It’s been a hot one here today, so not a lot of outside stuff until later on. It was fascinating to find out from a dear friend that, in the city we moved away from, they had only 8C, and not too far from there, people got snow!
One of the things I need to do is re-pot some of our indoor plants. Today, I made a trip into the basements (which I usually avoid, because my feet and stairs don’t get along at the best of times!) to rifle through the various plant pots I had seen hidden in various places.
I just had to share some adorable kitten pictures I got today, while doing a head count to make sure they were all there.
They are all snoozy in these pictures, but they were wild beasts, this morning! LOL I tried to go into the sun room quickly, so as not to let any kittens into the old kitchen, but Beep Beep got in my way, slowing me down enough that one kitten snuck through while I was closing the door. I had to open it again to grab, but three more dashed in.
I gave up at that point.
Once in the old kitchen, they went nuts, climbing and running and jumping.
They look so calm and peaceful in the pictures below.
The pictures lie! LOL
Click on the pictures to see them full size.
While taking the pictures, I noticed the 2 kittens eyes were stuck shut again. :-( I thought they were doing better for a while, but they’re still all leaky. So I came back with the supplies to wash them. I’d done it this morning, and found the top of our freezer is the perfect height to work on their eyes, so with the help of my daughter, we got Dave into the old kitchen to wash his eyes. Then I went to put Dave with his cousins and get Keith, but had to quickly hand him through the door to my daughter to take care of, because I was trapped by kittens already.
Especially Dave. Who wanted cuddles.
How could I say no to those sad, leaky, eyes surrounded by water flattened fur?
Dave is growing on us. Big time!
Beyond our kitten fix, it was a quiet Father’s Day, which we celebrated after my daughter got home from work. My daughter had a short shift, so I stayed in town. It’s a good time for me to recharge and relax, though depending on the weather, that often means parking different places, sitting in my van and playing Pokemon Go, under the watchful eyes of my turts.
I used to spend a lot of time in our van, before the move. In our previous van, I was able to cover most of the dash with self-adhesive pearls and beads, glow in the dark “rocks”, and lots and lots of little critters, held in place with Fun Tack. At Christmas, I added tiny trees with itsy bitsy LED lights in them. It was one of those things where people would do double takes and start smiling – or take photos as they drove past. :-D I figured, if I was going to spend so much time in my van, it may as well be my happy place!
When we got this van, I tried to do the same, but the vinyl is different, and the adhesive wouldn’t stick as well. So I have a much smaller display.
I just love that bobble headed turtle, with the wiggly, wiggly legs.
With all the wonderful rain we’ve had, the lawn is quickly reaching jungle proportions. So I started weed trimming the edges before breaking out the riding mower.
It never fails.
Every time I bring out the weed trimmer, I find myself going further and further into the bush.
A series of thunderstorms made their way through our area. Our power flickered off and on about 6 times, that I know of. The first time it happened, I was on my desktop computer, when suddenly, it was off. !! Thankfully, I wasn’t working on anything that was affected by it.
I’m rather happy that we have power bars, everywhere!! :-D
A couple of nights ago, it got cold enough overnight for the furnace to turn on, only to hit highs in the 20’s, half a day later!
Yesterday was supposed to be my day to finally get the mower out – which required taking the snow blowers out first, taking out the riding mower, then moving the snow blowers to the back of the shed until winter. I also made room by taking out the two broken push mowers my brother had tested. I stuck them in another shed at the old hay yard. There used to be a tractor in there, but that is one of the things that disappeared before we moved in.
Once the mower was cleared, I topped up the oil, filled the gas tank, checked it over and…
This is a story that began yesterday, when I found Beep Beep like this.
Yup. The family has finally outgrown the nest I’d made inside the “cat cave” box. Time to open things up again!
Aaahhhh!!! Much better! Lots of room to spread out.
This morning, I discovered Butterscotch had moved her kittens again. With the blanket she’d put them on before now gone, she just used a shelf.
Poor little things!
I had to move the cat cave set up – with Beep Beep and babies inside! – to get to them.
So I took advantage of the situation.
I put them all on top, then after pushing the whole set up back again, I checked out the babies.
It looks like all 4 of them are male.
I had also opened up the box nest that Butterscotch’s babies were in, taking the smaller box out and putting the pillow and little cat bed back inside the bigger box, but should I even bother putting the kittens back in there?
Where would be a good place to put them, instead?
In with the other kittens sounded like a good idea.
Beep Beep came over to sniff them and immediately started to groom them, so she’s fine with it. As you can see, Butterscotch’s babies are real chill about it, too.
Checking them after doing my rounds, I see the kittens seem fine with it, too – one of Beep Beep’s kittens is cuddled right in with its cousins!
Butterscotch, on the other hand, wouldn’t even let me show her where I’d put her kittens. She and Beep Beep aren’t exactly best buddies, so I’ll be checking frequently to see how things are.
We have finally reached a point where enough snow has melted away, and the yard is dry enough, that I can walk around most of the yard.
At least while the ground is still frozen in the mornings.
Which meant I have finally been able to look for the base of the grape vine that got surrounded by spirea, next to the storage house.
