needs a vet visit. 😥
We have some progress among the inside cats.
Marlee and Ginger, sharing prime nap space! These two are hilarious. They hiss and snarl at each other, all the time. Then Marlee will flop down next to Ginger, often dropping right on top of him, and they settle down for naps together.
Nosencrantz is figuring out that the new shelf at the window is available for her, and I woke this morning to find her sitting on it. Unfortunately, what woke me was the sound of her batting something off the window ledge.
No, I don’t have anything on the window ledge the shelf is against. She went after stuff on the other half of the window!
My craft shelf next to her spot is where I store envelopes in a variety of larger sizes. She decided those were something to chew on, so I had to find a way to protect those but, otherwise, it’s been working out as hoped. I may not even have to shorten the legs, after all. No other cat has shown any interest in the shelf at all.
With how well this is working out, I should actually be able to clear and reorganize the rest of my craft table and even *gasp* use it to do crafting again!
What a novel concept.
With the temperatures dropping again over the next while, it’s a good time to catch up.
This is Fenrir, calmly chilling on my bed, and NOT trying to attack Nosencrantz!
Yes, we have made HUGE progress.
Of all the cats, none are so determined to get into my office/bedroom – the isolation ward – than Fenrir. So many times, I’d open the door and she’ll teleport through in the blink of an eye.
Then immediately go searching for Nosencrantz and try to attack her.
Well, I’ve been trying to let her in more often, kicking her out as soon as she started behaving aggressively. I think she’s learning.
Last night, I let her in, and she just found places to nap. Or crawled onto me while I was trying to type. Before my room became the isolation ward, that was her favourite thing; to curl up on my chest while I was at my computer, and make it difficult to actually get any work done!
I even had her in the room while doing the evening feeding with wet cat food. She ate from a bowl right next to Marlee – Marlee!!! – and they didn’t growl at each other. She was even okay around Butterscotch, one of her adopted mothers. She behaved so well, I allowed her to stay in the room overnight.
Which worked until about 3am, when I was awakened by a cat fight next to my bed, and out she went.
With Fenrir behaving so much better, I’ve even tried leaving my door open and allowing other cats to wander in and out. Marlee isn’t too happy with that, but most of them ignore her growling.
Except Turmeric.
Turmeric may have calmed down a LOT since she was spayed, but she will still go after Nosencrantz and Marlee, with no provocation at all. I don’t see her going after Butterscotch, but I suspect that has more to do with lack of opportunity.
Still, getting Fenrir to the point that I can actually leave her in my room, with the door closed and unsupervised, is HUGE!
At some point, I want to be able to leave my door open so Marlee – who is very interested in the rest of the house – and Nosencratnz can go exploring. Butterscotch, too, though I don’t expect her to. She’s enjoying her retirement too much.
We have been so spoiled by the mild winter we’ve had so far!
As I write this, it’s coming up on noon, and we have warmed up to -28C/-18F but the wind chill has gotten colder, at -40C/F (it’s the came in both Celsius and Fahrenheit at that point!). It’s bright and sunny out there, with clear skies. As I look out my window while writing this, I don’t see even a light breeze in the trees, but it doesn’t take much to drive the wind chill down at these temperatures.
When I went into the sun room this morning, the wall thermometer was at about -18C/0F, while outside it was at about -31C/-24F. I had made sure to top up the heated water bowl in the sun room yesterday the evening, and it was a bit less than half full this morning – with a sheet of ice starting to form on the surface! When unfastening the cord holding the doors propped open, just enough for the cats to squeeze in and out, I had to be careful not to touch the metal door handle for long with my bare hands. Tending to the outside cats was all I did out there this morning. The trail cams are probably frozen. With the sign cam, which is batteries only, it typically stops recording when the batteries get too cold, but starts up again as they warm up. It has fresh batteries, so it should be good. The solar powered trail cam is still on its first set of batteries, and they’re still showing as 100%. It’s in full sun, so it should actually be warmer than ambient temperature (the images include a temperature display, and it’s internal temperature is always at least a few degrees higher than the actual temperature). How it does in these temperatures will be the ultimate test for it. If it does well, we will be getting more like it, to replace the older ones that are starting to glitch out more often. We won’t be able to get the exact same camera, as they are no longer available, but there is a new version from the same company.
