kittens

Morning kitties!

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With the sun room converted for the transplants, we don’t feed the cats in there anymore, though they can still access the room and the beds we have in there for them. Instead, I’ve been making a point of spreading the kibble around more. Knowing there are likely still kittens in the junk pile (I haven’t heard them lately, and wouldn’t expect to see them for weeks yet), we’re back to leaving kibble under the shrine nearby, but I’m also leaving little piles of kibble on the sidewalk blocks in front of the sun room, and even under the swing bench under the kitchen window. This allows the shier cats to access food – and prevent fights. Sad Face and some of the boys do not get along, so if they don’t have to go near each other to eat, that reduces the potential for fights.

If I see Broccoli at the kibble bowls, I also go to the garden shed to check on her babies. Yes, they are still there, and I think she is okay with us knowing they are there.

This morning, I actually took them out and set them in the small bin I use to carry the kibble around, so I could rearrange their “nest”. It’s sitting on top of one of the cover pieces for the carport we found in the barn, but couldn’t assemble last year. It’s been pushed around and got all lumpy, making it hard for the self warming mat I gave them to stay spread out. I didn’t want the kittens to fall into a fold or crevice they couldn’t get out of. So I fixed that up a bit, put the self warming mat back, and returned the kittens. The bonus of doing stuff like this is, it helps to socialize the babies – something we’ve never quite been able to do with their mother!

I think they liked the new set up. More fluffy blanket to squirm around in!

I had closed up the door and was leaving more kibble outside the shed, in a sheltered spot, when Broccoli came around the house and saw me, so I left a bit more kibble while she could see where I was putting it. She came over quickly as I left, but started to run off when I paused and tried to see if she’d let me come closer. Our attempt to get her and the kittens into the sun room seems to have backfired with her (though not with the kittens). She’s been more standoffish since then. It’s a shame. I wonder if that third kitten would have survived if they had been in the sun room, instead? Not knowing why it died makes it impossible to be sure.

Meanwhile…

… the boys are the complete opposite! While the females are getting harder to get close to, even at feeding time (I think Caramel has had her litter; she’s looking a bit skinnier this morning), more and more of the males are getting friendly! In the video above, there were six of them, but three more joined the fray. Not only is it a challenge to pet nine cats at the same time, but Syndol wanted me to pick him up and kept trying to climb up my shoulder!

He is such a sweet boy!

Speaking of sweet kitties, I was chatting with the Cat Lady yesterday. The Wolfman is still with them. He’s so gorgeous, there have been quite a few people interested in adopting him, but every time someone has come to see him, he makes strange and disappears! Which is so weird. He was always the more gregarious one among last year’s kittens that we brought inside. Going to the Cat Lady and all that vet care and treatment for his injured eye seems to have made him much less trusting. He has bonded with their younger daughter, though, and they adore him – in spite of the fact that he likes to destroy their plants! – so they’re not in any hurry to adopt him out.

The Cat Lady is burning out, though. She told me her phone goes off constantly, every day, with people wanting her to do something with strays to the north of us. She’s telling people, no more intakes. Part of the problem is, while there is a local branch of the Humane Society, she’s basically the only rescue specifically for our region. Right now, they’ve got so many cats that are pretty much unadoptable – too many medical needs – it’s pretty overwhelming, even with at least 7 or 8 people taking care of them. That fact that she’s still open to helping us is so greatly appreciated. There is the province wide rescue that she used to be connected with, but we won’t be going back to them. Aside from how badly they treated her, finding out that they were accusing us of deliberately breeding cats means we likely wouldn’t be getting help from them, anyhow. Plus, it seems the bigger a rescue gets, the less they become about the animals, and more about internal politics and drama.

So we do the best we can, and try not to put too much on the Cat Lady.

I’m glad that The Wolfman is with them, though, and his eye is all healed up. We couldn’t have done that for him. As it is, we’ve got two cats that need to see a vet, and we just don’t have the funds. Peanut Butter Cup concerns me. She still has leaky butt issues, though at least it’s not so liquid anymore, but she’s having increasing problems with her breathing. Not constant, but sometimes she sounds like she’s got stuffed sinuses, and starts coughing or sneezing. Something is definitely going on with her breathing. The fact that it comes and goes is curious.

Then there’s our old grandma that moved out here with us. She’s about 14 or 15 years old (we’re guessing she was about a year old when she first showed up on our balcony). There’s something bothering her with her mouth, so she’s not eating as much as she should be. She won’t let us look and see. I’ve been making a point of making sure she has soft food, including softening lysine enhanced kibble for her. She enjoyed the cat milk that was donated a while back, but we’re all out of that, and my goodness, those little boxes have gotten expensive! We pick some up when they are on sale, but that’s not often. We do what we can for them, and have to be satisfied with that. There’s no sense in angst-ing over something we have no control over. 🫤

Oh, there’s something we’d like to try one of these days; making “soup” for the cats. I found a recipe on the Furball Farm Cat Sanctuary website. They are for adult feral cats only, and I absolutely love their facilities! I’d love to make a smaller version for our own yard cats. It would be much easier to get those ladies spayed if we could get them into a giant fenced in haven!

Anyhow, this is their recipe.

