Beep Beep was doing a good job of keeping her babies warm on this chilly morning.
She didn’t come out at all while I topped up her food and water
The basement actually maintains a pretty constant temperature, but while we didn’t get the predicted thunderstorms in our area, we did get quite a bit of rain, so the humidity has gone up a fair bit. The sump pump is doing its job, though, so that’s good.
Yesterday evening I spent some time working in the basement, leaving the door open. At first, only two of the upstairs cats came to check things out, which was a bit of a surprise, considering how interested most of them are over that door. Eventually, the others discovered the open door and came to visit. Beep Beep, however, preferred to check out what I was doing! :-D
Then she demanded cuddles. :-D
We did get the rest of the cats out for the night; they might be ignoring the babies for now, but why take chances?
Temperatures have gone down quite a bit, today, and it looks like we had rain on and off all night. As I write this, the temperatures outside are 4C (39F), with a “realfeel” of -2C (28F), and it’s expected to warm up only a couple of degrees. I am happy for the rain, but even though the sun room is still pretty warm, I decided to put the seed trays into the mini-greenhouse along with the light I used as a heat source for the cats’ water bowl last winter. Just for a little while. I don’t have grow lights, but I can at least give them a bit more warmth.
Even when doing my rounds, I didn’t see any of the outside cats at all, until I was coming back to the house and found Rosencrantz had come out for food. They’re all holed up somewhere, keeping warm and dry.
My daughter has her one shift of the week today, but other than heading to and from town, this will be an inside day, for sure. Definitely not going to be getting any work done on the new garden plot. Tomorrow is supposed to be just as chilly, but no rain, so by Tuesday, I hope to be able to get back at it. Things are not supposed to get actually warm again until the middle of the month. If all goes well, it will stay warm, I’ll have the new garden plot finished, get the carrots planted, and we’ll be ready to do transplants by the end of May.
Assuming the seed starts do well. I’m not too encouraged by what I’m seeing of the fennel. :-(
The kittens have been getting noticeably more mobile, of late. I found this one – the only kitten without its eyes open, yet – trying to squirm out of their nest!
For the most part, though, they spend their time in a big, sleepy pile.
For the past few days, I’ve been letting upstairs cats into the basement while I tend to Beep Beep and the babies.
This morning, I decided to just leave the basement door open.
Oh, the excitement that created!
Even DahBoy crept his way down to sniff a bit, though he didn’t stay – and his mom had zero interest in leaving her perch in the living room. :-D
Of course, the things that interested them most were the things they couldn’t get at! Like the old basement, and the unfinished bar/storage area.
Keith was the only cat that showed any curiosity towards the kittens, and sticking his face around the corner was as far as he got.
We didn’t leave them down there, yet. After a while, they were lured out and the basement door closed up. In time – when the kittens are bigger – we’ll move all the food, water and litter boxes down to the basement, and keep the door open all the time. For now, they’ll just get to visit. ;-)
I think Beep Beep liked having some feline company.
It is already turning out to be a very warm day today. We’re supposed to hit a high of 15C/59F this afternoon!
While doing my rounds this morning, I had a Potato demanding cuddles the whole time. :-)
It was warm enough that I went to try and move the saw horses by the storage shed. The ground was thawed enough that I got one of them loose, but the other turned out to be in worse condition than I expected. Instead of breaking loose from the ground, it just broke. !!
Of course, I checked on the babies before heading out this morning.
Beep Beep and her brood are easier to check. They are even right in a sun spot, in the morning. :-)
Butterscotch’s babies are harder to check on, since she tends to block the opening with her own head. I’ve been using the camera on my phone to try and see the babies.
Which is the only reason I was able to see a problem this morning.
In the photo, I could see one of her babies was pushed off to the side. I’d noticed this same kitten had been pushed off to the side yesterday, and had brought it closer to mom, but when I saw it this morning, I knew it was gone. Judging from the state of its hind end, something had gone wrong with it. My guess is, Butterscotch sensed it was not doing well and had been pushing it away from her healthy babies. It may well have been weak from the start.
