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!
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! 😄
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.
Look at these three handsome boys, posing so nicely for me!
We still haven’t named the orange and white one. He’s mostly friendly, but not too keen on attention. Syndol, on the left, can’t get enough. Patience, in the middle, is becoming more tolerant and accepts pets – on his own terms!
I didn’t get a head count among the outside cats this morning, but there didn’t seem to be as many. I didn’t see Rolando Moon, but Judgement is hanging out more. Which I like because Shop Towel is also hanging out more, but they don’t seem to be fighting anymore. It was usually those two that would go at each other the most. It seems having just one of the boys nipped has made a difference.
The cats indoors have been more of a pain. Ginger is still being bullied, particularly by the tuxedo boys.
When the kittens were small and kept isolated in my room, it was pretty hard on the girls. Especially my younger daughter. Many of the cats would gravitate to her bed – with her in it. There’s not a lot of room, so she would basically be stuck under the weight of all these cats on her covers, with a couple that would worm their way under the covers. They would also cause a lot of destruction in the studio half of their upstairs “apartment”. As you can imagine, it made sleep a difficult thing! Once we could start leaving my door open, that made life a bit easier for them. The cats would instead take over my king size bed! I even have blankets and cat beds in one corner for them, though it’s not unusual for my entire bed to be covered with piles of cats, all mashed together. Even little Peanut Butter Cup now hangs out on my bed, sometimes even in one of the cuddle piles! She’s adapted really well to being indoors, and even lets us see her naked belly and her well healing surgical wound. It’s been harder to check Tiny Beast and Tissue!
With having the door open again, we hoped Butterscotch would finally start leaving the room – and she did start to! We’d be putting food out in the dining room feeding area, before filling the bowls in my room, and I’d find her at the two steps between the old and new parts of the house, very interested in those food bowls! She’d immediately run back into my room, but at least she was starting to check things out.
Well, some altercation must have happened that we missed, because suddenly that stopped. Not only did she stop leaving my room, she even started to isolated herself in my room. Since coming indoors, she’s been in full retirement mode, and spends much of her time in one of the cat caves or – her favorite spot – in the wall shelf that my bed is against, sleeping on my clothes – but she used to also sleep on one of my pillows, with the other cats around. We’d even see her cuddled up with another cat or two, and sometimes engaging in mutual grooming.
Well, that suddenly stopped. She now spends almost all her time in the wall shelf. She stopped coming out to eat or drink, unless there were almost no other cats around. She also started growling at other cats, even when they weren’t anywhere near her. Once we saw she would go to a litter box, see a cat, then run back into her hidey hole, we knew something had to have happened.
When it’s feeding time, the majority of the food bowls are all in the dining room now; we stopped feeding them in the basement months ago, because Ginger was struggling with the stairs. Once those food bowls were filled, we’d go to my room and add food to the few bowls that are there. Unfortunately, for some reason, some of the cats will abandon the food in the dining room and all but attack the food in the bowls in my room, as if they were starving. Somehow, they prefer eating in my room, and I don’t know why!
We used to be able to set a bowl aside on my craft table, or their window seat that’s on my craft table, for Butterscotch so she would get some food while the vultures circled around the other food bowls. However, she will no longer come out for food if they are around. So now, as we go into my room with the food, we close the door so none of the other cats can rush in. There are some we do allow in that Butterscotch seems to be okay with, like our elderly Freya. Then we leave the door closed long enough for Butterscotch to be able to get, drink and use one of the litter boxes before opening the door again.
Well, this morning was a problem.
First, a problem for me, getting any sleep! Aside from waking up because I had so many cats lying on my legs, it was getting painful, I found myself losing about 2/3 of my bed space. It’s a good thing I have such a huge bed! Getting up to go to the bathroom requires a wrestling match with cats that don’t seem to care one bit if I start moving around and pulling back the covers. They don’t move unless I move them!
Then I’d come back and find the only space left for me is the top half of the bed.
I don’t mind sleeping across the bed, though. It’s just more awkward to get in and out.
Which is how I found myself sleeping across the top of my bed, with my head near the shelf Butterscotch hangs out in. She even came out for pets, which was encouraging.
Not for long.
