Well, I made it into town today to do a small grocery shopping trip.
I forgot about daylight savings. Most of our clocks automatically shift, but not the truck. I got there, thinking they were already open for a while, but I was 15 minutes early.
The truck now has the correct time! 😄
I was not the only one waiting.
As for the truck, it did run fine in general, though I was still feeling some shuddering that I couldn’t attribute to the wind. On the way home, I was headlong into the wind and actually had a hard time getting up to speed! I think it’ll run smoother after the oil change, though. Once I get the all clear from our mechanic, I’ll do the Costco stock up trip in the city.
For now, I did what is a more typical local shop. Getting a few things we needed, plus taking advantage of sales.
This is what $183.20 looks like.
I did end up getting a fair bit more than planned, but still… that’s not a lot for almost $200!
This is what I got.
I got a 4 pack of Monsters, mostly for my daughters. I did get one more from one of the store fridges for the drive home. We’ll pick up a case at Costco (which I get reimbursed for by my daughter). I also picked up some Coke Zero and Fresca. Those are for all 4 of us. I can’t stand Fresca, and my daughters don’t like Coke Zero. My husband likes both.
The Mafalda Corta is a pasta. I was actually looking for broad egg noodles, but the only ones I found were skinny ones from a specialty brand and cost over $13 for a bag! Nope. I got the pasta that was on sale. I want to make haluski, so I’ll try it with the Mafalda Corta pasta, instead. The radiatori pasta is something fun I like to get when it’s on sale.
The rice crackers were for my husband. I also got four packages of pudding mix because they were on an excellent sale.
I got two 18s of eggs instead of a flat of 30, because the cartons of 18 fit in my hard sided insulated bags.
There’s a couple of pounds of butter, because we ran out completely. I also got a 2L each of milk and oat milk.
Then there was the box of mandarins that were on sale, and a cabbage and onion for the haluski.
I wasn’t planning on getting meat, but took advantage of sales to get a pork roast, a couple of packages of breakfast sausages and hot dog wieners. I also picked up a garlic sausage, made by a local company, and dried salami sausage for my husband to snack on. The sushi was my breakf… er… lunch for the drive home.
While my daughter did do some bread baking, I picked up more bread products. A couple of packages of mini garlic Naan, a loaf of sourdough, a couple of loaves of marble rye, and some hot dog buns.
Between the sales and my points card, I saved $44.71, or 20%. I could have used my points to get $10 off, too, but I decided to save that for another time.
So, there we have it. A total of 36 items, almost all on sale.
It was enough to pull up to the house to unload. After everything was in the house and I headed out to park the truck in the garage, I spotted the adorableness.
The little tuxedo staring out the other side window is also feral. There is another tuxedo, even smaller, that is less feral and I’ve even been able to pick it up and snuggle it a bit. I have suspicions about that, though. I think it might be at least partially deaf, and possibly have vision issues. Maybe I’m just paranoid, after what happened with Button over time, but it seems the tiny tuxedo’s eyes are dilated more than they should be, all the time. If it’s at all like Button, that would mean it can see shadows and movement, but not much else.
Or, it could just be that it was very scared when I picked it up.
We still have an ongoing Canada Post strike right now, but they have moved from a full strike to rotating strikes, so mail is starting to get through. With that in mind, I placed an order with Amazon last night. One of the things I picked up was an outdoor cat shelter (not an affiliate link).
This is something I’ve looked at in the past and rejected, as there is no way they’d handle our winters. However, we now have the catio and it’s winterized. I am thinking of setting it up inside there, along with the box nests that are already in there. I will just have to find something to put under it, so it’s not directly on the ground, just in case water pools inside again in the spring. It is waterproof, insulated and self heating. Between that and being inside the winterized catio, it should provide better shelter – and a private hiding place – for the most feral cats. Who knows. Adam, Sprout and Sprout’s clone baby might actually start using it, instead of disappearing into the outer yard until feeding time.
Oh!! I just thought of a name for Sprout’s clone baby.
Sprig.
Both are still completely feral. Sprout’s fluffy orange and white is also feral, but is at least willing to come closer and I’ve even managed to sneak a pet or two as he runs by.
Speaking of the more feral cats, as I was driving into the yard, I spotted a cat running across by the driveway by the pump shack, disappearing into the tall grass. I didn’t recognize it.
If this works out, we might get a second one for the garage. Pinky does use the isolation shelter, but at night, I think she is once again retreating to the rafters in the garage, above the truck. If we had some sort of self heating shelter in there that would be better or her.
