kitten

Updates on cats, doctors and more cats!

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I woke up late this morning which, unfortunately, meant we had a lot of very hungry cats outside! I asked one of my daughters to simply pour a scoop of kibble onto the sun room floor to tide them over before I could do a proper feeding. Which helped, I suppose, but they were really eager for their morning food. That is when I mix up a small bowl of “cat soup” with just one can of wet cat food, and use that to soften the bowl if kibble, first. I also prep a smaller bowl of kitten soup that I leave on top of the freezer until later. I could hear so much commotion at the door, I ended up taking the bowl of softened kibble and going out the main doors, instead. Even if I had someone ready to herd cats out the door as I went through, I just didn’t want to risk stepping on a kitten!

Which means I filled their food trays and bowls in reverse, doing the furthest ones first and making my way to the sun room. I didn’t take long for them to hear me and come running. Which worked out so well, I’m thinking I might start doing this regularly!

After I finished putting the last of the softened kibble in the sun room trays, I grabbed Frank’s two remaining littles and brought them into the old kitchen to have their own kitten soup without having to fight off other cats. That also gave me time to wash their eyes open again. That done, I quickly popped into the sun room and back again. Frank wanted into the old kitchen and I let her, so she could have the special food along with her kittens.

It didn’t quite work out that way.

She was too nervous and went hiding and exploring around the old kitchen. I let her be and went to get the squeeze treats I bought a while back but never got to using, yet. I gave some to the kittens in their food bowl, then just squeezed the last of it onto the freezer near them, hoping Frank would be tempted. At one point, I was able to reach her and pick her up, but as I moved towards the freezer, she got more and more nervous. Before I could put her down beside her kittens, she panicked, scrambled when her feet touched the top of the freezer, sending food – and kittens! – flying. One of the kittens ended up falling behind the freezer, while Frank ran and hid under a couch.

The other kitten was still on the freezer and done eating, so I let it out through the screenless storm door window. Then I tried to get the kitten that was behind the freezer. It was sitting on the floor, just out of reach. I thought I could use something to push it from behind and get it to move out from behind the freezer.

Instead, it disappeared. It took me a moment to realize it had gone into the opening where the freezer’s guts are! After several attempts, to reach it, it finally came close enough that I could grab it and lift it out without getting tangled in things I could feel, but not see, in there!

The kitten got to enjoy a bit more food and squeeze treat, but Frank wouldn’t come out. I finally went out with the kitten, hoping that Frank would go onto the freezer and eat, while I wasn’t in there.

The kitten joined the cuddle puddle – and was nuzzling Sir Robin, trying to nurse!

I spent some time refilling water bowls, then opened the doors to the old kitchen, where I found Frank just inside, waiting. She never ate what was on top of the freezer, and was very eager to just leave the old kitchen! That gave me a chance to take the bowl of kitten soup and leave it out for other kittens to finish. There was still the glob of squeeze treat on the freezer, though. I ended up picking it up with my fingers, trying to hold it in my hand. It was messy, but I got most of it. I then went to the cats and kittens at the kitten soup bowl.

Two kittens I’ve never been able to get close to before where there. Both of them happily licked the squeeze treat off my fingers instead of running away!

Then they ran away. 😄

Meanwhile, I started getting messages from people with the rescue. This continued throughout the morning, and while I was in the city. Long story short, we might be bringing as many kittens over on Sunday as we can get into carriers! I’ll have to get some clarification, first, though. There seemed to be some communication issues. Tomorrow is Saturday, so I need to get that cleared up fairly quickly!

When I was done my morning rounds, it wasn’t much longer before my daughter and I started for the city. We left insanely early, to give ourselves time to get lost. 😄 I did look the place up on the map last night, plus I had Google Maps up on my phone to give directions. The route looked pretty straightforward, though what it was showing in the app did not match was I saw on my desktop last night. The address was the address, though, and I did remember the area fairly well, from my days when I used to work around there, and lived just across the river. I was not looking forward to trying to find the address, then finding parking. The area is mostly narrow, one way streets.

We did make a stop at my mother’s down along the way, though, to pick up a couple of energy drinks and some chicken and wedges for breakfast. From there, I got the app going to give me directions while I drove. My daughter was a sweetheart and passed potato wedges to me while I drove. I couldn’t eat my chicken while driving, but my daughter could eat hers, and I was more concerns that she got some food in her. She has a terrible habit of not eating, because eating most foods makes her sick. We have not been able to track down exactly why.

As we got into the city, I had the app up on the dashboard holder, but for some reason, it wasn’t giving voice directions. So my daughter took the phone so she could see the map and gave me the directions as we went along. I did remember the route from checking the map last night, but it’s been so long, I preferred having a navigation officer!

When we got to where the area, one of the first problems I noticed was not being able to find street numbers, anywhere. We got to where the app said the address was at, but couldn’t see anything to show where the clinic was. Specifically, a building tall enough, as the endocrinologist clinic was on the 9th floor.

With the one way streets, we drove around the block a couple of times, made slower because of construction, before finally spotting a parkade that didn’t have a “lot full” sign and headed in. We figured we could find the place more easily on foot. It couldn’t be far.

We then had the fun time of trying to find a place to park with enough room for our truck. The first four levels were all reserved parking. We finally got to a level that wasn’t all reserved, but the first side of that level was half roped off, apparently reserved for “game day”. We finally got to where it no longer was all reserved, and nothing was roped off, but the only open spots we saw were “small car only”.

Then I spotted two accessible parking spots.

My daughter and I don’t have our own accessible parking placards, but we do have my husband’s. We used it and finally parked.

My daughter actually forgot her cane at home, but we had three spares in the truck. After she grabbed one for herself, I decided to grab another for myself, just in case.

I am so glad I did. My left hip may be better after the steroid injection, but that lasts for only so long, when pounding concrete!

