inside cats

When I look up…

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… while sitting at my computer, this is what I often see.

She loves that spot!

The problem is, other cats like that spot. Especially Leyendecker. Every now and then, he’ll go up there and, even if he’s just lying on the lower spot beside her, she starts stressing out and backing off – and has fallen right off the shelf, several times!

Silly Anxiety Bear.

Ginger has gotten very difficult to get pictures of! If his head is anywhere near my hands, he will grab my hand and pull it to his head, so I can scratch his ears for him, and he doesn’t care if there’s a phone in my hand, as I try to get his picture! 😄

The snow has continued, off and on, all night. There’s about 6 inches/15cm in most places. Very light and fluffy snow, but deep enough that it’ll be worth breaking out little Spewie to clear the paths and driveway. By tomorrow morning, we’re supposed to get another 5-10 cm/2-4 inches of snow.

We’re at -7C/19F right now, and are expected to get only a degree warmer, with one more relatively mild day before the temperatures start to drop. We’re at the edge of a large system that’s slowly spinning counter-clockwise, and most of the severe weather is at the south end of our province, and in the US.

At times like this, I really appreciate that our “job” is to take care of this place, and we don’t have to commute anywhere.

The Re-Farmer

Roof all done, a Muffin update and…

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… my brother is insane.

He sent me the photos he took of the house and roof today. This is one of them.

That’s the step ladder he set up, to fix the broken guy wire on the antennae. I added the arrows; the top one is where he had to thread the replacement wire through, and the bottom one shows the broken wire on the roof. With the wire broken (the roofers were so focused on their job, they never really noticed the wire for what it was), the pipe post was being bent into a curve.

After looking at the pictures, I realized that I noticed the post was bent some time ago, but didn’t see that one of the guy wires was broken. I remember wondering why it was bent, then promptly forgot about it.

I’m not typically afraid of heights. My biggest problem with heights is that, any time I look down from high up, I feel like my glasses are going to fall off. But looking at that ladder, and seeing where he had to climb to thread the replacement wire through gives me the willies!

The roof is now done. The crew stayed until it was completely dark, cleaning up around the house and playing Tetris, trying to fit everything into the back of the truck. The truck has an extended cab and a short box, which made fitting the ladders a challenge! Only one of the guys had come in to eat, so I went out to make sure they came in for food before they left. Knowing they’d want to head home as soon as possible, I dug out some take out containers, if they wanted. I had just finished doing that when one of the guys came in and asked about the possibility of having take out containers! So that worked out perfectly.

In the morning, I will walk around and get what pictures I can from the ground. I look forward to seeing how it looks, though it’s snowing right now, so I might not actually see the shingles very well. 😄

Meanwhile, I was able to keep in touch with the cat lady and worked out when we would meet tomorrow, to bring back Big Rid and Muffin.

Then I got a message asking if we’d intended to keep Muffin.

I told her, no; she’s available for adoption, but since she needs treatment, she would likely end up an indoor cat with us, and not go back outside. Once they come inside, they don’t go back out. The problem is, the other cats aren’t liking the new additions and are causing problems. Muffin, on the other hand, gives no F’s about the other cats and settled right in during her one day indoors.

Well, long story short, Muffin isn’t coming back.

We’ll be getting a different cat, instead!

The cat lady has completely fallen in love with Muffin. She’s incredibly sweet, and the cat lady is wanting to keep treating her, herself. She doesn’t like calicos and doesn’t like female cats (ha!), but Muffin is apparently very much like Cabbages, and has already wormed her way into the cat lady’s heart.

They do, however, have a problem cat.

This other cat had been left behind when the owners moved away, and was an outdoor cat for the last 2 years (the vet thinks she’s about 2 1/2 years old). The cat has not adapted well to being indoors, at all, and has spent the last several months hiding under her husband’s desk, almost never coming out other than to eat and use the litter. She likes other cats okay, but is constantly scared. They don’t want to let her outside, of course, because they live in the city and they are afraid she might get hit by a car, but she is absolutely miserable, inside.

The cat lady knows the set up we have, and as much as she hates to do it, she hoped that we’d be able to take her in with our yard cats.

Of course, I said yes. After all the help she’s given us, it’s the least we can do! I did tell her, though, that there’s no guarantee that she won’t simply take off once she’s outdoors. We can use the sun room as a transition space to get her used to the idea of this being a safe place, with warm shelters, food and water. Aside from a couple of cats, the yard cats have been very accepting every time a new batch of kittens showed up, as well as any strange adults. Even The Distinguished Guest is accepted, though he’s one of the cats that tends to be aggressive towards others. But once outside, we really have no control over what she does. All we can do is make the idea of staying close to the house as positive a thing as possible.

Mind you, we might be able to get her to be okay indoors, here. We shall see.