“Soup” Recipe makes one blender
1 Tablespoon Lysine
1/4 cup pure pumpkin
10-12 cans pate/grilled/shredded cat food**
2 cups warm water**
**actual measurements for these items can vary based on cat preference of soup consistency

We’d be doing this for the inside cats, and would probably do half the recipe. Maybe even a quarter, since it would be a supplemental treat. We have no pumpkin, though. The next time we’re at a grocery store, I’ll see if I can find canned pumpkin with nothing else added to it. I supposed we could make it without the pumpkin at first. Pumpkin is supposed to be helpful for loose stools, constipation and hair balls, and very little of it can go a long way. Something to try, anyhow!

It would also make it easier to dose the cats with lysine. I had found a new source of the fine powdered lysine that sticks to the kibble when tossed together, but it has disappeared. That’s two different brands that carried lysine in that form that have disappeared, since we started using it! I had to go back to another brand, which is more granular. It doesn’t like to stick to the kibble very well at all, and most ends up on the bottom of the kibble bin. Making the soup won’t help the outside cats any – we just can’t afford to feed the outside cats wet cat food as well as the inside cats. Plus, they hunt, so they don’t need it like the inside cats do. If we do end up making a fenced in sanctuary for them, though, that would change, to supplementing with wet cat food would be on the table.

What can I say.

We’re sucks for the cats.

Now, about winning that jackpot, to pay for all this…

The Re-Farmer

Spring flowers, a sad find, and I only had to threaten to leave once!

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We have been getting quite a bit of rain this afternoon, with more to come, but things were still dry while I was doing my morning rounds.

The Saskatoons growing nearer the house are blooming now. As soon as we’re able, I want to get into that area and cut away the chokecherry, false spirea and other things that are crowding them.

The tiny plums we’ve got left in the yard are in full bloom right now. There’s two trees left and I’m hoping we can manage to keep at least one of them. We’ve had to cut away others that were spreading or dying. We plan to buy plum trees in the future, and some varieties need a wild plum nearby for cross pollination, so if we get one of those, it would be planted near these ones.

Our very first tulip has bloomed. There are quite a few other buds. I’m happy to say that the fence wire we’ve put around the tulip patch has been sufficient to keep the deer out! They really seem to love tulip flower buds.

In other areas, the garlic is coming up nicely. The strawberries we started from seed that are in the wattle weave bed are getting nice and big – bigger than the ones in the asparagus bed. Those ones, however, have started to show flower buds! No sign of the purple asparagus, though. I suspect we’ve lost those.

In the bed with the peas, carrots and spinach, I’ve now spotted a whole three pea shoots from the first planting of sugar snap peas.

The newly planted strawberries are mostly looking good. Seven of the nice transplants are showing definite growth. The other two either didn’t make it, or are further behind.

I did have a sad find this morning. When feeding the outside cats and seeing Broccoli out front, I went to the garden shed to check on her babies and leave some food for her while she was away.

I knew something was wrong as soon as I saw two of the babies had squirmed off the side of the self warming mat nest. It was a bit bunched up on one side, but where the fluffy top was exposed, I found the third kitten, dead. It was the smaller of the calicos. There was no sign of what caused its death.

As soon as I removed it, the black and white kitten squirmed its way back onto the fluffy part of the mat. I straightened it out a bit, so there was more of the top available for them, and left some kibble for their mother nearby.

Then I buried the little one in front of the stone cross on the edge of the spruce grove. I know this is a to be expected with semiferal cats, but it’s always sad to see. At least we don’t seem to be getting a repeat of last year. If I remember correctly, by this time, we’d already found the remains of at least two or three entire litters.

By about 10:30 or so, I was on my way to my mother’s. She wanted me to pick up lunch first. She was hoping that the grocery store would have their hot dinners available, but if not, she asked me to pick up some fried chicken at the gas station. It turned out they did have two dinners left – each with a piece of BBQ chicken, potato wedges and green beans. As I was getting them, I picked up a cold drink for myself. My mother always has tea, but I don’t want to use up my mother’s supplies. Normally, I’d have gotten a Monster energy drink, but I knew that would just get me lectured. So I got a coffee based energy drink. I figured that would be a safe thing to drink around her. I don’t normally drink coffee, but I do like coffee as a flavour, and that’s pretty much what these are.

When I got to my mother’s, she was very happy with the dinners, though she had made her own “salad”, brought that out and tried to make me eat it. I told her I was more than happy with the vegetables in the dinner.

Then she started complaining that the beans were undercooked. So I ate one.

They were prefectly al dente.

To my mother, they should be mushy.

I couldn’t even think that she preferred softer food because of her dentures, with the holes from missing teeth she refuses to fix, since the salad she made, and was eating instead of the beans, was made with celery and apples, and even crunchier than the beans.

Then, as we were eating, she got “that look”.

Oh, how I know that look. The nasty smirk and open condensation, just before she’s about to launch into some verbal abuse.

“You know that drinks are unhealthy, right?” she says to me.

And by “drinks”, she meant the can I was drinking from. She had no idea what I was actually drinking, but it was in a can, so it must be bad. This isn’t a new thing; shortly after we moved here, she came to visit and saw our recycling bag for aluminum. It had mostly V8 cans in it, but she started lecturing us about how we shouldn’t be drinking pop. We explained to her what V8 was, but I guess she didn’t believe us? She then brought up, for the next few years, how we drink too much pop, and that’s why I’m fat, based on her once seeing a recycling bag full of V8 cans.