There was no way I was going out there to switch out the memory cards, though. Not today!
I didn’t even try for a head count with the outside cats, but the last I looked out the bathroom window, the swing bench was covered by a mass of multicoloured fur!
Even the inside cats are feeling it. Though I turned down the thermostat a bit, the furnace has been going almost constantly. That vibrating noise is sometimes there, mostly not. Of course, most of our heat vents has a cat on it. While tending the greenhouse aquarium, Fenrir wouldn’t even wait for me to put everything back before she was trying to climb onto the light fixtures – which were one on top of the other at the time! Once they were in place again, she settled right in.
Belly warmer!
She looks like such a Sphinx in that pose!
Beep Beep was also quick to climb on. Fenrir is actually looking at her, out of frame, sitting on the end of the fixture, trying to figure out why Fenrir is in her spot!
Those fixtures stay nice and toasty, and the more agile cats take full advantage of that.
That, and body heat. Especially upstairs. The girls have their heaters going, and usually several cats each, curled up against them all night long!
Meanwhile, I popped onto Facebook this morning, and saw a friend post a screencap of her weather app. At 8am, she was at 19C/66F.
She’s also just moved to Puerto Vallarta.
After living in the Yukon for several years.
Funny. I find I know an awful lot of Canadians who have either moved permanently South, or are planning to do so over the next year or two!
Days like today, I find myself thinking that sounds like a pretty good idea!
I just got off the phone to cancel the vet appointment this morning.
By the time I was done, the temperature had actually dropped even further. Our van just isn’t safe in these temperatures.
The clinic’s answering service doesn’t take messages, so I had to wait until they opened to call and cancel. The receptionist had no issues with such a short notice cancelation. She had troubles herself this morning!
We will wait until the cold snap breaks, then book another appointment. Thankfully, grandma hasn’t been pawing at her face or making those glancing noises of late. We still want to check her out, but it’s not any emergency.
The forecast was wrong again. I just wish it were wrong in the other direction!
When checking on the seed starts in the big aquarium greenhouse, I’m usually greeted by this…
Beep Beep absolutely LOVES those aquarium lights. They are nice and warm, and I think she really appreciates that, after all her winters outdoors!
Also, isn’t that the most adorable tongue blep? 😂
The down side, she rolls around so much, she starts pushing the one raised light fixture around. I’ve even found it with one end pushed right off the tank! The other light lies flush on the surface, so the frame of the wire mesh covers holds it in place.
In other things…
This afternoon, my husband and I had our rescheduled joint doctor’s appointment. When the phone range this morning, my immediate thought was that it was going to be rescheduled again! It turned out to be someone from home care doing his annual follow up call. The only thing we have from home care is my husband’s hospital bed, so most of the call was to make sure our postal and physical address was still the same.
My husband and I left very early for the appointment. It’s a good thing we did start heading out so early! I went out ahead to get my husband’s walker through the sun room doors (we need to find threshold ramps, but of the ones I looked at, they all seem to be the wrong height), then got the van set up and backed out of the garage a bit. Normally, I would have driven the van right to the house, but we haven’t been able to clear such a large area of snow. I had made sure the path to the garage was wide enough for the walker, and as clear of snow as possible, but anything beyond where there are actual sidewalk blocks will always be a bit rough on the wheels.
I did wonder, though, when I saw my husband hobbling to the van, without his walker.
It turned out he left through the main doors, not the sun room (which would have avoided stairs). He was expecting the walker to be at the main doors, and when he didn’t see it, he just kept going to the van!
When I saw him, I told him I’d go bring the walker, and he was all confused until I pointed out where it was sitting (the cats love the padded seat on that thing!). He went back to get it himself. I remembered just in time to ask if he had his wallet, with his health care card. Nope! He completely forgot! So I dashed inside to get that. By the time we were on the road, it was about 15 minutes later than I had been shooting for, but that is exactly why I factor in so much extra time!
The drive out was very rough on him. Especially the half mile or so of gravel road, just before the highway. It was a complete washboard, and there was no way to avoid it. The best I could do was slow down a bit, but all that did was give him slightly less pain for a longer time. Even on the highway, every now and then there would be a rough spot there was no way to avoid. He spent most of the time doing breathing exercises and meditation to help control the pain (yes, he was on painkillers), and the nausea that came with it.
