kittens

A few updates, and I’m not sure about this kitten

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It was a nice, crisp and cool morning as I was doing my rounds. I made sure to get the kibble for the outside cats to soak in hot water before I headed out, so they could have a nice warm breakfast.

There is one kitten that I noticed last night; a friendly little tabby. It had been curled up in the cat bed at the bottom of the shelf in the window. While topping up their kibble at the end of the day, it basically didn’t move, while all the other cats and kittens came running as soon as they heard kibble hit tray.

This morning, it was still in the same spot, but meowing strangely. It reminded me of how eye baby used to meow, when he was pretty much completely blind and wandering around the yard.

Eye baby seems to be doing quite well, btw. The one eye is still shaped differently, but he can blink it and seems to be able to see out of it.

I was able to get the kitten out and tried to bring it near the warm food. It did not seem interested in the food at all.

It was very interested in attention, though.

I cuddled it a bit, but had to continue my rounds. As I was making my way back to the house, I could here it meowing, and found it following a couple of other kittens into the old kitchen garden. I went to pick it up and it really enjoyed being carried, started to purr and knead the sleeve of my shirt.

I tried to put it near food again and managed to free myself long enough to bring a water bowl into the sun room. It’s one of the working heated water bowls (at least I hope it’s still working!), and we will have it plugged in during the winter, so they’ll have a heated water bowl both inside and outside.

As I moved the kitten to different places, as much to get it out from under my feet as to show it where the water bowl and food trays were, it seems to me the kitten is not very steady on its feet. It does seem to be having vision issues though, as far as I could see, the eyes are clear and dilating normally.

There’s nothing we can do about it, other than monitor the kitten and see how it does. We do still have antibiotics we can give it, if it seems warranted.

Meanwhile…

My brother was finally able to get back to me on Messenger, this morning. With great hesitation, I had told him we would need help with the bathroom, as we don’t have the tools we need to cut away the rotten chip board – aspenite is the proper name for it. I never remember that, but my brother mentioned it.

He asked what tools we needed, but I honestly don’t know. What tool is the right tool to cut away the aspenite, without damaging what’s on the other side of it?

He did mention something that should have been obvious, though we hadn’t thought of it yet.

We’re going to have to take the tub out entirely. The rot extends down the wall where the water pipes are, and in the middle of the back wall.

*sigh*

That is not going to be an easy job. Not just because of the size of the tub in a rather small bathroom. This tub is old school. I’m pretty sure it’s enameled cast iron. When you first get into it, it’s absolutely freezing, but once it warms up, it holds heat so much longer than a modern tub.

Gosh, I miss being able to take a bath!

We basically went from, the taps and faucet need to be replaced, to a major repair and replacement job. The more we uncover, the more we find will need to be done.

My brother barely remembers what’s behind that aspenite. We know there’s log behind the two walls, and that there are more pieces of whatever was handy, like we found under the fake tile paneling, used to try and level the walls.

We’ve still got the fan set up on the bath chair to get things as dry as we can. Every now and then, I’ve been using more CLR on the rust stains under the taps. May as well try and clear that as best we can, while we’re at it.

As much as I like this tub, if we had the funds for it, I would replace it with one of those walk in tubs. The kind with a door on the side, and a seat at one end. This would allow both my husband and I to be able to get in and out safely, and get the hot, soaking baths that would give us at least some temporary pain relief. Especially for him, when his back starts to spasm.

A plain walk in tub with a seat starts at over $3600 at Home Depot. There are slightly cheaper walk in tubs, but they don’t have a seat which, for us, completely defeats the purpose of having one.

If we did get one, we would probably have to add more structural support to the floor in the basement. Which is not that big of a deal. I think we even have an adjustable steel pillar somewhere around the farm that could be used. The only down side of that is, it would make it harder to get at the well pump, sump pump and pressure tank, as well as the plumbing, that are all under the bathroom.

Ideally, we would be hiring someone to do all this and renovate the entire bathroom in the process. If we were to include installing a walk in tub at the same time, though, that would easily cost at $10,000. Probably more like $15,000 since we’d also be getting at least the walls around the tub tiled. When we looked it up before, the cost to tile the bathroom alone was in the $5000 for a room the size of ours.