We had to back track to the street the clinic was on (with a gorgeous, castle-like cathedral as a landmark; I once had the opportunity to go there for mass, when I lived in the area, and can attest it’s as beautiful on the inside as the outside), then tried to find someplace with a street number. We found one, but didn’t know which direction we needed to go for the clinic. We were in the 300’s, and the address was in the 200’s.

We were about to wing it when I spotted a guy in a suit about to cross a street, so I quickly asked him if he knew where the clinic was, and which direction we’d need to go. He was an absolute sweetheart, quickly found the place on his phone (his app got it right, where ours clearly didn’t!) and pointed us in the first direction. We had about 3 blocks to walk, though part way along, the sidewalk was blocked off for construction (which was happening all over the place), so we’d have to cross the street, then cross back again, along the way.

The guy was so wonderful and happy about giving directions, he really made our day!

So, off we went, picking our way through construction at an intersection across from the area blocked off for construction (!!!) before finally making it to the final stretch. That’s when we could see a big billboard sign for a clinic. We couldn’t actually read all of it, because there was a tree growing right in front of it, but we could make out enough that it looked right. The entrance wasn’t on the street the address was on, though, and as we walked past the corner and could see the other side of the billboard, which wasn’t blocked by a tree, we realized it wasn’t the right clinic. We still popped in to ask for directions.

The lady pointed out the window to another high rise building across a parking lot.

A building with a huge painted on sign on the side.

With the name of the clinic at the bottom, in white paint on a pale blue background, barely readable.

We were very appreciative for the help.

Thank God we left as early as we did! My daughter’s appointment was at 1pm. We reached the front doors at about 12:40!

When we got to the 9th floor, the elevators opened up to a reception desk.

With things roped off in front, as if under construction. I think it was actually just to keep people from waking up to the counter, though.

There was no one at the counter.

We tried reading the sign, all it really had was arrows for endocrinology in both directions, and some doctor’s names. My daughter didn’t have a name for the doctor she was booked at, so we didn’t know which way we had to go. I spotted a cleaning lady, so I asked her which way to the endocrinologists. She asked which doctor we needed to say, and I told her we didn’t know. She said the staff (meaning the receptionists) were on lunch and would be back soon, so they’d be able to tell us.

We thanked her and went to a nearby waiting room. We couldn’t see the reception desk from where we were but, thankfully, could hear when someone was at the counter. My daughter and I – and several more people in the waiting room – promptly headed over to check in!

… and ask where a bathroom was. It was a long drive!

Of course, it was while my daughter was still in the bathroom that someone came out and called her name! I let them know. 😄

Even with all that, my daughter ended up at her appointment almost 10 minutes early!

She was out much faster than I expected for a first time appointment. She had requisitions for blood work, one to be done right away, the other to be done later. She had been told there was a lab on the ground floor, and she could get her first blook work done there, so that was her first stop.

When we got there and she was checked in, I asked about how long it would be, since the waiting room was quite full.

About 40 minutes was the answer.

!!!

It turned out they were short staffed today, and falling behind.

With time ticking on our parking spot, we decided it would be faster if we head out and stopped at a lab on the way home.

So, off we went to get the truck and head home, this time taking a route I was much more familiar with. It wasn’t until we got home that I had a chance to check why we were sent to a completely wrong area.

It turned out the address in my calendar for the clinic had two numbers reversed. The bizarre thing is, when I was looking at the address and directions on the website last night, I saw the address that was in my phone. Yet, when I looked up the clinic last night, I used the street address that was on my phone, and found it.

So weird!

As we were leaving the clinic, my daughter made a comment about how much she appreciated our new doctor, but she was going to wait until we were out of the city, and I didn’t have to focus on traffic so much (dancing around more construction) before telling me how it went.

We did make one stop along the way. Gas prices in my mother’s down had dropped to $1.269/L, but I planned to get gas in the city. I’d seen a station on the way in that had gas at $1.239/L and was planning to go there – until we passed a station with gas at $1.199/L !! I was just over a half tank and put $40 in, which filled my tank! I can’t remember the last time I was able to fill my tank from half for only $40!

Once we were out of the city, I remembered to ask my daughter how the appointment went.

Not well.

It was a very short appointment and I won’t go into detail, but the doctor was very rude and “just an old b***”, as my daughter described her. Long story short, though, by the time she told me some of the things the doctor did, my jaw was dropping. She needs to make a formal complaint. The doctor apparently made it clear she was disgusted by my daughter’s body. My daughter has hirsutism. She was there because of her PCOS. How does an endocrinologist not encounter a PCOS patient with hirsutism before? Or maybe she has, and just treats all her hairy female patients with hormonal disorders with disgust?

As if that weren’t bad enough, my daughter was manhandled, without explanation nor consent, in a way that is considered sexual assault. Sure it was a physical exam, but NO doctor is supposed to touch a patient like that without first explaining what they were examining for, and getting consent.

She also tried to test my daughter’s reflexes, but kept missing the tendon, then getting ticked off because there was no reaction to her hammering on my daughter’s ankle.

I really hope my daughter files a formal complaint, because… damn!

Along the way, we stopped in the town our doctor’s clinic is in, to do her first blood tests at the lab in the hospital. My daughter went in to get her tests done, while I stayed in the truck to finally eat the rest of my breakfast!

I’m glad we chose to go to a lab on the way home. My daughter was out so quickly – with two people called in ahead of her – that I was just finishing eating when she came back to the truck! Had we stayed at the lab in the city, we would have been just getting out and heading to the truck, unless they fell behind even more.

Her second set of blood tests can be done whenever she is able, but for this one, she is supposed to take a medication at 11pm, then get her blood tested at 8am.

I don’t even know if the local labs are open at 8am. I think they open at 9am. We’ll have to figure that out. Either way, she has a prescription to pick up before she can do the second test.

After the results are in, she hopes to get a telephone appointment only, or pay extra to get the results emailed to her. She does NOT want to go back to this doctor. I told her that she needs to let her regular doctor know about what happened so that, if necessary, she can get referred to another endocrinologist. Apparently, there’s a new clinic being built and there’s already a long waiting list for it, but she’s more than willing to wait, rather than go back!

