Crazy kits and cat strangers

Just before I headed out to my mother’s to help her with some cooking, my husband starts laughing out loud in the living room, calling us over.

If you’ve seen his previous post, you know why!

I managed to get some photos on the DSLR, too.

Too funny!

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What a handsome boy he is!

While he was going around the platform feeder, birds would start flying over, see him and abruptly change directions.  It looked like they were dive bombing him!

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He so wanted to get onto the hanging feeder, but it kept moving! :-D

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I don’t know what he found to nibble on up there.  We saw him chewing on things a few times.

I probably don’t want to know what he was eating.

He also was standing on his back legs, trying to climb even higher, but I wasn’t able to get photos.

While Corvo was busily entertaining us, Doom Guy and The Outsider also came over and hung out at the bottom of the planter.  We couldn’t get pictures at the time, but my older daughter caught this one.

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He’s here all the time, now, and seems to have made himself at home.

My daughter also got a photo, a few days ago, of one of the mystery cats that sometimes shows up.

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This is one of two strange adult cats that have been showing up now and then.

He seems pretty chill. :-D

Beyond getting entertained by cats at home, I spent some time with my mother, doing some cooking that will be used by home care when they come by for meal assist later on.  I noticed that another jar of the chili we made for her finally got used.  She told me I should take it home, because it wasn’t “fresh”, and she needs to only eat “fresh” food, for her health.

Well, she eats plenty of stuff that isn’t “fresh” all the time, so I know that’s just something she came up with to excuse not eating the chili.  I explained again to her that the reason I put them up in jars the way I did, was so that it last longer.  It didn’t matter.  Like the chicken my sister-in-law made for her, that ended up going to the cats, she’s simply decided it has gone bad, and that’s that.

So much of the fresh food that was prepared for her ended up being thrown out, because she wouldn’t eat it for some reason, and it actually did go bad.  Such a waste.

I had a chance to show my mother some photos of the clean up I did along the fence line up to the gate, because of a concern she brought up when she phoned to ask me to come over.  It seems “people” have been telling her that I was not just cutting down dead branches, but taking down living trees.  Now, I’ve been keeping my mother in the loop about what I’m doing, including clearing trees from the fence line, because we will need access to it to repair it.  Then she started talking about her lilacs.  She had planted special lilacs by the gate.  I told her on the phone that they’re still there, I just cleaned out the dead stuff and the poplars that were growing in the middle of them.  She seemed taken aback when I mentioned poplars, but she was really upset that I had apparently cut down her special lilacs.  I assured her I hadn’t, then asked who it was that was gossiping about us that she was listening to.  I found out, and was not at all surprised it was the person that is the reason we have to lock our gates.  *sigh*  Ah, well.

So I showed her a picture of the area by the gate I had cleaned up.  Including this one.

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I don’t know what kind of lilacs those are (I wasn’t sure they were even lilacs; she has the usual purple lilacs on the other side of the gate).

It turns out, this wasn’t the gate she was talking about.  She thought I had cut down her white lilacs.

These ones.

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We cleaned up this area, months ago.

She has seen this area since I’ve cleaned it up, so she knew what I had done with it.  But when she was told I was cutting by the “gate”, she thought of the gate into the yard, not the gate at the driveway.

I’ve made a point of keeping my mother in the loop of what we’ve been doing, showing her photos every chance I get, until she is strong enough to come and see for herself.  Yet, all it takes is one person, who has no clue what we’ve done or what we are doing, to start gossiping, and she starts to panic.

So disappointing.

She saw the pictures, however, and I talked about the repairs to the fences that are needed, and the section with posts that will need to be replaces, and so on.  She was happy with what she saw.  It worked out well in the end. :-)

The Re-Farmer

 

 

Oh, what a day! :-D

How the day was going to go was a bit up in the air, to be decided after we picked up our van.  It ended up being a much longer day, but we got the bulk of our monthly shop in, after all.

In order to get the van home, my younger daughter and husband had to come along.  Now, my mother’s car isn’t a compact car, by any means, but my husband tops 6 ft.  Even with the seat back as far as it could go, he had to fold himself in.  He was basically wearing the car!!  Continue reading

Pizza night

After all our running around in town today, we decided a pizza night was in order.

