I can’t help it. I feel like I’ve wasted a day. I got a stock going and tended it, off and on, for much of the day. While I didn’t have to be there constantly, I was checking on it often enough that I didn’t want to start anything that took too much of my focus or was too distracting. I ended up actually *gasp* watching TV, binge watching DS9 on Prime. I could use each the status bar on the episodes as my timer to go check the stove. Normally, I’d at least do something like crochet at the same time, but a summer in the garden has left my fingertips so rough, most yarns stick to them like Velrco, and I ended up pulling the loops right off the hook! 😆
Ah, well. I suppose it’s good to have a break every now and then.
One thing I discovered while sitting on the couch watching the show.
Fenrir missed me!
Before Butterscotch and Nosencrantz came indoors, she used to spend as much time as she could like this, while I was at my computer.
Which made it very difficult to type.
Unfortunately, Fenrir is one of the cats that will come in and immediately launch an attack at Nosencrantz if allowed in my room. Butterscotch, too, if she’s in view. I have no idea why she is so aggressive towards them. Especially Butterscotch. Butterscotch and Beep Beep took her in, along with their own kittens, when she showed up at our place as a kitten, our first summer here. Now, she will spend hours just outside my bedroom door, watching it and, if I’m not careful, she’ll teleport herself into my room as soon as the door opens, and attack Nosencrantz. She’s amazingly fast! Given the opportunity, however, she will climb onto me, curl up on my chest, and nap, as she did several times, today. She was not impressed by my frequently getting up to tend the stove. 😁
Our fridge freezer had quite a few bags of carcasses waiting, mostly from chickens, but also some turkey. I roasted them first, and they completely filled my roasting pan. There was enough that I used my giant stock pot, that I’ve also been using for water bath canning, to fit it all.
Into the pot went most of our remaining Uzbek Golden carrots.
I admit. I’m a coward.
I could have used at least a couple of Black Nebula carrots, too. That would have changed the colour significantly! But I decided that might not look too appetizing. 😂
Along with the carrots I added crushed garlic cloves, yellow and red onions – the little ones from our garden – plus celery. For seasonings, I added course salt, whole peppercorns, turmeric powder, dried thyme leaves and dried parsley, then covered it all with water. Later on, I added a generous splash of our crab apple cider vinegar, too.
After bringing it to a boil I let it simmer for about 7 hours adding more water to the pot part way through. After that, I used a hot pot soup strainer spoon that I find very handy, to take out as many of the bones and vegetables as I could, then a small sieve to strain out more, before finally ladling it through a fine mesh strainer into my other two stock pots.
The larger pot, with the measurements on the inside, shows a little under the 6 quart line. In total, I would say there’s about 10, maybe 11, quarts (11 to 12 1/2 litres).
For now, the pots are covered and cooling, as is the bowl of carcasses and vegetables. I’m debating what to do with it next. I could just pour it into freezer bags and freeze them, as is. Or I could cook it down to make a more concentrated stock. I’m kind of leaning towards cooking it down more. I’ll see how it looks in the morning.
The girls had set up a next in a laundry basket for the bitty kitties, which they promptly climbed out of. Last night, we kept them in the cat carrier for the night, to be safe (and I got some sleep!).
Butterscotch does NOT like the kittens. She hisses and runs away from them, clearly very unhappy. Nosencrantz growls and them, but won’t go near them. Cheddar sees them and runs away.
Then… there’s Leyendecker.
He has claimed the laundry basket as a bed.
He will chase after them and insists on grooming them. When he lay in the basket, I put the bitties in with him, and he immediately starting licking them both!
The kittens are quite active as I write this. And loud! They are wandering all over my office/bedroom as I write this. I got the heat pad for under seedling trays out. It’s water proof, so I put it under their bowl of formula. The little black and white one, which is more content to turn into a loaf and just sit for a while, discovered it. 😁
The grey and white tabby is definitely the more active one, and rarely settles for more than a few moments. It’s very talkative, too!
