In this case, it’s having the garbage and recycling bags in the box of the truck, rather than stuffed in the back of my mother’s car, behind my head as I drive.
I made sure to grab a long handled garden cultivator tool to grab the bags that got pushed further in. Most bags had drawstring ties I could grab with the teeth and pull forward. A couple smaller bags didn’t have the same ties. I could grab them and roll them forward, but had to be careful not to tear holes in the bags. It worked out very well.
Next, I drove into town to pick up some prescription refills my husband ordered yesterday, while I was in the city. Along the way, the check engine light turned on again. After I got the prescriptions, I hooked up the OBDII device and did a scan. Once I got the reading, I took a screen cap, then cleared the codes. While I was doing that, I started getting a warning that the battery was low, and to start the engine!!
So I swung by the garage before heading home. It’s Saturday, so our mechanic wasn’t in, but I talked to the guy that was there and showed him the codes. He couldn’t say for sure (there’s a long list of possible causes that comes up when I generate a report), but looking at the 3 different but related codes, he thinks it is electrical. It could be as simple as a loose wire.
Which is when I brought up the low battery warning. That seems to confirm its an electrical issue. Whatever is causing the codes to come up may also be draining the battery.
The truck is fine to drive, though. I’ll just have to talk to our mechanic next week about checking it out. Decisions can be made after he confirms a cause.
Once at home, I put the charger on the battery again! 😆
Meanwhile, on a more adorable note…
… I seem to have lost access to my office chair!
What a difference in sizes between Cheddar and the Littles!
Pom Pom is getting big enough we now let him out of the room. These two are still so tiny, they only get supervised tours. 😆
It occurred to me that these guys are coming up on 6 months old. The Cat Lady was looking into getting 5 slots for the cheap spay and neuter day, including Toni, Ghosty and a couple of outdoor males, but I just asked if her if we could get the 5 oldest kittens done, instead. She still wants to get Toni done, too, so she’ll see if she can get 6 slots. She might be moving next month, though, and things are really hectic for her and her family right now (and their 27 or so cats!!), so she’ll get back to me on that one. I told her I’m less concerned about Toni than I am about having 5 kittens old enough for their first heat (well… three female kittens going into heat with intact males around!). Ghosty, depending on how things go with the move, would not be coming back, as she’s found a home for her.
Speaking of large numbers of cats, I did a head count outside this morning. Including Shop Towel/Sad Face, I counted 38.
As much as we’d like to reduce that population, we really need to reduce the indoor population first. It’s just not healthy for them, mentally or physically. The Cat Lady, once they move to their new home, will be able to convert a heated shed into a place just for cats. That’s something I wouldn’t mind finding a way to do. Too bad we can’t use the storage house for that! We need more sheds, anyhow. The ones we have are either fallen apart, falling apart, or jammed full of junk. Or, in the case of the warehouse that used to be my late brother’s workshop, filled with my parents’ stuff my mother insists we keep. Not that we’d use that for cats. We need a workshop more!
Ah, well. All in good time.
With the temperatures dropping below freezing consistently over night from now on, I pulled the bed of Red of Florence onions, yesterday.
There was enough to half fill the wheel barrow, plus there were a few too small to bother keeping.
Their necks are still too “fleshy”, so we won’t be able to cure them like we did with the other onions we harvested already. We’d had a night and morning of consistent rain, so these were also pretty damp. We have the hardware cloth “door” we made to keep the cats out of the old basement when we keep the door open in the summer. It does double duty for laying out vegetables. I was able to set it up in the old kitchen and laid the onions out to dry a bit. From there, we will need to process them; some for freezing, some for dehydrating. This is on top of the onions we’ve been able to cure and braid for casual use. We got a very decent haul of onions this year, but only the yellow onions, plus these ones. Oh, and the shallots. We also had the Red Wethersfield onions, but not one of them survived transplanting! I’ve no idea what happened to them, but I want to try that variety again before we conclude that they just won’t grow here.
The high for today, and the next couple of days, is expected to be 3C/37F. After that, the highs will be lower, and reach just above or below freezing. So far, the overnight lows are not expected to drop very far, and remain just a few degrees below freezing, but we will no longer be seeing overnight lows above freezing from here on. It’s still not too bad, though. Nothing severe or extreme. Also, we don’t have the snow that other parts of the country got yesterday, including the city we lived in before moving out here!
There was a thin layer of ice on the outside cats’ water bowls. It’s starting to be time to bring warm water out for them when we feed them. It’s time to put the hoses away and cover the taps, anyhow. The electrical in the cat house needs to be plugged in and tested, so we can plug in the huge heated water bowl in the water bowl shelter, plus the terrarium heat bulb inside, with its timer set to turn it on at dusk. I’ve already set up the smaller water bowl in the sun room and plugged it in.
