inside cats

It’s a little wet out there

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It’s just past 8:30am as I start this, and it’s already been raining for a few hours.

Normally, when I head out to feed the outside cats, there will be a crowd of them on the cat house roof, waiting to be fed up there, even in the rain.

Not today!

As I was coming back from leaving food for Broccoli near her kittens (I did not stop to pet them, as she was still somewhere in back of the shed), I found the kibble house jammed full of cats. Several ran off before I could get a picture. The kibble I did put on the cat house roof was being ignored. Cats like to shelter in the back of the water bowl house, so when I put kibble on the tray under it, I emptied one of the water bowls and put some kibble in there, too. They have plenty of places to eat and stay out of the rain!

Needless to say, the transplant trays weren’t taken outside for hardening off this morning!

I checked on the beds I transplanted into, of course. So far, they all look as strong and upright as when they were put into the ground, yesterday. They are handling the rain just fine.

Some of my onions, though, are having a different problem. I found a cat sitting at the end of the bed where some Red Wethersfield onions were. *sigh*

At least he was just sitting, and not digging!

On a completely different note, I’m a bit at my wits end with some of our inside cats. The two male tuxedos, in particular. Even though they are both fixed, they both spray. Not just spraying, but urinating, too. We keep finding new and different places they’re leaving puddles. Last night, my daughters caught Leyendecker peeing on my old steel toed shoes. I hadn’t thrown them out as, even broken, they could be used as a back up pair. So much for that idea.

In my bedroom, I use a vintage mirrored dresser and a night stand that my late father used (my husband uses the matching wardrobe). I discovered part of the dresser was being sprayed, and I had to set up a stool with its legs around that part of the dresser, and puppy pads, to protect it.

For the longest time, I was trying to figure out how puddles were forming *under* the floor mat I had under my office chair to protect the carpet. It was one of those rubberized mats suitable for outdoors. It recently had to be thrown out and got replaced with one of the large outdoor mats from the sun room. Even with a puppy pad on the area, puddles were still forming under that mat. I’ve been laying puppy pads down on the floor, with part of the pad up against the storage bins I have against the wall, there, but would still discover puddles under the mat in that spot.

It turns out the storage bins themselves were being sprayed, above the puppy pad, so it was flowing under the pad, instead of being absorbed by it. I now have to hang puppy pads on the side of the storage bins. Considering how tight this corner is, with the office chair in the way, it’s a very determined cat that’s doing this – and I’m not even sure which one it is!

This morning was the most disheartening, though. I was sitting on the side of my bed, when I noticed my lamp had shifted. No surprise; some of the younger cats have decided they want to get to the top of the wall shelf, even though where they try to climb is blocked by a huge box. They’ve been knocking the box right off, along with other stuff that’s stored up there, some of which is there specifically to protect them from the cats.

Well, I moved the lamp aside, and discovered the remains of a puddle under it. It had been there long enough that the veneer had absorbed most of the liquid and was badly warped and cracking.

After wiping it down, I put layers of paper towel on the spot, weighed down with a stack of books and my rotary dial phone, which is about as heavy as all the books together. I’ll have to check on it, later to replace the padding and see if the weights are helping to reduce the warping.

I’m not even sure how a cat could have done this. With both a lamp and the big rotary dial phone, there’s just barely enough room on the top of the nightstand for a cat to walk over it to get to my craft table. And how did the cat manage to spray under the lamp, with no evidence on the lamp itself, or anywhere else on the night stand? I go into that nightstand every day, morning and evening, since it’s where I store my supplements and meds, and never saw anything until the lamp itself got shifted.

Right now, I am fighting the urge to start tossing cats outside, though that would just trade one set of problems for another. It’s getting to the point that I’m thinking we may actually have to have the two male tuxedo’s put down, and we sure don’t want to do that. One of them moved out with us. The other has already had thousands of dollars in vet bills spent on him. But they are causing so much damage. Not to mention the stress of so many cats in the house.

June is Adopt a Cat month. It’s hard enough to adopt out an adult cat. Adopting out a “problem” cat (even though the problem is being around too many other cats) is almost impossible. The Cat Lady currently has 31 cats in total, and a lot of her permanent ones are there because most people want cats that don’t actually require much out of them.

On the plus side, we might be able to get an arrangement with Broccoli and her kittens. The large animal rescue that is not far from us is currently working hard to make it a family destination of sorts. They’re putting in playgrounds and a petting zoo. I was asked if we had a cat with kittens. Their cats are all fixes, so no kittens. They’d like to have a mama and kittens to socialize and rehome, as part of the things they want to show visiting families. This would be part of their rescue fundraising activities, and helping to spay and neuter colonies like ours is one of their goals. The only challenge will be catching Broccoli. She’s been letting me pet her during feeding time, lately, but that’s very different from getting her into a carrier.

Well, we can’t really complain, I supposed. Taking care of the cats is something we chose to do. The alternative would have been to simply get rid of them, which has been repeatedly recommended. I’m not quite ready to call the municipality to send someone out with a rifle. Not that we have a municipal council right now, but the province should have someone assigned to run things until they set up a new election. I hear that’s not going to happen until July, at the earliest!

It is what it is. We do the best we can.

But I’m really, really starting to lose patience with the spray boys.

The Re-Farmer

A very long day, and that’s hilarious!

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Today was my day to take my mother in for her doctor’s appointment, but it was late enough in the day that I could still do my morning rounds.

The double lilac in the old kitchen garden are starting to really open up. With the recent deluge we had, with other areas getting snow, quite a few people on my gardening groups lamented the loss of everything they planted on the May long weekend. Quite a few others responded by saying to not put out any tender transplants or seeds until after the lilacs start to bloom.

We have 5 different kinds of lilacs, and they all bloom at different times. These double lilacs bloom first, and we’re still almost a week away from our last frost date! So that’s a rule of thumb I’m going to ignore! 😄

Speaking of thumbs, we’ve got more Red Thumb and Purple Caribe potatoes coming up. No sign of the German Butterball, but they were planted quite a while later. Of the sugar snap peas, the first ones we planted still have a whole three sprouts growing, but the second planting has quite a few breaking ground now! The carrots are still so tiny, it’s hard to tell how many have actually survived. We’ll need to plant more, anyhow. The spinach seems to be struggling, too. We’ve had both excellent results with spinach, and absolutely awful results. In this bed, though, I would have expected better results. We’ll see how they do as our weather clears.