At this point, I don’t think I’d been there for more than 15 minutes. So I just put my fork down and asked, is it time for me to leave? I pointed out that she didn’t even know what I was drinking (if she’d bothered to look, she would have seen that it was coffee based, and that it contained vitamins and herbs), that I was there for such a short time, and she was already attacking me.

At which point, she started crossing herself and told me, it was up to me if I wanted to go.

Uh huh.

She did, at least, stop finding things to attack me about.

Instead, she switched tactics. Since the dinners were chicken, she started talking about how my brother would come to the farm every week after work, and he would bring chicken dinners, but he doesn’t do that anymore. This would have been before she moved off the farm to where she is now, so more than 10 years ago. I told her, it’s good that now we’re at the farm, so he doesn’t have to make that long drive anymore. Oh, but he doesn’t even phone anymore! I just laughed and said, yes, he does. Just because you don’t remember it, that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. Then I suggested that what she really meant was, he doesn’t call her every day, like she wants him to. Which seems to have hit the mark with her, because she actually seemed to think about it and dropped the subject. Meanwhile, I know my brother has even told her outright, that it hurts him to call her, because she quickly starts attacking him for whatever is on her mind at the time. Her response is to start going on about “freedom of speech” and how she just says what’s on her mind, we need to forgive each other, and generally try to make herself to be the victim, and him into the mean one.

She doesn’t try that with me very much anymore. I call her out when she gets abusive now, so she’s cut it back quite a bit.

It did make for a much quieter than usual meal, though!

My mother has been having a harder time with her mobility, so we went over her list. Her writing is a mix of English and Polish, with the English spelled… creatively, so sometimes, I need to clarify. For example, I knew from an earlier conversation that she wanted corn meal, but on her list, she wrote in polish, corn flour. I clarified, and it turns out she didn’t know that there was such a thing as corn flour that is different from corn meal. She’ll also just say things like “fruit”, and I know it means to get what looks good or is on sale, and I know what kinds of fruit she likes. As we talked, though, she specifically asked for NO blueberries.

They get caught in the holes in her dentures! 😄

Fair enough!

Once I understood what she was looking for, I headed out and did her shopping for her. There is usually at least one thing I have to change up, for various reasons, and I make sure to explain the changes as I put things away.

Oh, there was one thing I couldn’t resist for myself while at the grocery store.

Yeah. I got some seeds. 😄😄

Every year, in the spring, there is a box of free pumpkin seeds at this grocery store. Each envelope has two seeds in it, and they limit it to one packet per person. This year, they came with a little pamphlet. The town has a pumpkin fest every year, and this year is their 100th. It included information about the variety of seeds (Rocket), growing instructions (can be direct sown or started indoors, with a pH around 6), and what to expect (pumpkins from 15-20 pounds in size). Mostly, though, they were encouraging students to grow pumpkins and enter them in the pumpkin fest contest, in various categories, for prize money. These aren’t for giant pumpkins, so the prizes are very small, but if it’s enough to get kids excited about growing things, that’s just bonus!

So I grabbed a packet. Once I’m done writing this, I’ll scarify them and start pre-germinating them. I have no intention of entering any contests, but some 20 pound pumpkins would be nice!

As I was leaving the grocery store, I was immediately blasted by high winds. A storm was moving in, so as soon as my mother’s groceries were put away, I said my goodbyes. I ended up driving into the storm, but the worst of it was past by the time I got home. We’ll definitely need to check for fallen branches – or fallen trees! – tomorrow.

Our gravel roads, however, are getting worse and worse. The municipality can’t even do anything about it, since they are too wet right now.

We’re going to need a break in the rain to cut the grass, too. It’s getting way too tall. Plus, we can always use more grass clippings for mulch!

We should be getting a one day break in the rain tomorrow, but more rain again, the day after. The grass will be too wet to cut, but we have to focus on getting the garden ready, anyhow.

Oh? Is that more thunder I hear?

According to the weather radar, we’re right in line for some heavy rain in a little bit.

I’m not complaining. This is supposed to be a drought year, and with how little snow we got this past winter, any rain we get now is a good thing!

The Re-Farmer

Still there!

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Broccoli was eating at the kibble house, so I took a quick check.

She has not moved her babies! 

The old garden shed is a good place for them, other than the fact that we actually still use it. 

In other things, the rain started yesterday, off and on, and will continue throught today.  No downpours or anything like that.  Just intermittent light rain.  Enough to make the ground too wet to work in the garden beds or process the felled spruced.

If my husband is up to it, there will be a trip into town for some blood work. 

I don’t think he’s up to it.

One of my older daughters, however, has offered to treat us to some Chinese food today, so a trip to town is still a possibility!

That would be a nice treat on a wet and chilly day. 🩷

The Re-Farmer

Morning cuteness

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We are supposed to get rain this afternoon, which would be great, considering it is fire season right now, so I made sure to get some work done outside. As I was putting things away, I noticed Broccoli by the house, so I dashed around to check the garden shed.