Best of all, of course, would be for her to get spayed and adopted out, but that might take a while longer. The rescue is still working with the six they took from us not long ago.
Meanwhile, we need to work on socializing the littles! At least they have the shelters. Right now, we’re supposedly 7C/45F, but with the wind chill, it feels like -5C/23F. We are under an ongoing wind warning, with some areas expecting gusts up to 90kph/56mph.
I’m glad I was able to make the small shop today, at least, even if it did mean fighting the wind the whole way home! We’re good for a while, even if the truck ends up needing work and the Costco trip gets delayed.
This morning, I was to cover for home care for my mother’s med assist, so I was up and about feeding the outside cats before it was light out.
They seem torn between famished for breakfast, and wanting to still be in their cozy spots!
Thankfully, it was light out by the time I started heading for my mother’s, as the first thing I saw when I got on the main road was a pair of deer on the road! The highway condition group I’m on has been reporting a lot of deer activity this year, with certain areas being particularly dangerous right now.
I got to my mother’s a bit early. She was still in bed, and I would have brought things to her, but she came out to join me. I made her a breakfast that she could have with her meds. I suspect it was a fuller breakfast, small as it was, than she would have been up to doing on her own. Hopefully, she will be willing to have the home care workers help her with that. The new assists aren’t part of her current schedule, but they would be informed by now, and her morning assist is 10 minutes to allow for extra help, even if it’s just to get the kettle going and doing some instant oatmeal.
When getting some milk out for her, I discovered she had issues with the carton. She had tried, and failed to open it from both sides and ended up making a hole with a knife! I was able to get the spout side open for her but, with the hole she made, had to be very careful pouring it into her cup. Last time, I’d got her a plastic jug of milk from another town. She had cleaned it out to use it as one of her water jugs for drinking and cooking, so I gave it an extra rinse and transferred her milk from the carton to the jug.
I wish her local grocery store still carried the smaller plastic jugs. They only have 4L in plastic, and my mom can’t handle jugs that size. My siblings and I will have to make a point of getting 2L milk in plastic jugs for her, when we know we can swing by to drop it off.
After that, I spent the next hour or so doing some of the things home care can do for her, like emptying her commode and rubbing the Voltaren on her back, and stuff they can’t, like changing her bedding and sweeping her entire apartment.
She told me that she’s been asking the ladies to do the Voltaren in the morning and before bed, and they have been quite willing to do it, but there’s one home care worker she has issues with. This is the same one that will come in, get her pills out, then leave without making sure my mother takes them. Last night, my mother has asked if she could rub the Voltaren on her back. Her response was to look at the sheet and say, that’s one listed on there. Which… of course it isn’t. This stuff doesn’t require a prescription. But they are supposed to be able to help with a number of things – her bed time visit has 15 minutes schedules for that. I don’t know if this worker refused to do it or not.
As we were chatting, my mother asked me if living here at the farm has been helpful for us, financially. I told her that yes, it was at first, but things are getting really expensive now. Especially when we have things like the door to replace. This is the first time I told her that we had to put it on credit. That’s when she started saying that my brother should be taking care of this stuff for me. I just laughed at that, because I know when she says that, she’s saying it’s because he’s male, and I shouldn’t be doing “man” stuff. However, she had also been teasing about helping pay for the door, so that would also have been her way to say he should have paid for it. Meanwhile, our deal is that we live here “rent free”, in exchange for maintaining the place and keeping it up as much as we can. I wasn’t going to go there, though.
Then she started saying that we should be communicating more. That confused me because she knows I’ve been talking to my brother about this (it’s his house, after all), and her. So I asked her, what did she mean? Oh, I should be talking to my brother about it and… don’t forget! He has access to her money.
…
???
Yeah, he has Power of Attorney, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to use her life’s savings!
I told her, she needs to talk to my brother about her money, not me. Then I added, I won’t ask her, like our vandal did. He was forever going to her for money. He even expected her to pay for a large building he wanted to build and was furious when she refused, and blamed her for having to take out a loan. She said, oh, that was a long time ago. He doesn’t ask for money. Not any more, I pointed out. I reminded him of how she’s given him a check for a substantial amount, only for him to come back asking for another one, saying his wife had accidentally burned the check with their garbage in the burn barrel. She gave him another, much smaller, amount (still a lot, though). When my brother found out, he checked her account and discovered the first check had already been cashed!
She remembered that. That was money she gave him to go towards the building he wanted to build.
*sigh*
That did give me a chance to tell her about our incident from a couple of days ago. When I told her how he’d opened up his shirt, took off the support strap and started waving his colostomy bag at me, she told me, he’s been showing that thing to everyone.