I also spotted some tiny, distinctive leaves in the wattle weave bed. The chamomile successfully self sowed!

I headed out to go to my mother’s early, first to make sure the truck was prepped for her to be able to climb in, and to be able to get her folded up walker in, behind her seat. The little step stool I got was also handy. Of course, I checked the tires, because I always check the tires! The spare is holding up nicely, but that front driver’s side tire needed a top up again. It’ll be good when we can finally change out those valve stems, but my goodness, our budget has been hit hard these last few months.

Before going to my mother’s, I swung by the post office to get the mail. I’ll get to what was in there in just a little bit! As I was in the truck, updating the family before leaving, who should pull in, but our vandal. At first, he seemed to avoid looking at me, but as he got to the door of the store, he actually waved hello, pleasantly, before heading in. My hands were occupied, so I just smiled and nodded. I have heard that he’s been going to AA and such, as well as struggling with health issues, so maybe he’s improving. I’m not holding my breath, but there was a time when we were very close. One can hope things will get better.

Once at my mother’s, I was early enough that we could go over a few things first. She had two shopping lists; one for the pharmacy, and one for the grocery store. She also had a few little things she needed help with that I could do when we got back, plus some stuff she wanted me to take home with me. This included a church bulletin, which is basically just a newsletter. When we had a church to go to in the city, I really liked their bulletins, as they were basically what the service was for the day, with either responses right in the bulletin, or page numbers for them in service books/hymnals. This was especially appreciated when we first starting going there.

Gosh, I miss that church.

Along with the bulletin, she had a couple of women’s magazines for me. The social workers that visit her building give them to her, then she passes them on to me instead of putting them in recycling. I told her, we don’t read them, so go ahead and recycle them. This was about the only time my mother went on a bit of a rampage. Apparently, she wanted us to read the magazines because we (meaning my daughters) don’t go anywhere (she assumes), and don’t do anything (???), so we need to be exposed to stuff like magazines. I told her, these particular magazines are pretty much all about selling weight loss products. Oh, but they have good recipes! To which I said, Mom. We have the Internet. We have access to everything that’s in this magazine, and more. If fact, we can have access to these magazines, too! She finally stopped pushing after that. I must say, I am getting rather tired of her basically giving us her garbage to get rid of.

Speaking of which, she also had a container of something frozen… for the cats.

*sigh*

At least this time, it wasn’t something full of onions! I mentioned that onions are poisonous to cats, and I think she remembered.

We left fairly early for her appointment, so we had a bit of a wait. That gave me time to show her some photos and videos on my phone that my brother and his wife had sent me, as they are currently out of province. As time passed, I ended up showing her pictures on Pinterest to keep her occupied. I know what to look for, for her, and she seems to really enjoy it. She never got much chance to complain about how long it was taking, which she started to do a whole 3 minutes past her appointment time. 😄

The appointment itself went far more quickly than I expected. When we told the doctor we were there for a long term care assessment, she looked up the file and read the report from the woman that assessed my mother’s cognitive abilities a while back. The one area of note involved memory loss – more short term than long term. There is a medication that can help with that, but I already know my mother wouldn’t want to take another prescription. It turns out to be a moot point. One of the medications my mother is on is for a heart condition, and this medication is dangerous for people with heart conditions. Not that my mother actually has one. When she last saw the coronary specialist, it was shortly after we moved here, and I was there for it, along with my brother. My mother has a very healthy heart, and she was most unhappy to hear that, since she was convinced she was having heart problems and that he must be lying to her (we now know she was feeling really bad heartburn, but it took a few years to figure that out!). This heart medication she’s on is for something else. However, if there’s any sort of contraindication, my mother is not going to get this other prescription.

As for the long term care assessment, I was expecting my mother to get lots of questions, but the doctor basically accepted that, if my mother feels she needs to be in long term care, then she needs to be in long term care! There are just hoops to jump. The first ones, we could take care of right away. My mother got requisitions for lab work, chest X-ray and an EKG. All of that was available right across the waiting room. The only set back there was my mother had to get onto a bed for the EKG. She really struggled to get up there, and there wasn’t any way for us to help her. There was a stool available, but that was actually more difficult. Later on, as she was struggling to get into the truck, she told me it was easier to do that, then get onto that bed for her EKG!

The next things she needs will be done later. She’s got a referral for a home care panel, which will be done in her home, and she has a referral for a brain MRI. Once the doctor gets the last of the results, it all gets sent in for the long term care referral. I’m assuming there is some sort of approval process, then she gets put onto a waiting list.

I had been told we’d be asked to give the names of our top three preferred long term care centres, and I had that ready. However, when it came up, the doctor said there isn’t a choice. You get wherever there’s an opening. Which I found rather strange. Still, even if she doesn’t get in where she wants to be, my mother can be transferred later, when there is an opening. Transfers take precedence over the waiting list.

So the ball is now rolling. My mother is getting increasingly eager to move into a nursing home! I think part of that eagerness is because she feels that, if she ever did need help where she is now, like if she had a fall or something, the people around her couldn’t be relied on to come to her aid. She wants to be somewhere with a staff that has that ability to help, and I think she recognizes her own decline, to a certain extent. Talking about things like memory loss, during the drive back, we talked about things like forgetting the stove on – something she is already extremely cautious about, even if she hasn’t used the stove! When I commented that, if she were having such issues, she wouldn’t even know it, she immediately agreed. I think that was something else she was aware of, but didn’t have the vocabulary to express.

So that was done.

Before taking her home, we made the stops we needed for her shopping. She stayed in the truck! After everything was brought in and put away, I did the few things she needed help with in her apartment. By then, it was time for her to take her evening meds, and she was feeling really tired. So was I!

Once at home and I brought in the mail, I had a package I was told was coming – but the contents were a rather hilarious surprise!