It’s coming up on 9:30am as I write this. The cat lady was hoping to get here by about 10am. Not much longer before we’ll be saying goodbye to the bitties, and turning them over to her tender loving care. She’ll be able to get them checked by a vet, too.
Oh, a bitty is crying by my feet now. Gotta watch out when I roll back my office chair, that’s for sure!
He’s in the V shaped bed they had him in to do an ultrasound at the vet. It took two of us to hold him while the vet did the ultrasound! Once it was done and he rolled himself over, he happily stayed in it, apparently quite comfortable!
Also, Leyendecker has an almost completely clean bill of health!
The vet actually brought over a little printout of the results from his blood tests. All but one result was back to normal, and the one was not a concern and likely due to stress. Even his kidneys show no sign of damage. It was his potassium levels that were the real surprise. They were perfectly normal. Last time, it was off the charts. The vet once again called him a miracle cat. Those potassium levels should have killed him.
During the ultrasound, she said that she could still see there was junk in his bladder, but just a little. The urinary cat food should help with that. He was also weighed, and is down half a kilogram (about a pound).
The medical exam and tests were well within my daughter’s budget, so I was able to get more wet and dry cat food for him. We’re trying a different brand this time, as he didn’t really like the other one. At least not compared to regular kibble and wet cat food. A 6 pound/2.72kg bag of kibble is almost $45, while one 156g/5.5oz tin of wet cat food is $2.47 each.
Ouch.
The vet did remember to ask about Keith; the last time I spoke to her on the phone, I had mentioned we had another sick cat. I told her that he passed away peacefully in his sleep soon after our call.
So this is about as good the news can get about Leyendecker! Her recommendation to help reduce his stress is the same: try and adopt him out to a home with less cats! Mind you, being able to adopt out more cats in general would have much the same affect.
I remember when we brought in our first outdoor cat, Fenrir. At the time, I swore we would not bring in any more cats. Three was enough.
Then we brought in cats that were sick or injured.
Then we brought females in so they wouldn’t get pregnant before we could get them fixed.
Always with the plan to socialize and adopt out cats, which hasn’t worked out all that well.
But it’s not like there’s much of an alternative. We’ve had people tell us we should just shoot them, but we’re not going to do that. We will just keep taking care of them, and hopefully adopt them out.
Y’know, when we first brought David into the house, because his eyes were so bad he needed so many treatments, he had a different title. We called him F’d Up David, because… well, he really was pretty f’d up!
Now look at him. Isn’t he just…
… magnificent!
We had been using these bins to carry around tomatoes or crab apples, with the shredded paper on the bottom to keep them from falling through the openings on the sides and bottoms, and to absorb any moisture after washing them. While working with the crab apples, I’d set one said on a shelf to get it out of the way until I finished, only to discover a cat in it.
It has become David’s favourite place to sleep. He can turn himself into a pretzel, and not fall off the shelf.
With the cooler nights, I finally closed my bedroom window yesterday.
This was more complex than normal.
The cats like to sit on the window ledge, but with the window open, they could attack anything that blew or flew by. Nosencrantz in particular was getting very destructive. Even when I got the window fan and set it up, she kept trying to get at the window, knocking the fan down. I had cord running through the handle, and more across the window, to keep the fan from being pushed off the ledge, but she would jam herself in behind. I finally had to grab some of the old window screens we used for drying mind leaves, needing 2 of them to cover the window and the fan, along with a cut-to-size piece of 2 inch Styrofoam between the top of the fan and the top of the window sill. She still kept clawing at the screens (which, thankfully, we metal mesh and stronger than the window’s screen). I had to come up with a rather elaborate barricade to block access to the window, and still allow air flow and use of the fan. That included creating a barricade around the shelf near the window she likes to curl up in, because she would actually pull one of the screens out of position.
I was able to take the fan down a while ago, but still had to keep the barricades. Nosencrantz was very, very determined!