Yes, the babies are still there! Which means there is still hope of socializing them. Broccoli seems to be content with her nest, though lately she won’t let me anywhere near her. Not even at feeding time. It is, however, normal for the yard cat mamas to move their kittens several times, before they get big enough that they start bringing them along to the kibble houses for solid food.

I was thinking of sticking to the brassica theme for naming the calicos. We started with Cabbages, then Broccoli. We’ve got Brussel and Sprout, who are even more feral than their mother. What should we name the two calicos here?

Boc and Choy?

Kohl and Rabi?

One of the calicos is quite a bit larger than her siblings. You can’t really see it in the photo, but her head is huge compared to the other two!

They are so flippin’ adorable. Broccoli makes beautiful babies!

We really need to get her fixed.

The Re-Farmer

The morning outside

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We’ve got a much cooler day today – as I write this, it’s coming up on 1pm, and it’s still only 6C/39F, with a high of 13C/55F by about 6pm expected. I took full advantage of the cooler temperatures to get some things done! We’re supposed to start getting rain tomorrow, have more rain, off and on, over the next few days, so the more we can get done out there, the better!

The first job, of course, was to feed the yard cats. I counted 28 in total, I think. Knowing that we have kittens in the junk pile, I now put food out under the shrine, and even on the bench nearby. Which the Blue Jays appreciate… 🫤

Stinky, Hypotenose and Syndol were all pushing each other around, trying to get at pets!

I spotted Broccoli at the food bowls, so I interrupted my usual morning rounds and dashed to the garden shed.

I started taking out as many things as I could think to grab – garden stakes, hoses, netting, etc. I had to get under where the kittens were, so I lifted them all up in the self heating mat and set them on the ground as I worked. Once I got the stuff I thought I would need right away, I returned the tarp and the felted grow bags Broccoli has made her nest in, made sure it was flattened in such a way that no kittens would accidently roll off and get stuck somewhere, then carefully put them, still half snoozing, back in in their soft, fuzzy and warm mat.

By this time, Broccoli had come around the house and was watching me. When I was done and continued my rounds, she followed me around the garden. I’m hoping she will be okay with what I did, and not take her kittens away and hide them. By removing the stuff I did, I’m hoping we won’t need to open the door and disturb her and her babies for a while. I’ll still check on the, of course, but will try to do it only when I know Broccoli isn’t in there with them.

That done, I started doing garden related stuff. While rain may be on the way, we can’t count on it actually reaching us, so I did the watering. It looks like we finally have carrots sprouting, so I’ve moved the protective boards off of them. The German Butterball potatoes got the grass clipping mulch returned. I’m still putting the cover with the plastic on it over them, to keep the cats out. The garlic also got their mulch returned, now that they’re bigger, and watered.

After all the watering was done, I checked on the grapes. The false spirea growing nearby is trying to spread into them again, so I got some pruners to cut them away. Normally, I’d try to pull them up by the roots, but I can’t do that when they are right in with the grape vines.

Then I started clearing other spirea to clear more space around the grapes.

Before I knew it, I’d gone through the entire corner, clearing away dead false spirea, trimmed dead branches and last year’s flower husks, finding and clearing around a perennial flower that gets buried by the bushes every year, and really opening things up and cleaning them out.

The cats are very happy with this! They like to go under there. When they are in full leaf, it’s a shady spot they can hide in, and now it’s nice and clear of dead branches and twigs.

While the false spirea is leafing out, and the grapes are showing leaf buds, other things are further along. The “Mr. Honeyberry” haskap is in full bloom right now. I even saw a bumble bee among the flowers! The “Mrs. Honeyberry”, however, might have some leaves, not no flower buds yet. There’s no way proper cross pollination can happen, which means no berries.

*sigh*

The plum trees are blooming; they always bloom before they get their leaves. Quite a few tulips are showing flower buds, which is pretty awesome. The trees are also getting very green. So nice to see!

I look forward to getting back to work, when I get back from running errands!

The Re-Farmer

Kitten update, and various things

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Well, it seems we blew away the high that was forecast for today. My app says we are at 31C/88F out there, and it sure feels like it!

We kept an eye on the sunroom to see if Broccoli would find her kittens. They slept peacefully the entire time, so she had no reason to go in there, though she did show up briefly at the kibble house.

In this heat, the cats don’t have much appetite! They sure appreciated having the water bowls refilled with nice, cold well water!

After a few hours, though, I decided to give them a light feeding, making sure to make lots of noise when the kibble hit the metal food trays in the kibble house. The kibble house provides some shade, so those trays were empty, while there was still food out in other, more exposed, spots.

Broccoli did show up, but wouldn’t go to the kibble with us there. She ended up running behind the storage house, instead, and just sitting under a tree. Eventually, she came around the front again. We even brought the carrier with the kittens out, and made sure she could see them.

She behaved indifferent to them.

We left the top open on the carrier and put it in the shade by the kibble and water bowl shelters, then watched from the sunroom. She did eventually go for the tray under the water bowl house and eat for a while. While other cats were curious about the cat carrier and peaked inside, she did not, and eventually left for the back of the house, where the old garden shed is.

We tried moving the carrier into a shady spot there but, again, she ignored it. She then disappeared behind the garden shed, where I know the hole in the wall is, hidden by junk that needs to be hauled away.