I had finally fallen asleep again when I became instantly awake because my elbow was suddenly feeling very, very warm. I opened my eyes to see Butterscotch next to my pillow, hunched over. I immediately chased her off, then scrambled out of bed, searching for the wet spot. Turning on a light, I spotted Butterscotch, who was not at all happy. I managed to grab her, and put in the most accessible litter box.
The other cats, of course, were milling around. It was getting close to feeding time, after all. At least, in their minds!
Butterscotch ran off.
I managed to grab her again, and this time I tucked her into the big covered litter box. She started to run away, but I guess she just had to go too badly, because I could soon hear her actually using it.
On checking my bed, I finally found a small wet spot on an excess part of a pillow case – I’ve got king size pillow cases, but no king size pillows, so there’s quite a lot of extra pillow case. Thankfully, that’s all I had to change.
Then I went to check on Butterscotch and found David standing in front of the litter box she’d been using, while she was frantically climbing a chair to get away and back to her hiding place.
I could hear that the girls were up, so I got them to help me feed the cats early. While they made noise filling the other bowls, I snuck off with some food for the bowls in my room and made sure to close the door behind me. We left it closed until after I finished doing my morning rounds, to give Butterscotch a good long time to get food, water and use the litter again, if she needed to.
Once the door was opened again, the rush of cats into my room was insane. They converged on the food bowls, as if they hadn’t eaten in a week, scaring poor Butterscotch back into her shelf.
I wish I knew what happened to set her back like this. You’d think a cat that spent most of her life surviving the outdoors would not be intimidated by a bunch of house cats. You’d think she would be more like Toni or PBC; when the usual bullies tried to hiss and growl at them, they would just ignore them completely. Expect PBC. She’ll sometimes hiss back, if they get too annoying.
I know that, in time, she’ll eventually get over it. It just seems to take longer, since she already preferred to spend her retirement curled up and sleeping.
So we continue to try and make life easier for her and keep the other cats away, so she can get a break from them.
Driver is putting full weight on that foot, and he’s no longer limping! He even followed me around while I was doing my rounds, running ahead, flinging himself to the ground and rolling in the snow.
I only counted about 23 or 25 yard cats this morning, but one of them was Judgement. He was hanging out in the sunroom again, and looking just fine. I wasn’t able to check his nethers to see how things were healing up, but he did allow me to pet him.
As for the indoor cats, Wolfman is behaving as if nothing happened. Beast is behaving normally, too, but has been avoiding me more. Tissue is still mad at me, even as she cuddles against my legs at night. PBC has been running away and hiding more. I think a couple of the other cats have been less than welcoming, and she’s nervous. She hasn’t allowed me to pet her lately. She is, however, exploring the house, and the girls have found her upstairs. We will still keep the basement door closed, at least until she’s healed up. We don’t want her getting her incision infected, dragging her belly on the floor while exploring under shelves. She’s all over the place! Meanwhile, Butterscotch barely even goes out the door and into the hallway at feeding time. The little one is much more willing to check things out, while the grand old lady just wants to sleep in my pants shelf all day. 😁
As much as we need to keep trying to find homes for all these beasts, and they’re eating us out of house and home, I sure do love them dearly!
Shortly before 6:30 am, I got the girls to try and get Shop Towel into the big carrier in the sun room while I got the others into the smaller carriers. They made sure to put on jackets and gloves to protect themselves from getting clawed! It didn’t work, so we ended up snagging Judgement.
By the time we got them all set up (Tissue started to panic as soon as she saw the carriers lined up on my bed!), the gate open (the slide bar was frozen in place by recent rain), and the carriers into the truck, it was almost 7 am. Road conditions were good and the drive went well. It was still full dark when I left, but full light when I got to the clinic, about 10 minutes before the 8am drop off time.
I was the first one there, which I appreciated, since it gave me time to warn them about Tissue and Judgement, both of whom tried to tear their way out of the carriers during the drive out. I never saw which one it was, but from the smell, one of the cats had a stress poop along the way. 😞
After the paperwork was done, I paid for two, then hung out until the Cat Lady arrived. She called ahead to say she was going to be a bit later than expected. Muffin has had all her teeth removed, so they had to force feed her, since her gums are not healed yet. Her husband tried to hold Muffin wrapped in a towel, but she got out. The Cat Lady got clawed up, and even got bit – or should I say, gummed – on her palm. It all took far longer than expected, and in the end, she had to leave her husband to try and finish feeding her.