*sigh*

If we had that kind of cash available, we wouldn’t have truck payments right now.

Well, we’ll figure it out.

Meanwhile, my brother plans to come out here with another load, after work on Friday, and he will take a look at the bathroom while he’s here.

So today’s priority will be working on my husband’s bedroom. I’m hoping we can set his computer up on his leatherworking desk in the living room first. Then we can start clearing and rearranging his room, so we can access the corner on the other side of the tub and look into cutting an access panel.

One of the things we need to take out of his room is my late father’s wardrobe; it matches the vanity and nightstand I’m using in my room. In talking to him about it, he said we could take the wardrobe out completely and leave it out, as he doesn’t use it very much, but we have nowhere else to put it! It’s pretty darn big.

It seems like every thing we discover that needs to be done requires something else that needs to be done to do it… which requires something else to be done so we can do that…

When my mother asked us to move out here, we knew it wouldn’t be easy, and the house wasn’t “perfect” like she claimed it was, but my goodness, we never expected it to be this bad.

Well, it is what it is. We will deal.

It’s not like we have any choice!

The Re-Farmer

Winterizing the sunroom, and cheeky kitties!

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Today has been gorgeous and sunny, with almost no wind. The weather apps say we’re at 13C/55F, but feeling like 10C/50F.

The thermometer in the shelf shelter, which was getting hit with full sun, was reading almost 30C/86! 😄

My daughter took on the very messy job of starting to scrub the walls around the tub, as we let the rotten parts we found under the tub surround, dry a bit. There is very little room to assist, so I took advantage of the pleasant day to start winterizing the sun room, as well as making some changes in the old kitchen.

Last winter, we set things up for the cats on one side, while the other side was used to store our tools and supplies.

Unfortunately, the cats knocked so many things off the shelves and all over the floor. Then, because it’s darn cold out there in the winter, they used all sorts of corners to do their business in.

The girls started cleaning it up in the spring, but it never quite got finished.

So I got it mostly done today, which included moving some things out of the old kitchen.

The first thing was to get the broken pieces of tub surround and get that onto the junk pile for later hauling to the dump. Once those were out of the way, I could get at a rocking chair that was here when we moved in. We can’t use it in the main part of the house – too many creatures with tails! – and it’s just taking up space in the old kitchen, so I ended up putting it in the storage house. That gave me access to the small shelf I wanted to move to the sun room. It was meant to be used to hold things like extra packages of toilet paper or paper towel, cases of canning jars and the like. It ended up getting blocked off, and not just by the rocking chair! There were cases of canning jars on it that we never opened. Last year, we didn’t have enough produce to make it worthwhile to can, and this year will be much the same. I just moved those over to a plastic couch for now.

The old kitchen had been cleaned out and set up to be someplace we could sit and relax in, but that didn’t work out, either. We had to move the kibble into the old kitchen because the racoons kept knocking the bin over and spilling it onto the floor. Then we found ourselves having to use it to store our garbage until we could make a dump run. That basically took up most of the space.

I’d like to get that couch moved out, too, but there really isn’t any room for it in the storage house, either.

Still, once I cleared out the rocking chair and the shelf, I could move my late father’s walker in the space where the shelf was. Now we have all sorts of room in the old kitchen again!

I’m keeping the walker handy, because I see the day coming when I will need to be using it myself.

As for the sun room, I didn’t have to empty it entirely, which was nice. I started off cleaning and clearing around the cat cage until I could move the cage, and the interlocking floor mat it sits on, towards the middle of the west facing windows, then clean up the corner where it had been. The collection of cat carriers we keep in there got taken outside and dismantled to varying degrees, depending on the design, before getting scrubbed down and left to dry in the sun. Basically it was clear a spot, clean up under it, clear a spot, clean up under it…

The cats may use the great outdoors to do their business in the summer, but the skunks and racoons will drop their messes anywhere and any time!

Ew.

Then I had to take out a whole lot of stuff on the storage and tools side of the sunroom, and empty the matching shelf that needed to be moved into the other corner.