My daughter and I have been talking about how we can set Butterscotch and her remaining babies up in a new nest, and block the inside of the old radio off completely. It’s just too difficult to see them in there. It’s unlikely it would have made a difference, to be honest, but at least we’d be able to check on them more easily.
I was talking to my daughter a little while ago when she happened to mention the current indoor cat count we have right now.
Eighteen.
I … really hadn’t thought about that. We’ve now got 8 cats upstairs, plus the 2 mamas and their 8 babies in the basement.
That is insane.
Two Face has changed noticeably after her surgery. She is so much more cuddly now. Lately, this is what I’ve been waking up to.
She now likes to lean hard against me while I’m sleep. Cheddar also likes to do that, so I woke up book ended in cats.
Then there are the boys outside. I think they’re lonely! All the ladies, except Rosencrantz (who didn’t make an appearance this morning) are now indoors.
Potato Beetle was funny this morning.
He wanted SO much attention!
One of the things I started to do this morning is dismantle the shelter we made with the old dog houses, so I can use the black tarp to help warm up the soil in one of the areas we want to plant.
There was a bit of a hang up.
The snow had accumulated in one area, enough for the cloth to touch the ground. Of course, that created a puddle when the snow melted.
Freezing the tarp to the ground.
I used a metal bar that was one of the weights keeping the tarp from blowing away to bash apart the ice, then left it to weigh down the tarp. The ice should melt away faster now.
But not today.
We’re barely above freezing temperatures today. Starting tomorrow, and for the next 14 days, according to the long range forecasts, we will finally hit double digit temperatures.
The dog houses were well used over the winter, I was happy to see.
I could see tamped down paths in the straw around them, the insides were flattened, and there was a hole leading under one of them. I even found a flattened spot on top of one of the dog house roofs, where something had curled up and made a nest in the straw, directly under the tarp.
The straw will be left here for now, though wind might be a problem.
In some places, it already is.
It’s been quite windy for the past couple of days. This tarp is being torn to shreds!
I would love to have someplace I could properly store this old post pounder, but the one shed that I could pull it into has a roof full of holes and is starting to fall apart. Like way too many other things around here! :-( If I could clear enough space in a section of the barn, we might be able to store it in there, though at this point, I don’t even know how we would pull it. The hitch damaged, and both tires are flat.
We’ll figure something out.
I am really looking forward to the warmer temperatures. I’m just itching to get to work around the yard! Tomorrow, though, I have the rest of the seeds I have waiting to get started indoors.
Then I have to start scavenging around the various sheds and the barn, to see what’s available to build trellises out of.
This afternoon, one of my daughters and I brought our inside mama cat to the vet for a check up. She has been acting very ornery and out of sorts, and my daughter, sweetheart that she is, wanted to get her checked out.
They did some blood tests and even a quick ultrasound to make sure she wasn’t pregnant (ha!), and everything checked out okay. As she is an estimated 10 years old (we’re guessing she was about a year old when she first found us), it is most likely she is in pain from arthritis. My daughter got 2 weeks of pain killers, one every 24 hours, to try her out on and see if she improves.
They’re supposed to taste like cat treats, but she did not want to take it! Normally, I’m able to get the cats to take pills fairly easily (we just gave all of them worm pills, not long ago), but she was pretty upset and fought us off. We gave her more time, then tried giving her the pill in with a piece of meat.
She ate it right away.
Hopefully, this will make a difference. We were instructed to stop giving them to her immediately, if she starts to throw up. I don’t know how long it’ll be before we should be noticing a change, if any. After these are gone, we will know whether or not this is something to continue.
Thankfully, the bill wasn’t as high as we feared it would be. The vet recommended getting her fixed, even at her age, as apparently females that aren’t have a higher risk of urinary tract infections. With my daughter’s reduced hours at work, it’s going to be a while before she can afford to do that.