For the most part, my daughter is just angry, but she realizes that a patient with, for example, a history of sexual abuse, a visit like this would have been very traumatic.

So glad that appointment is over with!

By the time we got home, it was late enough that the first thing I did was get the outside cats fed. No crowd trying to break through the old kitchen door during the evening feedings! Then I got changed and head outside, focusing on getting all the now-dry stuff from the sun room packed up and put away in bins with lids.

As seems to be the usual around here, it took longer than I expected, but I finally got it done!

The storage area is now organized and packed. Before winter, more things will be added for storage but, over all, it is done. On the cat side of the room (second picture) I still need to figure out where to set the second heat lamp, which has a lower wattage heat bulb, but that’s pretty much it. That cats really, really like the new set up! More and more of them seem to have figured out the litter boxes, too.

Finishing the sun room meant I could finally move the cat isolation shelter under the canopy tent.

That took some doing. The wheels kept sinking into the soil! That thing is heavy. What I would like to do, once I have the spare funds for it, is replace the wheels with something larger. For now, I put scraps of cardboard under the wheels to keep them from sinking into the dirt. I also have some handles I want to add to the front and the back, so it’ll be easier to move around.

Meanwhile, the cats can still use it where it is now.

Or that one skunk I have been finding, napping in the cat bed!

The box to go over the ramp door during the winter needs a bit of work. The overlapping plastic cracked when I set it on its side to attach the legs. I did try to set it where it could overhang the edge of the well cap, but it kept moving while I tried to work on it. Nothing some duct tape can’t fix. 😜 The panel in front, with a smaller opening for the cats to get through, was broken by cats panicking and hitting the edges while running out, so that needs to be trimmed. I also want to add a couple of pieces of the same material used for the legs to the sides, as handles to make moving it around easier. Right now, it’s hard to get a grip on it without damaging that roof panel even more.

It might be a couple of days before I can do the painting. Saturday would be perfect for it – a warmer day and, more importantly, a warmer night in the forecast. I might be able to get just one coat on before it starts getting too cold for wet paint to cure, but even that is better than nothing.

I’m going to be out and about a lot over the next while. Tomorrow, I’ll be at my mother’s for longer than usual. Along with her grocery shopping, I will be cooking up some of the chicken she was so angry at me for buying for her. I even remembered to ask her to take it out of the freezer tonight, so it’ll be thawed out before I get there. She’s also asked me to trim her toenails for her. I want to take a good look at her feet, as she apparently is getting an ingrown toenail, and that might need to be checked by a doctor. Of course, I’ll be doing some housework for her, changing her bedding, probably doing her laundry. Some of this stuff, my sister would normally come out on Fridays (my mother’s scheduled laundry time with the shared machines) and do for her. Since my mother gets her Meals on Wheels at noon on Fridays, I don’t plan to be there until about 1pm, so she has a chance to eat, first, and I can take the tray out to the common room for pick up, later in the week.

Saturday, I’ll be out again for a dump run, but that shouldn’t take long.

Sunday afternoon, I will be meeting to drop off cats near a Walmart, so if there’s any last things we need before Thanksgiving on Monday, that would be my time to get it.

Then I get to stay home for a while! The only appointment I have next week is a telephone follow up about the injection to my hip. I’ve got lots to do to prepare beds for winter sowing, as both day time highs and overnight lows will soon be cool enough to sow seeds but not have them germinate until spring.

Little by little, it’s getting done.

The Re-Farmer

Potting up and look what I found!

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This morning, my daughter helped me get all our plants out of the cat free zone (aka the living room) to the table I set up for them outside. The living room doesn’t have very good light unless things are right in front of the window, and there just isn’t space for the large pots that we have. Plus, the living room has become an oubliette, and what goes in there tends to get forgotten about! It’s a good thing we’ve got mostly succulents, and they can handle getting dried out rather often!

Getting the plants out is not an easy task. I can carry the pots well enough, but we’ve got the makeshift door to the living room that my daughter would open and close for me, making sure no cats dash into their forbidden zone. Then I had to make my way to the front door. The cats, of course, were very curious about what was going on, so we were wading through cats to get to the entry. Then there are two steps I need to go down. Normally, I need to use the arm bar for any steps in the house. No such option with a plant pot in my arms! Thankfully, the washing machine is right there, so I could put the heavier pots on it. Then my daughter could squeeze past and open the door to outside for me, where we had to run interference on a Sir Robin. The little bugger is fast! He almost got into the house!

After many trips, we got all the pots out and I could start repotting, as well as giving things a thorough soaking.

It didn’t take me long to realize I didn’t have enough potting soil, nor enough pots. At least not prettier pots. I’ve got lots of greenhouse and nursery pots, suitable for the garden or food forest, but not really for house plants.

I got our smaller succulents repotted – one of them was in a pot that was so old, the plastic was starting to crumble and crack, every time I moved it! We also have the coffee tree that I got for the girls a while back. It was a sort of cluster of trees when I got it, but they all started dying off. We were down to two, when I brought them out today, and one was dead. The other, however, had burst into new life, with bunches of new leaves! It didn’t need a new pot, but it did need an immersion soak for a while.

When I did as much as I could, I decided I needed enough stuff to make it worth a shopping trip. The garbage dump is also open today, so I did our dump run first. I really hate doing dump runs now. The area in front of the pit is worse, every time I got, and it’s getting to the point that there’s hardly room for vehicles to get in and turn to back up to the pit. Normally, they use a front end loader to push the stuff along the edge further into the pit, but it’s just not getting done.

Bah.

Anyhow.

I ended up finding what I was after, in three places. My first stop was Canadian Tire. I thought I might find the potting soil there, but what they had was not the right kind, and they were sold out of quite a bit. I did find some other things that we needed, though, plus I got a couple of extra bags of stove pellets. One for the litters, one for the garden, as mulch.