Still lots to be done, but as long as we get the essentials taken care of, the rest can wait until spring, if necessary.
Before I get into things, I just want to share this adorable photo I got last night.
Nothing like a bowl of kittens to brighten your day!
This is a picture from yesterday, because I’ve taken none today. I haven’t even gone outside, and I don’t know if I will get to it. A daughter took care of feeding the outside cats, and I am skipping my morning rounds entirely. All because of a very long and strangely painful night.
Quite a long time ago, I started feeling a strange pain in my left side. I thought I might have pulled a muscle, but it never went away. This started about 6 months after I’d had a large cyst remove, and thought maybe there was a connection, since it was in the same general area, but the doctors couldn’t find any. It got worse to the point where I had difficulty standing up straight – which could be a real problem while driving! Since moving here, I’ve gotten more tests done, and still, no cause could be found. There comes a point with doctors where, if they can’t find a cause for something, they start looking at you askance, and you can tell they think you’re just making it up, or that the problem is psychosomatic. Eventually, I just stopped trying to find a cause. The pain, if I can even use that word, is just there, now encompassing an area from my hips to under my ribs. It’s just a constant presence, but after a while, I no longer got that escalation, where I couldn’t stand up straight anymore. At least, it became more rare. Instead, something else started to happen.
I would lie down in bed, on my right side, because my left hip is more arthritic than my right. As soon as I started to relax, my left side would start cramping. Perhaps spasming would be the better word. The only way to alleviate it was to tense up and twist into a pretzel. As soon as I tried to relax again, it would come back. Sometimes, if I lay on my left side, that would help. Sometimes, I had to get up. Usually, I just went through several bouts of these contortions before I could finally relax my muscles, and then finally be able to sleep.
Well, last night, it happened again, except this time, it was both my sides, not just my left. I was jerking around like a marionette, trying to get it under control and to the point where I could relax. I’m still feeling residual pain from that.
That, on its own, was bad enough. Things didn’t end there. At about 3 – 3:30 in the morning, I rolled over, and instantly my right thigh started cramping viscously. I couldn’t stay lying down, but I couldn’t straight the leg, either, or the cramping would get worse. Of course, I had to go to the bathroom, right? I managed to hobble my way to the bathroom, but even just sitting on the toilet triggered more spasming. I even tried massaging the affected muscle, but just touching it cause more spasms. I was able to do my business, then hobbled to over to get some ibuprofen, because my extra strength arthritis acetaminophen that I take very night before bed doesn’t touch this. Ibuprofen helps with Charlie horses, and this was kinda like that, so I thought it was worth a try.
I’m still feeling residual pain and weakness in my leg from that.
It would have been nice if that were it, but nooooooo. Then my feet had to get into the action.
My feet are wrecked, so it’s not unusual for me to have a metatarsal suddenly dislocate, or for there to be shooting pains, etc. One of the things that happens pretty regularly is sudden cramping if there is a change in temperature. The temperature itself doesn’t seem to matter; it’s how quickly it changes. So, for example, between the time I come out of a nice warm shower and the time I can put on socks and shoes, my toes can start cramping, and it takes a while for them to warm up again enough for the cramping to stop.
Which means that sometimes, if my foot comes out from under the covers, my toes will start cramping instantly.
That started happening last night, too. With both feet – and they weren’t even out from under the covers.
I don’t even know how long that went on for before I finally passed out, until I was awakened by a kitten deciding to curl up against my face, neck and shoulder. That was when I realized I had all the big kittens on my. One on my neck and face, one in my arm pit, one on my chest, and two around my legs. If any of the tinies were on me, I wouldn’t have known, because they weigh nothing! 😄
I managed to get out of bed and do their morning feeding (including Butterscotch, who has rediscovered my pants shelf as her favourite bed), mostly because I needed them distracted so I could go to the washroom. That’s when I discovered I was still feeling the effects of all the cramping and spasming of the night. My daughter was about to feed the adult cats and saw me hobbling around, so she was more than understanding when I asked her to feed the outside cats, too.
Thank God we have a narrow hallway and arm bars all over the place. I needed the walls and the arm bars to hold myself up!
I’m better now, after a few more hours, but definitely still having issues.
I have considered why this might have happened, and if it was because of the work I did in the garden yesterday, but I’ve done that much and more before, without reacting like this. I mean, I’ve ended up stiff and sore to the point that walking was very painful, but no muscle cramping and spasming like what hit me last night. Especially not with so many parts of my body affected, not to mention all of them in one night.
Whatever it is, I’m currently in recovery mode for the day.
After all that, though, I do have some good news. I’m almost afraid to say something so soon, as it’ll be a few days before it follows through. Still… here it is.
We’re going to be getting that truck.