This one’s mine.

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Alfredo Pizza.  One of the best I’ve ever had, with broccoli, chicken and alfredo sauce.

Sooooo good!

Normally, today would have been our day to go into the city for our monthly shop, but that will likely happen the day after tomorrow.  I will be out much of tomorrow, as  I’ve booked an oil change, and I’m asking them to check the wheel bearings and take it for a spin, to see if the mystery noise will start.  We’ll see what they say after their inspection, before we make any trips to the city!

I should be able to visit my mother, as well, since she lives just a couple of blocks from the garage I’m going to.  I will have to try to explain to her – again – that when the home care workers come in for a meal assist, they can only heat up prepared food.  They don’t have the time to cook food from scratch, which it turns out she’s still expecting them to do.  Plus, apparently, she was being very rude to them about it, too.  My older brother, who is their contact person, got a phone call about her not having prepared food for them to heat up.  Which we all had made sure there was lots of.  He was able to get through to our mom (he’s not even in this province right now!) and was able to establish that yes, there is still lots of food in the fridge, and even more in the freezer.  It basically just needs to be assembled into meals and heated – and my jars of chili are still there, too, which need nothing extra done.  She was just being a pain, demanding of them more than they are supposed to do.  :-(

Years ago, my mother worked as a home care worker, but things have changed a great deal since then.  She refuses to accept that.  Still, you’d think she would at least treat them better! :-(

Well, she is slated for a total of 14 days of home care.  She should be recovered enough to be able to do a lot more herself, by the time the two weeks are up.   Which should be early next week.  She surgical area is healing well, and her mobility is quite good (especially for someone who is 87 and is in need of a knee replacement!).  She gets tired easily, which I would expect to continue for some weeks, yet, but she’s getting her 4 daily walks in, as the doctor ordered.  It’s basically just down the hall to the lobby area and back, but that’s enough for now.  She’s really doing very well, even if she complains about what a difficult time she’s had!  :-)  She just has nothing in her personal experience to compare it to.  She was totally convinced she was going to die, though that was partly due to her racism.  She had the best hernia surgeon in the province, but he’s from Nigeria, so…  Sadly, it turns out he’s had problems with his own mother, back in Nigeria, who thinks him being a doctor in Canada is wasting his life!  Poor guy!  At least my brother has made a point of telling him how much he is appreciated, for taking such good care of our mother.

Ah, well.  We shall see how it goes, tomorrow!

The Re-Farmer

Kitten Heaven!

The kittens have been tearing around all over the place!

Last night, I spent some time outside with them, tossing out cat treats in various directions.  The tuxedo was once again the only kitten that would come near me, and even allowed me to pet him.

This afternoon, while heading out to go pick up some prescription refills, they heard as and all came out – even the ones that wouldn’t come near us.  My husband has been putting food out for them in the mornings, but they didn’t all come out until later.

So of course, my daughter and I paused to say hello.

Beep Beep’s kittens now have names.  Meet Doom Guy, the tuxedo.

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Who loves my daughter’s new purse!

While we were out, we started to hear some plaintive meowing from… somewhere.

It turned out to be one of the inside cats, at the kitchen window.

Beep Beep’s tabby went to take a look.  Meet Corvo (why yes, my daughters are gamers… why do you ask? LOL)

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He had even stretched up, with his paws on the wall, trying to get closer to the window, but I wasn’t able to get a picture.  Too cute!

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Butterscotch, three of her babies, and Beep Beep, at the food bowls.  The larger orange tabby made a showing, but I wasn’t able to get a picture of him.

Then, something amazing happened.

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Doom Guy allowed my daughter to pick him up.  He not only stayed (though he wasn’t quite sure how to handle being held) and let us pet him, but even started to purr!!

So awesome!