Healthy Poops! 😂😂

Thank you, M, for the donation! 😄😄

The ingredients are pumpkin, flax seed, coconut, chicory root, turmeric, ginger and banana. The dose for under 25 pounds is 1/2 Tbsp per day. The container holds about 28 Tbsp. When we make our cat soup again (we are currently out of wet cat food), this can replace the ground pumpkin seeds we are using now. Until then, it can be dusted onto the kibble.

Not all the cats have … issues… but it certainly won’t hurt! Turmeric is anti-inflammatory, and I’m sure our elderly cats will appreciate that, too. It should be interesting to see how they respond to it! Apparently, cats like it enough that it comes with a warning that this is to be used as if it were a treat, not as a meal, and to start off slow.

So that is something we will start using tomorrow. The lysine we ordered came in early, along with some other cat meds, too.

Yeah. We’re sucks for the cats!

The Re-Farmer

Cat Soup!

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Soup FOR cats, of course.

I had to do a dump run today and took advantage of the trip to head into the nearer city’s Walmart and pick up a few things. While there, I tried to find canned pumpkin to use in Cat Soup, but couldn’t find any. They didn’t even have pumpkin pie filling. Or any pie filling, for that matter.

This is a very small Walmart.

So I got raw, unsalted pumpkin seeds, instead. Once at home, I ground them to a powder, and we made a half recipe of the Furball Farm Sanctuary cat soup recipe. The leftover powder is being kept in the fridge. Pumpkin seeds are an oily seed, and we don’t want it to go rancid.

Most of the cats ignored it, but Freya, our grand old lady, loved it! She’s one that I am concerned about, as she seems to have something going on in her mouth that she won’t let us look at, and isn’t eating as much. She has trouble with the dry kibble in particular. So seeing her enthusiastic about this stuff is very encouraging.

Now, if we could get Peanut Butter Cup eating it, too, that would be great. The lysine in it should help with her respiratory issues, and the ground pumpkin seed with her… leakiness. Actually, several cats are more… liquid… than they should be, so it’ll be good for all of them.

PBC, however, slept through the commotion.

*pause*

I just woke her up with some pets, then set her by the bowl we have in my bedroom. She is now enthusiastically enjoying it!

Since this is the first time we’ve made it, we don’t have any appropriate bowls. Instead, we’ve commandeered a lasagna pan for the dining room, and a cake pan for my bedroom. If this becomes a regular thing, we’ll make sure to have something just for the cat soup and 22 cats!

We’re running low on lysine, though. Gotta order more. We’re stuck with the granular type still; it’s the only kind I can find in the larger bulk sizes. Still no luck finding it in a fine powder form, which will stick to the kibble when we toss it together. There is a type that’s available in 4 pound buckets. It’s meant for horses, but lysine is lysine, isn’t it? I don’t know if it is granular or fine powder, but since we’re already using the granular, I guess it doesn’t matter much. Another reason to be making the cat soup. We can dissolve the lysine in it.

Anyhow. This is our half recipe, based on the one from Furball Farm Cat Sanctuary.

  • 1 1/2 tsp lysine
  • 1/8 cup pumpkin – in our case, raw, unsalted, hulled pumpkin seeds ground to a powder
  • 6 cans cat food
  • 1 cup warm water

To make it thicker or thinner, adjust the amount of water or canned cat food. Today, the tins at the top of the case where shredded turkey in gravy, so we probably could have reduced the water by half. Instead, I accidentally put in 1 1/2 cups water. The markings on our plastic liquid measuring cups as worn off, but I thought the one I used was only 1 cup. My daughter was helping me and pointed out it was 1 1/2 cups! Oops. 😄

We don’t have a pitcher type blender, but we do have an immersion blender, so that’s what we used. Our deep, 8 cup measuring cup was a good size for this, with room enough to keep anything from splashing outside the cup while being blended.

So far, only a few of the cats seem to like it, but the two we are most concerned about like it a lot, and they are why we are trying this! Yay!

The Re-Farmer

An unplanned outing on a gorgeous day

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First, the cuteness!

I caught Peanut Butter Cup being adorable in her sleep.

She has quite settled in, and I’ve even woken up to find her curled up on me! The only down side of that is, she’s got… digestive issues. Little Miss Leaky Butt has inadvertently created much laundry. She’s gotten better, but not as much as the others. For a while, we had a whole lot of cats having… liquidity issues. We had been using the Kirkland brand of cat food before changing up to other brands, including the donated kibble. I try to have different brands and flavours as much as is affordable (plus wet cat food, which we’ve been giving them more of, for other reasons), but when it comes to price per kilogram, the Kirkland brand is still the best deal, so that’s the dominant brand of kibble they all get. I wouldn’t have made any sort of connection until I read a blog post about the Kirkland dog formula changing, and the effect it had on their dog. I haven’t been able to confirm, but found that others have wondered if the cat kibble formula has also changed. Since our own cat problems reduced when they started eating mostly other kibble brands (when the bins are topped up, they can get mixed together), I am now suspicious as to the cause. PBC, however, is still a messy girl at times, even on the other brands.

I’d hoped we wouldn’t have to make another trip before our stock up shopping, but we ran out of kibble. For the prices, it was worth the cost of gas to go to the nearest Walmart to pick some up, and still have budget left over for other necessities. My younger daughter came along with me to do some of her own shopping.

Our first stop was at Canadian Tire, where we were able to sanitize and refill two of our 18.9L water jugs. Since we were there anyhow, I picked up 4 more of the deep cell planting trays, plus a couple more base trays to replace some cracked ones. I need to pot up some tomatoes. My daughter found a couple of replacement spatulas that we hope won’t melt like some of the others we have! We went through most of the store just looking at things and talking about what we need to pick up over the next few weeks/months. In the process I was very happy to find a campfire coffee percolator on clearance! I’ve been on the lookout for one, to include with our other firepit cooking supplies, but they’ve always been so insanely expensive. Now we have a very basic 9 cup coffee percolator that includes an extra handle for hanging over the fire, for just under $18.