I really, really appreciate that she’s doing this, because we sure as heck can’t. :-(
Later in the day, my daughter and I disturbed the kitties. I wanted to give them clean bedding, which meant we had to take the babies out of their nests, then persuade the mamas to follow. We had a crate with one of the cat mats I’d crocheted at the bottom to put them in, which meant I could get a good photo of both litters in the process.
Butterscotch babies!
Here are Butterscotch’s babies. We now have a soft bed in the old radio she’s made a nest in that is large enough to cover the entire floor, plus go up the sides a bit. The babies will have softness and warmth around them, even when they start getting more squirmy and moving around in there.
Getting them out was a challenge. Two of them were attached, and did not want to let go of the nip! Butterscotch, at least, was fairly easy to lure out after the kittens were taken out.
Beep Beep, on the other hand, needed more persuasion! After taking her babies out, she stayed in the box her next is in and would not come out. The box is under a chair, and I ended up having to take the chair away, then we had to upend the box to get her out. I moved the box aside, as even the floor under it was damp, but as soon as I put it on the floor, she was right back in it!
Beep Beep babies!
We don’t have another box the same size, so we flipped it so the damp cardboard is now at the top and able to dry out, put a new clean bed inside, then shifted which chair it was under, so it was on dry floor.
The good thing about concrete floors; we’ll be able to clean and sanitize any messes much more easily!
As soon as the box was set up again, Beep Beep was right in there, and happy to get her babies back.
I think they were all glad to have new bedding, too!
Of course, I visited the mamas first thing this morning.
They are much more comfortable in their new surroundings, and quite eager for human attention.
Just look at those round, round baby bellies!!
I’d kept the cardboard box from the hot water tank, and it’s now serving as a rug on top of the concrete. :-D I’m also finding Beep Beep on top of the chairs, and she’ll even go up on the table. Butterscotch, likely because she if farther along that Beep Beep, makes no attempt to jump up onto anything! :-D
Going into the sun room, there was little sign of the skunks. They’d been in there, but I don’t think they stayed long. All the kibble was gone, but it was already low in the evening and we didn’t top it up, so there was not much left for them to get into.
It did mean, however, that the outside cats were quite hungry.
I was happy to see Big Jim hanging out in the sun room. The blood I’d seen on his face previously is dried up and disappearing – he is such a filthy boy! – and I was unable to spot where it came from. It may have come from a scratch on an ear, near the head. Wherever the wound is, it’s too small to be seen through his fur.
Also, Rosencrantz! We’ve started to see her a bit more often of late.
The kitties were hungry enough that Junk Pile cat almost came inside while I was there.
Usually, when I add food to the outside bowls, Junk Pile and Pump Shack cats are pretty skittish about eating until I leave.
They were still skittish, but hungry enough to tolerate my nearness more than usual.
The only outside cat I didn’t see this morning was Potato Beetle. Even Nicky the Nose was hanging around.
Waiting for me to leave, before he comes to the house to eat.
In the sun room, I started to take the rigid insulation off the south facing windows. We’re at a point were the passive solar heat would be more beneficial than the insulation We’ll take the rest down when we can finally start emptying the room out to clean it.
I also removed some of the insulation around the base of the house to uncover a couple of windows to the basement. This way, Butterscotch and Beep Beep can have natural light. When we can start hauling stuff we removed from the basement to the barn, we’ll take all the insulation around the base of the house to the barn for storage until next fall.
One of my goals for today is to start some cucamelons indoors. :-) They apparently take a very long time to germinate, compared to other things. I’ve worked out the timing of when to start different seeds, and even those I plan to start 2 weeks from now might actually start germinating sooner than the cucamelons. It should be interesting to see how these all turn out.
One of the first things I made sure to do this morning was check on the mamas in the basement.