From there, I went to the Dollarama, and that’s where I found the pots I was looking for, and much more reasonable prices. The challenge, though, is finding pots stable enough to hold large, heavy jade plants. Most are really narrow at the bottom, and get quite tippy, but I found some square ones that were only slightly narrower on the bottom.

Then it was off to the Walmart. They had a large display of bags for the garden outside, and I found large bags of the potting soil I was after. I was very tempted to pick up some peat and more manure as well, but not today.

I grabbed two of the biggest bags of potting soil

Then it was inside to pick up a few more things, including more canned cat food for the outside kitten soup, and kibble for the inside cats.

By the time I was done and home, it was getting close to feeding time for the outside cats. Since I needed to get them away from the truck that was pulled up to the house, I went ahead and did that early.

After I parked the truck, I spotted someone!

The toritie… calico… tortico is back!

It has discovered the joys of kitten soup, too.

I did eventually catch glimpsed of the fluffy orange kitten, with the white and grey, that always seem to stick together. Those two have become fairly regular visitors to the food bowl, but I haven’t seen this … toritico, since we first spotted the kittens, not long ago. I think there is still one more out there, possibly a calico, but I’m not sure.

Then it was back to potting up the plants.

Which took way longer than expected.

I probably could have used more pots.

Ah, well.

Here are the before and after pictures.

There was one large jade plant in a very tiny pot. That one was pretty easy, as it just got transferred to a bigger pot. The other two big pots where something else, entirely! For starters, there are a lot of individual plants in those pots, largely due to broken branches regrowing. They were also a lot floppier, as neither of them could get the full sunlight they needed.

There are now ten jade plants, plus two tiny pots of little jade plant babies. Nine of those came out of the two big pots. I could actually have gotten more, but I chose to pot some smaller trunks together.

With some of the pots, you can see black “pipes”. There were four of them in one of the big pots. Those are spare parts from plastic shelves that I set up in the old basement. The ceiling is too low for the full height of the shelves, and the unused vertical pieces came in very handy to add support the jade plant when it started falling over under its own weight. Then I discovered that they worked really well to water from below. So now, I’ve split up the pipes between four pots.

You can see three pots with orange paracord in them. That’s what I used to tie some of the more bendy, floppy stems to vertical supports. Once they have had lots of sunlight for long hours, the should get strong enough to support their own weight. There’s one pot that could have used some supports, too, but I ran out of anything of suitable size.

The biggest, square pot didn’t get fully repotted. I took out the smaller side stems, but left the biggest ones, and just worked in fresh potting soil at the top.

Two of the aloe vera just needed to have their soil refreshed and topped up. One pot, however, had two plants in it – plus three babies! So now there are four large pots and three tiny pots.

The big, purplish succulent in the rectangular pot was bigger than I thought. It really could have used a longer pot! This plant lays down on the ground and sends new roots out, all along the stem. It also propagates very easily, so there are a couple more in another pot, along with the tiny survivors of another fuzzy leaved succulent.

With so many pots now, there’s no way we have enough room for them all. I’ve started offering them out and, so far, have one taker. Hopefully, they will take several pots! If we got the jade plants and aloe down to just one pot of each, that would be great!

They’ll be staying outside for the rest of the summer, so hopefully, we’ll find new homes for them before they have to come back inside.

When this was finally done, it was starting to get pretty late. I did the evening watering, including the new food forest additions. It was getting pretty dark by the time I was done!

It’s now coming up on midnight, and I haven’t even eaten supper yet!

I am so ready for bed.

Food first!

😄

The Re-Farmer

Birds, gardens, kittens and pain

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Things were definitely all over the place today!

I was out doing my morning rounds pretty early. That’s always disorienting. By the time I’m done and settling it, I feel like it should be 2 or 3 in the afternoon, only to find it isn’t even 9 in the morning yet!

Our permanent trellis may only have the vertical posts so far, but it’s already being appreciated by birds.

I zoomed in with my phone’s camera, before getting closer and startling it away, so the image quality is not very good. It’s still enough to see that this is a type of bird I don’t recognize at all. Pretty, whatever it was, and it enjoyed a nice little rest on top of one of the trellis posts.

I also got a tiny harvest in this morning. I picked what is probably the last of our garlic scapes.

You can see one is starting to split a bit; the consequence of not harvesting for a couple of days. The scape was starting to straighten out again, and getting ready to form bulbils. I didn’t notice it when I finally did a larger harvest of scapes, yesterday, thinking the straighter stem meant it was too early to pick, rather than getting almost too late to pick! That’s okay. It’ll still taste good!

As I was getting ready to head inside, I managed to get this adorable picture of Havarti.

He’s more feral than the other kittens but is starting to clue in that when I pick him up and carry him, it usually means I’m putting him next to a bowl of kitten food. We make a sort of cat soup for the littles, but some of the adult cats have discovered it and can get pretty aggressive about eating it before the littles have a chance!

Havarti’s two siblings are still missing. Every day we don’t see them, the more convinced I am that, wherever Caramel took them, they have not survived. She is always here, and I sometimes see her in one of the cat beds in the water bowl shelter, covered in kittens and napping. This is not the behaviour of a mama cat with babies in another location.

I managed to get a picture of Captain Hastings this evening.

Poirot has been diligent in keeping her babies close to the sun room, and we’ve often seen her picking up Inspector Japp and carrying him back to the house if he goes too far! Hastings and Miss Lemon tend to stay closer, though.

It looks like Hastings will be another blue eyed beauty!

I just got back from chasing a racoon and a skunk out of the sun room. I found Caramel in the water bowl house, snuggled with Havarti. She definitely is down to one kitten.

This time of year is normally when the more feral cats are starting to wean their kittens, bringing them to the house where there is reliable food, water and shelter.

That isn’t happening.

Just now, I saw Slick – aka: Octomom, as she had a litter of 8, two years ago. She was one of the pregnant ones that would come close to the house for food, but we couldn’t otherwise get close to. She is one of three ferals, for sure, that were definitely pregnant and suddenly were looking skinny again.