Last week, I’d stopped at the garage to talk to our mechanic, checking out some of his other vehicles at the same time, letting him know we were able to increase our down payment to $1000, thanks to my daughter. At this point, I’d pretty much given up on the truck, but he had a couple of SUVs that would have worked out, for my husband’s needs, at least. One was sold and the other wasn’t prepped for sale yet, but it gave him something to keep an eye out for.
Well, yesterday, I got a call from him.
He had been talking to the financing lady. He told her the new amount we could give for a down payment, and he was willing to drop the price on the truck even more for us. At this point, I suspect he’s actually taking a loss. He doesn’t just buy used vehicles and resell them right away. He’s a mechanic. He makes sure they are completely sound, first, so any work that needs doing, he does. Unlike the dealership that sold us our van, he doesn’t sell vehicles that turn out to have major damage on them. That has to be factored into the price, too.
As for the financing lady, she tried taking off the warranty, and that also lowered the final cost. Between the three things, that brought the payments down to $162 bi-weekly. Our max budgeted amount was $300 monthly. We would have another $100 or so per month for registration and insurance we have to consider as well. This still put us just over our budget amount. Since bi-weekly payments means having at least a couple of months a year with three payments instead of two, this put the monthly budget amount at more than two payments totalling $324. We’d have to budget closer to $400 per month.
However…
Just the night before, my daughter told me she would soon be able to transfer more over to contribute to the damage deposit, having been paid for more commissions. She has also said she will help with the payments.
I gave him a tentative yes, and mentioned we might be able to increase the down payment. I just didn’t know by how much. He told me to talk to the finance lady once I knew. Depending on the amount, if it would only save us a couple of dollars a month, it might not be worth adding it on.
So I went to talk to the girls, and my daughter said she would able to bring our down payment up to $1500.
I emailed the financing lady with the new amount. I also asked about having monthly payments instead of bi-weekly. It’s just easier for budgeting, since my husband’s disability comes in at the end of the month.
I got a quick response with some new numbers. The increased down payment would make a difference. We would have to make a bi-weekly payment for the first payment, but after that, we could call the lender directly and arrange for it to be monthly, instead. The monthly payments would be $331.
We accepted the deal.
Which is kinda scary.
First, taking off the warranty is a risk, but considering who we are buying it from, I consider that risk to be very low.
Next is relying on my daughter being able to make regular payments. Yes, she has consistent commissions, her Patreon supporters and even a few sales from her digital shop, but working freelance like she does means the monthly income is inconsistent. I know she’ll be good for it. I just don’t like it having to rely on it.
The final thing is, where in our budget these payments will be coming from. Some is what we’ve been squirreling away into our contingency fund. That’s going to drop. Most, however, will come from that part of our budget that pays for things like getting the septic tank cleaned, or hiring plumbers, or fixing my mother’s car…
But with the truck, there will be some reductions in the budget. We will no longer have to do as many trips to the city to stock up, because we can fit probably four times as much in the back of the truck as we can in her little car, and not have to worry about how heavy the load is. That doesn’t even count the space available in the cab if we fold up the back seats. My mother’s car, even with the work we had done recently, is not good on gas. At least it’s not getting worse anymore, but with fewer trips to the city, even with a relative gas guzzler like a truck, we will be spending less on gas per month. We would go back to using my mother’s car just to drive my mother around again, and as an emergency back up vehicle.
Best of all, we’ll have a reliable winter vehicle before the sow flies – with new tires, too!
It will take a few business days for my daughter’s transfer to come through. Once we’ve got the down payment all together, I’ll head over to finalize the purchase and get the truck insured. If all goes well, we’ll have a truck by the end of the week.
I just pray that nothing goes wrong between now and then!
I forgot to mention this less than happy surprise I found while doing my rounds yesterday morning.
One of our highbush cranberry trees has been eaten. Again! This is the one that has an old saw horse over it to protect it, yet it still got eaten! The other, unprotected one was ignored. Why are the deer so determined to eat this one cranberry bush??? It was left alone all summer, too. With the damage being done so late in the growing season, I doubt it will survive. We shall see in the spring, I guess.
I had another surprise when I headed out to feed the outside cats for the evening.
Butterscotch emerged from wherever she’s been hiding out and came running for pets and cuddles. She still wouldn’t go near the other cats, so I ended up leaving some food on the ground on a cat path near the storage house. She did eat some, but then other cats came to investigate, and she took off.
One of those cats was Sad Face (aka: Shop Towel).
Sad Face has been around a lot more often lately, and he has NOT been going after the other cats. In fact, I’ve seen him eating along with them. Nosencrantz doesn’t like him, though, and takes off when she sees him, and so does Butterscotch. He and the other cats seem to be starting to get along; still not sure about Judgement, but Judgement tends to stay in the sun room more often then not, curled up in a cat bed and covered in kittens.
Eventually, Butterscotch just left entirely, disappearing into the maple grove, which meant there was still kibble in the grass that Sad Face was very interested in. As he was eating, with his back to me, I slowly started to approach him.