*shudder*
All in all, things went really well this visit. I was able to get quite a bit done for her, which was nice. I even remembered to ask her if she wanted me to make lunch for her before I left – and from her reaction, I could tell she had meant to ask me to do just that, but had forgotten! She told me what she wanted put together on a plate for her, then to set it in the microwave, so that all she needed to do was turn it on when she was ready to eat, after someone from church came over to give her communion.
After I was done there, I was going to swing by the grocery store to pick up a couple of things for home, but they were closed. So I made a side trip to the town closer to us and got a few things there before heading home.
By then, the winds had gotten even worse, so there was no way I was going to get anything done outside today. A forced day of rest!
The forecast now says we will be getting rain all day tomorrow (Monday), continuing on through half the next day. So that’s two more days of outside work lost. After that, it’ll be cooler, but at least the winds will have died down and the weather clear. The problem is, Wednesday is my first city stock up shopping trip. I’ll shoot to head out as early as I can and hopefully get back with enough daylight hours to get at least some work done outside. At this point, I think I’m going to start winter sowing, just to get things into the prepared beds while I still can! On the plus side, the long range forecast now suggests the first couple of weeks of November might still be warm enough to get more done out there.
When it was time to head out and feed the outside cats, I ended up spending quite a long time doing my evening rounds, checking for wind damage, picking up fallen branches, etc. I was finishing up when I spotted this cozy scene.
In the first picture, you can see Pinky in the cat bed on the bottom. That is the cat bed that had been in the catio, where she and her little would cuddle together and sleep.
In the upper level Midnight is in the cat bed there, and in the second picture, you can see he is cuddling with a little grey tabby kitten! Which is amazing, because he usually growls and swipes at the kittens!
I’m glad to see kittens in there. Most hang out together in the sun room, but some just won’t stay there other than to grab some food. The winterized catio is being well used, too. So far, it’s been holding up to the wind all right. I did put the red bench I made against one side wall, to reduce how much it was fluttering in the wind, so that helps, too.
Technically, it’s warm today, but with that wind, it’s very unpleasant out there, so I’m very happy to see the cats using the shelters. Some, like Adam, Sprout and Sprout’s calico seem to have secret spots out in the outer yard somewhere that they hang out in. Sprout’s fluffy orange and white seems to have moved into the portable greenhouse!
Oh, I have news about the ones that have gone to the foster. The adult and Pinky’s two have been spayed and neutered. The adult is completely deaf and has a really bad ear infection, but there were no ear mites in any of them! The vet thinks the adult may have been born deaf. I fully expected to learn the infection was from a really bad ear mite infestation, and that that is what caused the deafness.
So the adult is going to be rehabilitated and socialized, so she can be adopted out rather than coming back to us, since she won’t survive long as an outside cat. If she really were dumped, as we suspect, I’m amazed she survived long enough to find our place at all!
We do the best we can for the outside cats, so they can be cozy, safe, well fed and warm, but nothing beats getting adopted and living the good life indoors!
Gotta work on socializing more kittens, and getting those ladies fixed!
Today was supposed to be a much warmer day. Technically, it was, but we also had high winds, so it sure didn’t feel much warmer!
The winds showed exactly why I needed to get the catio finished. The bottoms or the front panels I had to leave unsecured because it got too dark and too cold to continue were flapping in the wind.
If you click through above, there’s a short video of the kitten being adorable.
Working on the bottom of the catio had its challenges, but the biggest one turned out to be Kohl. She absolutely HAD to be right in there, trying to lick my fingers and giving me little nips if I didn’t pet her often enough.
Once it was done, I figured it would be easier to make a video to share.
The only problem was that the door was loose. Previously, I was able to tie it in the mostly closed position, so it wouldn’t get blown around in the wind. There is a brick to keep it from closing all the way, but it sometimes gets knocked over and I’ve found the door closed a couple of times, just since it got moved to this location. Since it’s not latched, a cat inside could push their way out, though it might take them a while to figure it out, and it would be harder for the smaller kittens. No cats would be able to get in to the food, water and shelter, though.
What I ended up finding was a small Bungee cord with hooks small enough to fit onto the wire mesh. I’ve got it looped around the handle. It’s stretchy enough that larger cats can push their way through the gap, but strong enough to keep the door from being blown around – plus securing the door like this helps keep the brick in place, too.
All in all, I’m very happy with how it has turned out. There are a few finishing touches I’d like to do, but they aren’t essential.