Slick is looking pregnant again.

Which means, she lost a litter.

As for the other two ferals, I haven’t seen any sign of kittens with them, either. At least neither of them are looking pregnant, though!

I don’t quite know what to make of it. I suppose I should be glad I’m not finding remains to bury, as happened so often last year, but it does make me wonder.

Oh, there is another possibility.

The nearest farm to ours that has someone living there full time is our vandal, and I know they care for a colony, too. I can see on our trail cams that some of our cats head in that direction, too.

Perhaps they had babies, but took them to our vandal’s place, instead?

It’s possible, I suppose. Not likely, but possible!

Anyhow.

When I first headed out this morning to get the food ready for the outside cats, I realized something.

There was a cat stuck in the old kitchen all night!

The old kitchen is our “buffer zone” between the house and the sun room. It’s sort of tacked on to the original log portion of the house. When heading out or in, we make sure to close the doors. That way, the inside cats don’t end up outside, and outside cats don’t end up inside, but if they do get through, they’ll only get as far as the old kitchen.

The problem is, the door from the main part of the house to the old kitchen is an antique door. I love it, but it doesn’t always close properly. Sometimes, I’ll be convinced it’s closed, but when I open the first door to the sun room, the air pressure change pushes open the door into the house.

Well, I guess something like that happened during yesterday’s evening feeding. My daughter was helping me and, as she started back into the house from the sun room, she discovered a whole bunch of inside cats in the old kitchen!

We thought we got them all out.

Unfortunately, the old kitchen has been used for storing things temporarily. One corner was full of cardboard set aside all winter, to be used in the garden. It is also where we put our garbage bags until we can go to the dump. Which we haven’t been able to do properly, since the box cover was blown off the truck. Without a cover, there are too many lighter bags that would end up blown into the ditches. Between that and things coming up to prevent us from getting to the dump, we have way too many bags of garbage in the old kitchen. With those, the cardboard, the furniture, chest freezer and old wood burning cook stove, there are a LOT of places a cat can hide.

This morning, while getting the kibble ready, I started hearing meowing, but couldn’t see anything. My daughter came to help with the cat feeding, and she couldn’t see anything either. Once the outside cats were fed, she and I started passing things out of the old kitchen, mostly through the door with the missing screen (which has been SO handy!), to clear space. A few garbage bags, stuff for the burn barrel we can’t burn because we’re under a fire ban still, and all the carboard I was setting aside for the garden.

The old kitchen feels down right huge, now!

Still no sign of a cat.

We did eventually track the meowing to coming from under a dresser. My daughter ended up removing its 2 drawers completely, only for the cat to run out and under the couch. We did figure out it was Tiny. No wonder we didn’t realize she was missing. She is one for hiding away on top of the closet in the entry, or other secret places, because some of the other cats bully her.

So I continued my morning rounds while my daughter made sure to unlock the other door, so I wouldn’t have to go through the sun room and potentially scare a cat into hiding again.

By the time I finished and was back inside, I found my younger daughter on her knees, trying to persuade a cat out from under the couch. Her sister had already left a bowl with the contents of a squeeze treat in it, but the bait wasn’t enough.

My daughter did find a way to get Tiny to come out voluntarily, though.

A tin of wet cat food, and David.

Tiny loves David. The two of them get along incredibly well.

My daughter put a bowl of wet cat food in the middle of the floor, then brought David in, leaving the door from the house into the old kitchen open, standing guard to make sure none of the other cats went in.

Tiny saw David and immediately came out.

She saw the food bowl he was at and ran over to eat.

She saw the open door and ran into the house!

I strongly suspect Tiny is not going to sneak into the old kitchen again. At least not for a very long time!

Very glad my daughter was able to take care of that!

Meanwhile, my husband had his appointment at the new pain clinic today. I was finished my morning rounds so early, I was actually able to try and lie down and close my eyes for a couple of hours, before trying to drive.

My husband also tried to go back to sleep. He had a horrible night last night. Ozempic side effects. He’s been on it for years and they keep increasing the dose. I don’t know why he’s still on it. It is not working. Oh, and the weight loss side effect everyone is being prescribed it for these days? He has lost zero weight, but he HAS lost muscle mass. Which is the “weight loss” of Ozempic, though in his case, the number of the scale hasn’t changed in years. One of the other side effects, however, has sometimes been a problem. That particular side effect had my husband taking a shower and doing laundry at 2am.

Nasty stuff. I can’t understand why anyone would take it, if they weren’t diabetic – and even then, I don’t think it’s worth it!

Neither of us managed to get much sleep before it was time to start heading out. I had deliberately made a point of resting my injured left arm as much as I could yesterday, so that I would be okay for driving.

I forgot something.

The broken handle inside the driver’s side door. The one that requires opening the window and twisting my left arm around to open the door from the outside.

*sigh*

After moving the truck closer to the house for my husband, I had to give it a go, and it was way more painful than it should have been. I was still okay to get his walker out of the entry and down the concrete steps so my husband could use it to walk the rest of the way to the house. He used a cane to go through the old kitchen and sun room, to avoid the steps he’d have to taken using the main entry.

In working with his walker, however, we discovered a problem.

It’s been a long time since my husband has had to go anywhere, so his walker has been in the entry for a while.

The cats climb it, of course.

Well, one or more of them decided to pee on the cushioned seat, even though the walker was folded up. While getting it in an out of the truck, folding and unfolding it, we realized it was even still wet.

Once at the hospital, we were directed to the new pain clinic, which happens to be sharing the same area as the outpatient clinic my daughter will be going to for her surgery. We went through the registration process and my husband settled down to wait. Typically, to take pressure off his back, he will sit in a chair and lean forward onto his walker, stretching his back out.

The smell of cat pee was so bad, he took his cane out of the holder and asked me to put the walker back in the truck.

!!!

