inside cats

The new kitty pool

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With bringing a yard cat into the house to have her kittens, instead of using the sun room as a maternity ward, has us facing some different challenges.

In the sun room, as the kittens got bigger, they had a fairly decent sized room to run around in, and still be safe from other critters. Now, we obviously don’t have to worry about skunks or weasels or foxes or even feral toms coming into the house, there are other safety issues we need to keep in mind. The house itself is not at all kitten proof, so we can’t just let them run amok. Even if we could, however, there is the issue of other cats. At one extreme, we’ve got Two Face, who has been trying to mother them herself. Most are mildly curious or content to just ignore them. A couple, however, are not happy with having new adult additions to the household, never mind kittens. The adult cats can protect themselves, but the kittens can’t even run off and hide at this point.

The other thing is, we need to find a way to give them access to kitten food, water and a litter box, as they begin the weaning process.

We had considered a number of options. Even buying a play pen. Which, it turns out, cannot be found locally. We’d have to drive to the city! A wire dog kennel? The mesh is too wide for kittens, Mom needs to be able to get in and out, so the door would have to be left open. Though, I suppose, it could be used upside down. However, the kittens would be able to climb the wire mesh pretty easily. We could probably figure something out, but that would assume such a thing would be available locally. Once again, nope. We’d have to go to the city.

My daughter and I headed into town today and went to a store where I knew we could find decent cat litter at an equally decent price (the second Costco trip to the city we were planning looks like it’s just not going to happen). As we walked in, we saw a potential solution.

We bought a kitty pool.

The sides, of course, are way too low, but it’s big enough we can put in a litter pan and food and water bowls, along with their bedding, and they’ll still have room to run around.

As I write this, my daughters are building cardboard walls for it, at a height Mom can jump over, but the kittens can’t climb.

We’ll see how this works over the next few days! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Kitten adventures

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The pharmacy my daughter works at now has a small yarn display. Yay! I saw some t-shirt yarn and grabbed it, because I haven’t seen t-shirt yarn in stores in ages.

I made a basket.

It’s 5 kittens big.

Beep Beep tried to get in with them, but it’s not 5 kittens plus mama big. :-D

For my fellow crocheters, the yarn is Madolinni, 97% cotton 3% lycra and 130 meters. It’s 100% “recycled product from the textile industry”. Unfortunately, it turned out to be much coarser and unpleasant to work with, compared to what I was expecting from a t-shirt yarn, but it does make a very sturdy basket.

The base is a disc done in single crochet, starting from 7 stitches, and increased rounds worked in a spiral until about 9 inches across. The first round for the sides is single crochet worked in the back loop only. The next 4 rounds were done in split single crochet, then I switched back to normal single crochet for the remaining rows. This resulted in an almost cauldron shape. The handles were made by making chains of 10 and skipping 7 stitches, on opposite sides. In the next round, a single crochet was worked into each stitch, including into each chain stitch. One more round of single crochet was done, then it was finished with a round of slip stitch worked into the sides of the final round of single crochet, to add stability and reduce stretch.

For those who are not into crochet, here are more kitties!

Of all the cats that were curious about the kittens, Two Face wasn’t really one of them.

Until we started taking the kittens out and putting them on my bed to run around.

She suddenly turned into a mother!

Beep Beep is her mother, but now Two Face is jumping into the nest to mother her mother, and her little siblings. The kittens are even trying to nurse on her! With her belly still half nekkid from being fixed, the nips are easy for them to find. :-D I think they are confused about not getting any milk, though. :-D

The kittens are almost big enough to start scrambling out of their nest! We’re going to have to find a way to get them back into the basement, and walling off a corner or something, where there is less for them to get into and potentially hurt themselves. Plus, they are going to need room for food/water bowls and a litter pan, so they learn how to use them, soon!

What a bunch of cuties. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Things that make me smile

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I’m just loving the longer days and weather conditions we’re having right now. I was doing my evening rounds of the yard some time past 9:30 last night, the temperatures were perfect, and I got to watch this gorgeous sunset through the willow branches and spruce trees.

This morning, I was thoroughly entertained by feline antics.

David so wants to play with the kittens! When he jumps into their nest with them, though, and they come running over, he gets skittish and leaves. Lately, he’s taken to dangling at them from above, and waving his furry paws in the air above their heads. :-D

They are so funny!

The Re-Farmer

Who is this?

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A morning smile for you!

For the most part, the other cats have been ignoring the kittens. Sometimes, they’ll come over and peer into the nest, but that’s about it.

Then Beep Beep started taking Nicco out to a new spot under my crafting table, repeatedly. I thought I’d gotten her to stop, but one of my daughters found Nicco under my table – with David! The two of them were looking very confused at each other.

David is now very curious about the babies.

This morning, that curiosity got the better of him!

The kittens immediately went over to check out this furry new visitor! The tuxedo, now known as Leyendecker (I remembered it! LOL), was especially interested in burrowing into that luxuriant fur.

David was a little freaked out by that and left. He ended up on top of the nest, looking down at them. :-D

The babies, meanwhile, are now very active, if still very clumsy, running around, wrestling, climbing and generally being very playful.

And now I have to get some things finished early today. I am taking the van in after dropping my daughter off at work, for an oil change and getting the summer tires put on, so I may as well stay in town and have lunch with my daughter. :-) We’re supposed to hit 18C (64F) today, and while it will likely be cooler so close to the lake, we might actually be able to eat outside. Of course, if she ended up with a really early lunch again, and the van isn’t ready yet, we might not have much choice! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Morning kitties… and that’s going to have to go

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The kittens have been noticeably more active, and I’ve been finding one orange one in particular, at the furthest end of their little nest box, looking out into the rest of the basement.

They are still very quick to bunch up again, though!

Lately, when I got downstairs, I have been leaving the basement door open. Beep Beep goes upstairs to explore, while other cats follow me downstairs. To explore.

Including Keith.

We’ve put the twin size bed frame against the wall for storage, and they quite enjoy climbing up to the top, to check things out from on high! :-D

While doing my rounds outside this morning, I spotted something new on one of the crab apple trees.

It looks like a fungal disease. It seems to be only on the one branch, so I hope that pruning it off will do the trick, but this tree has already had quite a few branches removed due to infection, and trees on either side of it have as well. It might be better to remove the entire tree, to prevent it from infecting the others. I will also be working on the areas we spotted a potentially deadly (to apple trees) fungus, so I might do it all at the same time.

Quite a few of these trees are just not doing well at all. I don’t know that the type of crab apples are particularly prone to fungal disease, or if it’s more a matter of their age making them more susceptible.

The important thing will be to prevent the spread of the fungus, and that means burning the wood. As some of the infections are in stumps already cut level with the ground, I plan to bring one of the metal rings we’ve got lying about to put over where these stumps are, and making a small fire on top of them. We are already under fire ban right now, but it’s not a complete ban, so contained fire pits and burn barrels are still okay.

Something else to add to the to-do list for outside!

The Re-Farmer

Morning kitties, and keeping warm

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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 Re-Farmer

Morning kittens – with company!

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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.

The Re-Farmer

Sad news

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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.

A sad way to start the morning. :-(

The Re-Farmer

So many cats… and a bit of a hang up

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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.

I’m looking forward to the work! :-)

The Re-Farmer