So when I meet with her tomorrow, we will be bring back Big Rig and a stranger!

I also got more information about Plushy and Princess. They are going to the same family, but not the same household. There’s the family with kids and right next door is Grandma. They’ll probably be able to visit each other! 😄

Meanwhile, after we collect two cats tomorrow, she’ll be picking up a bunch of polydactyl kittens that the RM was wanting to shoot, so she’s going to have a houseful! I’ve found that polydactyls tend to get adopted out rather quickly, though, so I would not be surprised if she finds homes for them soon. They’re going to be getting quite a bit of vet care, first, though.

Which means tomorrow will be another run-around day for me. I plan to leave early enough that I can pick up a few things, like litter pellets, before meeting the cat lady, so that I can go straight home once the cats are loaded up, while also taking advantage of city shopping.

At least, for now, I’ll have one day at home before I have to take my mother’s car to the garage! After that, I hope I won’t need to go out again until we have to do the last bit of shopping for Christmas dinner and New Year’s.

I really look forward to turtling at home again.

The Re-Farmer

It’s been that kind of day

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There were so many things I was supposed to get done today, including a trip into town.

Instead, we’ve all been like this.

Yup. Even the cats are feeling it. One of my daughters is still pretty sick, and I have yet to see her today at all. The other is working on commissions, but is also finding herself dragging through the day. My husband normally struggles to stay up during the day, between his pain levels and the medications, and he finally gave up the fight and has gone to bed. It’s all I can do not to curl up with the cats on my bed and snoozing.

Like these guys.

The outside cats are even feeling it! I hate having to close them out of the sun room for the night, after luring them out with their second feeding of the day. Some of them ended up overturning a garbage can and were making a mess. At least I know they can’t get into the bin with the kibble, but if racoons get in, they can literally tear the bin apart, as they’ve already done with the old bin we had to replace because of them.

I really look forward to when we’re past winter solstice, and the days start getting longer again.

The Re-Farmer

Just in case

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I was supposed to work on the Christmas ornaments yesterday, but I ended up working on something else entirely, and it took a lot longer than expected.

I made a baby jail.

Leyendecker likes it.

We don’t have the funds to buy a kennel, but with the newest set of wire storage cubes I got, we had enough altogether to make this cat cage, including a second level inside. The squares come with openings in two sizes, intended to be used as sides or backs for the storage cubes. I put the whole thing together to figure it out, then took it apart and put it back together with a plan. The kittens would be able to go right through the larger openings, so the bottom half is is all the squares with the smaller openings. Because the corners could easily be pushed out of their clips, I tied them together with twine as I went along. This thing is NOT going to fall apart! It is completely enclosed except for one square that is not in any clips at all, but tied in place to make a door, which can be clipped closed at the top.

Of course, the bitties could probably climb the bottom squares and still squeeze through the larger openings of top squares, but we could figure something out to prevent that.

It needs more towels and blankets, etc. plus a small litter box and bowls for food and water. Ideally, we would be able to get the bitties and Broccoli, altogether, keeping them safe in here with their mama.

Assuming we can catch them.

While feeding them this morning, I could see the bitties running around inside, but the best I could do for a picture was shove my phone through the strips of carpet over the entry, where I’d seen the orange bitty eating, and hope for the best!

Not a very good shot, but my goodness, what a cutie! I just love those little white patches under his eyes! When he moves around, he looks like a giant, wooly caterpillar.

I got a head count of about 27 or 28 this morning, NOT counting the bitties. In this picture, you can see three little heads poking out from under the cat shelter. What the two white and greys are blocking are two more kittens under the shelter. I think the smallest cats feel a lot safer and more secure under there.

We have to figure out which of the grey and whites that allow us to pet them is a female. We’ve got four booked to be spayed in less than a week. We’ll be delivering them to the cat lady the day before they’re booked for surgery, so I want to have the chosen ones tucked into the sun room the night before that. It’d be great if we could get Rosencrantz or any of the older females done, but they’re just not social enough. We’ll have to work on that!

The Re-Farmer

Goodbye, Bitty, and the kindness of strangers

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Well, it’s done.

Cheddar was willing to cuddle, but when Bitty started trying to get under him to nurse, it was a bit too much!

The cat lady now has the bitty baby. She plans to put him on antibiotics right away, since his eyes are leaky (I don’t include the lysine with the inside cats’ kibble). She showed me pictures of his siblings, which is when I discovered even more good news. When she told me she found someone who worked in a vet clinic willing to adopt Bitty, I figured this was someone different, but it turned out that this is the same person who is adopting the other two! This is someone who had lost her two cats after 18 years, not long ago. For her to now adopt three yard kittens from the same litter is just amazing! I had sent photos to the cat lady, so I’m guessing she at least saw pictures of him, but that’s it.