Quite a bit of stuff ended up getting thrown away due to cat damage.

Other stuff got moved to the garage for storage, including all the paint supplies I could find. Others got tucked into the counter shelf, where the cats can’t get at them.

Finally, the shelf itself got taken outside, where I could hose it down.

Once the shelf was out, I had to mop the floor several times to get the messes that were uncovered in the process.

Ew, again!

Finally, I was able to shift over the wooden shelf that was under the bathroom window, and move it into the corner. That cleared enough space to be able to open one of the doors under the counter shelf all the way. The floor isn’t level, so I had to put scrap pieces of rigid insulation under it, so it can’t fall forward. Then the small shelf from the old kitchen was set in place, and I could finally start putting things away again. This shelf got mostly gardening supplies, plus the critter cam was set up on to top of it, too. I ended up getting a piece of scrap 2×4 to raise the camera up a bit higher, with pieces of Alien Tape to hold them in place.

Eventually, I was able to bring the big shelf back in and set it up in the corner across from the one in the window. I had to get creative to work around the shop lights we’ve got hanging across there. These are set to turn on with motion activation after dusk.

Once the lights were adjusted for the new shelf, I was able to set up a folding closet door we found while cleaning up after moving here, and have found so many uses for! It is long enough to create a platform between the shelves, with enough space above the cat cage for the cats to still use the top as a bed.

With the cooler temperatures, we no longer have the wire mesh door we made to keep the cats out of the old basement, allowing us to keep the door open and let cool air circulate. Last year, we set that up between the shelf in the window and the top of the cat cage, with a box on top to level it. We then had to use some scrap 2x4s to support the wire mesh door, since it was bending under the weight of cats, plus we put a sheet of rigid insulation under it, partly to keep things warmer below, where the heat lamp was, partly so the cats could walk over the wire mesh without their paws falling through. We still put cat beds and another piece of scrap insulation on top.

The folding closet door I set up between the shelves is narrow enough to fit inside the wire mesh door frame, so that can now be stored and used for the cats at the same time again – and the closet door is far more solid! The wire mesh door is longer, too, making the entire platform more secure.

Then I could start putting some things back on the shelf for storage, including the cat carriers.

This is how the cat side of the sunroom looks now.

There are two small cat carriers on the bottom, and larger ones in the next two shelves above. Hopefully, the cats will just use them and not knock them about!

The platform now has a couple of cat beds, plus the self warming mat, on it. Two of the shelves against the window have the canopy and walls from the broken market tents on them for the cats to use as beds.

We have a number of other cat blankets that need to be washed, and then they’ll be set up inside the cat carriers or draped over the shelves of the mini greenhouse frame, though those will need cardboard or something laid on the wire shelves, first.

The sun room kibble trays were then returned to the sun room and, last of all, I got the critter cam positioned were I wanted it.

I have the live feed running as I write this. I can see cats in the cat beds and self warming mat on the platform, and more on the shelves in front of the window. I can’t see into the cat carriers to know of they are being used or now right now.

Later on, we will set up the heat lamp, clamped to the platform, and the heated water bowl near the small shelf that’s now in there, where it can be plugged into the same cord that powers the critter cam.

Aside from little things like that, the sunroom is ready for the winter, and moving things to the garage has given us a lot more open floor space, too.

One thing I’ve been considering it setting up the canopy tent I got on clearance, somewhere close to the house, as an extra shelter in the winter. Perhaps in the corner, where it could be over the window to the old basement, if I could find a way to secure it. For now, though, the tent is in its package, on the shelf between two windows.

It has been claimed by these cheeky little buggers!

Quite a few cats have decided it is an excellent bed. Especially the kitten in the foreground of the photo above!

At least they’re not trying to knock it off the shelf!

This was not the job I planned on working on today, but it was one that needed pleasant weather to do, so the other stuff will just have to wait a bit longer. This was a big and messy job, and I’m glad it’s over with!

Meanwhile, my daughter scrubbed at the bathroom walls until her arms gave out – it was so bad under that tub surround, she only got half of it done. My other daughter made supper for all of us, then cleaned detritus out the tub as best as can be done right now.