Beep Beep seems to be settling in just fine!
I disturbed her nap and caught her in a biiiiig yawn! :-D
Butterscotch is not quite so chill.
She is still hiding under the stairs – though she did at least meow a greeting.
Since that is where she wants to be, I moved out a motor that had been tucked into there, pushed aside the box of stuff we still need to go through, and put in a cat bed for her.
Of course, while I was doing that, she hid in another corner, but I hope she will accept a nice, soft bed to curl up on.
After this, I headed outside to do my rounds. The skunks had been back, going knocking a few things about. We didn’t refill the food bowls last night, so there wasn’t much there for them to steal.
With most of the snow gone, I was able to go further afield and start picking up some of the larger branches that have come down over the winter. It will be a while longer before we can do a proper clean up. The long range forecasts had been for consistently warmer weather, but they were wrong. We’ve been staying below freezing, with the odd snowfall, instead. We’re supposed to start warming up again in a couple of days, then some days with both snow and rain.
I checked the different areas we hope to plant in, and they are still frozen solid, though a few bits of greenery has been trying to poke through. I’m thinking of uncovering the old dog house shelter we made for the critters last fall, and laying the black cloth over where the old wood pile used to be, to help warm the soil up a bit faster. We’ll see how it goes over the next few days.
If all goes well, I’ll be picking up a repaired van today. I’ll be calling the garage in a bit; hopefully, he’s had time to check it out by now. :-)
Beside that, I think I’m going to take a bit of a break today, as much as possible. Pain levels are creeping up, and I don’t want to overdo it. :-/
Before I show you the messy stuff, let me share with you some adorableness!
This morning, while doing my morning ablutions, I noticed Dave on the bath chair, eyeballing the towels. We have a small shelf with folded towels under some hanging towels. The hanging towels cover the top, and the cats like to go behind them to create a little cat cave as they nap on the towels. They do it so often, I now keep an old towel the top, just for them to use as a bed. I figured Dave wanted to get in there, so I moved a hanging towel to let him behind it.
It was already occupied!
I had no idea she was there, the entire time I was in the bathroom! :-D
Such a cutie. :-)
Now, on to the icky stuff.
During the evening cat routine, my daughter headed to the sun room to top up the food and water for the outside cats.
The sun room was a mess, with stuff scattered all over, part of the cat condo was collapsed and the bin holding the cat kibble was open.
Two skunks where in it, eating.
*sigh*
I had hoped it wasn’t them getting into the bin. They are likely why we are not seeing the cats using the sun room as often. When I do my morning rounds lately, the cats almost always come over from elsewhere.
My daughter splashed them with water to get them out. One left, but the other might have still been in there when she brought the bin into the old kitchen.
Since it was so late, the mess was left to be dealt with this morning.
When emptying the big bags into the kibble bin, I use one as a garbage bag for the others. It had been sitting beside the bin. I would also sometimes put a bit of kibble in the cat condo, to encourage the cats to use it. My guess is, the skunks has finished off all the food in the bowls, then dug through everything they could get at, to find stray bits of kibble, including pulling the crunched up bags out of the bag that was being used to hold them.
Spotting this as I picked things up was concerning.
Yeah. That’s frozen blood spatter.
While cleaning up, I heard a plaintive meow, but there was no sign of any cats. I eventually was able to lean far enough to look under the swing bench, where I saw a big orange lump loafed on an old blanket we’ve got under there.
It was Jim Boy.
When he came out, the poor thing seemed desperate for cuddles – and for food! I haven’t seen him in quite a while. He still looks like he’s in pretty rough shape, but better than the last time I saw him.
The more important thing was, no sign of injury. The blood did not come from him.
As I continued my rounds, I saw Creamsicle and Potato Beetle – both also looked fine. Butterscotch came from somewhere behind the house, looking uninjured and still very pregnant. I even saw Rosencrantz who, thankfully, does not look at all pregnant. Even Junk Pile cat showed up. I never saw Beep Beep, though. I also didn’t see Pump Shack cat, though I did see him later in the live feed for the security camera. None looked like they had any injuries, from what I could see.