Just before we left, my daughter had to rescue her bag again. :-D

Well, okay. He’s not quite comfortable around us, yet. :-D

In other things; it had been my plan to work along the fence line today, but it was much chillier than I expected.  So it was a morning to do some crochet.  Later on, I’ll be making a big batch of chili in the crock pot, and setting some aside in jars for my mother, for when she comes home from the hospital.  Between my siblings and I, she will hopefully not have to cook for quite some time, and can focus on recovery.  Though there has been come discomfort for her, everything has been going very well with her.  At the moment, she’s expected to come home on Saturday, and my older brother plans to stay with her for a few days, to help her out.  We should know by then if she will need home care or not, too.  I hope she does get it, just to make sure she doesn’t over do things too early.  My family is notorious for ignoring pain or injury and pushing ourselves through it, even when we shouldn’t! :-D

The Re-Farmer

A kitten let me pet it!!

It’s just one, so far; the tuxedo.  My daughter tells me he let her pet him yesterday, too.

Progress!!! :-D

I was out for much of the morning, taking my mother to the hospital she will be going for surgery at, tomorrow, for her pre-op blood work.  We took her car, since it’s easier to get in and out of for her.  When we needed to replace our old van, I very specifically chose a vehicle that would meet my husband’s mobility needs, which are pretty much the opposite of my mothers. :-D  The trip went really well, and we got back early enough that we could go to church together, too.

When I got home, I noticed branches in the yard, so after lunch I went out to pick them up.

I got distracted by a Beep Beep, who really wanted attention!  So I sat on the side of the concrete landing at the door and started petting her. Her tuxedo kitten was out and, at first, he didn’t want to go near me.  Then, much to my surprise, he came over to snuzzle his mom as I pet her – and let me pet him, too!

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Then they both went behind my back and rolled around on the concrete.  I reached around to pet Beep Beep, and a kitten head pushed itself under my hand!  It was so awesome.

I tried reaching my phone over my shoulder to get some pictures of them behind my back and actually got a good one of the tuxedo. :-D

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I’m hoping, as the other kittens see him enjoying human attention, they’ll relax and start letting us pet them, too.

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The grey tabby, however, still won’t go near me.  I moved to a chair we have by the sun room, and he wouldn’t even go past to get to the food bowls.

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The teeny tabby used to come close and even let me touch, sometimes, but these days, he is acting more skittish for some reason.  He will, at least, go past me to get to the food.

His big brother, on the other hand, almost did, but when he heard me shift on the chair, he ran off again.

He has such a lion-like appearance doesn’t he? :-D

I even caught a glimpse of one of the calicos, dashing away.

I’m so happy.  I got some kitten therapy! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Trampled access

After a lovely rainfall this morning, I took a walk around the outer yard to take a closer look at the areas the cows got into.

They did a fabulous job of trampling down the grass and burdock.

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In fact, their trampling meant I could access places I couldn’t before, including the door to the old chicken coop.  It had been blocked off by burdock before.

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When my parents bought the property, this log building was the summer kitchen.  They eventually converted it to a chicken coop.

Yesterday, while walking around with my sister and our relative from Poland, I tried to open the door, but couldn’t.  There is some shifting in the building, which resulted in a board that ran horizontally across the top of the door, now running across the door itself.

Overnight, however, something has managed to pull the bottom of the door out!  It was not like this yesterday.  The other side of the door is also partially pulled out, but there’s a board in the middle that’s basically jammed into the ground.

I thought I might be able to just pull the door off, but it’s pretty stuck, at top and bottom.  I’d need to get some tools to get it done, but there’s no reason to do that right now.

What I was able to do, however, was stick my phone through the opening and use voice command to take some pictures.  These made for my first view inside this building since I left the farm, 32 years ago!

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It looks like no one mucked it out since before my parents stopped having chickens!

Also, it looks like someone started using it to dump things in.  :-(

The openings at the back are the nesting boxes.  The roosts are on the right, with stuff stacked on them.  On the far right of the photo, you can see what was a ramp for the chickens to use to get up there.