All in all, it was a productive day.

I’ll have to leave productiveness to the girls for the next couple of days, though. I will need to help my mother with groceries tomorrow because, the day after, my husband has to be at the hospital in the nearer city for an 8:30am CT scan. Which means we need to leave here by 7:30am at the latest.

Time to go call my mother and work out what time I’m coming over!

Until then, thanks for reading all my blathering, and I hope you have an awesome night!

The Re-Farmer

Cuddle puddles, and some wind damage

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It’s about 10:30am as I start this and, according to the weather apps, we’re at 6C/42F right now, with a “feels like” of 1C/34F

Which means it was probably a couple of degrees colder, at least, while I did my morning rounds, which I finished a couple of hours ago.

I didn’t even need a jacket while I was out there. Sweats and a sweatshirt had me more than warm enough!

Still, it’s rather chilly for the kitties – especially the littles – so I took the time this morning to set their kibble to soak in hot water until completely softened, and also had warm water to top up their water bowls.

Click through to see a second photo, above.

The cats that prefer to eat on the cat shelter roof aren’t too happy when I just walk past them – some even reach out to grab my arm as I go by! – but they do eventually go to the trays.

I’d say the warm food is worth it for them!

As I was doing my rounds, I had quite a few branches to pick up. Mostly smaller branches around the yard. Then I found this in the maple grove, out by the fire pit.

When I first saw it, I was a bit confused. How could we lose a tree, but all the trees are still standing? Where did it come from?

Click through to the next photo, and you’ll see.

We just lost half a tree! 😄

Clearly, it had been dead for some time. As I was cleaning it up, I left the biggest piece of trunk for last. The smaller pieces and branches went to the two branch piles we have – one in the yard as fuel for the fire pit, one just on the other side of the fence that will eventually need a commercial wood chipper to get rid of.

The trunk turned out to be so dry and partially rotted that, when I went to pick up the larger end to drag it out, it broke in half!

Those pieces got dragged over next to the pile of cut logs we have for the fire pit, to be broken down more, later.

We haven’t used the fire pit even once this year. It’s usually been too windy for a fire, and when it wasn’t windy, there were too many mosquitoes. Now that it’s getting cooler and the bugs are mostly gone, I’m hoping to get it going at least once or twice – if the wind allows!

Another reason I want to get our outdoor kitchen built. We’ll move the fire pit into the shelter. It won’t keep the bugs out, but it’ll have at least some shelter from the wind and rain.

Until then, we won’t be getting much use out of the fire pit where it is now. Not only is wind a concern, but there are too many dead branches around that the sparks could ignite, as well as a nearby spruce. Spruce is basically a big torch waiting to happen.

After finishing cleaning up the wind damage around the yard – mostly very minor stuff, thankfully – I started heading inside, and found all sorts of adorableness in the sun room!

Poor judgement, trying to squeeze his way into the cat bed with the kittens and… I believe that is Not-Junk-Pile in with them.

If you click through to the next photo, you’ll see a kitten cuddle puddle. The “bed” they’re on is an old feed bag, from when we could still afford to buy deer feed and bird seed, we found, stuffed with… I can’t remember what. It was stored on the shelf and the cats knocked it flat to make a bed out of it! 😄

We will be rearranging the sun room as we clean it up for the winter, bringing in another shelf from the old kitchen that isn’t being used as intended. We’ll set up this side of the sun room for the cats, so they will have more places like this to stay warm in the winter.

Well, it’s time to go help my daughter in the bathroom. There is much to do to fix things up!

The Re-Farmer

We have contact!

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I’ve been trying something different with the outside cats, as the temperatures drop. Along with heating water for their water bowls, I’ve started boiling water to soak their kibble, with the lysine powder added, until it’s very soft. Not quite cat soup, but no longer crunchy.

I experimented with it last night and was shocked by just how much water kibble can absorb. No wonder cats with dry diets can get blocked so easily!

Anyhow; this gives them warm food, and we’re not wasting lysine on the bottom of the food trays.

They seem to like it.