I’m sure he’s at least partially deaf. Likely due to ear mites.
Then came the surprise.
When I reached out and put my hand on his back, he flinched a bit – then kept on eating!
So I started to pet him, and he still kept eating.
After a bit, with other cats coming over to see what was going on, he did move away and turned to face me – but didn’t run away. Instead, he started eating again, with me and 8 other curious cats around him. I moved forward and he backed off slightly, until I reached my hand out.
He came over to sniff it.
Then he came closer for pets.
And more pets!
He actually started purring, and rubbing around my legs!
We have never been able to approach him before, and have actually had to chase him away because of how aggressive he was to the other cats. I’m sure he’s the one that killed that poor long haired ginger I found in one of the old dog houses by the outhouse. I’ve broken up a number of fights between him and The Distinguished Guest, and TDG was usually on the loosing side. We don’t see him anymore, just as we don’t see any of the other visiting toms anymore. I’m pretty sure he’s why Gooby is gone, too.
And yet, when given the chance, he was incredibly friendly with me and loving the pets!
Also, that cat is a solid brick of muscle.
That was yesterday. What about this morning?
Well, as I brought the food out, Nosencrantz was in among the other cats, but – as usual – waited for kibble to be left in the bowls under the shrine. That was always her favourite spot to eat, before we brought her inside, and she doesn’t like eating closer to the house. By the time I was done putting food out, I saw Butterscotch come running from somewhere beyond the storage house, so I made sure to leave a bit of kibble on the path again, just for her. She was more interested in getting pets, though, which was fine.
I counted 36 cats, cattens and kittens. No Sad Face, at the time.
I did the rest of my rounds and when I got back to the house, there was Sad Face. He was milling around with the other cats, going into the old kitchen garden as I came closer. When he had his back to me, I was able to approach him again and start petting him. That was going well, until he spotted Butterscotch near the storage house. I tried pushing him around to face another direction, but he was utterly focused on Butterscotch.
Yeah. He went for her.
Butterscotch already saw him and went straight up a tree. I had to chase Sad Face out of the yard. Unfortunately, by the time I finished up and was ready to come inside, she was still up the tree.
I really want to bring her back inside, but even when I’ve been able to pick her up and carry her, she doesn’t want to go near the house. Not even for food.
Maybe as things change with the kittens, we can bring her back in. I’ve been chatting with the Cat Lady, about the discounted spay day next month. The vet really wants to do females, not males, if at all possible. Which makes sense for population reduction. Toni is booked for sure, which we will be paying for ourselves, and she will be coming home with us. The rescue would have paid for 2 yard cat males to be done, and they’d have come home with us, too. However, she has found a home for Ghosty, so she’s asked us to bring Ghosty to get fixed, along with the two males, and Ghosty would go home with her. Which makes a booking for four cats instead of three! And these bookings have to be used, or the clinic will be less likely to accept appointments from her on these discount days in the future.
As we talked about the clinic wanting to do females, I mentioned that Tin Whistle and Mitsy could both be done. If they were done, she would be taking them to adopt out, as she has people wanting female cats. They’d take the adult yard cats, but we can’t get hold of them.
So we will have to figure that out as the time gets closer. We only have 3 carriers, with two of them soft sided carriers that a yard cat could probably tear out of pretty easily. With the kittens, we could easily put two, or even three, into one carrier without any issue, but there would be no sharing of carriers with the adult cats.
I’ve also shared photos of some of the yard kittens with her. She may have found a home for the little black puff ball – one of Soot Sprite’s, Pom Pom’s and Tiny’s siblings that we’ve been able to socialize quite thoroughly, just recently. There’s also a friendly black and white catten that looks so much like Decimus. Mostly by his permanently stunned expression. He would be a good one to adopt out, but I had to remember to let the Cat Lady know that he is probably not a well cat. His lungs rattle when he breathes. I made sure to tell her that this is probably a deal breaker, and not to feel she has to take him in. Some of the people who have adopted cats from her work in vet clinics, though, so I thought perhaps one of them would be willing to take him in, as they would be in a better position than most, to find what’s going on with him and give him the right care. She will pass his picture around and let people know.
As for Decimus and the others, I’m told that Decimus is getting quite fat from all the mice she’s catching, and is the best cat the woman has ever owned! Phantom, however, has no interest in the outdoors anymore, and is now an indoor cat. Turmeric (they all have new names now), on the other hand, is making strange. She’s staying outside, even at night (the woman keeps them indoors at night, but hasn’t been able to with Turmeric). She’s very sad about not being able to make friends with Turmeric, but at least Turmeric is staying there.
Meanwhile, it turns out she has a neighbour on a farm nearby who has no cats, and is interested in getting some. I am amazed by this, to be honest. I’m used to cats just showing up on the farm, but that isn’t happening where they are. The Cat Lady joked with her that she should move to our area; she’s have lots of cats show up!