After I finished with the catio, I had intended to work in the garden, but it was just too windy. Instead, I worked on putting things away for the winter. The canopy tent was really being blown around, so that is not down and tucked into the garage for the winter. Then it was puttering round, doing things like getting the insulation set up around the based of the house, putting the hoses at the back away, etc.
While I was working, I heard some load noises from somewhere in the outer yard, so when I had the chance, I went looking around to see what had been blown over.
This old log building has been slowly collapsing more and more for many years. It’s a shame it was allowed to happen. I remember playing in there when I was a kid, and it was in front of where the chain link fence is now.
With the wall down, I went closer to take a look at things. We’re definitely going to have to get that cleaned up as soon as possible. There are a lot of nails and sharp things sticking out.
There is also an oil drum that is now visible, though not in the angle of the shot above. Something sitting on top caught my attention.
Yup. They are fire bricks. I had to remove moss growing on one of them.
After taking the picture, I looked up the name on the bricks.
It turns out they are vintage fire bricks! Claybank Brick Plant in Saskatchewan is designated as a national historic site! It operated from 1914 to 1989, with a brief closure in 1916, partly due to WWI.
The bricks are now in the garage.
There is so much stuff in there, including what appears to be salvageable small lumber and possibly a stack of plywood? I can just see the edges of them, with no indication of size, other than there being some smaller ones in the stack.
After inspecting the wind damage on the old log building, I went around the yard to see what other wind damage there might be. No new fallen trees, thankfully, but I did find some larger fallen branches. My mother’s angel by the gate is still upright, though! I’ve no doubt that, were it not secured to the concrete base under it, it would have fallen over with today’s winds.
While I was still outside, I got a call on my cell phone.
It was home care.
*sigh*
They don’t have anyone to cover my mother’s morning med assists, tomorrow. This was a time slot that actually had someone scheduled, not one of the “unfilled” slots. I went in to call my mother and left a message, then headed back outside to finish a few last things. When I got back in, I thought I saw a new message on the machine and listened to it. It was my mother talking about not getting her meds regularly, and that’s why her health is failing. I called her back but she was confused when I mentioned I’d heard her message. She hadn’t called me today! (She hadn’t seen my message to her, either.) It turned out I had listened to an old message.
Ah, well. I needed to talk to her, anyhow. She’s still upset about having the male home care workers from India. This time, she saw something on the news about a “new” gang from India that the police found. Nothing about where, but now she assumes that if the home care workers are from India, they must be gang members.
*sigh*
Anyhow.
I encouraged my mother to ask the home care workers for help more often, and she didn’t get angry with me about it, so that’s an improvement. Since I’ll be there tomorrow morning, I’ll be taking care of a few other things as well. Her current schedule was done before we had the meeting with the home care coordinator, so it doesn’t reflect extra time for this, but I noticed that she’s got 15 minutes for the morning, 5 minutes at supper, and 10 minutes for the bed time meds. If they’re going to be available to do things like make her a small meal, they’ll need to increase at least the scheduled time at supper.
With that in mind, I’d better get to bed before midnight for a change. :-/
Tomorrow is supposed to be just as warm as today. I hope the winds won’t be back. If I’m going to get any winter sowing done, I need to rake up lots of leaves to mulch the beds right away. I wasn’t even going to try, today. It would just get blown away!
Well, crud. I just checked the forecast. Apparently, it’s going to be even windier, tomorrow!
At this rate, there might not be any leaves left in the yard to rake up for mulch!
Well, I’m actually glad the installers couldn’t make it in to do the front door today.
The rains stopped some time before sunrise this morning. It was still super wet when I went out to feed the cats at about 7:30am There was no rain in the forecast, but while driving today, we got hit by rain several times! Hopefully, things will be better tomorrow.
Before I get into more stuff, though, I just have to share this bit of fluffy adorableness.
There was one litter with four grey tabbies. Two of them are getting fluffier as they get older, and they look almost identical! This is one of them. The other two are short haired and one of them sometimes allows pets, but they are also almost identical. Which means that when I reach out to pet, I’m never sure if it’s the friendlier one that will allow it, or the skittish sibling.
Must. Socialize. The babies.
So they can get fixed and adopted out!
Meanwhile…
My daughter and I headed out to my appointment ridiculously early. I had a budget for lunch, and we could take our time with it.
Not long after we’d passed through my mother’s town, my cell phone started ringing. My daughter answered, and it was an automated call from Life Line. It was to notify that my mother’s pendant seems to no longer be connected, and recommended doing a test.
When the call was done, I pulled over to phone my mother. It went straight to machine, so I left her a detailed message about it, telling her to test her pendant and see if anyone answered. If they did, to just tell them it was a test. If there was no answer, I would be there tomorrow to deal with it, and would call her after I got back from my eye appointment.