When I got back, he was already taken to see the first pain clinic specialist. This guy turned out to be a physiotherapist. My husband had a questionnaire to fill out, along with a list of his medications, and send in some time ago. They were going over that first. We went over the many things attempted before we moved, and how things went at the city pain clinic in this province he managed to get to (that was a waste of 2 years on a waiting list!) in 2020.

After going over all that, he left to consult with the doctor, who then came to get us for the second part of the appointment.

The doctor was looking at the husband’s CT scans from November, and we appreciated that he was honest with us.

There really isn’t anything they can do for him.

Which is pretty much what my husband expected to hear.

Everything that could be tried, has been tried. He’s on the medications. He’s had the various treatments. In the end there were just two things they could offer. One was information about scheduled workshops they have available online, though in person is also a possibility, for those who are able. They cover a variety of things to help cope with and live with chronic pain. My husband has been living with is for so long, he’s probably tried or has been doing them already. Still, there might be something he hasn’t tried, yet.

The other is physiotherapy.

My husband did the physio route pretty much from the start. It kept him going for a long time, and he even started to get better. He started out seeing a physiotherapist three times a week. She got him down to once a week. He was still able to work at this time, too.

The insurance covers physio 100%, but with an upper limit, so once that limit was reached, my husband had to stop physio until the fiscal year started again. Without the equipment used on him, his condition deteriorated during that break, but then he started up again and things started to improve.

Then the physiotherapist was lured away by a rugby team. The therapist that replaced her was… not as good.

There was much more going on that affected his condition as well that I won’t get into here, but it wasn’t much longer before my husband couldn’t work anymore and went onto disability. Then we ended up here, on the farm I grew up on, in a province where some of the specialists that had been helping my husband before don’t even exist.

Anyhow. That’s what we both thought of, when physiotherapy was brought up. There’s no way my husband can handle driving all that way, multiple times a week. Even when he got a prescription for physio with the first doctor he had after our move, and he could have gone to a closer therapist, it just didn’t happen. With only, at best, 10 sessions covered by insurance, why even bother? Of course now, we couldn’t afford the gas, either.

Well, it turns out they can try something different.

Physio, done at the pain clinic, is covered by our medicare system, for starters. It would also be just once a month, with my husband being given a regimen he can do at home until the next session, when things can be adjusted as needed.

Once a month with a 45-50 minute drive one way, my husband can do.

We are now booked with the first guy we saw today, next week!

Beyond that, however, there really isn’t anything that can be done about my husband’s condition. His doctor is going to get a report, and she can take it from there again.

That done, my husband and I headed out. As difficult as it was for him with just a can and not his walker, it was lunch time, and he wanted McDonalds. 😄 It’s probably been more than a year since he’s been to one. So we went to the nearby Walmart and had lunch, then I left him to enjoy the fries he had been craving to do a bit of shopping. My first city shopping trip is in just a couple of days, but we were going to run out of cat food before then.

During the drive home, we actually drove through some rain! Not a lot. We still need much more! Thankfully, the kibble I got that was in the box of the truck came in plastic bags, not paper, so the rain wasn’t an issue.

We kept the girls updated the whole time, so when we got home, my daughter had the gate open for us, and was able to help me bring things inside. As careful as I was, my arm was really throbbing by then.

Oh, I discovered two things while taking my husband’s walker to the truck.

One, I really, really like using a walker.

Two, my right arm hasn’t completely escaped damage. While leaning on the walker’s hand bars, my left arm was actually quite a bit better than when my daughter brought it out to help me get back to the house after my fall. My right arm, however, seems to still have some damage to a triceps. Nothing I notice unless I am pushing down on something, though.

Once everything was inside and taken care of, my daughter took care of my husband’s walker. She took it outside and scrubbed the whole thing down, top to bottom, hosed it down, then took the carpet and furniture shampooer to it. That thing looks brand new, now!

It’s also now stored in the old kitchen, where the cats can’t get at it!

Unless they sneak in and hide overnight, like Tiny did!

With all this, my husband is completely worn out and drained, and in so much pain. Hopefully, he’ll be able to actual sleep tonight, and not end up feeling sick again.

As for me, I’m happy to say the arm is doing better. I was able to get a bit done outside this evening. I went over the pink rose bush again, looking for any scale insects I missed. There were a few! I treated it with another soapy water spray, too. It’s only been a day, but I think the rose bush is already looking less droopy than it was, yesterday! We only have the one pink rose bush, so I would hate to lose it.

While checking on the rest of the garden, I noticed insects on the winter squash again – possibly thrips. They got the soapy water treatment, too. The winter squash are trying to bloom like crazy, but the plants are not looking very healthy at all. The transplants were very strong and healthy, so this is disappointing.

So, that has been our day today! It’s been a wonderfully cool and, at times, rainy day today. The only downside is, our overnight low is currently expected to drop to 6C/43F tonight – which is actually an improvement! This morning, they were saying we might drop to 4C/39F. With temperatures that low, I’d be looking to cover some of the garden beds to prevent cold damage! Meanwhile, the 10 day forecast has us looking at temperatures approaching 30C/68F, soon.

Good grief. It’s hard to believe we’re almost at July already.

Oh! I forgot one bit of good news!

We got a call from the door guy at the hardware store I went to last week. We now have an appointment for three days from now. He’s going to check out the damage, take the measurements he needs, and we’ll start talking what options we have, and how much it’ll cost.

I know it’s going to be painfully expensive… well… everything is painfully expensive right now. However, once that door and frame is fixed, it’s going to be really nice to not have frost showing up on the bottom of the door every winter!

So I’m both dreading and anticipating getting that door fix.

What to do with the cats while the work is being done is a problem we’ll have to figure out when the time comes!

😄😄

The Re-Farmer

So adorable!

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I just had to share a couple of photos of absolute cuteness.

First, there’s this kitten.

If I fits, I sits!

That’s my sun room tissue box he (she?) has made into a bed!

I want to snuggle this kitten so badly! Can’t get near it, though.

Then there is this picture of domestic bliss.