If this neighbour wants outdoor cats, it would be nice if they would be willing to take some males. We have four of five adult males that we could bring over right now, and probably another 3 or 4 friendly kittens and cattens, if they wanted youngsters from this year. I’ve even been able to start petting Driver regularly while he eats on the cat house roof, and he’s only been back about a week.
I’m trying to think of ways to lure the female cats over and try to socialize them, but every idea I can come up with would lure in the friendly males even faster and they mill around so much, the females wouldn’t be able to come any closer. The only exception is Caramel, and she’s often even pushier than the males, while also trying to bit the hand that pets her! Trapping is always a possibility, too, but you just never know what cat would end up being trapped, with so many around. The friendly males would be more comfortable investigating the bait in a trap than the females! Of course, once I have a cat in a trap, I’d have to take it somewhere right away. With how we have the sun room set up as shelter this time of year, we can’t use it as an isolation room anymore, and we certainly couldn’t bring a mostly feral yard cat indoors until we could get it out. At least with the Egg Lady, if we catch a cat, we can bring it straight to her place. She has a chicken coop set aside for them to get used to their new home, and to stay in until she gets them to a vet to get fixed.
Normally, the Cat Lady doesn’t pass on personal information, like where people live, other than a general sense, but with the way things are… I wonder if we could work something out? From what I know, the lady that took in our three isn’t all that much further away than the Egg Lady, and has an isolation ward set up, too. If I could get the cats directly to her, where they could stay in isolation under they get fixed, that would also give her time to socialize them in a more controlled setting – something we just can’t manage with our set up.
Hhmm… I’ll run that idea by the Cat Lady.
If things work out – if we could just catch these cats! – we could potentially adopt out 6 or more outdoor females to homes where they would get spays and vet care right from the get-go. Plus, there is interest in some of the kittens, indoors and out. That would make a HUGE difference in our own population issues, and be much better for the cats, too.
We shall see.
Plus, if we can get friendly with Sad Face, we should be able to get him fixed, too! Hopefully, that would make him less aggressive with the other cats, and we could finally make him one of our own. I really hate having to chase him away.
Nosencrantz has started to regularly show up when I do the morning feeding. We don’t see her in the evenings, though.
This morning, not only did she show up, but when I was putting food in the kibble bowl under the shrine, she started to go for it without waiting for me to leave.
When I reached out, she sniffed my finger – and then allowed me to pet her! Tentatively, at first, but then she actually came closer to enjoy more than my just barely touching her.
She was still nervous, though, and wanted to eat, so I let her be. When I was done my rounds and doing stuff around the house and south yards, she was nowhere to be seen.
At least she’s coming back regularly for food in the mornings.
Now, if only we start seeing Marlee and Butterscotch again!
Not only was I able to pet Nosencrantz today, I was able to catch one of the kittens from the litter of 8 that is still really small. The only reason I was able to catch it was because it was on the cat house roof and three of the bigger cats were milling around, vying for attention, preventing it from running off. It hissed a little when I picked it up, and made a half hearted attempt to bite me when my hand got close to it’s mouth, but then it settled down and stared at my face while I skritched its ears and pet it. This kitten is one of the black ones with a little white patch on its chest, but is really, really fluffy and dense. In fact, its fur feels like it’s all undercoat!
I also saw two of the “new” kittens – the ones that Broccoli brought over not long ago. There’s a black and white one that I saw, then a fluffy white and black one. There’s a tortie that I saw last night, going into the sun room, but I did not see it this morning.
Among the other kittens, some seem to have gone missing. I haven’t seen the one eyed tuxedo kitten in a long time. The other tuxedo that had a messed up eye does seem to be around; we’re only guessing, because one of the tuxedos has an eye that looks… wrong. It doesn’t let us get close enough to get a better look. I haven’t seen the smaller orange and white kitten in a long time, though one of my daughters says she has seen it. The bigger one, with grey mixed in with its orange fur, like Pinky, is not only still around, but I’ve been able to pet it a few times.
Pinky is among the adults we don’t see anymore. Likely moved on to find himself a harem somewhere. Rolando had been back for awhile, but is gone again. It’s really hard to know how many cats we actually have out there. Some mornings, I’ve counted over 30. Today, I counted 26… I think. I’m pretty sure I didn’t double count, but it’s always possible there are kittens hiding under the cat house that I just don’t see to count, too. I make sure to put a bit of kibble at the openings they use, so they can eat without having to be around so many other older, more active, sometimes aggressive, cats. There’s one mama, the white one with black spots, that tends to be aggressive. With the adults, she usually just growls at them, but with the kittens, she will actually attack them! I don’t know what’s going on with her.