Doing this didn’t take very long, but enough time that I was glad we left as early as we did!
Once in town, my daughter and I had lunch, then went to the eye clinic. We got there about half an hour early but, after about 15 minutes, I was take in for stuff they do before the actual appointment with the doctor. This time, it was just the glaucoma test. Taking photos of inside my eyes would be done after I got the drops and the field of vision test.
For the field of vision test, I just had to wait for another patient to be done and the usual sanitization, and was called in quickly. She did the eye drops first, which meant tilting my head back.
This is the first time I got the dilation drops in this room. Usually, it’s been done in the examination room. When I tipped my head back to get the drops, I found myself looking directly into a couple of bright lights! Very hard to keep my eye open for the drops! After the first one, I let her know and she shut the lights off to do the next eye. With the door open, she had enough light but, until I told her, she didn’t realize that doing the drops there meant getting blinded by the ceiling lights!
The field of vision test could be done right away, without having to wait for the drops, since it is all close up. By the time that was done, enough time had passed that I could go straight to getting the photos of the inside of my eyes.
There’s nothing like being told not to blink to suddenly want to blink like crazy! 😄
Those done, it was back to the waiting room until the doctor could see me.
I didn’t have to wait long.
The first thing she did was go over the photos with me, and compare from my last appointment. I’ve got the tiniest of hemorrhages that are being monitored. One slightly larger one – just large enough for me to easily see from the eye exam chair – was no longer there. Overall, nothing had really changed, so there’s nothing to treat. I’ll be back in 6 months for continued monitoring.
Then she did the physical exam with the bright light to see directly in my eyes.
Fun stuff.
Not.
The whole thing was done nice and fast. Being there so early meant we were out early, too!
I made my next appointment for April, and then my daughter started driving me home. Next time, I won’t be getting the eye dilation drops, so she won’t need to come with me.
In my mother’s town, there are two gas stations along the main road. One is a co-op, and we no longer go there for gas. Turns out they can pay dividends because they use old, cheaper gas. I found that out when we had to replace an expensive part in our previous vehicle that had gotten clogged up. Even our lawn mower got clogged up after only one summer’s use, and we only use premium for the mowers!
On the way out, both stations were at $1.199/L
On the way back, the co-op was at $1.310/L
!!!
We turned around and went to the other station that was still at $1.199 to put some gas in before they got the call to increase their prices! I mentioned the other station’s new price and it had changed so recently, she didn’t know about it yet (the two stations are close enough that they can see each other’s price signs).
We didn’t put a lot in, but it was enough to fill the tank at that price. Which is good, because I will be back tomorrow and probably would have needed to put more gas in by the time I was ready to go home from my mother’s. If all goes well, I won’t need to get more gas until our first city shopping trip next week.
Once we got home, it was later than I would normally have fed the outside cats, so taking care of that was my first priority. They were very hungry!
I’ve been keeping an eye out for Pinky. This morning, I didn’t see her until I was getting the truck ready to leave, and she was by the garage. I saw her again while doing the later feeding, and she was again near the garage. I’ve seen her sleeping – alone – in the catio, but since we took her babies in to the rescue, she has been alone.
She won’t let me get a closer look at that injured toe, but it no longer looks bright red, she isn’t favouring it, and there’s no sign of infection, so I think she’s okay. Still something to monitor.
I so wish we could bring her in to her babies! Of course, her “babies” are the cat equivalent of teenagers now, but they were the only ones I ever saw her with. She doesn’t get along with any of the other cats, and now she’s alone. She barely even lets me pet her anymore.
💔💔
Hopefully, we can bring her in soon – and can get her friendly enough again to get her into a carrier!
Once settled inside, I called my mother. She never noticed that there was a message waiting for her, even though I could hear that she was in her TV watching chair, which is right next to her answering machine. I told her about the call I got and had her test her Life Line pendant while on the phone with me.
There was no response.
So, I will have to deal with it tomorrow. I had planned to come earlier, so I could do her shopping while she was having her Meals on Wheels lunch, but she suggested I do the shopping after, so I wouldn’t have to be at her place for too long.
This being my mother, it makes me wonder what she has planned for the morning that she doesn’t want me to know about.
So I’ll be there for early in the afternoon. The appointment might take an hour or so, since the home care coordinator will be reassessing my mother for the nursing home panel, too. I pray my mother finally gets approved! She has been wanting this for over a year now, and her mobility is getting a lot worse. At the very least, she needs to accept increased home care for things she’s been insisting on doing herself, when she shouldn’t be.