We made a short stop to pick up a bit of gas and breakfast, which I had also factored in to my timeline, and got to the clinic about forty minutes before our appointment.
The clinic doors had signs saying, it’s cold and flu season, wear a mask! As if that ever made a difference. 🙄 We weren’t wearing any when we came in, and they didn’t say anything, but my husband still asked about wearing one. I think he felt other patients were having a problem with it, though the staff certainly didn’t. They know full well how useless they are. I couldn’t find the Mingle Masks that used to be in our van – I think my daughter might have thrown them out while cleaning out the front of the van, when we thought we’d be able to use it as a trade in – but I’d grabbed the last ones from the box we’d bought several years ago. It’s been so long, my husband forgot how to wear them! 😄
He then settled in for what he expected to be a long and painful wait, only for us to be called in just a few minutes later! My husband didn’t have a lot to cover. We started the paperwork to get a disabled parking permit, which now has to be done online with a doctor. The last time we did it, several years ago, we weren’t sure how it was done in this province, and left the paperwork with the doctor, thinking they had to send it in. Turns out, that’s not how it works here. After the doctor did the online paperwork and printed it out, there was a part for me to fill out as the emergency contact person, then details my husband had to include and sign for. Then it went to the reception desk, where we had to pay a fee to the doctor – cash or check only, and I thankfully had our checkbook – which was $30. Then we get the paperwork back and have to mail it out to a central office, along with a check for $15, for the placard to be mailed back to us. The alternative would be to drive to the city, find the place, then pay for and pick up the placard there.
In the province we lived in before, it was all covered. Even the doctor was able to waive the paperwork fee. All we had to do was bring a prescription to anywhere that did vehicle license and registration, and we’d get a placard immediately.
My husband rarely goes anywhere, but being able to park closer when he does would be a huge improvement for him.
After my husband left to do his bloodwork, I had my own appointment. I am now OFF that injection that was doing such nasty things to my insides. My husband is on the same injection for something else, and his dose got increased, so I’ll just give my fresh new refill to him. I’m now back on the medication I was on before that had no side effects with me, and worked just fine.
I also talked to him about whether or not it was time for me to apply for disability myself, because of the osteoarthritis. The last time I saw him, I got X-rays of my hands, and they only showed the beginnings of arthritis. I’m also not on any prescriptions for arthritis, so I simply wouldn’t be considered “disabled” enough to qualify for CPP Disability.
The hands are just the newest thing; my hips, knees and feet have been bothering me for a very long time. I even told him, I have no problem doing big things, like wielding a chain saw or pushing wheelbarrows around, but I need to use the bath chair to take a shower, I can’t take a bath, I struggle to do stairs, and can barely open a jar, because I’ve lost so much grip strength due to pain in my finger joints.
We talked about the painkillers I’m on now, which is just extra strength acetaminophen that I take morning and evening, and it’s not really cutting it anymore. So he gave me a prescription to try for 2 weeks, also taken morning and evening, to see how it works for me. That got faxed to the pharmacy, so I’ll be able to get that filled for the weekend, when I’ll be able to go into town to pick it up.
And we were done. I didn’t even get a requisition for bloodwork. I went to the lab to find the technician was still trying to find a vein in my husband’s arm and asked him about the parking permit application. It was at the reception desk, so I was able to write a check for that. By the time he was done and we were on our way home, we still had 10 minutes before our joint appointments were scheduled to start!
I love that when we come in early at this clinic, we almost always get seen early, too!
My husband was more than happy to get home, though that last push through the snowy paths with his walker was a lot more difficult than the first time around. He ended up going in through the main doors rather than fight through that last bit of snowy path to the sun room, and I took care of putting the walker away. Which certainly startled quite a few cats when I banged and rattled through the door with it! 😄 While we are at a relatively mild -9C/16F right now, the wind chill is supposedly -19C/-2F. I say “supposedly”, because we have been getting some nasty gusts of wind that make it feel even colder. The cats are quite enjoying the shelter of the sun room, that’s for sure!