In the end, we finally decided to put the kittens back, though we did lay out the self warming mat, first, so they couldn’t roll in between the grow bags and tarp that she had made a nest onto. I’ve got a timer on, and we’ll check them later. If they are still there, but look like they have not been tended to, we’ll probably bring them inside, get some kitten formula and start bottle feeding them. Unfortunately, at this point “good news” would be to find them gone. That would mean she has taken them to a new nest somewhere, and it caring for them. If she’s not there and they’re just peacefully sleeping, that hopefully means she nursed them and left them after they fell asleep.

*sigh*

It was worth a try, I guess. Broccoli is one of the cats that does sometimes let us pet her, while she is eating. We hoped that would make her easier to lure with her babies to where we can fully socialize her and care for her and her babies.

We shall see how it turns out.

In other things, we had ourselves a strange mystery that was solved late last night. A mystery that had us worried about plumbing issues again!

My daughter went into the kitchen, and discovered a large puddle of water on the floor between the sink and the fridge. Our floors are not level, so that is where any spilled liquid pools. We had no idea where it came from, and thought maybe a pot that was soaking in the sink, but was not on the side counter, had been knocked over. My husband was the last person in the kitchen. He had emptied the pot and set it aside so he had room to use the tap, but there had been no water on the floor. This was maybe 20 minutes before my daughter found the puddle.

We cleaned it up with a towel and my daughter checked under the sink, but it was all dry.

Not long after, I went into the kitchen, and there was another puddle. So I cleaned that up, too.

While going to the washing machine with the wet towel, however, I walked past our big bottle of drinking water. It has one of those syphon pumps to get at the water. When we took the old dishwasher out of the kitchen, we set it in front of the counter that is a divider between the kitchen and the dining room, intending to add it to the junk pile. We put shelves under the counter on the dining room side, and the dishwasher covered the one that had storage cubes filled with winter hats, scarves, gloves, etc. The cats were determined to tear the cubes apart and dig into them, and the old dishwasher blocked it almost perfectly. Some more determined cats still managed to claw in behind it, but for the most part, it does the job. This dishwasher it the kind that you attach to a kitchen tap when in use, then unhook and store to the side when not in use, so it has a fake butcher block top. That turned out to be perfect to hold our jug of drinking water.

As I walked past it, I found a big splash of water on the floor, under the spout. It was as if someone – or something – had pushed down on the pump, with nothing under the spout. We try to make it inaccessible, but it’s possible a cat had decided to get onto the counter and then jumped on it? Another mystery!

So I cleaned that mess up, too.

Some time later, I went into the kitchen again, and sure enough, another puddle was forming. This time, however, I could see that the water was leaking out from under the counter. This counter, like the ones on either side of the oven, can be moved – at least it could be moved, if it didn’t have a sink and water pipes running through the bottom, and a drain pipe that goes to one side, before going down to the basement.

I checked the pipes in the basement.

Everything there was dry. If there were a leak in the pipes between the bottom of the cupboards and the floor, there would be water dripping through at the pipes. There was nothing.

So where was the water coming from?

The only way to know for sure would be to look under the floor of the cupboard. The only way we could think of was to cut a hole through the floor of the cupboard, and we sure didn’t want to do that.

I cleaned up the new mess and this time, left a towel on the floor.

With there being a solar storm and the expectation of incredible Northern Lights, I decided to take a couple of hours nap, then get up around 11 or so to go out and see the lights. By the time I got up, my younger daughter had gone to bed, but her sister was just gearing up for a night of working on commissions. She wanted to go out with me to see the Northern Lights, first.

As we were getting ready to go out is when we discovered a cat had gotten onto the dining table and knocked my bowl of pea seeds over. We found as many as we could and those got tucked away. My daughter checked on the wet area in the kitchen floor. The towel I’d left was quite wet, but it kept another puddle from forming.

I was getting a tripod ready at the dining table when I happened to look towards the entry…

… and spotted another big splash of water on the floor.

I told my daughter that I’d already cleaned a similar mess up earlier, and couldn’t figure out how the water was splashing like that.

She asked if it was possible this was where the water in the kitchen was from.

There was nowhere near enough water on the floor for that.

What if we move the dishwasher?

As I was fussing around the water bottle to see, I checked the mat under it. We have it resting on one of those microfiber absorbent dish drying mats.

It was soaking wet!

We moved the dishwasher and, sure enough, there was water under it.

The water jug had a leak. I’m guessing a split in the seam from the mold that formed it, but we couldn’t actually see a hole. I guess once the mat was saturated, it started dripping onto the floor, creating the splash I was finding. Then, because the floors on this old house are so uneven, the water drained under the counter until it pooled in the middle of the kitchen floor.

Which was honestly the best possible reason for the water we were finding! Not a plumbing issue at all.

There was an empty water jug set aside to dry, so my daughter and I emptied the leaking jug into it and cleaned things up.

We also put another towel behind the dishwasher and pushed it back in place. We can’t not have it there, without finding some way to protect the things in the shelve it’s covering. I’m seriously considering getting storage bins for the stuff, then leaving the shelf empty for the cats to climb in!

Once that was all taken care of, my daughter and I finally went out to see the Northern Lights.