We’ve been talking about getting that fluffy tortie – now called Peanut Butter Cup, or PBC – adopted out. She needed to get back to me about whether or not she could take PBC today or not. She recently took in three rescued males; they’d been dumped near a farm, and the farmer didn’t want cats, so he never fed them. Which isn’t too bad in the summer, but in the winter, hunting is very lean. So she’s treating them for worms while getting them carefully fed to get to a healthy weight before she can put them up for adoption.
The good thing is, she now has a completely separate, heated shed that she can use for cases like this!
She said she would get back to me within an hour or so to let me know about taking PBC right away or not.
Once we connected and she took care of the bill for the other three cats, she passed on some donated supplies for us. Several cat beds, blankets and a fluffy towel, a new litter box, some cat food and treats, and a cat-size hard sided carrier. The carrier is missing most of the wing nuts to hold the two halves together, but I’m sure I can find new ones, somewhere.
After that, I could finally go for some breakfast and hang out until I got a call to pick up the cats. I ended up just going to a nearby Walmart, with a McDonald’s inside, because not much else was open, yet. Plus, it gave me a chance to do a bit of shopping, since I was there, anyhow. I ended up getting a larger, covered litter box. Eventually, I want to replace all our open litter boxes with covered ones, but they have to be larger. The one smaller one I have in my room doesn’t get used as much, and I think it’s mostly because of the size. Most of the adult cats don’t seem to like it, though they’ll use the one big one we already have, just fine. That one has three broken latches, so it needs to be replaced, too. We’ll see how the cats do with this one before getting more.
I did hear back from the Cat Lady, letting me know she would not be taking PBC quite yet. She’s going to focus on getting the three starved and sick males she took in. Once she has the space again, she’ll take PBC and Ginger, with a priority on getting Ginger adopted to a calm home, where he won’t be bullied by other cats.
I’m pretty pragmatic about saying goodbye to the cats, but just thinking about adopting out Ginger gets me a bit choked up. I’m going to hate saying goodbye to him, but he really deserves a better situation. Frankly, I’d rather adopt out the bullies, but they’d be much harder to place than him!
I ended up getting a call from the vet shortly after 11, letting me know they were ready for pick up. Really fast! They probably didn’t even start surgeries until 9 am, at the earliest.
The Beast was in the soft sided carrier, so she got the front seat.
The other carriers stacked up securely in the back.
I think Judgement was done last, as he was still pretty groggy. Wolfman was, surprisingly, the most desperate to get out of his carrier. He almost knocked his carrier right off of Tissue’s! He and Beast where the most alert and active. PBC was quite calm on the drive home. Tissue, while still pretty groggy, was clearly in half-panic mode.
The drive home was… interesting!
As soon as I was outside the city, I was driving into light snowfall. The further north and west I drove, the heavier the snow. By the time I was in the final stretch of highway from my mother’s town, the snowfall was heavy, the highway was covered, and visibility was poor! It was light, fluffy snow. The sort of snow I could appreciate as being very beautiful – once I was no longer driving in it!
I was very glad to get home, that’s for sure.
Once we got them inside, the carriers were all stacked on my bed to start with. I made sure there was food and water in the sun room, along with a couple of new beds for the outside cats, before putting Judgement in the carrier in. I set a bowl of food inside with him, and the heated water bowl was just outside the carrier, then left the carrier door mostly closed, so he could come out whenever he felt ready to.
Tissue was starting to try and tear her way out of the carrier by the time I got back. We put food out for the other cats to lure them away, then food in my room – with the door closed – before letting them out of the carriers. Normally, they should have been left in the carriers longer, but we didn’t want them to hurt themselves. Tissue was still in panic mode. Strangely, Wolfman was pretty wired up, too! The Beast actually stayed in her carrier and had to be persuaded out. The problem with the soft sided carrier is that other cats try to climb on top, and don’t care if there’s a cat inside, getting squished!
I wanted to leave my door open, but we had concerns that PBC would end up hiding somewhere in the basement. So, after making sure not cats were in the basement, I closed the door.
It’s a good thing we got extra litter boxes because, with the door closed, they no longer have access to the litter boxes down there!
The new litter boxes are now set up.
It’s getting hard to find space for litter boxes.