To finally close the window, I had to remove cords, that piece of Styrofoam and the extra screens. Then, once the window could finally be closed, I had to remove its screen and tuck it behind the other ones to further protect it. Then I could finally move away the barricade around the shelf.
Which meant that Nosencrantz could now access the top of the shelf again.
This is what I get to see, now.
She has such and expression. Like she’s analyzing, and trying to figure things out.
Keith passed away peacefully during the night. When I found him this morning, he looked like he was having a lovely little snooze.
My older daughter and I buried him this morning. At first, we were going to bury him under a willow, where there used to be a flower bed, but there were too many roots under the first few inches of soil. Knowing we could not be able to dig very deep, and not wanting critters to do damage, my daughter went looking for something to use as a cover while I decided to dig among the white lilacs.
We have horrible, rock hard, rock filled soil on top of hard clay and rocks. But we traded off and made progress, until we hit some much bigger roots. We took a hatchet to those, only to find a large rock under them. After much digging around it, we realized it was just too big and was not going to move.
We were able to bury Keith, though, and cover his grave.
It seems rather appropriate that as soon as everything was in place, a kitten decided to play on the spot.
The bench was returned and will add an extra level of protection. Once the ground is frozen, we won’t have to be concerned about it. In the spring, we will add soil and plant something over his grave.
Good bye, Keith.
How strange that we would suddenly lose Keith, when Leyendecker was the one who as so very ill. He has been active, has a good appetite and is overall looking so much better… but still doesn’t seem to be able to void properly. My daughter wants to have his blood tested again before making a final decision, to confirm one way or the other, whether his is recovering.
Right now, I just feel so tired.
And not because I just spent more than an hour fighting a losing battle with a big rock.
Yesterday I got a call back from the third roofing company we want to get an estimate from for my brother, and arranged for him to come by today. With the gate having to be unlocked and open anyway, I took advantage of it to mow the driveway.
And then keep mowing.
And mowing.
And mowing some more!
As for the roof, we will get the estimate tomorrow. While chatting with him, I mentioned getting estimates several years ago, and what a difference it is, now. He told me that some things have gone up in price by 100% since then!
Once I get the numbers, I’ll pass them on to my brother and after that, it’s in the hands of him and my mother. Hopefully, she won’t decide to string us along again and back out of her promise to pay for it again. Prices will only keep going up. The north side of the roof, where the ice and snow melts away last, is looking really bad right now. If would be really good if we could get a new roof before winter.
I asked my daughters to switch from sleeping during the day and being up at night, so we can get more things done faster during the day. As I write this, my younger daughter is outside building a mini-kibble house for the water bowls. It’ll be nice for the cats to not have water bowls buried in snow in the winter!
That gave me the time to finish mowing the outer yard.
“Finish” being a relative term. Basically, I’ve just been chipping away at the overgrown areas, little by little. Whenever I started working on a area that hadn’t been mowed or scythed before, I’d have to go back and forth with the mower at least three time, to actually get the grass cut properly.
I got the area in front of the shed with the collapsed roof done, expanding from what I’d been able to do when I used the scythe. We need space to get in, but also to set aside the lumber we will be salvaging. There is an old metal garage door leaning against a wall in there. Once the roof pieces over it are clear, I want to set it on the ground nearby. Salvaged wood can go on top of it, and be kept off the ground. We can then cover it with a tarp or something for the winter.
I was also able to widen the area along the driveway and to where the branch pile used to be. I want to mow around that area more, as we will be doing scrap wood burns there.
What I really need to do is get a path mown to the barn. I went into there to grab some stuff I thought my daughter could use in building the kibble house. Dragging it through the tall grass – even the area I’d scythed earlier – is not easy! There are things under the collapsed shed roof that need to be moved to the barn to protect them, and there’s no way I’m going to drag those though the tall grass.
I also started to push further beyond the pump shack. Normally, there would be a lane wide enough to drive in, all the way to the back gate from here. Last year, all I managed was a walking path. At some point, I want to get at least a path mowed. I still need to do some repairs on the back gate. One side of it got ripped away from the gate post, likely by a startled deer, in the winter. It’s up again, but not repaired.