We didn’t even try to bring out the old DSLR, and just used my phone, on “pro”, and played around with the settings. To the naked eye, the Northern Lights basically just looked like whitish light to us. My daughter could see hints of pinks and green. The camera, with different ISOs, shutter speed, etc., could pick up the colours we couldn’t see – all sorts of greens and purples and pinks. It was very dramatic! I’m glad we did it. The last time we had a major light show like this, I slept through it.

I’m glad I was out to see them, but it meant for a very short night, since my younger daughter and I were set to be outside early to get work done. It’s coming up on 6pm as I write this, and I’m trying very hard not to fall asleep at my computer! We’ve cooled down to 29C/84F and could that be thunder I’m hearing out my window? Why yes! Yes it is!

Oh, darn. I just checked the weather radar. There are lots of scattered little storms out there, and they are all missing us.

I’m sure hearing some nice, loud, thunder right now, though!

Meanwhile, as I was working on this, my timer went off and my daughter and I went to check on the kittens. They are still in the garden shed, sprawled all over the blanket we left with them. I spotted Broccoli some distance away, loafed on a pile of logs, watching us. So she does seem to know they are there. I’ve reset my timer, and we will check on them again.

We shall see how it goes.

The Re-Farmer

It’s a good thing they’re so cute! Also, babies

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The inside cats have been particularly messy and destructive for the past couple of days. The outside cats did some damage, too but, at least with them, it wasn’t on purpose (more on that in another post).

While doing my rounds this morning, I caught this little bugger.

There’s Syndol, using the tiny raised bed’s cover as a hammock again!

I’m actually impressed on how well it’s keeping him suspended above the garlic!

My daughter and I were working in the garden this morning, before it got too hot. The weather apps seem to change the forecast every time I check them, but we’ve had predicted highs ranging from 26C/78F to 29C/84F! We’re already at 22C/72F as I write this, and it’s not even noon, yet. I had to go into the garden shed, where I thought Broccoli might have her babies – the cats can get in through a hole in the wall in the back. Sure enough, I startled her when I opened the door, but I didn’t hear or see any kittens. It wasn’t until I went back again later that I saw them – and they were not actually all that hidden, either!

Broccoli was not around at the time, but we knew that, with our needing to go in and out of the shed, that she would end up moving her babies to who knows where. So we took a big risk. While my daughter kept an eye on the babies, I brought the big cat carrier from the sunroom over. It already had a blanket inside, but I added the self warming mat for the babies.

As we were moving them into the carrier, I could see Broccoli at the corner of the house in the old kitchen garden, watching us. Before we were done, I saw her dashing through the maple grove on the far side of the shed.

The carrier is now set up in the sunroom, and I’ve even more the critter cam so I can see it from my phone. My daughter is also monitoring the house from across the yard. It’s pretty normal for the mamas to leave their babies to sleep while they go hunting or whatever, so it might be hours before Broccoli comes back to the shed to nurse her babies, then figure out where they are. As I write this, the kittens are peacefully sleeping, but when the get hungry, they will start calling for her, so she should find them all right. If we can get her with them in the sunroom, we can close the door. She can stay safe with her babies in there, with her own food, water and litter box, and we should finally be able to socialize her! We’ll be able to give her some wet cat food, which we normally don’t give to the outside cats, which should help. I’ve already sent pictures to the Cat Lady. If all goes well, we’ll be able to finally get Broccoli spayed when the kittens are older, and be able to socialize the kittens as well.

It all hinged on whether or not we can lure her into the sunroom and keep her there!

Her two calicos, we assume, are female. I didn’t even bother to check. As we were moving them, I could see the black and white is a male.

They are so flippin’ adorable.

This does mean we will need to avoid going into the sunroom as much as possible, until we’ve lured her in and closed the door. The sunroom is where we keep a lot of our tools and supplies. Hopefully, it won’t be long before we can close the door with mama in with her babies. After that, we’ll just have to do things like go in only through the old kitchen. Unless we can move her and the babies into the baby jail cage under the plant table, and close her in with them briefly, while we go in and out of the sunroom. Whatever it takes to get her with her babies and not hide them somewhere else!

We are such sucks for the cats.

The Re-Farmer

Good kitty news!

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Check this out!

Driver is putting full weight on that foot, and he’s no longer limping! He even followed me around while I was doing my rounds, running ahead, flinging himself to the ground and rolling in the snow.

I only counted about 23 or 25 yard cats this morning, but one of them was Judgement. He was hanging out in the sunroom again, and looking just fine. I wasn’t able to check his nethers to see how things were healing up, but he did allow me to pet him.

As for the indoor cats, Wolfman is behaving as if nothing happened. Beast is behaving normally, too, but has been avoiding me more. Tissue is still mad at me, even as she cuddles against my legs at night. PBC has been running away and hiding more. I think a couple of the other cats have been less than welcoming, and she’s nervous. She hasn’t allowed me to pet her lately. She is, however, exploring the house, and the girls have found her upstairs. We will still keep the basement door closed, at least until she’s healed up. We don’t want her getting her incision infected, dragging her belly on the floor while exploring under shelves. She’s all over the place! Meanwhile, Butterscotch barely even goes out the door and into the hallway at feeding time. The little one is much more willing to check things out, while the grand old lady just wants to sleep in my pants shelf all day. 😁

As much as we need to keep trying to find homes for all these beasts, and they’re eating us out of house and home, I sure do love them dearly!