So far, all seems well. We do have a few cats that are growling at PBC, but most of them are pretty laid back out there being a new cat in the house. We did keep her closed up in my room for the night. To make it easier for fasting, we put all the food bowls away, so there was no need to close up any other cats. Which meant I was getting up many times during the night, opening and closing my door as the night wore on. They were looking for the food bowls. Finding another cat in the process was far less interesting to them! On top of that, PBC tried exploring my room, which meant things getting knocked down that needed to be picked up.
I got next to no sleep. It’s all I can do to not go back to bed right now, but if I do that, I’ll really mess myself up!
The usual cats have hissed at PBC. Fenrir, of course. Big Rig. Meanwhile, Cheddar and our old grandma were all ready to start grooming her, though she only allowed sniffing. When it comes to human attention, though, she is quite enjoying the pets. Still not keen on being picked up, but starts purring almost instantly when we pet her! She’s going to love being an indoor cat. Whoever adopts her is going to get a real long haired beauty!
As I’ve been writing this, I’ve been able to keep an eye on her. She’s made no effort to leave my room, yet, and I’ve seen her eating, which is good.
I’ll feel much better once I’ve seen her use a litter box, though! 😂
So, that’s five more done. No more inside cats need to be fixed. We can now focus entirely on the outside cats.
Little by little, it’s getting done!
The only problem is, without being able to do the females right away, we’re going to be dealing with more kittens before we can get much progress!
After getting my routine stuff done this morning, I got sucked into the vortex of cats on my bed. I didn’t need to go under the covers. They plastered themselves on and around me, and kept me warm!
I fell asleep, but not for any excessive length of time, yet after I got up, it seemed like time just skipped an hour here, another hour there. Very odd.
I’m still fighting with my computer. It takes at least two tries to get it to boot up. I can’t do anything productive on it, but I can go online and browse or watch some videos. I can even play my Alien Crossfire, a game old enough that it doesn’t tax my system. At least until the mouse suddenly isn’t recognized anymore.
Hoping the new machine arrives early!
My husband asked me to go into town for something, so I took advantage of the trip to refill out big water jugs. It was still daylight when i went into the grocery store. It was full dark when I came out!
And raining.
It’s been a while since I drove in the dark, and I didn’t get very far, before I pulled into a gas station to clean my headlights!
The highways are fine to drive on, but the gravel roads are a mess. The shaded parts are still covered in ice and snow, so they are slippery, but that’s about it. The sections of bare gravel are horrible. The freeze/thaw cycle is tearing them apart, and it’s like driving on a washboard. The parts that are not as filled with potholes are no better. I could feel my back end trying to fishtail in the mud, more than on the wet ice!
We have one more day where the highs are expected to be above freezing, then we are supposed to get hit with another Colorado Low. The rain we’re getting now is expected to turn to sleet and snow for a couple of days. Saturday, which is when I’m taking the cats in to the spay clinic, is supposed to be clear again. Here’s hoping!
I’ll still take this over the -20C to -30C of past winters, any day!
Now to wrap my brain around the fact that it’s 7:30pm right now, instead of the 5:30pm it feels like, for some reason.
While it’s still -23 or -24C right now, with no wind chill, our high today is supposed to be a balmy -15C this afternoon. By the middle of next week, we are supposed to reach highs just below freezing!
For well insulated cats like Brussel, here, it doesn’t seem to make much difference how cold it gets! The less fluffy cats prefer to hang out in the cat house or the sun room. 🌞
My goodness, Brussel does look permanently angry, though! 😆
Speaking of warming up, the upside cats were so happy to have access to my room – and bed! – again last night! My attempt at napping before getting Soot Sprite was disrupted by their antics, so I was really flagging. I finally gave up and went to bed at 8:30, which is insanely early for me. I barely got under the covers before I was surrounded by cats snuggling against me, with 2 or 3 right on me. Butterscotch was in her usual corner on my bed again – she quite enjoyed her night with only Soot Sprite in the room, and wasn’t impressed that they were allowed in. She did allow Cheddar to cuddle next to her, while she used my hand as a pillow, and even tolerated our greasy grandma slithering off my hip and squeezing herself between them and my face, demanding pets. She is a skinny cat, and likes to take advantage of all the body heat she can borrow!