I found it.
It’s still hard to see, so I put the arrow in. It’s hard to see because there is a spirea growing right up against it!
I’m going to have to be very careful, clearing that away.
Then I can prune it back and set up some kind of trellis for it to climb. I’m thinking of using the left over wire fencing I used to build the back gate. After that, it will be a matter of keeping the spirea from crowding it again. Hopefully, this will translate to better, bigger grapes to harvest this year. If nothing else, it’ll be easier to get to them! :-)
While doing my much extended rounds this morning, I had some delightful company.
Butterscotch does make it hard to walk at times. :-)
It’s always interesting, looking out our bathroom window into the sun room.
You never know who might be looking back.
Nicky the Nose kept starting at me, unmoving from that position, for quite some time!
What a face. :-D
The cat pile in the cuddle corner consists of Butterscotch and three of her babies; Bob, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Butterscotch is doing very well, with only the occasional cough/sneeze. Her eye was still leaking a bit, yesterday, and looked clear today.
Doom Guy, on the other hand, sounds terrible. His nose is plugged, and every now and then he starts making these weird coughing/sneezing/raspy noises when he breathes. I do think he’s actually getting better, but it’s hard to tell. Unfortunately, he wants lots of cuddles, at the least opportune times. The backs of my legs must be covered with scratches from him! His way of letting us know he wants up is by standing on his back legs and grabbing a leg. Which is rather painful! He also has not figured out that we can’t pick him up at all, if he’s attached himself to the back of our legs.
At least his energy levels are better. :-/
The Outsider, meanwhile, is quite enjoying being an inside cat.
Her inside cat name is now Fenrir, and she has been expanding her explorations zones.
This is a problem.
She can fit behind the fish tank, which was quite a surprise. Yes, she’s tiny, but I didn’t think she was THAT tiny!
She has also managed to get up into the storage space above where the tank is, which was discovered by the sound of her landing in the tank lid, on the way down.
That space is jammed full of unknown stuff that we have not been able to get to; not very high on the priority list of things to clear away and pack up. There is at least one lamp up there, though. We can just see the top of it. It’s now tipped over and leaning against something we can’t see.
She is also determined to get up the shelf against the wall, next to my crafting table, as well as trying to get to the window on the wall. The side where the sill is narrower, of course, and too small for her to actually walk on. I have some stacking shelves on my work table, and several times now, I’ve come in to find it partly knocked down because she’s tried to use it to get to the top of the shelf against the wall. That top of that shelf has all sorts of breakable stuff on it, including two oil lamps and and antique electric lamp, among other things. I’ve been trying to position things to block the cats, but that doesn’t seem to stop them. DahBoy is also determined to get up there, but at least he hasn’t tried using my table shelves to do it. He was about 4 times what Fenrir does.
He and Fenrir are getting along better, but every now and then, he decides to chase her. I usually discover this by the sudden pain of being climbed as she runs up me to get away from him.
I am riddled with little cat scratches all over!
Fenrir has also been horrible about getting under our feet, and has been stepped on (though sometimes, just her long fur) a few times, now. Mostly by me. :-( Interestingly, when that happens and she howls and makes like she’s about to bat at the offending foot, our Mama cat goes on the attack and chases Fenrir. After this happened a few times, it seems like she’s defending me from Fenrir!
I’m really hoping to train her out of climbing my work table – and getting under our feet! – soon!
I swung by the lake this morning, after dropping my daughter off at work.
The fishing sheds are still there – from what I know, they were supposed to be off by three days ago! In the distance, I could see some people walking on the ice to a vehicle. There’s been a lot of plowing of snow, done, clearing “roads” to various areas. The open water that was visible the last time I got pictures from here, due to a water main break nearby, is all frozen over.
This morning, I finally started getting the weather alerts for blizzard conditions tonight, in the southeast of our province. The weather system is blowing up from the US, and there is an expected 10-20cm of snow.
Except locally. Our area is supposed to get light snow flurries overnight.
Starting from about a week from now, temperatures are supposed to go above freezing, and stay there. I’ve been reading about the ice breakers already hard at work on the major rivers to the south of us, that drain into this lake. As the ice will be breaking up and snow melting faster in the US and the South of our province than here, ice dams tend to form, leading to flooding. The ice breakers are working to prevent that and will work their way up towards the lake, as quickly as they can.
Here, the ice will soon start to “rot”, and form into candle ice. This can be very dangerous, as the ice still looks thick and solid, but easily breaks apart. On the lake, at least, the tides will break it apart and start pushing the ice onto the shore. I happened to be on this beach one time, many years ago, as the tide was coming in, and it was really quite dramatic!
It’s already warming up nicely this morning; we even had fog, as we drove to town, closer to the lake. We’re supposed to reach +1C this afternoon, but it already feels that warm in the sun. The outside cats are definitely liking the warmer temperatures, and spending less time in the sun room.
I’m looking forward to when I can empty that room and clean it out, though. The warmer it gets, the worse the cat urine smell. :-( Ah, well. All in good time!
The Re-Farmer 