It does mean no kibble on the roof of the cat house, which some of the cats prefer. We’ll still give them a top of during the day of dry kibble, but this morning, they had to go to the liquid proof trays to eat.

As I was putting the food out, I kept hearing a meow from… where? The cats I could see were all busy eating.

Eventually, I traced it to the shelf shelter. Each shelf has its own food bow for those shier cats.

Like this one!

It was tucked way into the corner, and not going anywhere near the food bowl, just inches away.

I’m not sure I know this cat. It might be one of the extras that have started showing up.

I didn’t even try to do a head count this morning.

I do, however, have excellent news.

We have contact!

Full contact! Not just pets and scritches, but actual pick up and cuddle contact.

This unfortunate photo was the best I could get.

That, my friends, is Kohl!

I was able to pet her yesterday, but she would still run off at times when I reached for her.

This morning, she was right in there with all the usual adults that fight for attention when I first come out. When I opened the doors from the old kitchen into the sun room, she actually made a run for the door and tried to get inside!

As I was putting the food out, she eagerly accepted pets. When she got in the way of closing the storm door to the old kitchen, I picked her up and she let me cuddle her. Even outside, where tolerance for pets usually disappears, she even came up to me for pets.

I am so happy!

I believe this makes her the third female kitten – maybe the fourth – that we’ve been able to socialize. It’s been so hard to get the females friendly, without having to basically catch them and bring them inside.

Once the cat isolation shelter is finished and set up with a heat lamp, we’ll be able to work with the rescue to start getting the little ladies spayed over the winter.

Kohl’s brother, Rabi, meanwhile, stays well away from us, even at feeding time.

Ah, well. You can’t win them all!

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

What a beautiful morning!

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Just check out the sky we had, while I was doing my morning rounds!

Click though for a second image.

I’m so glad the camera on my phone picked up those amazing sunbeams.

I also got a photo of my little helper.

I believe this is the one the girls have named Magda. Such a sweety! She doesn’t like to be carried, but I discovered that if I use the bottom of my shirt to make a pouch, she will happily go for a ride in it. 😊

While checking the garden beds, I was happy to see this, in the high raised bed.

Click through for a second image. These are the peppers that are supposed to be more of an orangey yellow, and they are finally turning colour!

I hadn’t planned to harvest anything this morning, as I decided to go into the city for our Costco shopping trip. I did end up gathering a couple of melons that had fallen off their vines. One of them looked like a mouse had tried to chewing through it. It didn’t get very far, though. I’m sure one of our yard cats had something to do with the limited damage!

Meanwhile, we figured out why my husband’s disability pay came in earlier than expected. It turns out we have a new statutory holiday. National Truth and Reconciliation Day. I hadn’t seen anything about it anywhere, including the usual places I would have expected to. I don’t see it as being a particularly popular holiday, since it’s basically just a pander to activist types pushing the residential school/mass graves hoax. They have no interest in truth, and certainly don’t want reconciliation, and if their agenda end up hurting their own people, they don’t particularly care about that, either. Oh, I’d better watch myself, though. If our Prime Dictator has any say in the matter, being a “residential school denier” will be an arrestable offence.

But I digress.

As lovely as it was out there this morning, today has worked out to be another very windy day! We’re going to have a lot of clean up in the yard of small branches – not large ones, thankfully, nor any fallen trees this time.

We’re supposed to get a bit of rain in about an hour, and our overnight temperatures are supposed to drop to 7C/45F tonight. When I go my evening rounds, I’ll have to remember to drop the sides of the plastic “greenhouse” we put around the eggplant and pepper bed. Hopefully, the winds will have died down by then, and the box frame won’t become a sail! It’s tied down really well, with means the wood would probably break before it came loose from the stakes. !!

While tonight and tomorrow night are supposed to be pretty mild, our forecast has changed once again. We’re now looking at 3C/37F in a couple of night, and 0C/32F the night after.

We’ll have to make sure to harvest all the green tomatoes before then! It’s a shame we have no way to cover them, because overnight temperatures are supposed to warm up again after that.

Or… the forecast could change again, and we won’t be getting any frost yet at all!

It could happen!