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The caged area on the left is where my parents kept new baby chicks until they were big enough to join the adult birds. We were able to set up a heat lamp in there for them.  In the wall under the window was a little door near the floor.  When we had chickens, there was a fenced area around two sides of the building, enclosing the wall with the main door, and the wall with the window. Outside this little door was a partitioned off area, so we could close off the chicks from the adult chickens outside.  When the chicks were grown enough, we would just leave the doors open for all the chickens to access.  Most times, spring through fall, we opened the door to the fence during the day, so the chickens could range freely.

After checking out the old chicken coop, I went over to the pump shack to check the power cord to the storage building.  From the outside, everything looked fine, so I went in.  I’m glad I did, because I found that when they came out of the building yesterday, the light was forgotten on!

I found the problem, too.

The cable coming through the wall cannot reach the outlet, so there is a short power cord in between.  It’s one of those power cords that, when it’s plugged in at one end, there is a light that turns on at the other end.  When I came in yesterday, I could see the light, but the cable through the wall was gone.  I guess, after I left the pump shack to find the cable, my sister unplugged the short power cord, then went outside. When I found the cable the cows and pulled out, I pushed it through the opening in the wall again.  My sister went back in, grabbed it and plugged the cable in, but didn’t plug the short power cord back into the outlet!

It was a relief to find that.  I still checked for power in the storage building, just to be sure, and it’s working fine.  No damaged cables! :-)

So while the cows did get into all sorts of things, they caused very little damage, and have actually made some things easier to get to. :-)

The Re-Farmer

 

 

Pleasant company, and learning new things.

Today, I got to meet a couple of people in person, finally!

The first was the owner of the cows. :-D

I had expected him to come earlier, so I was a bit surprised when I saw the cows still in the outer yard.  They had gotten into the burn barrel again, so I went out with a big garbage back to pick up the mess and put the burn barrel pieces into a pile again.  I decided to put the bag into the garage and headed that way, only do see the door was more open than I left it (with no handle, I didn’t close it all the way), and stuff was scattered around.  When I came over, I found a cow inside, standing by the van! Continue reading

Let’s face it. Cows are dumb

Today, I give you a story, in pictures and video.

I like cows.  Cows are wonderful creatures.

They are also not exactly intelligent creatures, though I know some breeds are smarter than others.

I was sitting in my office when I started to hear the sound of cows, mooing nearby.  I realize the renter has cycled his cows back to our quarter section, and they are nearby.  Happily, I go outside to see them.

The cows are spread out around the barn, including some in the old hay yard.

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The hay yard is now cluttered with a number of abandoned vehicles and equipment.  Including several old snowmobiles, I’m told are being kept for their parts.

Hearing an odd sound, I look in between various items.

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Can you see the cow’s nose in there?

It took me a few moments to see that the noise I was hearing was of that cow, trying to eat the snowmobile.

To be more specific, the remains of the seat on the snowmobile.

I ended up going through the barn to the hay yard, to get them away from the snowmobiles.  Which turned out to be a good thing, since I found the door to the lean to was open.  There is a tree growing near it that blocks us from seeing it from the house, so who knows how long it was open!

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This is what the cow was chewing on and licking.  In the second video, you could see the cow going for something on the far side of the seat, too.  That would likely be the foam from the seat that it was trying to get at.

Afterwards, I went out the back door of the barn.  Some cows were around where an old shed had collapsed, and I could hear them getting into the metal roofing material that’s in there, so I wanted to check on things.

This is what greeted me out the back door.

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Most of the cows and their calves avoided me, but these two were curious enough to stick around.

I then made my way over to the junk pile, starting to pick up and move over sheets of metal that had been blown over by the winds we’ve been having in the last while.  As I get around the back side of the collapsed shed, I see…

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Yeah.  That black cow with its butt facing me is right on the junk.  There is no grass or weeds there, so I have no idea what she’s after.

I really look forward to when we can get rid of this pile of junk!!

I continue around, which convinces the one cow to get off the junk.  Some move away from me, while others come closer to check me out.  I pick up and re-stack some of the sheets of metal siding, finding things to put on top of the pile to hopefully keep it from blowing over again, and make my way around between the pile and the shed.

One of the cows is braver than the others, and starts coming closer to me, watching what I’m doing.

I quickly realized that she was not chewing on grass, nor her cud.

She was chewing on a foreign object.