Once done there, we headed to the Walmart, split up and got our necessities. I got the cat food we needed, plus some items for the pantry. Canned, flaked tuna, packed in water, dropped in price to 97¢ per can, down from $1.97 per can. Canned meats and seafood of all kinds seem to have almost tripled in price over the past few years (depending on where you shop, of course), so to see a price actually go down to something close to pre-illegal-lockdown was a nice surprise. Mind you, only the girls like canned tuna, so it’s just for them, but anything extra for the pantry is always a good thing.

My daughter and I caught up again at the Walmart McDonalds, where I’d ordered lunch (my daughter hadn’t had breakfast before we left!), so she took the cart and loaded the truck while I waited for the food. While heading back to the truck, I remembered that I wanted to go to the Dollarama that shares the parking lot. My daughter had just finished bagging our stuff and loading it into the truck, so we left the food for later and she went into the store with me. While there, I found a few more things I wanted for starting seeds indoors. My daughter found some stuff, too – and got a present for me. A new hat for my collection!

It’s the absolute blingy-est adult sized hat I could find! Not only does it sparkle, it’s fluffy. 😂 It was actually the only blingy adult sized hat they had, but I’m absolutely giddy over it.

It doesn’t take much to make me happy.

We need to make something for our entry wall just for hanging up our hats. We have so many of them! 😁

Today we reached our high of 10C/49F, with some lovely sunshine. The only unpleasant thing was the winds were high enough to buffet us on the drive home. We’re supposed to continue being nice and warm – even reaching as high as 18C/65F next week, which is going to feel down right tropical.

Since potting the pre-germinated winter squash seeds I’d made a video of, 2 days ago, I potted up 2 more yesterday, and this morning I found more had germinated, so I’ll be potting those tonight. I will also be thinning by transplanting the San Marzano tomatoes, now that I have more of the large celled trays. The seedlings are a bit beat up from their fall, but almost all survived. I also need to pot up the other tomatoes and peppers in the small trays. That can be done over the next few days. With the pleasant upcoming weather, though, I want to set my snap pea seeds to soak, then tomorrow I want to plant them, along with some of the Uzbek Golden Carrots I made seed tape out of, plus spinach, in the bed that’s ready for them. I’ve decided to plant the snap peas in this bed, instead of the shelling peas, since we have fewer snap pea seeds, and it’s a relatively small bed.

Tomorrow, I also want to check on the bed that is solarizing right now and see how it’s doing, after today’s warmth and sunshine. We ended up ordering some sulphur pellets online, to increase the acidity of our very alkaline soil. I will wait until those arrive and add some to the bed that’s solarizing, before I plant the purple caribe potatoes in it. Potatoes like a pH of 5-6, and ours is 8; probably higher. Our test trips and pH meter don’t go any higher. I’ll probably be adding it to all our beds – or as many as possible, before we run out. From what I’ve been reading, our high pH may be more responsible for some of our troubles than anything else, including the relatively low NPK in all our soil tests. The two dump truck loads of garden soil we purchased years ago had adequate amounts of NPK when tested, and that’s been used in all our garden beds, but even the purchased soil tested as alkaline.

We are supposed to be heading into another drought this summer, so anything we can do to improve things is going to help. The first year we tried to grow melons was a drought year with heat waves, and we had a surprisingly good harvest from them. This year, I plan to grow several types of melons, so I hope it works out for them again.

Tomorrow is 6 weeks before our last frost date and, if I can manage to make space in the aquarium greenhouse, I plan to start pre-germinating another batch of seeds. I’ll be looking closely at days to maturity to decide which ones I will be starting, but I expect we’ll start more seeds pretty much weekly, if not more often, at this point.

I really need to figure out how to make space for all the pots, though. We may have to kick the yard cats out of the sun room a bit early! We won’t be able to leave the sun room door open overnight anymore once we start putting plants in there. I’m not worried so much about the cats; they tended to ignore the bins and trays of seedlings last year. It’s the skunks and racoons that we need to keep out!

We’ll figure it out.

All in good time!

The Re-Farmer

Saying goodbye, and some surprises

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Well, it’s done. Our Wolfman is gone off to new adventures.

His eye actually looked a lot better today – he just really hates it when I try to take his picture! – but we could now see something different about it. Where, before, there seemed to be a dent in the eye, the eye no longer looks shriveled but now has a spot sticking out, like a little pimple. You can see it in the photo.

The Cat Lady took one look, and said that it’s a hematoma, and that this is not from a scratch, but blunt force trauma. One of her own cats had the same thing. What likely happened is that, while horsing around with the other cats, Wolfman ran into something.

Which wouldn’t surprise me, considering how often we’ve tried petting a cat, only to have it poke itself in the eye with one of our fingers!

He’ll be kept somewhat isolated in a kennel (there will be other cats in the room), and then see the vet tomorrow. Depending on how things he, there’s a free special eye clinic happening on Monday that she may take him to.

As we talked, I discovered I was wrong about how many permanent cats they have. It isn’t 17.

It’s 21.

Plus another 8 that are up for adoption, so Wolfman puts them at 30 in total!

He will be an easy one to adopt, though.

We ended up talking about some of the other “problem cats” they haven’t been able to find homes for, including at least one other that was adopted out but returned, repeatedly, just like the one from us. We never named him, and weren’t even going to pass him on to the rescue, as he was so sick we didn’t think he’d survive. He wouldn’t have, either, were it not for them! They’ve named him Leo.

They were told repeatedly that he wouldn’t last long. They tried to have him fixed twice, and his heart stopped when they put him under. They resuscitated him and the final time they tried to get him fixed, they didn’t put him under at all, but used a local anesthetic. He’s had other times when he’s stopped breathing. Yet, he keeps recovering! He’s become a big muscular brick of a cat, too. That doesn’t surprise me. He would be one of Shop Towel’s progeny, like Tissue and the Printer Babies. Tissue is also solid muscle, and so are several of the white and greys outside.

The Cat Lady also had some donations for us, including some surprises.

I knew she had kibble for us, and then she said she had some litter boxes for us, but wow! There is so much!

The funny addition is that round litter box you can see in the back. That was Leo’s litter box, barely used. He would go into the box, but then couldn’t figure out how to get out of it. Instead, he would just go around in circles.

She jokes that he’s the dumbest cat they’ve ever had.