I also got good progress getting a path cleared to the storage shed. I wasn’t up to fighting that tall grass all the way, when there were higher traffic areas that I needed to finish, first. Still, it’s going to make a big difference.
We’ll give the grass clippings a day or two to dry in the sun, the rake it up for eventual use in the garden.
I so wish we could use that shed as a workshop, which is what it used to be. With my parents’ belongings stored in there, there is just no space. We can’t even get at the back of it. It’s all blocked by bags and boxes and furniture.
My sister had been digging around in there, trying to find boxes with photos to take, so I tried looking around a bit. The boxes are stacked on top of each other, and the stacks are starting to collapse. We’re going to have to get in there and figure out what to do. Part of the problem is, when it started to be used as storage for my parents’ stuff, no one had a grasp of just how much there would be, so the first things put in there were not done with any sort of plan in mind. They were just sort of stacked wherever. Soft things, like the bags of clothes (so many clothes!!!) are filling spaces that should have been left open as paths – and would have been if we’d known about all the large items that would have to be squeezed in among the boxes and bags. Even as we were moving things over there, the girls did try to rearrange things to fit more efficiently, but there was only so much they could do.
The one shed that has a good roof and isn’t rotting away, and we can’t use it.
Frustrating.
Meanwhile, my mother still gets these moments of urgency, asking me if the door is locked (we don’t have a key), and worried that someone is going to steal all her stuff. As if anyone wants her bags of old clothes that she doesn’t even want herself, or dozens of (mostly salvaged) mirrors we kept finding all over the place! For all that she left the farm years before we moved here, leaving so much stuff behind for others to deal with, she is still so attached to her belongings. Which means we’re stuck hanging on to them.
*sigh*
On a less pleasant note, I called the vet clinic this morning, asking to talk to one of the doctors. I got a call back shortly after I got back inside from mowing.
We are in a very frustrating situation.
Leyendecker seems to be doing better. His appetite is improving. He’s more active. He seems like he’s better in so many ways, but one.
He’s still not voiding.
Every time we see him try and use the litter, at best, there are just a few damp spots. The girls have seen him trying to pee in other places, too, and not succeeding. There has been nothing to clean up.
After describing this to the vet, she said the only option left would be the surgery to make him a “girl”, but there is no way we’re doing that to him. It would just leave him with other problems, and he’d still have a short life, and a much less pleasant one. The longer he can’t pee, though, the more the potassium levels will be building up again – and he was already at “potassium levels of death”, to quote the vet, when they first saw him.
There is only one option left.
The added problem?
Keith has suddenly started having problems, too.
Yesterday, my younger daughter and I watched him try and use the litter, unsuccessfully, and start yowling in distress. My poor daughter was so upset, she started crying.
One of the things Keith likes to do is run in front of us into the bathroom, then fling himself onto the mat in front of the toilet, so we can pay attention to him. Last night, I came in and found him lying on the mat and, to be honest, I wasn’t sure he was still alive until I pet him for a while and he started purring a bit and eventually shifting position. I checked him again during the night, and found him loafed around the side of the toilet, looking miserable.
I haven’t seen him yet during the day, but my husband has been keeping an eye on him, and says he is looking in really bad shape.
I brought this up with the doctor, and we’re looking at the same situation as Leyendecker – and my daughter already used up almost all her savings to pay for his treatment. Right now, she might have enough left for them both to have one final appointment with the vet.
It’s been decided, though. We’ll keep monitoring Keith. If he starts voiding again on his own, it should work out, but if not, tomorrow, I’m making an appointment for them both.
Talk about brutal.
Which really, really sucks. They are the sweetest boys. But the more time goes by, the more internal damage is happening, and the worse it will be for them.
There is no real choice.