The Re-Farmer

Five more down!

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We are home!!!

Shortly before 6:30 am, I got the girls to try and get Shop Towel into the big carrier in the sun room while I got the others into the smaller carriers. They made sure to put on jackets and gloves to protect themselves from getting clawed! It didn’t work, so we ended up snagging Judgement.

By the time we got them all set up (Tissue started to panic as soon as she saw the carriers lined up on my bed!), the gate open (the slide bar was frozen in place by recent rain), and the carriers into the truck, it was almost 7 am. Road conditions were good and the drive went well. It was still full dark when I left, but full light when I got to the clinic, about 10 minutes before the 8am drop off time.

I was the first one there, which I appreciated, since it gave me time to warn them about Tissue and Judgement, both of whom tried to tear their way out of the carriers during the drive out. I never saw which one it was, but from the smell, one of the cats had a stress poop along the way. 😞

After the paperwork was done, I paid for two, then hung out until the Cat Lady arrived. She called ahead to say she was going to be a bit later than expected. Muffin has had all her teeth removed, so they had to force feed her, since her gums are not healed yet. Her husband tried to hold Muffin wrapped in a towel, but she got out. The Cat Lady got clawed up, and even got bit – or should I say, gummed – on her palm. It all took far longer than expected, and in the end, she had to leave her husband to try and finish feeding her.

We’ve been talking about getting that fluffy tortie – now called Peanut Butter Cup, or PBC – adopted out. She needed to get back to me about whether or not she could take PBC today or not. She recently took in three rescued males; they’d been dumped near a farm, and the farmer didn’t want cats, so he never fed them. Which isn’t too bad in the summer, but in the winter, hunting is very lean. So she’s treating them for worms while getting them carefully fed to get to a healthy weight before she can put them up for adoption. 

The good thing is, she now has a completely separate, heated shed that she can use for cases like this!

She said she would get back to me within an hour or so to let me know about taking PBC right away or not.

Once we connected and she took care of the bill for the other three cats, she passed on some donated supplies for us. Several cat beds, blankets and a fluffy towel, a new litter box, some cat food and treats, and a cat-size hard sided carrier. The carrier is missing most of the wing nuts to hold the two halves together, but I’m sure I can find new ones, somewhere.

After that, I could finally go for some breakfast and hang out until I got a call to pick up the cats. I ended up just going to a nearby Walmart, with a McDonald’s inside, because not much else was open, yet. Plus, it gave me a chance to do a bit of shopping, since I was there, anyhow. I ended up getting a larger, covered litter box. Eventually, I want to replace all our open litter boxes with covered ones, but they have to be larger. The one smaller one I have in my room doesn’t get used as much, and I think it’s mostly because of the size. Most of the adult cats don’t seem to like it, though they’ll use the one big one we already have, just fine. That one has three broken latches, so it needs to be replaced, too. We’ll see how the cats do with this one before getting more.

I did hear back from the Cat Lady, letting me know she would not be taking PBC quite yet. She’s going to focus on getting the three starved and sick males she took in. Once she has the space again, she’ll take PBC and Ginger, with a priority on getting Ginger adopted to a calm home, where he won’t be bullied by other cats.

I’m pretty pragmatic about saying goodbye to the cats, but just thinking about adopting out Ginger gets me a bit choked up. I’m going to hate saying goodbye to him, but he really deserves a better situation. Frankly, I’d rather adopt out the bullies, but they’d be much harder to place than him!

I ended up getting a call from the vet shortly after 11, letting me know they were ready for pick up. Really fast! They probably didn’t even start surgeries until 9 am, at the earliest.

The Beast was in the soft sided carrier, so she got the front seat. 

The other carriers stacked up securely in the back.

I think Judgement was done last, as he was still pretty groggy. Wolfman was, surprisingly, the most desperate to get out of his carrier. He almost knocked his carrier right off of Tissue’s! He and Beast where the most alert and active. PBC was quite calm on the drive home. Tissue, while still pretty groggy, was clearly in half-panic mode.

The drive home was… interesting!

As soon as I was outside the city, I was driving into light snowfall. The further north and west I drove, the heavier the snow. By the time I was in the final stretch of highway from my mother’s town, the snowfall was heavy, the highway was covered, and visibility was poor! It was light, fluffy snow. The sort of snow I could appreciate as being very beautiful – once I was no longer driving in it!

I was very glad to get home, that’s for sure.

Once we got them inside, the carriers were all stacked on my bed to start with. I made sure there was food and water in the sun room, along with a couple of new beds for the outside cats, before putting Judgement in the carrier in. I set a bowl of food inside with him, and the heated water bowl was just outside the carrier, then left the carrier door mostly closed, so he could come out whenever he felt ready to.

Tissue was starting to try and tear her way out of the carrier by the time I got back. We put food out for the other cats to lure them away, then food in my room – with the door closed – before letting them out of the carriers. Normally, they should have been left in the carriers longer, but we didn’t want them to hurt themselves. Tissue was still in panic mode. Strangely, Wolfman was pretty wired up, too! The Beast actually stayed in her carrier and had to be persuaded out. The problem with the soft sided carrier is that other cats try to climb on top, and don’t care if there’s a cat inside, getting squished! 