Along with what turned out to be three litter boxes, there was 8 bags of kibble, 15 cat milks, and more than a dozen bags of fancy, high end treats. She’d actually bought the treats for her own cats, but they wouldn’t eat them. In fact, Cabbages stole a bag, put it in a litter box and tried to bury it!

I already gave some to our cats, and they went bonkers for them! Totally love them!

The cat milks are going to come in handy for our elderly Freya. She needs the extra calories!

There’s also a little cat scratching tower with a couple of dangly toys, which is now an upstairs cat toy. There was even a little litter scoop hidden among the stuff!

This was an incredibly generous donation, and really helps us out a lot! Especially the extra litter boxes. The smallest one will be tucked away to be used for those times when we have to isolate a cat. In time, we hope to replace most, if not all, of our litter boxes with covered ones.

While transferring all this stuff from her vehicle to ours, the Cat Lady said that she’ll have more for us, next month! Which is totally amazing! I’m just to thankful for ever bit of it.

After we parted ways, I took advantage of being in town to do some errands, but that will be for my next post.

The Re-Farmer

Finally!

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Why aren’t you petting me?

No, not finally petting this cat, though that did happen (I counted 30 yard cats this morning).

No, not finally the snow is almost gone, or the moat around the garage disappearing, or even large sections of the main garden area accessible again.

No, what finally happened was our tax returns finally got deposited!!!!

I’ve already called and left a message with the septic guy about replacing the pill switch in our septic tank.

Just a little bit longer, and we won’t be having to manually turn that thing on several times a day.

We’ve certainly learned to recognize the signs of when it needs to be done, before things start backing up into the basement!

We were having a problem with it yesterday, though. One of the things that was modified on our system was the addition of a pool filter. Greywater from the tank goes through the filter before it reaches the pump, which then sends the water out to the field by the barn. Hang on… I should have some photos. That will make it much easier to explain!

There they are!

These go back to 2020, in February, when things backed up into the basement, and my brother helped get things unplugged – at least until we had the roots professionally augured out of those floor drains!

This is what it looked like, before the filter was installed.

This is what it’s like now.

The filter needs to be primed for proper flow, but once that’s done and closed up, it should run fine. If, however, we turn on the pump, but the greywater side of the tank outside isn’t full enough to be drained, the filter reservoir drains out the bottom, and that’s it. So we need to open it up and fill it to above the inflow opening to prime. We can even keep an eye through the clear lid and see what’s going on, which I find very useful.

You can see the white handle of the filter basket inside. We have two of them, so that when it needs to be cleaned, we can just quickly switch in the second one, then let the dirty one soak in detergent for a while before scrubbing it out. Typically, we only need to do this a couple of times a year.

That got switched out when the septic tank was emptied and it was really bad, so I switched out the detergent water it was soaking in a few times, and it was still soaking, as of yesterday.

Yesterday, we could tell that the tank needed to be drained, but every time I tried to run the pump, the filter would drain, but no greywater from the tank would come in. I’d prime the filter, but it would happen again.

So I decided to switch the filter basket, but the other one was still soaking. The detergent got most of the gunge off, so I gloved up and started scrubbing the basket with brush that we have, just for this job.

What I found myself doing was pulling out wads and wads of cat hair! Enough that it was blocking the mesh of the filter basket from the inside.

Once I got that clear and clean, I took the other filter basket out and set it to soak. I also made a point of cleaning the inside of the reservoir, the threads and the parts and pieces of the cover. I even scrubbed the inside of the clear cover as best I could. Over time, grease and grime can build up under there and make it harder to see inside.

It was a very disgusting job, but it needs to be done!

Once everything was cleaned up, I popped the newly cleaned filter basket in, primed the filter, then turned on the pump.

It ran fine! I could see the inflow splashing through, and the water level remained high.

While that ran, I started cleaning the other filter basket…

… and started pulling out wads of cat hair!

There was enough cat hair lining the inside of the basket to prevent proper flow and mess with the vacuum seal.

I got the cat hair out, but left the basket to soak in detergent longer, since the other scunge that was already accumulating wasn’t going to come off well, otherwise.

When living on a town or city sewage system, we don’t really think about what goes down the drains. Sure, we know about flushing toilets, baths, showers and draining washing machines. How often, though, do we think about the bits of food and grease from washing our dishes? Or all the different types of cleaners, getting all mixed up together? Or how much HAIR gets in there! We already have to regularly clear the drains in the tub and bathroom sink because of the hair that gets caught – both human and cat – but I never imagined that so much cat fur was making its way into the septic system that it would clog that filter basket after only about 10 days. The Septo-Bac and the bio pipe maintenance stuff both include bacteria and enzymes to break down grease and hair. It just needs more time to do it!

It would be getting in through the washing machine, mostly. Every time we do the laundry, and I clean out the lint trap on the drier, it’s got a thick layer of cat hair on it. It gets everywhere. What we need to get are some air filters for various rooms, but even that would reduce the problem, not get rid of it. We just have too many indoor cats!

Well, by the end of today, we’ll be down by one, as I deliver the Wolfman to the rescue for vet care and adoption. I’m happy to say his eye is looking SO much better today. Hopefully, that will mean a much smaller vet bill for the rescue, though the vet was willing to give them samples of that super expensive medication.

Talking about the Wolfman with my husband today, he joked that he’ll put money on them deciding to keep him permanently. I hope not! They already have 17 permanent cats, plus the ones up for adoption that have their own space, and 4 or 5 (or is it 5 or 6?) of their permanent ones are from us!

Wolfman is such a sweet cat, though. We’re going to miss him!

What can’t we adopt out the a****e cats, instead?

Oh, right. Because they’re a****s. 😂

Anyhow.

It will work out.

Later today, I will deliver the Wolfman, then take advantage of the trip to pick up a few necessities. Hopefully, I’ll hear back from the septic guy before then, and will know how much cash to take out to pay him, and a date for when he can replace the pill switch.

Finally!!!!

The Re-Farmer

Saying goodbye, soon!

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

Well, the ball is rolling.

I got a call from the Cat Lady this morning.  We will be meeting tomorrow afternoon, so I can drop off this handsome dude.