I had an extra surprise when the cat lady and I met up in town.

Another donated cat bed, more blankets, and 6 bags of kibble! Plus treats.

The cat bed will go into the cats’ house. Maybe the blankets, too. Those are knitted and donated by volunteers.

As for Bitty, he settled into the cat carrier and never made a peep until just before he got transferred over.

I gave him the hat he likes to sleep in to keep. I can make another one!

Previously, we had talked about getting the last 2 indoor females done, plus one outdoor male. The cat lady would have come to our place, driven them to another city, further away, to get done, then hung on to them for a week to recover, then bring them back here.

Clearly, something had happened, and she never got back to me on that.

It turns out that she’s been having issues with vets cancelling appointments, lack of communication, and even people she’s trying to help making it harder for her. Plus, vet costs are getting astronomical. There isn’t much we can do to help, but I can at least drive the cats to the local vet, or meet her in town like today. Apparently, this is not common. 😥 However, our sun room is now winterized, and our nearest vet has moved to a new, bigger, location, so we can take care of things like driving the cats to and from, and have a recovery room for them.

She also has funds left from a generous donation specifically to have cats spayed and neutered in the area – and where we live is considered “in the area” because we are willing and able to drive them to town. It turns out there is a sports celebrity that has a cottage in the area, and after she was the only person willing to come out to help a stray in -40C/-40F, this is his way of saying thankyou. As long as she spends the money on spays and neuters, he will be making monthly donations!

I brought up that, because we had so many kittens this year, we really need to focus on getting outside females done. Once she was assured that we had a place for them to recover, and that we could drive them in, she said she would try the nearest vet clinic again. If all goes well, we will get two females, then two males, done before Christmas – and before the real cold is expected to set in! I’m still holding out for a mild winter, but January and February are typically the most several months (and the reason we work to have at least a couple months of supplies in stock, in case we can’t get out!).

So she will work to arrange that, then get back to me, and we’ll have to work on socializing more of the females! Calicos and torties are almost always female, but they won’t let us near them. The white and greys are getting friendlier, but we’re having a hard time telling them apart, and only a couple are confirmed male. When the girls were tending the fire pit yesterday, they had cats all over them, and every now and then would pick up a white and grey kitten, only to realize it wasn’t one of the friendlies they were expecting.

A good excuse to get the fire pit going more often! 😁

The only down side is, certain mystery health issues came back with a vengeance. My breathing issues came back a few days ago and it doesn’t seem to matter if I’m sitting or standing, lying down or leaning. Even when I was helping my mother with her shopping yesterday, I had to pause a few times because I was starting to get dizzy and ill. I made sure my mother never saw it, though! Then last night, the mystery pain in my side suddenly hit me while I tried to get into bed, making it difficult to sleep even after the spasms were under control. The pain hasn’t gone away, and at times I am having trouble standing upright.

I should go to the doctor about it, but I don’t see the point. Clinics still have to demand masks, and I can’t wear a mask. I mean, who thinks making someone with breathing difficulties wear a breathing barrier makes sense? Never mind that it’s been repeatedly demonstrated to have no benefit, while causing plenty of harm. The other thing is, I was referred to a respiratory specialist over 2 years ago, and have still heard nothing. My mother hasn’t heard from the kidney specialist she was referred to, either. Unless it’s the Vid, or an emergency, people just aren’t getting health care right now, and those testing positive for the Vid are being badly damaged or killed by the treatment protocols. Frankly, I don’t think it’s even safe for someone like me – old, broken and fat – to go to a doctor right now. I could barely get taken seriously even before all this BS. Nothing like being sent to test after test, scan after scan, procedure after procedure, with all the tests coming back normal to have doctors start looking at you funny and suggesting it’s all in your head. If they can’t find it, it must not exist.

Bah. I’m just venting right now. I’m having trouble sitting up in my chair and breathing properly as I type this, and it’s distracting.

So, back to the topic at hand!

The Bitty is now away with the cat lady, and will be reunited with his siblings in a wonderful new forever home.

I’m going to miss him, but I’m so very happy for all the bitties!

The Re-Farmer

Just too much cute!

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Before I headed out to help my mother with errands, one of my daughters came over to do bitty baby supervisor duty while I was gone.

Bitty was curled up on my bed, napping at the time. My daughter had had a sleepless night, so she took advantage of the situation.

Bitty responded by being even cuter, and took advantage of having a warm human to cuddle up against!

Later on, I got a message from my daughter saying that he was twitching and making nursing motions in his sleep!

We reached a high of 0C/32F today, though as I write this, we’ve started to cool down a bit. It’s still sunny and feels warm out there, and things are melting in various places. A perfect day to help my mother with errands. I’m happy to say she is well stocked up on quite a few things now. Especially the heavier things, like laundry detergent, or bags of potatoes, that she can get while I’m there with her car to help.