The Re-Farmer

My little buddy

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I have a new friend that follows me around when I’m checking on the yard and garden beds!

Meet Magda. The girls just recently named her.

She really, really wanted attention, too! Which is really unusual for the female kittens.

We encourage this, of course, since it will make it easier to collect her when it’s time to get her spayed!

The Re-Farmer

Chilly kitties – plus first contact!

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With last night’s chill, the yard cats were most definitely feeling it! A whole lot of kittens are hanging out in the sun room, curled up on various beds and blankets, in piles.

It’s getting time to open up the cat house to clean it up, as well as setting up one side of the sun room, for the winter.

They are also seem extra enthusiastic at feeding time, with this new kibble!

I had a bit of a surprise among the cats swirling around my feet as I tried to get out of the old kitchen, closing the inner door behind me to keep cats from running into the old kitchen, and not step on any cats while stepping down from the doorway.

An adorable little face I don’t usually see this close to me!

Baby Hypotenose was in the crowd. I got this picture of her, later.

That is Baby Hypotenose – or perhaps we could call her Lady Hypotenose.

This is one of those times when who the daddy is, is not in doubt!

The irony is, I’m less sure of who the mother is! I’m about 95% sure it’s Sprout, as I saw her with Hypotenose Jr and an orange kitten. Then the orange kitten disappeared.

Sprout quite a bit more feral, and is one of the mamas that isn’t very motherly.

As for Baby Hypotenose, as I was setting kibble out in the sun room, she was right in there with the other cats, milling around under my feet.

So I tried to pet her.

She let me!!!

She started to run off, but stopped and let me rub her neck and shoulders. I’m so happy! We’ve been able to identify her as female, only because she’s a bit of a show off when she runs around with her tail up. We have one female kitten that’s a lot more socialized. If we can get Baby Hypotenose socialized, too, that’ll make at least 2 female kittens we’ll be able to get to a vet over the winter!

Here’s hoping!

There was another rare visitor in the sun room, though not one I was able to touch. I got this photo later on, too.

I’m pretty sure this tuxedo is one of ours from last year, but I’m not 100% sure. It’s not a regular.

It was also very, very hungry, which would be the only reason I was able to get close to it while putting the kibble out.

I think it’s adorable that it is cuddling with the kitten in the shelf shelter! That kitten is one of the more socialized ones.

This one, however, is not…

They’re going to miss this tree when we finally have it cut down. The cats love to climb all over it.

I’m thinking we leave a fair bit of the trunk standing. My usual thought is that we could use the stump to support a table or a bench. Actually, it’s thick enough it could probably support both.

If we leave more of the trunk, though, we could also add cat shelves or small shelters onto it.

That’s not going to happen for a while, though. We need to get it done, though. It’s roots are cracking the basement all, and the branches are overhanging the roof. My daughters were able to trim some away, but the bulk of it will need a professional tree company to remove, without risking damage to the roof.

Unless my brother decides to do it himself. Which I wouldn’t want, as it would be a pretty dangerous job. It’s just too close to the house.

For now, though, the cats love it. They also use it to get onto the roof, where they can then go to the second floor windows and check out what my daughters are doing! 😁

Like this little one was checking me out from the branch above me.

They are so sweet.

The Re-Farmer

Morning cuties

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Look what I found this morning, hanging out in the mulch.

When harvesting the potatoes in this bed, I remove the mulch and just piled it up close to the tomato I found among the potatoes and transplanted. The kittens absolutely love dried grass clippings as a bed!

The white one with the black on its head is the one that liked to snuggle with eye baby when he was at his worst. We can pet him, most times when he’s in the sun room or close to the house. Not so much, when he’s further away. The fuzzy tabby has sometimes let me touch him (her?) while he’s eating, but that’s about it.

We’re working on it!

Just before I started this post, I heard from the Cat Lady. Button had been treated for ear mites and had his ears flushed several times before he was allowed out of isolation and with the other household cats.

It turns out, the ear mites were so deep in the ear canal, they didn’t get them all.

She just had to treat all 23 household cats for ear mites, at $100 a cat.