I wanted to leave my door open, but we had concerns that PBC would end up hiding somewhere in the basement. So, after making sure not cats were in the basement, I closed the door.

It’s a good thing we got extra litter boxes because, with the door closed, they no longer have access to the litter boxes down there!

The new litter boxes are now set up. 

It’s getting hard to find space for litter boxes.

So far, all seems well. We do have a few cats that are growling at PBC, but most of them are pretty laid back out there being a new cat in the house. We did keep her closed up in my room for the night. To make it easier for fasting, we put all the food bowls away, so there was no need to close up any other cats. Which meant I was getting up many times during the night, opening and closing my door as the night wore on. They were looking for the food bowls. Finding another cat in the process was far less interesting to them! On top of that, PBC tried exploring my room, which meant things getting knocked down that needed to be picked up.

I got next to no sleep. It’s all I can do to not go back to bed right now, but if I do that, I’ll really mess myself up!

The usual cats have hissed at PBC. Fenrir, of course. Big Rig. Meanwhile, Cheddar and our old grandma were all ready to start grooming her, though she only allowed sniffing. When it comes to human attention, though, she is quite enjoying the pets. Still not keen on being picked up, but starts purring almost instantly when we pet her! She’s going to love being an indoor cat. Whoever adopts her is going to get a real long haired beauty!

As I’ve been writing this, I’ve been able to keep an eye on her. She’s made no effort to leave my room, yet, and I’ve seen her eating, which is good. 

I’ll feel much better once I’ve seen her use a litter box, though! 😂

So, that’s five more done. No more inside cats need to be fixed. We can now focus entirely on the outside cats. 

Little by little, it’s getting done!

The only problem is, without being able to do the females right away, we’re going to be dealing with more kittens before we can get much progress!

Ah, well. We do what we can, when we can

The Re-Farmer

I think it worked

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Yesterday evening, we finally got a good look at the cat stuck in the old kitchen!

I put the big cat carrier on the freezer, with food and water. We had a small packet of a wet catfood treat left from a donation a whole back. Just enough for one cat, so that got squeezed into a small dish and stuck into the back of the carrier. I even put some cat nip in there.

It took a while, but eventually, the cat came out. I spotted it in the carrier, digging around the blanket inside, the food dish empty, and almost pushed out the door! As soon as the cat saw me, though, it ran off.

It didn’t quite run away, though. When I saw a pair of ears, just barely visible behind the kibble bin, I waited. Of course, one of the teenage cats inside wanted attention, and I ended up with Ghosty in my arms.

Well, that got his attention! The pair of ears became a pair of eyes, then a whole head, as the cat stretched its neck to see Ghosty through the window. Which got Ghosty’s attention, too!

For the next whole, I would stand at the window in the door, holding a different cat. The cat in the old kitchen seemed to be more comfortable seeing cats instead of just a human. I could see it was wanting to get back to the food and water on the freezer, so I didn’t interrupt too much. The way the door is oriented to the stairs, my daughters could monitor things from the top of the stairs. We did not try to go into the old kitchen to let it out, though, since we knew it would just disappear again.

This morning, while feeding the outside cats, I made sure to leave both doors between the old kitchen and sun room wide open. A daughter was stationed at the window to see if the cat left.

Of course, there was a major rush of other cats going into the old kitchen, and this time, we just left them. I finished my morning rounds, then checked with my daughter.

She did not see the cat leave, though all the others had left.

In the end, we decided to leave the doors between the old kitchen and the sun room wide open for a few hours. We did have to make extra sure the door into the rest of the house was securely closed. That one has been known to pop open, if we’re not careful!

Well, I just got back from checking the old kitchen. It seemed empty, so I went in.

I moved cat carrier to the sun room for the cats to get used to, since we plan to “trap” a cat in it for cheap spay/neuter day. I had to pull the inner old kitchen door – the one with no window – closed behind me, to keep cats from going into the old kitchen again.

I couldn’t see the cat that had been stuck overnight anywhere, but I didn’t go outside. I did stay to pet the crowd of cats swirling around my legs, vying for attention.

But not this one.

This is the one female we can be pretty sure to be able to catch for the cheap spay day, but she was not allowing contact, today!

She and her two siblings from the last litter are still so tiny! Hard to believe they are 7 months old! I did get to cuddle her fuzzy black and white brother, but her fluffball tabby sibling it the shiest of them all.

While petting the cats, I heard a commotion from the old kitchen. Thinking it could be the stuck cat, I checked. No sign of a cat – until I looked at the inside door.

Mitzy looked back at me!

She had scrambled her way up the door and was hanging off the window! What a monkey!

So it does look like the stuck cat has finally gotten out. We will keep monitoring, just in case.

Come spring time, we will have to empty out the old kitchen as best we can, fpr clean up. There was no litter box in there while the cat was stuck!

At least for now, the room should stay more or less freezing, so we shouldn’t need to worry about smell. We are at only -2C . By the end of the month, we are expecting several days at +3C. Things will be melt7ng outside!

What concerns me about the warm weather is, the ladies might go into heat early… and there’s nothing we can do about it, since we can’t catch them to get them spayed.

*sigh*

For now, though, it at least looks like the trapped cat is no longer trapped.

The Re-Farmer