It’s also a perfect day to do a burn. Just before I headed home, one of my daughters got the fire pit going. There is a branch pile near the fire pit that we we’ve been adding to faster than we’ve been able to use it up – it’s separate from the logs we use when doing a cookout, and just getting too big. So the girls are planning to get as much of that cleaned up as they can. Now that I’m home and on supervisor duty (Butterscotch really, really does not like Bitty, but Bitty really, really wants to cuddle her!), they are both outside and tending the fire pit.

This is what I found when I came back into the room.

I mean, can he get any cuter? 😄😄😄

He really, really likes that hat! Gosh, he’s so tiny. And most of that is fluff. He’s actually smaller than he looks.

I’m going to miss him when the cat lady picks him up!

Butterscotch and Nosencrantz, however, will be very happy to see him gone! 😂

The Re-Farmer

The cuteness is off the scale!

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We’ve been keeping the bitty baby isolated in my room for now, with someone there to supervise at all times.

Life can be so hard, sometimes. 😉

I was expecting the bitty to go into hiding or at least be very nervous at first.

Nope.

After filling his belly with wet cat food, he started to explore, with Cheddar and Leyendecker following him around like lost puppies, trying to figure him out.

He’s an excellent climber.

He’s also ridiculously tiny!

Butterscotch is not happy with a kitten around and would growl and hiss at him.

Bitty gives no F’s.

Eventually, Butterscotch came off her window ledge, and the next think I knew, they were curled up near each other on my bed, sleeping.

Ginger has recently become one of the cats we can allow into my office with Butterscotch and Nosencrantz, without a fight breaking out, so we allowed him in, too. He didn’t like the bitty, and would hiss and growl at him, but was still willing to lie on the bed for a nap, too.

When I first brought Bitty in, I didn’t have a chance to take off my parka and hat where I usually do, and had just dumped them on the bed.

He found my hat.

So. Very. Smol!!!!

For a while, I lay across the bed so that I could reach cats to calm them down. Yeah. That’s why. Not because I wanted to snuggle the baby and take pictures. Nope. Not at all.

Ginger was very curious about my phone.

I managed to get a few of him, too. 😂

After a while he planted himself against my leg and tried to nap. Bitty, however, crawled out of the hat and decided to check him out. Ginger was NOT happy, was laying his ears back, snarling and hissing.

Bitty gave no F’s, crawled over him and squeezed into a crevice between him and my leg.

Poor Ginger looked ready to have a massive anxiety attack! He finally left and lay down on the heat vent. 😂

For now, the cat lady thinks she can be out here to pick him up on Wednesday, at the latest. That’s only two days from now. That actually works out better for us, since I am now scheduled to help my mother with her grocery shopping tomorrow.

As I write this, Bitty is curled up on my bed, snoozing again.

He is so, incredibly tiny!

The cuteness meter has overloaded. 🤎🖤🤎🖤

The Re-Farmer

A double whammy of good news!

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The cat lady contacted me last night. After finding homes for the two bitty babies we found in the field, she now has someone who wants to adopt the last surviving bitty!!

Which meant, of course, that we had to bring him inside as quickly as we could. I wasn’t able to do that last night, as it was too dark to see, so we left it until this morning.

When I first topped up the kibble and water bowls, I couldn’t see him anywhere, but I’ve often seen him out after I’ve finished my rounds, so did those. Making my way back around to the kibble house, I was greeted by an orange tabby.

It wasn’t Rolando Moon.

Nutmeg is back!!

At least I assume it’s Nutmeg. I suppose it could be Toesencrantz, but I was able to pet him, and Toezencrantz was never socialized.

The kibble was already mostly gone in most of the trays, so I topped a couple of them to make sure Nutmeg got a good meal. He wasn’t too friendly with the other cats, but food was a higher priority for him! He looks really healthy, though. Usually, when the wayward males come back for the winter, they look like pretty starved.

Then, I spotted the bitty baby! He had finally emerged from the cat house, so I snagged him.

He’s now in my office/bedroom with me, and has had his first meal of wet cat food. As I write this, he is exploring the room, climbing things – especially the little cat tree we have in here – and checking things out.

Cheddar and Leyendecker were immediately curious about him and followed him around, sniffing. Bitty sniffed right back and there was lots of purring.

Butterscotch and Nosencrantz are not too sure of things. Butterscotch is perched in the window sill, and I’ve heard her growling at him. Nosencrantz is on her top shelf by the ceiling, watching him from above, looking shocked, but has not tried to come down.

And I just had to pause typing the above because he climbed up onto my desk. Now he’s climbing the shelf to Nosencrantz, but he’s too small to get very far.

I think I’m going to be very busy supervising a baby today!

The Re-Farmer