Tomorrow, we’re supposed to have a high of -14C/7F and, if all goes to plan, that’s when I’ll be heading to the city for our Costco trip. After tomorrow, temperatures are supposed to drop to a high of -22C/-8F and stay chilly for a while, though the long range forecasts are not showing temperatures as cold as they did when I last checked them.
The weather app that came with my desktop provides interesting extra information, including average and record highs and low. The 30 year record high for today was 3C/37F, back in 2006 – but the record low in 1997 was -36C/-33F! I’m quite happy with a mere -9C/16F right now, even with the wind chill!
This winter has been the mildest – and closest to average – winter we’ve had since moving out here! I’m really, really appreciating it!
The temperatures dropped quite a lot overnight, and it was still -22C/-8C when I headed out this morning. It was, however, a bright and sunny morning, with no wind, making it quite pleasant out!
And quite beautiful!
Tomorrow, we’re expected to have one last “warm” day, with a high of -10C/14F. A brief respite on the day my husband and I are going for our doctor appointments – if we don’t get rescheduled again! – before we start getting hit with a cold streak. Depending on where I look, we’ll have about a week with highs colder than -20C/-4F before things start warming up again. Which is still warmer than it has been, the past couple of winters, so I’m not complaining! The cats and cattens are certainly using the sun room more often again. I counted 24 this morning. 😊
It is an inside cat that we are concerned about right now. Our grandma cat, who moved out here with us, is behaving strangely. At first, we thought she had something stuck in the back of her throat. She would make glakking noises and paw at her face. Then she stopped doing it, so I figured whatever was bugging her had worked itself loose and she was fine.
Except, it turns out she’s still be doing it. I just haven’t been around her to hear it.
Last night, my husband called me over because she was sounding really bad while in his room, but had just run off. I found her and tried to take a look – and found blood on one of her front paws! With the help of a daughter, I was able to wash her paw – she did NOT want to be held for this! – but there was no injury on her paw. We tried looking into her mouth, but she didn’t like that, either. Still, from what we could see, there was no injury or blood there, either.
So this morning, I called the vet, hoping to get her booked for Saturday. My husband’s smaller CPP Disability comes in on Friday, so I’ll be in the city for a much needed Costco trip. They were fully booked on Saturday, but we were able to get a Sunday appointment – for 8:30am. Thank goodness this vet is relatively close! After I described what was going on, they did offer us an appointment for tonight, but we just don’t have the extra funds for a vet trip until disability comes in. To be honest, now that we’re going to start making “car payments” so we can get a replacement vehicle before next winter, we really can’t afford any vet trips, but we’ll manage. I’m hoping it’s something relatively minor – something stuck in her throat that can be pulled out and she’ll be fine. Worst case scenario… well. Plan for the worst, hope for the best.
Since bringing in Butterscotch and Beep Beep from outside, we’ve got three grandmas in the house. Unfortunately, that means we can probably expect more health problems to crop up.
We’ll just deal with things as they come, and do the best we can.
Nosencrantz may turn into a ball of anxiety around the other cats, but she’s completely different, with me!
She has completely adopted me as her own, personal human. Incredibly affectionate. This is her napping after a hard session of “pet my face! Now!” 😄
She has the softest fur of all the cats.
Does it make up for her habit of crapping in all the wrong places? I gotta admit, when I had crawl on my hands and busted up knees to clean up another mess in the shelf behind my night stand at 2am, I certainly didn’t think so!
I’ve blocked off the space now. She has lost one of her hidey holes for when she runs away from the other cats.
After I cleaned everything up, blocked it off, and went back to bed, the little bugger came over and began snuggling me.
We’ve got ourselves a Potato Beetle for your daily cuteness!
Yes, it looks like the Potato has become one of the elect few that the ladies will allow in my office/bedroom without much issue. Which is good, since Butterscotch is his mother! Not that she wants anything to do with him, any more than she wants anything to do with any other cat!
Potato Beetle has had a couple of battles. He doesn’t start them. Leyendecker went after him hard recently, and Potato stood his ground. Not sure if they worked out their pecking order issues, but I haven’t seen them go at it, since.
The Potato, however, is perfectly content to just wander around the house, eat, sleep, and commandeer my husband for love and naps. If all the other cats left him be, as most of them do, he’d leave them be, too!
Pretty easy transition for an outside cat, that’s for sure!
The Re-Farmer 