Judgement has always been great with the kittens, so it was no surprise to find him snuggled up with a couple.

The black and white is another one we can’t get close to. I think the other one is Magda. It’s hard to tell, sometimes, with so many similar kittens!

So many adorables out there!

The outside cats got their version of cat soup this evening. I adjusted the ingredients, using more dry kibble and letting it soak longer in hot water before blitzing it with the immersion blender. There was also a couple of cans of wet cat food, lysine and powdered pumpkin seed.

They absolutely loved it, and licked the food trays clean. The skunks and racoons will have nothing to steal tonight!

The Re-Farmer

Morning harvest, Button update, and my mother is determined to get herself evicted

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What a long, long day.

I’m exhausted, and will make this as sort as I can.

First up, the good stuff. Check out this harvest!

It was a sort of double harvest. I wasn’t expecting to gather anything, but that first and oldest melon finally dropped off its vine. That thing is about 9 inches across! There were also a few San Marzano tomatoes, but I didn’t have a container, and the melon made it harder to carry things. So I put them in the old kitchen, then went back to the old kitchen garden to gather was it in the second photo. I found myself picking a good handful of those tiny strawberries. Then I checked the Black Cherry tomatoes and found quite a few I could pick, hidden among the leaves. Way more that I expected!

My brother and his wife were expecting to come early to drop off another load, but I left before they arrived, so I never saw them. I went to my mother’s town, got a few things done, then got to her place nice and early. I’m really glad I did, so I could go over the letter she got from the hospital. I knew the location, but when I looked it up on Google Maps street view, across a specific parking lot from the main entrance, but I couldn’t see where the clinic entrance was.

Turns out, that’s because it was recently built in the parking lot, and street view hasn’t been updated yet.

When we got there, I had to park illegally because there were not parking spots available anywhere. Not even disabled parking. I then helped my mother up the ramps from hell to the door.

They were excellent ramps. There was just 3 levels of them, switch-backed up to the door, and that was a LOT of walking for a 93 yr old woman with busted up knees, using a walker!

I then had to leave her to register herself so I could find somewhere to park – several blocks away!

Long story short, she had some very uncomfortable tests, but she now has a diagnosis, a new prescription to try, and a plan of action.

I also found out that she has NOT been making any effort to drink more water, and the most the nurse questioned her in preparation for the tests, the more obvious it became that a lot of her problems would improve if she simply drank more water. She’s only drinking the equivalent of 1 500ml water bottle a day! She’s digging in her heals on this one, though, as she is completely convinced it has to be food that’s causing her problems. Of course, it’s the food she needs the most that she’s decided are bad for her. *sigh*

That done, the clinic was able to fax her new prescription in, and make a follow up telephone appointment in 3 months for the doctor so ask her how it’s working and adjust the dose, if needed. There are other drugs that can be tried, but this one has basically no side effects, so that’s the one he’s starting with.

On the way to her home, we stopped at a restaurant in her town, as neither of us had eaten since about 9 or 10am, and we got to the restaurant at 6pm. She needed to take her evening pills, and had brought her bubble pack for the list of medications they needed, so she went to take those – without water – before we went in.

Which is when I saw that she’s been messing with her meds again. She’s taking her morning pills, but for the past few days, skipping her evening pills. When she got this evening’s pills, she took the one that is supposed to be taken before bed at the same time. Something she promised she would stop doing.

When we finally got to her place and opened the door, we found her mail on the floor. She started to try and distract me with one envelope that she said was an invitation, but it was the other one that got my attention. It was from the government public housing department that owns her building. When I mentioned that, she tried to dismiss is as probably being about her rent.

I opened it.

It was her final notice.

She refused to allow the exterminators in her suite again, which goes against her rental agreement. This is the second warning letter they’ve sent her. If she does it again, she will be evicted.

As I was reading this to her, she basically started to laugh about it. When I tried to stress the seriousness of this, she started ranting about the “drunkard” in another unit, and how they’re not kicking him out. Then she started saying “this isn’t Russia”.

She refuses to accept how serious the consequences of her actions are.

It is so incredibly frustrating. She is her own worse enemy!

*sigh*

After reading the letter, we moved on to the information booklet she was given and I briefly showed her the sections that gave her concrete actions to do – and one of them is, drink more water! That was as much as she was up to, and I left soon after.

I’ll be back in a couple of days to drive her to another appointment. I’ve updated the family about all this, and I hope my siblings can get through to her on just how much of a problem she is causing herself. Both about the eviction warning, and messing with her medications.

There’s not much we can do about it, either. Unless a doctor declares her cognitively unfit, and she isn’t there yet, she is going to have to face the consequences of her actions.

Ugh.

Enough about that.

Throughout the day, I was also getting messages from the Cat Lady. She was taking Button to the vet. When her mother was cat sitting for them, she noticed that Button was having trouble seeing at night. His hearing isn’t back, either, so both his eyes and ears were going to be checked.

He has also had quite the growth spurt – after being dewormed three times, he’s finally putting on weight! Even the clinic commented on how big he’s getting.

They have decided that his issue is basically being developmentally delayed. His eyes are healthy, but just not where they should be for his age. He was treated for eat mites, and they believe his hearing will also recover.

That’s the good news.

The frustrating news is, the person who was going to adopt him has instead adopted another cat and is no longer interested in him. Given his vision and hearing issues, the Cat Lady wants to make sure he goes with someone who can take care of these issues until he grows past them.

Assuming he gets adopted out at all.

It was recently confirmed that a cat of theirs that was startled by a noise and disappeared, was the victim of a coyote. The Cat Lady says that Button is helping to heal her heart. She absolutely adores him.

I really hope she finds someone for Button. They already have way too many cats from us! She’s still trying to get The Wolfman adopted out, but any time someone comes over to see him, he hisses and even swipes, and runs away!

I’m just sad that the potential adopter backed out. A vet – even a large animal vet – would have been the perfect placing for Button.

So that is where we are now, and I am ready to crawl into bed and pass out.