You might need to turn your volume up to hear this…

Now, this is concerning, because as far as I can tell, based on what’s lying around, she might be chewing on either wood or metal.

I tried to come closer to her, little by little, hoping to be able to see what she’s chewing on.

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That’s one heck of a side-eye she’s giving me!

I kept trying to move around and get closer, without chasing her away, still trying to look into her mouth and see what she’s chewing on.

After a while, I start getting really concerned, because she’s got foam around her mouth from the chewing, and every now and then looked to be in some discomfort.

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Then the object fell out of her mouth.

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That, my dear friends, is a bone.

A beef bone.

I can’t say I was all that surprised.  This is not the first time I’ve seen a cow chewing on a beef bone.  When I was a kid, I remember walking past one of our cows and seeing her chewing with her head extended weirdly.  She was familiar enough with me that I could walk up to her and reach into her mouth, where I pulled out one of the dogs’ beef bones.  It was not as thoroughly chewed up as this one, though!

I have no idea where she found it, but I wouldn’t let her pick it up again.

She was displeased with that.

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Ooh, this girl had attitude!

I proceed to kick the piece of bone away until I got it to the junk pile.

Once I was away, she started looking for it.

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She wanted that bone back!  She just kept snuffling and snuffling the area.

At this point, I decided it was time to head out and went back around the junk pile to go to the barn.  Where I found…

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This was not here, the last time I tried to clean up around the pile.  In fact, I don’t remember seeing it just a few minutes before, when I went past here to go around the pile and found the cow standing right on the junk.

It is, I believe, from one of the snowmobiles.

I took it into the barn when I went in and closed up the doors again.

As I come out the front doors of the barn, I look back and see…

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Can you believe it?  That cow, with company, actually found where I’d kicked the piece of bone!

I’m hoping she wasn’t able to get it out, but she seems quite determined!

I know it’s a running joke that goats will eat anything.

So will cows.

Including the remains of other cows.

Herbivore fail!

The Re-Farmer

Turtle Victory

I spent a lot of time in our previous van.

It wasn’t unusual for me to be out and about, several times a day, and to spend a fair bit of time just sitting in it, waiting for a daughter to get off work or some such.

So I made it my happy place.

I decorated the dash with all sorts of bling; mostly using white “pearl” stick-ons from the scrapbooking supplies section, in lines and swirls and patterns. I also had things like glow in the dark “rocks” and numerous creatures, held in place with FunTac.  Dinosaurs.  Fish.  Turtles and tortoises. Glow in the dark insects.  At Christmas, I would add in a miniature Christmas tree or two, complete with miniature, battery operated lights.

When that van died and we got our new one, I salvaged all but the sticker gems, intending to start over on the dash of our new vehicle.

I started to do it, but quickly discovered that the vinyl was not the same, and the adhesive on the sticker decorations, as well as the FunTac, didn’t stick.

So I stopped.  At some point, I want to continue.  Maybe.

Until then, I enjoy the few that I have up.

My mother, however, hates them.

For some reason, she believes that if these things are on my dash, that means I worship them.  I should have statues of Jesus on my dash, not frogs or turtles.

We’ve had some… *ahem* … discussions about this.

The night I picked up my mother to drive her to the airport, as she settled into her seat, she suddenly told me to “not look”, reached out and grabbed…

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… my turtle with the wiggly legs.

Much to my surprise, considering it’s held in place with nothing but old FunTac, it wouldn’t budge.

My turtle won the battle, and remains on my dash, watching me as I drive, nodding its head, wiggling its legs, and putting a smile on my face.

The Re-Farmer

Spruce Grove Finds

Empty beer cans are not the only interesting things I’ve been finding in the spruce grove!

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I’ve found a few different seating arrangements that use logs as the supports.

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I’m at a loss as to why these bricks and… a can? are here.  That they have been here long enough to grow moss on them likely means probably no one alive has any idea, anymore!

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The remains a of a wasps nest still hang from a branch.

The dark grey section underneath is actually a sort of ball, hanging down from the rest of the nest above.

Wasp nests are amazing structures!

The Re-Farmer