We’ll see how that works out.
By the time I’m done at my mother’s, I should be coming home to a new front door!
As for now, the rest of my day is pretty much toast. Aside from it being too wet to get anything done outside, my eyes are still aching from the dilation drops and blinding tests. If it wouldn’t mess me up entirely, I’d be going to bed right now, just so I could keep my eyes closed!
Well, there was definitely no chance the door would get replaced today! It started raining last night and is expected to continue to rain until about 6am tomorrow morning.
The door isn’t going to be done tomorrow, either. The installers aren’t available until Wednesday.
Which is the day I’m going to my mother’s for her grocery shopping and appointment with the home care assessor. I’ll be coming home to a new door.
Rain or no rain, the outside cats needed to be fed. When I went out to do the evening feeding, though, this one was not hungry and stayed in bed.
This fluffy kitten is getting so big – and so gorgeous!
Must. Socialize. The wild kitty.
Feeding the cats was about it for going outside today. Even they were avoiding it as much as possible!
Which means I more relaxed day indoors. I even got to do some crafting! I haven’t doing any in a very long time. Partly because I usually do crochet, and with my hands to rough and dry from working in the garden, the yarn gets hung up on my skin and will even pull the loops of my hook!
Today, however, I tried doing a small weaving project. I’ve got a loom knitting and weaving kit, and used the pieces to put together the smallest square peg loom possible. Big enough to make coaster sized squares.
I’d gotten the idea from some Pinterest images that showed up in my feed, but it was this video that gave me the full instructions.
I tried using single strand yarn, but found it too open and floppy. I ended up making four squares, experimenting with different thicknesses, doubling up the yarn, and different ways of finishing the edges. Eventually, I’ll make up larger peg looms and see how that goes. If nothing else, practicing on the small loom for coaster sized squares is a good way to use up leftover balls of yarn that are too small for anything else!
So it’s a been a quiet day, overall. Which is good. Normally I try to keep Sunday as my day of rest, but took advantage of the good weather to get much needed work done, so today is my day of rest, instead. I’m going to need it, as I’m going to be doing a lot of running around over the next couple of days!
Since we needed to get cats into carriers and meet someone in town with them in the mid morning, I headed out to feed the outside cats earlier than of late. In the summer, I would go out to feed them quite a bit earlier, as I would be awakened by the sun by 5 or 5:30am. Now, the sun doesn’t rise until almost 8am. The cats were rather confused about being fed while it was still dark! Which did make it easier to get through the door, at least.
It also made for a beautiful sunrise while I continued to do my morning rounds.
The photo does not do it justice. The horizon was aflame in red and orange!
I headed out again a short while later to get the carriers ready, and find the cats we were to bring in. Pinky was in the catio, snuggled up with her two that were going out together. The cat with the infected ear was in the sun room. And the kittens?
In their favourite spot, for full belly cuddle puddles.
My daughter came out to give me a hand but, by the time she got there, I had already put the cat with the messed up ear into a carrier. I couldn’t believe how easily she went in! Then we got the three littles. The friendly white and grey that went in is in the cuddle puddle on the left of the first photo. That one, I believe, is female. The super friendly white and grey tabby (a male) was buried in the cuddle puddle and came out on his own. Both were quite easy to put into the biggest carrier, which opens from the top as well as one end.
Then it was time to look for the friendly tuxedo. There are several of them, and two of them are very hard to tell apart, except that one will allow pets.
We ended up getting a different friendly tuxedo. This one was easier to tell apart, even though the markings are almost identical, because it’s fluffier. I have no idea if it’s male or female.
Once the carriers were closed up, they weren’t happy, so my daughter grabbed our squeeze treat supply and gave them treats through the carrier doors while I grabbed two more carriers to get the siblings.
The white and grey male came to check things out as soon as I put the carriers down. He was easy to snuggle, then put into a carrier. Smokey, I had to pick up from the bed in the catio, where she was still snuggling Mom, but she started purring as soon as I held her. She got a snuggle, and was also easy to get into the carrier.
I felt bad about Pinky, though. She doesn’t get along with the other cats, and here I just took away here teenagers she was snuggling!
This was all done so quickly, I couldn’t believe it! I didn’t want to leave them out in the carriers until I had planned to leave. I’d already brought the truck out of the garage, so my daughter and I got them in, and I left ridiculously early. You can see them, all stacked up, in the second photo of the slide show above.
My daughter took care of the gate for me, so I didn’t have to disturb the cats by stopping to get in and out a couple of times. I did remember to pull over to send a message to the woman I was meeting, letting her know I would be very early!