He even has an appointment with the vet, the next day.  I keep thinking the eye is looking better, but then the light hits it, and it starts glowing a horrifying red.  I hope it won’t take much to get him healed up.  The Cat Lady and her family are already afraid they might end up keeping him.  He’s such a beauty, and so very sweet!  I told her, just post a picture of him with that tail, and they will have people lining up for him!

I learned something interesting during our conversation.  They have a cat from us that got adopted out – and returned! – three times, so they’re now keeping him permanently.  He was so very sick when they took him in, and still has returning health issues, which people had said they understood and were willing to work with, but then, didn’t. Their daughter that took such good care of Cabbages has been taking care of this one, too, and they adore each other. She’s excited to know that one of his cousins is soon to join them! When she leaves for school, he will sit at the window in the door all day, waiting for her to come back. Even the dog adores him.

It turns out, he’s a Down’s Syndrome cat.

I didn’t even know cats could have Down’s Syndrome.

He was seeing a different vet one time when the vet took a closer look and told the Cat Lady, this is a Down’s Syndrome cat. She had no idea, either, but he explained what he was seeing that identified the diagnosis. It does explain quite a few things, both with his health issues, and behavior.

The Wolfman, however, should be a much “easier” cat for them. He is already fixed – she was happy to hear that, as she was already planning ahead to get that done – and once the eye is taken care of, that should be it.

I’m so grateful that they’re willing to do this. We’re still waiting on my tax return, so who knows when we’d have been able to get him to a vet – or even if my return would be enough to cover the bill. We absolutely must get that pill switch replaced on the septic tank once the money comes in, so whatever was left after that would have been it.

So we’ve got one more day to enjoy the Wolfman’s company. He’s such an easygoing cat, he will handle things quite well, and will make some lucky family very happy!

Meanwhile, I brought up the idea of doing some sort of fundraiser for the rescue in the summer. There isn’t much we can do to help out, but we can at least help with something like this!

The Re-Farmer

Possible?

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It’s been a very quiet and uneventful day today. I quite like those! But I did get some potential good news from the Cat Lady.

She had a potential adoptee for either Ginger or Toni. She didn’t have a very good picture of Toni, though, so I managed to get a few for her, including this one.

She filled me in on the potential adopter. They had a cat for 17 years, before losing it to age, and are interested in adopting another. They already have a three legged dog, so a three legged cat was definitely of interest! The dog is only 6 pounds – Ginger is heavier than that! He’s also the calmer one, as far as general temperament goes. Toni is younger and much more energetic. This is an older person, so I think Ginger would be better fit. They still have to go through the application process, but if this does go through, whichever cat they decide on would basically to the vet for shots and an exam, then straight to their new home, instead of the usual week or two at the Cat Lady’s first.

As we were talking, the Cat Lady told me about a struggle the shelters are having. They recently did a TNR for a stray that I believe turned out to be female. Once the cat was with them, though, she was incredibly friendly. They didn’t want to release her to fend for herself again, as she would have transitioned to the indoor life instantly. They had no room, none of the other shelters have room, and after sharing her photo and bio everywhere, they could find no one to take her in or adopt her. Even the Cat Lady had to say no. Tomorrow, the cat goes back to the streets.

It was all I could do to not say “we’ll take her!” We have too many indoors already, and I wouldn’t want another situation like what happened with Marlee escaping, never to be seen again. I still feel so bad about that.

It illustrates, however, just how difficult it is for animals in our province right now. Cats in particular. It’s just so hard to get them adopted out!

The Re-Farmer

Things went rather well!

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

But first, the cuteness!

An increasingly rare picture of Ginger, in all his handsome glory!

Unfortunately, he’s been spending a lot of time off by himself, usually tucked under a side table, because a couple of cats have been bullying him, and he is not at all assertive. I don’t know why the bullying has increased, but I’m not happy about it. Among other things, it means he rarely comes into my room anymore, to snuggle on the soft warm bed with many of the other cats. The Cat Lady is still looking for someone to adopt him, as a priority. I’d sent her the above picture, and mentioned he’s still being bullied. She said she would try to open up a space for him in the cat shed, though she had another cat show up just today. I haven’t had an answer yet, if the cat just showed up, or if a human just showed up, with the cat! Both are possible. She’s well known in the neighborhood as the cat rescue. I told her we’d be fine hanging on to him until someone is found. Having him move to a temporary home, with strange cats, would just be exchanging one source of stress with another. That, and way too many of our cats have ended up with her, permanently!

Anyhow…

Today turned out to be another gorgeous day. It was supposed to be a few degrees colder than yesterday, but I still saw things melting. My weather app said we were at -12C/10F, but I’m sure our actual temperature was far warmer! I wasn’t home to check the thermometer outside at the warmest part of the day, though, so I can’t be sure.

I made a point of heading out early, hoping to pick up one of those hot dinners at the grocery store she likes so much. Unfortunately, they’ve stopped making them. In fact, their hot food display hasn’t been used for a while now. I asked about it, and it turns out things just weren’t selling well enough to keep it up. They’re hoping to start having them again before Easter. I mentioned that my mother really liked them, but… well, I’m only out there to pick them up for her maybe once a week.

So I ended up getting a Chef’s salad mostly for myself, and a pepperoni, bacon and mushroom “boat” pizza for my mother – it was long and narrow instead of round. I let myself into her apartment and started getting ready to warm half of the pizza up for her, putting the other half in the fridge for her, later.

My mother doesn’t use her oven. She can’t figure it out, and still complains that her old oven was replaced with a new one, when it was perfectly fine. She believes the caretaker at the time kept all the replaced ovens for himself to resell or something, too. This place is run by the province’s public housing department, which means they would have gone into storage until they had one of their surplus sales or auctions. I’ve tried to explain that to her, but she refuses to believe it.

Anyhow.