I just know that the moment my head hits the pillow, I’m going to suddenly be wide awake! That was me last night, so I can really, really use some real sleep tonight!

The Re-Farmer

Sad news.

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Not about this one. This one is fine.

I counted 34 yard cats this morning.

Inside, however, we are down one.

Snorri is gone.

It was absolutely surreal. I left my room to have supper. He was in the little cat bed, snuggling with other kittens. When I came back, I found him passed away.

While I was in the city, my younger daughter spent a lot of time cuddling with him. Nothing seemed out of place. After I got home and came into my room, he was being butt cuddled by one of the tabbies. I pet him, and he responded normally.

Then he was gone.

Yes, he was a sick kitty. That’s why we brought him inside. But he seemed to be getting better! He certainly wasn’t getting worse.

We’ve lost so many to that horrible strain of herpes this year.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2022 garden: harvesting carrots and turnips.

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It was a chilly night last night, with temperatures dipping below freezing. As I write this, we’re at 3C/37F – just under our predicted high of the day.

It was actually very pleasant out there!

With a few frosts already past, I decided it was time to harvest the carrots.

This is all of them.

Plus the Purple Prince turnips – the only turnip variety of the three we planted this spring, that survived. Barely. Their greens were constantly munched on by insects. I’m not sure why I even bothered to harvest them. They’re so small, a lot of them got left behind in the bed, then still more went into compost when I trimmed their greens. Not much of a harvest there.

I’m surprised by the Uzbek Golden carrots, which were from a free seed packet. A lot of them were much larger than I expected.

The Black Nebula carrots where more difficult to harvest. Even with several years of amendments, the soil still gets pretty compacted, and these guys get long. It took quite a bit to dig them out!

Well, that didn’t take long… 😅

We are expected to dip to -4C/25F tonight, so these needed to be set up indoors to cure – and the only place we had available in the sun room was covered with tomatoes, still.

Thankfully, they are all laid out on screens.

I was able to stack the screens with the tomatoes and gourds, then lay out the trimmed carrots. After a day or two, we’ll brush the dirt off and go over them. Several of the biggest Uzbek Golden carrots have split, but the Black Nebula look like they were a slug favorite. Quite a few had damage at their tops. The size variety among them is pretty surprising. Quite a few of them are really big around! From the photos, I expected long and narrow.

Once we’ve assessed their condition, we’ll decide how best to store or preserve them. I suspect blanching and freezing will be the best option for most of the Black Nebula carrots, while the Uzbeck golden will be kept in the kitchen for fresh eating first.

I haven’t actually tasted any of these yet! We did harvest a few Uzbeck golden for meals over the summer, but almost no Black Nebula, because even the little ones were hard to pull. I hope they taste as good!

The Re-Farmer

I see you!

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With the groundhogs having completely torn apart and removed most of the old tarp covering the board pile, the old tire rim that was being used to keep it from blowing away isn’t needed anymore.

The kittens love playing in, under and around it, though, so it stays!

It’s also a secure place where they can watch the giant, food bearing creature that sometimes picks them up and does nice scritchy things to their ears.

I see you!

The Re-Farmer

Can we do it?

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While working on breaking down the largest of the branches pruned from the ornamental apples, I heard a cat starting to “talk” loudly. This is something we’ve learned about The Distinguished Guest. He makes noises that sound like he’s talking!

The problem is, the only time he makes those noises is when he’s being aggressive towards another cat.

For the last while, Sad Face has been going after him – and winning. TDG has a nasty scar across his shoulder to show for it. If Sad Face were around, I wouldn’t have been hearing TDG talking. I would have heard an all-out cat fight.

There’s only one cat that is now lower on the pecking order than both of the visiting toms.

Making my way around to the pump shack, I spotted TDG with his fur sticking out like a bottle brush. He ran off as I came close. It took a bit longer to spot Potato Beetle, flattened in the tall grass. He was more than happy for some pets, that’s for sure!

He was also looking very skinny. I knew TDG would go after him again if Potato went for the kibble trays. Thankfully, Potato actually likes being picked up and carried, so I took him to the sun room, where his own personal food and water bowls await him.

He was very, very hungry!!

After topping up the food and refreshing the water, I left him be. When I headed into town to get the mail, I sent a picture of him to the Cat Lady. She has us booked for 2 females for spays and shots on Aug 3, but she had space available for 1 male, too.

If we can keep Potato Beetle in the sun room until then, we can get him to the vet to be neutered at the same time.

That’s just over a week, though. It will not be easy to keep in there for that long. Plus, he’ll need to stay another 4 days for recovery. We’ll also have to keep a close eye on the temperature in there. We aren’t expecting excessive heat for the next while, but it does get quite hot in there. If necessary, we’ll bring out some ice packs or frozen water bottles to help him keep cool.

For now, at least, he’s quite enjoying his own personal sanctuary!

As for the other cats, the girls took care of feeding them again this morning. I had been leaving food by the pump shack for the oldest litter of kittens that’s in there (and possibly a baby skunk…), but they forget that. Which is okay. The kittens are used to eating kibble by now. They’ll be looking for it. Which meant that, when I came out not long after, I spotted an unfamiliar black and white kitty butt, at the tray on the ground beside the kibble house. It ran off when it heard me, which is when I saw the tabby and the tuxedo, hiding in the spirea by the storage house. I did try to get pictures, with no success.

I did, however, get a different kitty!

A very thirsty little kitty!

He seems a bit more skittish around me right now. My managing to pet him and briefly pick him up seems to be something he does not want to happen again – at least for now! Hopefully, I’ll have a chance to try playing with him again, and convince him to let me touch him again.

The Cat Lady has a bead on someone on a farm that is looking for a cat. She was talking about possibly trapping one of the kittens and getting it fixed. I wonder if they’d be okay with an adult cat, instead? Potato Beetle really deserves a better situation than what we can give him, with the visiting toms beating on him.

Frankly, I’d rather the toms went away. 🤨

The Re-Farmer