Unfortunately, the cats did not like what was going on, and it wasn’t long before I could smell that someone had a stress poop! By the time it was all done, three carriers needed to be cleaned out when I got home. 😞
Once I was parked, I split our last two squeeze treats between the carriers. Some of them were too stressed to eat any of it, though. I was able to get pictures through each carrier door, though, which are the next four photos of the slide show above.
I was going to leave the door open so they could get some sun and fresh air, but the wind was blowing straight into the truck, and it was too cold! So I got to sit and wait for over an hour, with the windows cracked open just a bit. All but the tiny white and grey tabby seemed to settle in. The vocal one is just always vocal, though.
When the lady from the rescue arrived with her husband, she said she first wanted to transfer over the donated kibble they were giving us. I opened up the box of the truck – which is where the stinky carriers were going to go as soon as they were empty! – as she brought over a big bag of kibble.
Then a second bag.
Then a third bag. !!!
I was so happy. We were running low of kibble for both the inside and outside cats, and I was going to possibly drive to a Walmart to get more. The inside cats don’t like the feed store kibble and were barely eating, and I’d just emptied the kibble bin for the outside cats this morning.
Then she told me, there was more, and came back carrying two more big bags!
She told me there was more, and came out with a box. Inside were several small bags of higher end donated kibble. She told me they were past their best before date, but they had not been opened, and would be fine. There turned out to be three small bags in that box.
Then she brought over a sixth big bag!
Finally, she came out with one more bag, inside a bag. It was a medium sized bag of kibble that had never been opened, but her dog had got at it and tore a hole through it, so she put it in a recycling bag to bring it over.
I was over the moon! I thought a couple of bags, maybe, but six big bags, plus the smaller ones?
Needless to say, I was profuse in my expressions of thanks.
Then it was time to transfer cats.
We started with the one with the messed up ear. That one was growling, so she actually went into their truck, handing one of the carriers over to her husband so she could get in, and closed the door, just in case she escaped. When she came out with my empty carrier, she said they got her, but she did get bit. Then she noticed her finger was starting to bleed quite a bit. I noticed she had blood beading on her forearm, too! She brushed it off, though, and we went to transfer the kittens.
That went much more easily! We could set up on the tailgate of my truck, with carriers face to face, and quickly get them over. She had a larger carrier for the three kittens, and they were much easier to transfer over, from the top of one carrier, then through the top of another.
As we were doing this, we chatted. She told me they are short on fosters, so they’ve had to stop intakes. She herself has 26 cats in her house! I don’t know if that counts our 6 or not.
I had mentioned feeling sad for Pinky, losing her babies like that. She said they would see about grabbing her, too, since she’s a friendly. She and Frank are the two we could catch for spays, without having to trap. Frank is also high on the priority list. She’s so small, I’m amazed she survived being pregnant, and we definitely don’t want her getting pregnant again. They have spots available for spays and neuters, but she doesn’t know which clinic, as the rescue they’re connected with for that is up north in one of the reserves. They don’t have a clinic there.
I mentioned we have three super friendly teenagers, but they’re male, and we really need to get the females spayed as a priority. They will also help us adopt out some of the indoor cats, too. For those, we could be the “fosters”.
Once everything was done, we went our separate ways. I brought our water jugs for refilling, so I just parked closer to the grocery store (we met at the far end of the parking lot). Thanks to the very generous donation of kibble, I was able to use the money that would have gone for cat food for groceries and gas for ourselves.
What a novel concept!
The grocery store carries 2L of milk in the plastic jugs. The grocery store in my mother’s down now carries only the cartons, which my mother struggles to open, or even hold. I hadn’t called my mother about her grocery shopping – I didn’t have the energy to argue about how she needs to have a shopping trip done before she runs out of everything – but she is always running out of milk, so I got her a 2L jug.
A gas station near the grocery store had prices down to $1.229/L, where the other two stations in town were still at $1.269. I had some cash and was at just under half a tank, so I got $25 in before I left for my mother’s town.
Much to my surprise, when I got to her town, the two gas stations there were at $1.199! That town never has lower prices than the town we usually go to!
I went straight to my mother’s to deliver her jug of milk. I hadn’t called ahead, so it was a surprise for her. She was actually happy to see me. Normally, she hates surprises and complains.
I told her I was on my way home and couldn’t stay, but that our usual grocery store had the plastic jugs, and I knew she’d be running out of milk, so I got it for her. She was happy with that, too! I did open it for her before putting it in her fridge. I actually had a hard time getting the cap off myself; she would have really struggled. Then there was the seal underneath. The kind with the plastic tab you lift and pull on to get the seal off. Something else my mother would not have been able to do on her own! She would have used a knife to cut into it, instead.