Still, we are making progress with the socializing. I wasn’t able to check with the black fluffy one, but so far, all the ones that have accepted attention are… Yup. Male.
It’s awfully hard to keep the population down, when we can’t get near the females to get them spayed! Yeah, we can do the males, but if we don’t do the females, it won’t make much difference.
Meanwhile…
This inside kittens are just loving the new bed! The fact that it’s so tiny seems to be a bonus for them at this stage. We have another larger cat bed that was donated to us, but none of the cats seem to like it. After washing, the stuffing got all lumpy and won’t go back, which is likely the reason. When the adult cats wouldn’t use it, I brought it into my room after washing it, and the kittens don’t use it, either. But, my goodness, do they like this one!
Today is working out to be a blustery day, and we’ve already reached our high of 18C/64F. We are supposed to get heavy rain soon, so that writes off working on the trellis bed or prepping logs, cutting them to side and bringing them over for the second bed. The down side of having only an electric chain saw! Tomorrow is supposed to be a better day, but I’ll be back in the city to do the first Costco shop.
Oh, to have a van again, and not have to make so many trips to the city!
The weekend also looks good, though, so we should be able to break out the extension cords and get cutting again.
Meanwhile, I’ll be making a trip into town soon. We have water jugs to refill, so I’ll take advantage of it to run a few errands at the same time. I’ll even time it so I can get to the post office when it reopens in the afternoon. I’m not expecting any packages but, if there are any, I don’t want to have to make a second trip.
Our province is having an election right now, and the advance polls are open. I should get that done, too! This year, I’m voting for a friend of mine that’s running in a new party. Our province has been lurching between the same two parties all my life, to the point that there’s really no difference between them anymore. Which is scary, considering one of them is trying to out communist the Communist Party (yes, we have an actual Communist Party on our ballots).
Ha! I paused while writing this to look up some stuff. The polling projections don’t even include all the parties running in them, so they’re useless. The CBC (our government owned propaganda media) has a “voting compass” survey that I just did. At the end of it, it actually did match me with the party I plan to vote for, but some of the questions – particularly the demographic questions – were definitely a problem. You could see how the intent was to frame a narrative of how “good guys” would be voting one way and “bad guys” would be voting anything else.
Well, hopefully, there will be a good turn out of legitimate votes – the level of fraud is much lower on the provincial level than at the federal level – and we’ll have a solid rejection of both of the parties that usually win.
We’re supposed to have a federal election coming up, too. I don’t see our Prime Dictator calling it anytime soon, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he found a way to prevent it from happening at all, over some new “emergency”. He certainly isn’t going to call it until he’s sure the results are going to be what he bought and paid for, and he’s so hated right now, that might be a while. He tried that in the middle of lockdowns, calling an early election in 2021 to get the majority he was shooting for. So the Libs formed a defacto coalition government with the NDP until 2025. Canada has fixed election dates. Federal elections are supposed to be on the third Monday of October, every 4 years after the previous election. Since T2 called an election in 2021, that makes the deadline for the next federal election 2025, instead of this year.
T2 should have resigned long ago, but the recent honouring of a guy that turned out to be actual Nazi in Parliament while the Ukrainian president was visiting should have been the final straw. Instead, the Speaker of the House was thrown under the bus and resigned, and the Liberals actually tried to have the incident removed from Hansard – the official record of all parliamentary proceedings – to make it like it never happened. The Liberals, who were so quick to call the Trucker Convoy and their supporters Nazis – our PM even calling a Jewish MP whose parents survived the holocaust a Nazi supporter – are now trying to make excuses for their own celebration of a Nazi from a division noted for the atrocities they committed. This was in the region my parents are from, that became part of the USSR after the war and is now part of the Ukraine. My parents saw and survived some of this stuff, so it hit close to home for me. Poland has started extradition proceedings now, too.
But I am getting distracted. Needless to say, though, I’m a lot more motivated to get out an vote. While we still can.
Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to curl up and sleep like kittens do?
I had another sleepless night last night. 😢 I don’t know why, but every time I lay down, I started to feel wicked heartburn. At least I think that’s what it was. I could even feel it moving up my esophagus, the longer I was prone. I finished off the last of our Pepto, but I’m not sure that it helped. If it did, it took a long time. I ended up having to set things up so I could be upright, but couldn’t sleep like that.
Of course, with me being upright, the kittens thought it was play time. They actually were an appreciated distraction, for the most part.
I feel better now, but totally wasted. Of course, the usual things still needed to get done, but I skipped my morning rounds and switching out the memory cards on the trail cams and went back to bed. It wasn’t until about 1 or 1:30 that I finally had breakfast. I did get some stuff done, but it mostly made me feel more frustrated about how much wasn’t being done. It’s not like the world will end if these jobs get delayed a bit, but I have that constant feeling of time running out, this time of year.