Butterscotch even started to sort of follow me when I was doing the rest of my rounds. I heard her meowing in the spruce grove, but she never came close. On my way back to the house, I cut through the trees to see if I could convince her to let me at least pet her, but she wouldn’t let me come anywhere near her.
I did, however, find this.
Another old and rotting bench!
I may have seen the board before and thought it was an old, fallen tree, but once the leaves come in, it’s completely hidden and the area impassible. This is the first time I’ve been able to come close enough to see that it was a bench!
You can tell, by the trees growing around it, that it’s been there and fallen over for quite a long time.
As we clear things up, I do want to eventually put benches and seats among the trees. Seeing the remains of so many makeshift benches all over gives me an idea of what NOT to do. I might just go ahead and buy the heavy duty plastic benches or picnic tables that Costco carries every spring. If we do go with wood, we’ll need to take steps to protect it from the elements and the moisture of the ground.
All in good time.
As for the skunks, we’re going to have to stop topping up the food bowls in the sun room overnight. Once the weather finally turns to spring, all the food and water will be kept outside, so we can close the sun room doors again – especially after we’re able to empty it out and give it a thorough cleaning. I’m not actually too bothered about the skunks coming around, but they are greedy guts – cat kibble is bad for them to begin with – and seem to be driving the yard cats out of the very room we’ve taken great care to turn into a safe and warm sanctuary for them.
Yet another reason to finish cleaning up the basement and turning it into a maternity ward for Beep Beep and Butterscotch. I’d hoped to have had it finished by now, but my goodness, it is such a huge job!
I know I should be in bed right now, but I had a few setbacks. Problems with the van being the most obvious one, but also, I had difficulties typing.
My husband got evidence as to why.
Susan decided she absolutely HAD to drape herself across me as I tried to type. She particularly felt the need to roll around, and use my hands as pillows.
For such a tiny cat, she takes up a lot of space. :-D
Meanwhile, I did manage to finish the last things for the basket before I had to head into town.
These are easily the darkest onion skin dyed eggs we’ve ever made! I didn’t leave them in the pot longer than usual, either. This is just from the sheer volume of onion skins they were immersed in. Also, every single one of them are fine. One of the nice things about colouring eggs this way is the high success rate. At most, sometimes an egg will crack in the boiling water.
The tea dyed eggs, however, are typically much more difficult.
Of the dozen I did this way, I lost three eggs completely (they were delicious, though), and I think only one or two peeled without damaging the egg white. Cracking the shells and cooking them again in the dye seems to make it more difficult to peel them. It also leaves them too fragile to use the shaking method of loosening the peel. I did try it, and the egg just split open in the jar.
We’ll just have to made to with slightly torn up eggs this year! :-D
As for the horseradish, usually I just peel a chunk of root and put it in the basket whole. We would then shred it for use during our Easter breakfast made up entirely of basket contents. This time, I decided to grate it, first.
I left it to dry on a paper towel for a while before putting it into a teeny tiny jar.
I almost forgot I had one last thing to prepare before heading to bed. Brining the turkey! We’ve never done a turkey dinner for Easter before, but I had one in the freezer, so we’re using it now. I use a giant stock pot to brine the turkey in. It’s a big bird, and the brine needed almost 3 gallons of water to be able to cover it completely. It makes for a very full stock pot. I have to get one of my daughters to help me carry it to the old kitchen, so it doesn’t slosh all over. This time of year, the old kitchen is about refrigerator cold during the day, and will probably drop a degree or two below freezing overnight, which makes it quite safe to leave the turkey in overnight.
For now, though, I’d better get my butt into bed. There will be lots to do tomorrow! :-) I’m looking forward to it. :-)
The Re-Farmer 