F***
Meanwhile, we’re trying to figure out what the heck is going on. We even looked up to see if there were any recalls on cat food we didn’t know about (there is only one brand so far this year, and it’s a brand I’ve never heard of before). We make sure they have a variety of both wet and dry cat foods, and they have access to water at various points around the house. Most of the litter boxes are downstairs, but there are some upstairs, too. We did not allow the cats access to the basement until we cleaned it out, disposing of all sorts of potentially dangerous substances in the process. And yet, somehow, Cabbages was getting into something none of the other cats was getting into, that slowly poisoned her over a long period of time before she finally became sick (and is now thriving, thanks to the Cat Lady’s efforts). The vet said the toxin was either from anti-flea chemicals (which we don’t have) or fertilizers (which we don’t have in the house). So how did it happen?
Leyendecker did not have crystals in his urine, so the vet says muscle spasms, but if that were it the muscle relaxants – and he’s on two of them! – would be working.
And now Keith is having problems?
What the heck? These are all younger cats, too. Keith is the oldest of the sick kitties, and he’s only about four years old!
The handsome boy has not cooperated with getting his picture taken, so you’ll just have to do with these two!
Is that adorable or what? 💖
We got a call from the vet fairly early in the day, and we were told we could come get him any time. They had kept him overnight again because they had seen a very small amount of blood in his urine bag before removing the catheter, but during the night, without the catheter, he’d had a large and normal pee, so he was good to go home.
He is now on three medications, including a pain killer and a smooth muscle relaxant. The general consensus is that he’s basically stressed out with so many cats in the house. We talked about focusing on adopting him out after he’s done his meds, etc. He will be on one of those meds, in decreasing amounts, for 30 days in total. They started him on it at the clinic, so this evening’s dose was his third day on it. We also got a bag of special diet dry cat food and several cans of wet cat food. If he is on it long term, we can switch to a cheaper branch, but can’t mix brands – so no dry cat food in one brand, and wet cat food in another. For now, he stays on the special food while he is on his medications. One of the things the vet noted is what with fixed males, they tend to get blocked more often in the spring and in the fall, so those are times when we will have to keep an extra eye on him.
The staff apparently all fell in love wit him. He was extremely chill and friendly, and did not act at all like he was sick. “He doesn’t know he’s blocked” was how the vet put it. Which does make it more challenging to keep an eye on him! They want him back in a couple of weeks for new bloodwork to check on his kidneys, because of his off-the-charts high potassium levels they found when they first tested him.
So we need to keep a close eye on him, and that means keeping him in my bedroom/office, and he is not at all happy about that. There is no way we can keep him on different food without isolating him, either. However, since he wants out, keeping him isolated is adding to his stress, which isn’t going to help his recovery any!
Nosencrantz and Butterscotch, meanwhile, are not happy with him being here, either, so that’s not going to help their stress levels any. He, on the other hand, it content to ignore them.
He used the litter box shortly after we got home, which was a good sign. After we gave him his evening meds, though, he went to the litter box, used it a bit, then went to the closet and tried to pee there, then went over by the water bowl and tried to pee there! He started yowling again, too. Hopefully, once the muscle relaxants and pain killer kick in, he’ll be able to use the litter box again without trouble. It will be a while before the discomfort ends.
As I write this, he is on my bed, chilling.
Hopefully, it will be a quiet night tonight. We shall see.
He did very well overnight, without the catheter. The way the vet put it, he didn’t know he was blocked. His behaviour was totally normal.
Which means the entire staff fell in love with him. 😁
They also called him a miracle cat, because his potassium levels were so high, it could have killed him. I suspect his large size helped with that.
He is isolated in my bedroom with Butterscotch and Nosencrantz for now, and one of my daughters is spending the “night” with him. Which means I don’t have access to my office for now. I will do a proper update, this evening.
I just got back from the vet clinic – without Leyendecker.
Our first surprise is something you can’t see in the photo. When we went hunting for him to put him in the carrier, we found him under a shelf in the basement. Well. Not really a shelf. The inside of an gutted antique radio in the basement where a speaker used to be. It had been used a nest when he was a kitten. The basement is cooler, and where most of the litter boxes are. When he came out of the shelf, his white fur was orange! Especially his paws were bright orange. I’m thinking rust, maybe?