Unfortunately, she makes the most disgusting noises while grooming. 😆
I was so tired, though, I still managed to fall asleep and stay asleep until about 5:30! I can’t remember the last time I got more than 4 or 5 hours of sleep in one stretch.
That I managed to fall asleep at all, never mind sleep all night, is very unusual!
As for Soot Sprite, he commandeered my daughter and slept in her arms for a couple of hours. My daughter is, unfortunately, paying for all the squirming and crawling around under the kitchen sink the other day, and couldn’t lift her arms above her shoulders, then got stuck cuddling the little voidling for hour. He’s another one that has to borrow body heat from others!
I was able to pick him up early. He was completely quiet the entire time, from the clinic to bringing him into the house.
Then, as I went to park the truck, my daughter let him out of the carrier, and he went into overdrive. Not the reaction to expect from a still sedated cat! He was running all over the place!
He also had a whole series of cats following along, trying to sniff his remaining nibby bits as he ran around.
He has finally calmed down and, as I write this, is wandering around the dining room.
While at the clinic, I remembered to go through the list of cats they have on file with us. Some have been adopted, while others have disappeared or passed on. Turns out they had Potato Beetle as two cats – Potato, and Beetle! 😆
While at the counter, one of the staff came by and asked where we found Soot Sprite, and whereabouts we live. I was a bit confused by the question, and just said, in our yard. She was wondering if we were missing a kitten that looks like Soot Sprite. She recently found one!
It turns out, she is a neighbor! She lives off a road a mile north of us, so she takes a paved road, another mile north, to get to her place, rather than the gravel road past our place, So while we live on the same cross road, she has never gone past the intersection near us. I would have driven past where she is, but all the houses along there are hidden by trees, so I only have an idea of her geographical location.
I mentioned we have a lot of black cats this time around, and that the number of cats outside at our place ranges from about 23 to 37, so I couldn’t know if any wandered further her way. Now that I think about it, though, she did say she’d found a kitten like Soot Sprite. Any kittens his size and age have been staying close to the house. My guess is, it would be from another farm out her way.
Though it probably has the same daddy that produced so many mostly black cats at our place!!
Unfortunately, while paying for the neuter and claiming Soot Sprite, I completely forgot to ask her name. That’s not a problem, though. We’ll be back there again, often enough. They take good care of our felines!
We have 3 kittens that did not go for the spay day last time, as they were too small. Two male and one female, all siblings.
This was Pom Pom. We now call him the Wolfman. He looks like he’s going to be a big, shaggy boy! He’s already the same size as the older kittens and Toni.
I don’t know where Soot Sprite is right now, but he is still tiny, like their sister.
We call her The Beast, now.
The problem is, the boys are starting to… practice, shall we say… on The Beast. She hasn’t had her first heat, so there are no concerns in that regard… yet. But we need to act soon.
I got an estimate from the local vet, and ti get both males done, including extras like nail trimming, etc, will be just under $340. Which is what one female would cost. Without the extras, it’ll save us a few bucks.
Meanwhile, I asked the Cat Lady about the next cheap spay day. I got a response today.
They have one for this month, but they are booked solid. The next is Feb. 10. They will do males, but want at least one female in a group, since population control is the goal. These are only $75 per cat, with just the surgery and, if needed, treatment fir ear mites. No wellness check, tattoo or anything else. They just do as many cats as they can. This is on a day the clinic is closed, and the staff all volunteer their time to allow it to be so inexpensive.
I called the local clinic to book our indoor males, but to do both would be more than a month from now. I could book one next week. So I did that. We will bring Soot Sprite in. He may be the smaller one, but he’s been the more… active… one. So he is the priority.
I’ve since asked the Cat Lady to book us fir at least three cats in February. We’ll do The Wolfman and The Beast, plus Tissue. Doing Tissue is a risk, considering what happened before, but with us bringing her in, she might not panic so much. If possible, we will also snag the fluffy tortie from outside.
This clinic tries to have these spay days once a month, though, so if we can start trapping female yard cats, we might be able to start getting them in, too.
I don’t know how much of this the rescue can cover, though. Donations are lean, with so many people struggling just to pay the bills and feed themselves. I have to assume we will be covering it, ourselves. Or, should I say, my daughter probably will be. Hopefully, she will have plenty of commissions!