Well, I’d better be feeling better by tomorrow, because I’m heading into the city to do our first shop for October, whether I like it or not. I’ve decided to do the smaller shopping, rather than the bulk Costco shopping, hitting places like the international grocery store we never made it to last month, etc.
It would have been nice if we could be doing this shop in a new-to-us van, but we’ve had no word on anything there, which means our mechanic hasn’t found something that meets our needs and the financing limitations yet. I’ll be happy just to have it before winter. I really don’t to have to be driving my mother’s car in the winter!
I was dozing off when something warm and fuzzy suddenly slid onto my face. I could reach my phone and was able to try and get some pictures in the dark. Which basically involved putting the phone on self mode, holding where I hoped was facing the right way, closing my eyes so as not to get blinded, and using voice activation to take a picture.
I was at least able to get one good shot!
At the time, I actually had all 5 of the older kittens on various parts of my body. Which was fine, until they got playful. They have very sharp little needle claws!!
Also, there is something amazing when all five of them are loudly purring at the same time. Suddenly, I don’t mind all the little pin pricks all that much.
But sleep would have been nice, too!
I had quite a crowd of kitties outside, too, though I could only count about 23, I think, before I gave up trying.
Would you look at the cheeky b******d!! That grey and white cat on the right? That’s Sad Face. The girls call him Shop Towel, but you can see why I call him Sad Face. He’s getting bold, to come up on the roof like that!
As long as he’s not attacking the other cats, I don’t mind.
I also had a Nozencrantz sighting. She slithered over to the bowl under the shrine, the slunk away when she saw me moving by the house. Later, I saw her watching me through the stack of wood near the shrine that the kittens like to play in so much.
As much as I wish I could get close to her, it’s been fascinating to see her moving around. Once again, no DNA test needed to know who her father was! We used to have a tom we called Nicky the Nose visit regularly, until Sad Face drove him away for good (it looks like The Distinguished Guest is driven off for good, too). We called him Nicky the Nose because of the distinctive patch of colour on his face that made his nose look much broader than it was. Nosencrantz has that patch, but she also has his mannerisms! That quite way she slinks around, with her body hugging the ground. It’s so much like Nicky the Nose that it’s almost disorienting.
And now we have another Nosey. One of this year’s kittens has a patch on her nose, very much like Nosencrantz. I’m not sure where that gene came from this year, but I’m sure Nicky had other progeny in his territory!
After I finished my rounds and headed in side for breakfast, I had a chance to chat with my younger daughter. Having lived in my brother’s house, alone, for almost a month, she got used to a level of cleanliness we just haven’t managed to maintain in this household. I’ll be honest. It’s a disaster. My focus is on the work outside, so there’s only so much I can do inside. My older daughter is shifting from working nights to working days, so there’s only so much she can do without keeping everyone awake. My husband can barely make it to the kitchen to put dishes in the sink, never mind pick up after himself or anyone else. That leaves my younger daughter. She’s been trying, but with so many cats making a mess of things, it’s really hard to keep up. Add to that things like the worn out condition of the linoleum floors, or the stickiness of the paint used on the kitchen cupboards, and cat hair EVERYWHERE, it get overwhelming, fast. Not to mention depressing as hell. But she’s been trying.
Well, today, she’s decided she’s going to work at it more, starting with the bathroom. While I went outside, she cleared the bathroom out and started cleaning and scrubbing. Which is fantastic. The downside is, we’ve only got the one bathroom.
My main frustration was when I finally made it back to my room and discovered things trashed by the kittens again. Ghosty has decided she WILL get to the top of the wall shelf, no matter how many things there are to block her way. A few things got knocked down (not the antique lamp, thankfully!!!), but there was something my brother had left up there before we moved in. The container is like a small margarine container, and it has a moisture and odor absorbing compound in it. That ended up dumped on my bed. It’s been up there for 6 years, so it was mostly granules. Something I did NOT want the kittens getting into! Plus, it landed on my pillow, too.
So there was a lot to clean up, including changing the bedding and getting the sheets that got covered with this stuff, first.
At least the tiny kittens are behaving. Mostly. The only issue with them is that they still pee on the puppy pad, right next to the litter box under my desk. *sigh* I’m glad they are no longer peeing on my bed, at least – that was mostly Toni, but since she’s been out of the isolation ward, she has only been using the litter boxes! I’ve actually run out of puppy pads but, thankfully, the care package my friend gave me included some bed pads used as packing material along with the first aid supplies! So I’ve been using those. Thanks again, M!!! Anyhow, it’s mostly Tiny that uses the puppy pad, even though I’ve seen her use the litter boxes, too. I’ve caught Pom Pom doing it, too. Frustrating!
The lack of sleep is starting to catch up with me. I’ll just do another post, and then I might just try closing my eyes for a bit.