Anyhow, we got him in the carrier, then my daughter carried him up the stairs for me, since I can’t do stairs well at the best of times, never mind while carrying this big boy. I got to the clinic about 15 minutes early, but they were running behind, so we ended up waiting about 45 minutes before going into the examination room. Poor boy yowled for most of the ride in, and much of the time in the waiting room, too.
My daughter had sent me a list of the symptoms they saw that I read off to the vet when she came in. One thing the girls noted was the first time it started. He had been using the litter box, though they couldn’t tell whether he was trying to poop or pee. By the time I finished reading the list, I think the vet had already figured it out. She gave his abdomen a feel and, almost right away, said he had a blocked urinary tract. She could feel his bladder. The poor thing probably hasn’t been able to pee for days!
We’ve been there often enough that they know we have limited funds. In fact, I have zero budget for any of this. My daughter said she would pay for it. Now, paying for the check up is one thing, but the procedure averages about $900-$1000, depending on how bad it is. And it would be done tonight. The alternative, if we couldn’t afford the procedure, would be euthanasia. I messaged the family right away, and before I finished telling the doctor that my daughter was paying for it and it was up to her, I got the okay.
All those commissions she’s been working so hard on are coming through for Leyendecker.
Once the vet got the okay, she quickly weighed him – he is 8.6kg/19 pounds – then rushed off with him to their kennel, while they prepped to put him under and get a catheter in him. I waited until someone else came in with the authorization form to sign.
Right off the hop, we’re at almost $475. They’re authorized for a maximum $1000, with a request to phone us if it might go over. I don’t know what my daughter’s budget is, but it will take a few days for her to transfer the funds from her PayPal account. The fortunate thing is, we haven’t finished doing our monthly shopping, so I can actually cover the amount until her transfer clears and she can send it to me. Meanwhile, my husband has even transferred some funds his dad sent him for his birthday to help contribute!
We will get a call tonight when they are done, to let us know how things went. He will spend the night at the clinic and, if all goes well, we’ll be bringing him home tomorrow, though from what I’m reading online, they tend to be kept in hospital for several days, because the catheter is left in for a while. We will find out more when they call us tonight. I think they’ll be able to give us the total damage by then, too.
One thing is for sure.
Leyendecker is now off the adoption list!
The Re-Farmer
Update: I just got off the phone with the vet a little while ago. Leyendecker was just waking up when she called. The procedure went well, though they did have some issues getting the catheter in because he’s such a big boy.
The good news: they found NO crystals in his urine at all. Which means the cause was along the lines of muscle spasms and stress, not a UTI. So far, he is recovering well, but he will stay with them for a couple of days, with the catheter in. When he comes home, it will be with a muscle relaxant and some pain killers.
The not so good news: his bloodwork was pretty bad. His kidneys tested off the charts, as did his potassium levels. This would be because he was blocked for so long. Usually, at those levels the heart simply stops. They want to test him again after a couple of weeks to see if he has permanent kidney damage.
Once he’s back home, I’ll try to isolate him in my office/craft room/bedroom. With Nosencrantz and Butterscotch still refusing to leave the room, I hope that works out. They don’t get along normally, but if he’s recovering from surgery, that may change. Keeping him here will allow me to monitor him and make sure he’s actually urinating properly. We’ll also be able to monitor his food and fluid intake and, hopefully, reduce his stress.
When I commented that he was off the adoption list, the vet actually said he would do better in a household with fewer cats. Which is true. It’s just difficult to justify after spending so much money on him and, frankly, there are other cats in our household that I think are more adoptable. The problem is, people aren’t adopting these days. All the shelters are full with mostly surrendered cats. The alternative is to start sending some of the fixed indoor cats outside, and I just don’t like that idea at all.
The Re-Farmer 