*gasp*

Also, it turns out The Wolfman is allergic to probably chicken. He is now on a hypoallergenic food. This is the cat that would constantly steal the chicken, turkey or salmon roasted for them, as it was left to cool.

Which is just so weird. The outside cats eat what we can afford to give them, plus whatever they hunt for themselves. We haven’t see anything that might be an allergic reaction to the food. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a cat – or human, for that matter – allergic to chicken, but apparently it’s one of the more common allergies. The Wolfman did come inside when he was very small, and only because I found him with a dislocated shoulder. It popped back into place on its own, and we never sent him back outside. So he would have been eating at least canned chicken and turkey, since we do give the inside cats wet cat food. We’re not seeing any sort of allergic reaction with the inside cats, either. I mean yeah, the cats sometimes scratch their ears, but that’s been ear mites, which we’ve treated them for. They’re not displaying the other symptoms I’m reading.

The Cat Lady calls the Wolfman, Greedy Guts, because he eats so much and steals food so often. He’s gained 6 pounds since they took him in (he still refuses to allow anyone who comes to see him for adoption, anywhere near him). One of his most striking features was his fluffy flag of a tail. He has since been loosing fur on his tail, which turned out to be an allergy symptom. He looks so strange with a scrawny tail!

So very strange!

The Re-Farmer

Our very own jungle, and the catio is almost there!

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While doing my rounds this morning, I just had to get some photos of our Crespo squash. Here’s one of them…

What an absolute jungle!

Some of those leaves growing up from vines on the ground are taller than my waist! The vines climbing the cherry trees are really taking off, and blooming.

If you click over to the next picture, you will see my little green friend that I found in the main garden area. The onion flower stalk it’s sitting on is bigger than the frog!

Later on, I went back out to finish painting the catio.

Well, almost.

I thought a quart would be enough. I was wrong, but by so very little!

If you click through to the second photo, you’ll see that I finished painting the mesh in blue. I didn’t try to get into the spaces to cover the white on the frame. I just wanted to make sure the rusted mesh was protected. When more black paint is in the budget again, we’ll give the while thing a second coat. Except for the top, of course, since that would require taking the roof panels off.

Once everything is dry, we can replace the cat hammock and then it’s basically done. Getting more paint is not a necessity, since all the important bits are now protected with at least one coat of paint.

The cats will be happy to be allowed back in there!

Including this little one.

I find this kitten, curled up like this and napping, all over the place! Usually someone in a sun spot, in the open, on the grass. Today, he decided the kibble house roof would be his curl up spot.

I was actually able to pet him while he slept. Usually, when I try that, he wakes up and runs off. Today, when three adult cats pushed their way through, demanding pets and waking him up, he didn’t run away! I even got to touch his back a bit before the other cats pushed themselves under my hand. I stopped trying, because I didn’t want the bigger cats to end up pushing the little one right off the roof.

I tried to do a head count after feeding the cats this morning. I think I counted 41 this morning. I may have counted a cat twice, but I don’t think so.

*sigh*

Anyhow.

Today, we’re looking at a relatively bearable high of 23C/73F. As I write this, we’re at 21C/70F, with a humidex of 25C/77F. We got a little bit of rain last night, so I have decided not to water the garden today. I’ll definitely have to, tomorrow, though. The system that blew through barely touched us, but other areas in our province got enough that people in my local gardening groups had their gardens completely flooded out.

This morning I finally made some follow up calls. I left a message with the company that will be repairing our septic expeller. I got through to the scrap guy and told him about the threshing machine and cars that we have permission to get cleaned up. He will be coming over tomorrow morning to look at things and see what they’re dealing with. They were also supposed to take the collection of old batteries we found while cleaning up in the basement and garage. Those will be harder to get at, now that my brother is storing things in the barn, but we should still be able to do that. It will be good to finally get those bags of aluminum hauled off. We’re looking at almost 7 years of cans collected. With all the cat food cans in there, the outside cats keep digging into on corner and making a mess.

At least it’s just in the one spot, though!

I look forward to being able to clear out more of the old vehicles, but I have to clear with my brother, which ones he says can go or not.

Little by little, it’s going to get done.

The Re-Farmer