Soot Sprite and Tiny. Pom Pom isn’t much bigger! These guys are all over 8 weeks old.
Yes, we do try to keep up on washing Tiny’s eyes. They seem clear. Just really leaky.
Today, I go to pick up my daughter from house sitting. My brother and husband wife got home late last night. They had been up for 24 hours, so they went straight to bed! They had a fabulous trip. I can’t wait to see them!
While we’ve let the kittens out of the isolation ward (my bedroom/office) a time or two, with not the best of results, we haven’t been letting the adults in. Mostly because we’re trying to control their diet more, and the kittens always have food available.
Some of them, like Tissue, are not friendly to the littles. David, however, is one of the adults that sees a kitten and immediately starts grooming them. He is also not one of the adults that will eat until he pukes, then eat some more. So we’ve started letting him in.
He and one of the tabbies (Tweedle Dum, I think) have really hit it off and will snuggled together for naps. Last night, though, some of the older kittens decided they wanted nip. They tried it with Toni, who generally let them, but at least she had been a nursing mother for a while.
David… he just puts up with it.
We’re going to need to shave him. He’s got too many matts hidden in that fluff, including one huge one developing on his chest. He will not let us brush him, and it’s even harder to cut any of the mats out. He just will not tolerate it.
But he’ll tolerate kittens trying to nurse on him!
I’m happy to see that Brussel’s two super shy kittens are now not only regularly coming to the house, but getting more used to our presence. I was actually able to stand right by the cat house while taking the above photos, and only the orange and white one moved away. Since it then posed for me so nicely, I couldn’t complain!
I just love that face.
I also love that triangle marking over the nose of his sibling!
I’ve been trying to do head counts, and have generally seen anywhere from a dozen to two dozen cats and kittens at a time. Some have simply disappeared. The small orange and white kitten, for example. I haven’t seen it in quite some time, though his ginger brother still hangs out in the sun room a lot. I can’t tell if I’ve seen One Eyed Jack of late, since we have so many tuxedos this year and I don’t usually get a good look at their faces when they’re around.
The inside babies are doing quite well, in general.
The older kittens are great bundles of energy, and the littles sometimes almost manage to keep up. Except the tiniest one. That one is not as healthy. She has gotten used to being handled, though, so this morning I took her to the bathroom and finally gave her eyes a proper wash with warm water. She also had some waste matter stuck at her nether regions. I was able to clean it enough to be sure orifices were not plugged, but couldn’t get it off. It took a fair bit of soaking her nethers in warm water while I washed her eyes, but I was finally able to get it off – and finally confirm that she is a she!
She handled the whole thing rather well, though she did finally tire of the whole thing and try to get away. Ideally, we’d be taking her to the vet to be checked and likely be put on antibiotics, but our vet budget all went to Toni’s amputation, and it’ll be a while before it gets built up again.
As I write this, she and Pom Pom are now curled up with Tweedle Dee on my bed, snoozing.
Speaking of snoozing!
I actually got sleep last night.
That cat nip mix, with the valarian and honeysuckle, seems to have worked!
Yes, they did wake during the night, and they did run around and play for a while before going back to sleep, but they didn’t get the insane and destructive zoomies. Which meant more sleep for me, instead of constantly being awakened by their crashing and banging, or having them stampede over me, etc.
I don’t know if it made a difference with the adult cats or not, since I slept through most of the night (yay!) and my door is still kept closed. They don’t even try to get into my room anymore, which is nice. No more scratchy scratchy! Even Toni has zero interest in coming into the room. She’s more interested in wanting to get outside.
The next vet trip will likely be to get her spayed!
Meanwhile…
Still no sign of the missing ladies that broke out of the house – or that lost dog that’s in our area. Until they find that dog, I think it’s unlikely the ladies will come back here. Too much traffic and commotion. There’s also still no response in regards to adopting the kittens. I will avoid anything to do with that with the Cat Lady for the next while. They’re expecting to be moving soon, with 5 kids, 27 cats and a dog. They’ve got enough on their plates right now!
Hopefully, today, I’ll hear back from the financing company with good news about pre-approval for a vehicle with monthly payments we can actually afford. Pre-approval is no use if we can’t make the payments, even if the banks are crazy enough to think we can pay $800 a month. I mean really. Who can afford payments like that? Especially anyone on a fixed, disability income?
The main thing is for us to get a new-to-us vehicle that is accessible for my husband, before winter. I don’t care about make, model, colour, whatever. We need something that runs reliably, that my husband can get in and out of without hurting himself, and that has room for his walker, as well as our monthly shopping. Especially for the larger, heavier stuff, like the litter pellets and bags of kibble. That alone will save us so much on fuel, since we currently have to make extra trips using my mother’s little car. Still, beggars can’t be choosers. We’ll take whatever our mechanic finds for us. He knows what we need, and will find the best he can for us.
The Re-Farmer 