Since she doesn’t use her oven, she instead uses it as storage for her pots and pans! While emptying the oven, and even checking the drawer underneath, I discovered she has no baking sheet. She’s got plenty of pie pans and loaf pans, and even a small roaster, but no baking sheet. The small roaster had a flat bottom, though, so I ended up flipping it upside down, and using that to hold the pizza as it warmed in the oven. While adding more water to her kettle for tea, I noticed she was down to her last water jug. For some reason, people living where she is have been told not to drink their tap water, but to use a tap in the laundry room, which has softened water for drinking. At least, that’s what she’s told me. Her tap water is the same as everyone else in town, so I know it should be potable. No matter. I found her empties and refilled them for her, so she couldn’t have to use her walker to carry them around and refill them.

So by the time my mother got home from church, the table was set, tea was ready, and her pizza was nice and warm. She was very happy to come home to lunch all ready for her. She does make a point of having food prepared on Saturday, so that on Sunday, all she has to do is reheat things, but this saves her from even doing that. My being there early wasn’t a surprise, though. When I came in through the lobby, someone I saw busily working on a jigsaw puzzle at the table had noticed me going by and recognized me. She was still when my mother got back, and let her know she had company. 😊

She did try to make me have some of her pizza. I told her no, it’s Lent, and didn’t try to explain more. She still put a piece on my plate, saying it’s Sunday, and Sundays aren’t counted in Lent. Which is true, but I think it defeats the purpose of choosing a difficult fast, when you can “cheat” every 7th day! Thankfully, when I put the pizza back on her own plate and said I wasn’t going to eat pizza, she didn’t push.

She did, however, try to make disparaging comments about how I wanted her to get fat. So now, it seems that just eating anything at all is making her fat? I told her, you’ve been fat for as long as I can remember. It’s not about what you’re eating. I didn’t got into it, but considering the sheer amount of physical labour, as well as us eating all that home grown, home raised, home cooked food, with her and my dad still being fat, there’s more to it than diet! At least, not in the current conventional narrative. I think she did appreciate my saying it’s more than about food.

Hmmm. I wonder if some of her neighbours are making comments about her weight, and that’s why she seems to be more obsessed with it? From what I’m hearing, some of her neighbours are real dicks. Some of them are also telling her some very strange things that have turned out to be wildly wrong – like whoever told her she wouldn’t be able to make a phone call to Poland using a cordless phone.

She’s on a waiting list to move to another place in town that provides more assistance, including cooked meals. I really hope they get an opening soon. As much as she likes being so close to the church and the grocery store, she really needs to get away from some of the people there – along with whoever it is that keeps getting bedbugs, but not reporting it!

But I digress!

I was happy to see my mother did enjoy her little pizza, at least. It sure smelled good!

Before I headed out to do her shopping, we went over her list together. She mentioned some sales, and gave me the flier to look at. Then she gave me cash, with very specific instructions as to which bill for for the pharmacy purchase, and which for the grocery store! 😄 I like when she does it this way, as I can then put all the receipts and change back into the envelope for her. Otherwise, I pay for the stuff myself, then she pays me back, and… well… sometimes, she’s generous and overpays me, but more often then not, she gets angry over how expensive things are, and short changes me. It’s not the short changing that’s the problem, but how she acts like it’s somehow my fault that things are expensive.

Speaking of which, she should have had her bills reversed, because the 3 items I got at the pharmacy cost more than her groceries – and that was with all three items being on sale!!

Once at the grocery store, I was a bit confused while looking for what was on her shopping list. There was one item she said was on sale that I never found in the flier, and it was indeed on sale – though not at the price she remembered. Other items that should have been on sale, however, were not.

I should have checked the date on that flier she showed me!

I’ve shopped with her often enough to know what to substitute or change, if necessary, so it wasn’t a problem, though I did ask one of the cashiers as I was unloading onto the belt, if they had a new flier out or something. It turns out their new fliers with that week’s sales come out on Thursdays, so it looks like my mother may have shown me an older flier.

The main thing, though, is that she is now well stocked. In fact, I had a hard time fitting things into her fridge, for a change. Usually, she waits until she’s running out of everything before going shopping again. She doesn’t like to have too much food at home, she tells me, because then she eats it, and she doesn’t want to get fat.

*sigh*

She’s 92 flippin’ years old, and doing better than half the people in her building – and I think she’s the oldest person living there right now! This is not something she should be stressing about!

Anyhow… I’ve been trying to encourage her to ask me to help her get groceries before she runs out of food and, hopefully, this is the start of her actually doing that. We’ll see!

As I was putting her stuff away, I showed her what I changed and why, and she was quite happy. Apparently, I’m a “wise” grocery shopper. 😄 That didn’t stop her from lecturing me, just before I left, telling me not to buy lunches anymore, because of the cost. I told her, it’s a nice treat – plus, I don’t want to be eating up her food. Then she added how, she then has to pay for it. I told her no, she doesn’t!! Unfortunately, when I unpacked the lunch items I got, the receipt fell out and she found it on the table. She had just given me money for gas, so when I said she doesn’t need to pay for the lunch I bring, she just gave me a “yeah, right” kind of look. *sigh*

What she did give me filled my tank, though, so I was quite appreciative of her gift.

Overall, it was a really good visit with her. There were no racist rants. No sudden nasty comments about my daughters, and how I supposedly keep them tied to my apron strings. The topic of our vandal did come up, as he apparently brought a jar of borsch for her again – but she couldn’t remember what day he showed up. She isn’t too happy about it, because he tends to be slovenly, and so she’s unsure that he cooked it while clean. I told her, I really doubt he cooked it! That conversation started to devolve in her going on about how we need to forgive each other and not criticize each other. She made it sound like our vandal is the way he is because I’ve been overly critical of him. Which is really bizarre, since I haven’t spoken to him in years. Even in court last year, when he tried to sue me for the stuff here on the farm, we didn’t speak directly to each other. I was able to redirect that conversation, though, so it wasn’t too bad. I do wish he would stop showing up at her place, though. Another reason I hope an opening comes up in the other place! We can move her and hopefully, he won’t know where she has been moved to, though knowing how she tends to sabotage our efforts to protect her, she would probably phone him herself and tell him. A worry for another time. The one down side about hoping she gets into the other building, though, is knowing the only reason units open up there is either because someone has had to go into long term care, or has died.

All, in all, things went well with my mother, and I’ll take every good day with her with gratitude. There are so few of them! Still, I was glad to get home, and I’m looking forward to not having to drive anywhere for at least a day! 😄

The Re-Farmer

Ah, well.

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First, the cuteness!

PBC has settled in so quickly – and very quickly discovered the cats’ window shelf on my craft table! What a cutie. Some human will be very lucky to have her. 🩷

I made it out today to do a bit of shopping. It was absolutely gorgeous today. We even reached -2C/28F! That’s warm enough for snow to be melting off the roof of the house and the garage. When I was in the sun room to feed the yard cats for the evening, I actually found it too warm, so I checked the thermometer on the wall. It was at about 16C/61F!!!

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

We were running low on kibble and, for the price difference, it was worth the cost of gas to go to the nearest Walmart. Since I was there anyhow, I looked for other things as well. My first stop was a Canadian Tire, where I found some replacement trays for under my next seed starts. The ones I have in the house are cracked and, with the platform set up in the sun room, I can’t get at the ones stored in there. They also had a variety of grow lights, including a smaller one that would fit over our small aquarium greenhouse perfectly, but I didn’t have the budget for it. Hopefully, I’ll be able to pick it up next month. There were some affordable standard bulb sized grow lights available, but we don’t have lamps suitable to use them.

After getting some kibble and a few other items at the Walmart, I decided to also check out a Dollarama nearby. They’re just starting to get their gardening and Easter supplies, so it was filled with unpacked boxes. The few gardening items on the shelf were not the sorts of things I could use. I did, however, spot a toy/scratch pad in the pet section I decided to get two of. It’s one of those round rings with a ball trapped in it for the cats to play with, but the middle has one of those corrugated cardboard scratch pads. The scratching posts we have now are pretty much destroyed, so I figured it was worth a try! One of them went upstairs, since the girls have no cat toys or scratching posts at all up there. Hopefully, it will help reduce some of the damage!

The stores were very busy, and rather loud, so it wasn’t until I got my phone to send a message home, letting them know I’d be on my way, that I saw a message from the Cat Lady. She was asking when I’d be in this city next – our usual half-way meeting spot is next to the Dollarama. I told her I was already there, and was just finishing up. Unfortunately, the timing wasn’t right, and we weren’t able to connect. Which is unfortunate, because she’s got a kibble donation for us! Four 7k bags. I don’t expect to be there again until next month, since the next time we’ll be doing any major shopping, it’ll be our stock up shopping in the larger city. However, I told her to let me know when’s good for her. My schedule is flexible, and for that much donated cat food, it’s more than worth the drive to meet her!

But not tomorrow.

While I was out, my mother called. I called her back, and we now have an arrangement for me to go over tomorrow afternoon and do her grocery shopping and run some errands in the afternoon. I might come over earlier and bring a lunch, though by the end of the conversation, I don’t know if it’s worth the hassle. As we were talking, she mentioned that she was about to cook up a package of ground beef I brought for her, from our quarter beef. She started saying how that amount of meat should last her for about a week, because she’s avoiding eating meat, so she doesn’t get fat.

My mother is already fat, and has been for as long as I can remember. It’s never slowed her down. It still doesn’t slow her down, even with her knees wrecked from a car accident!

I told her that, at 92 years, that’s not something she should be worried about. Just eat well, and beef is some of the healthiest meat out there. To which she responded that she could see how “healthy” it is just by looking at me and my daughters. Then she started laughing like she’d made the best joke, ever.

I told her, there was nothing funny about what she’d said (my daughters both have PCOS, which is something she couldn’t begin to understand), and pointed out that she was using our conversation to insult us for no reason. She started to justify by saying, well, we eat lots of meat, so that must be why we’re so fat. I told her no, we don’t eat lots of meat. We eat too much bread and pasta and rice (who can afford to eat lots of meat these days, when you’re not in a position to raise it yourself??). I wasn’t going to bother telling her that the girls eat almost no meat at all, though they do eat seafood when they can. She wouldn’t believe me, anyhow. I called her out, again, on her going out of her way to insult us. She back tracked and started to say how she shouldn’t worry about what we do; we’re all adults now.

This from the person who would justify trying to run every aspect of our lives by saying, “I’m still the mama” so that gives her the right to try to control us. Not hust my own family, but my older brother’s as well. Strangely, she doesn’t do it with my sister, but she sure does try to play us against each other!

Ugh. I need to stop that train of thought. I’m starting to dread going over there now. Honestly, she’s been pretty good lately. Either that, or I’ve gotten better at redirecting her.

But then, I haven’t told her that I’ve given up sugar and simple carbs for Lent again this year. Last year, she mocked me about it, every time we were together, when I kept refusing all the high carb food she kept insisting I eat. She was even offering me sugar for my tea, which she never did any other time. She makes a big deal about staying away from sugar because of her diabetes (she’s not diabetic), so she never takes sugar in her tea, therefore she doesn’t think that anyone else might want it. Which is fine. I have no problem drinking most teas without sugar. It’s when she starts offering the bland cookies, carrot muffins or whatever crackers she has on hand at the time, to go with that tea. Things that, to her, don’t taste very sweet, therefore they don’t have much sugar in them. Except they do. She also doesn’t get that her whole wheat bread is still “sugar” – and she eats a LOT of bread!

Which is fine. It’s only irritating because she insisting things like eating meat makes her feel bad, so it must be bad for her – while continuing to eat foods that contribute to her acid reflux, and when she gets heartburn, she thinks she’s having a heart attack. I’ve printed out a whole list of foods, colour coded and everything, to help her remember which ones can contribute to these pains, and which ones won’t, but she just ignores it, keeps on complaining and blaming whatever other foods that the TV or magazines, or people in her building, told her are “bad”.

*sigh*

It’s really hard to help my mother, when she sabotages our efforts. She does that as much with her health issues as she does with our vandal! I can’t even say this is part of her ageing, though we are definitely seeing increased cognition issues. She’s been like this for as long as my brother can remember, and he’s almost 10 years older than me!

Ah, well. It is what it is. Hopefully, tomorrow, she will be having one of her good days, and things will go smoothly.

The Re-Farmer