I asked her about her grocery shopping and she told me, now that I brought her milk, she didn’t need one. In the end, it was decided that I would go her shopping on Wednesday, since I will be there for her appointment with home care to reassess her care needs, anyhow.
Then, after checking on the budget, I stopped to get more gas before heading home. That worked out rather well, in the end!
Once home, I backed into the yard to unload. The cats were very curious when I opened up the tail gate and started unloading kibble and carriers! I had to give them a feeding before I could move the truck safely.
Pinky came over to eat while I was filling bowls, so I stopped to pet her – and discovered an injury on one paw! One of her nails is flipped up and sideways! I have no idea of it’s a fresh injury or not – there’s no bleeding – and she doesn’t seem to be favouring it. She wouldn’t let me check it out, though.
I was able to get a picture and send it to the rescue group chat. I got some questions about it and, in the end, I’m just to keep an eye out for if it gets infected. She’s already on the priority list to bring in.
This evening, just as I was getting ready to start this post, I got an update on the cats.
The adult that bit her took a while to come out of the carrier to eat, and is now settling in. Smokey and her brother have been absolutely delightful, and are eating well. The littles all needed face washes, which they got. Because they are so small, she checked with me to see if they were eating solid food, and when they were born. They would have been born in June, at the latest, and none of the kittens are nursing now. They’re just really small! They’re definitely interested in food now. The tuxedo was hiding for a while, but is coming around.
We talked about the one with the messed up ear for a bit. I told her that there’s a possibility that she’s one of ours from last year that disappeared for the summer, then came back – but if she’s the one that I’m thinking of, she bulked up a lot! I could see no sign that she’s been pregnant, which would be unusual. She was shy but friendly when she showed up. I suspect she might have been dumped in the area and eventually found us, food and shelter. Given how scared she was during transport and exchange, even to the point of biting, if she had been dumped, that would explain her behaviour.
They are all in good hands now. Ear cat will get the vet care she needs. The teenagers will get vetted, spayed and neutered. Well, maybe not neutered, yet. I don’t think his balls have dropped, yet. The littles will need more time, of course. They are way too small for spays or neuters, but they will get vetted. I suspect they will all be treated for ear mites and possibly worms.
I expect Smokey in particular will be adopted out quickly. Hopefully, together with her bother, as a bonded pair.
Once all that was done, it was still early enough and light enough that I wanted to get some work done outside, and I actually managed to do it . That will be for my next post!
Well, no surprise that the forecast changed overnight. Instead of rain all day on Friday, the rain started here last night, and continued off and on throughout the day.
Thankfully, it was a light rain.
As usual, I started out the day with feeding the outside cats. Before starting on softening the bowl of kibble, I quickly tossed a scoop full through the screenless storm door window to tide them over and distract them, first. I still have gelled turkey stock and meaty bits to mix into to their morning kibble with hot water and some canned cat food, too. Once I got it all mixed up, I left it to soak for a few minutes.
I’d seen on the critter cam that they’d somehow knocked the big cat carrier off its shelf, and it was in the middle of the floor, so I knew it would be in the way as I stepped out of the old kitchen. I snagged a daughter for cat herding duty, then tried to get through the doors as quickly as possible.
There were cats and kittens trying to get in, while others were milling around and eating the kibble I’d tossed in earlier.
Including a strange new ca….
Not a cat.
There, in the crowd of cats and kittens munching away, was a skunk! It and the cats were completely indifferent to each other!
As I got through and added softened kibble to several trays, I paused to pick up the carrier while my daughter dealt with the cats that managed to get through the doors before she could close the storm door. The skunk did leave while I was doing that, as did some of the more feral cats. It seemed unbothered by me as well as the cats!
Not a good thing, but there isn’t much we can do about it.
Once the feeding and watering was done (I’m bringing warm water to top up their bowls now, instead of using the hose, which will soon be put away for the winter), I did my morning rounds. My weather app said it was raining, but it seems our climate bubble was doing its thing again.
With the trellis netting and other stakes and supports done, the deer could access the sunflowers. I’d already grabbed the seed heads that looked like they might have viable seeds in them, so the remaining ones had immature seed heads on them. A couple of the tallest ones were untouched, but the shorter ones were either broken with the seed heads eaten, or the entire stalks were munched down to just a couple of feet in height.
Cheeky buggers!
After the morning rounds were done, I popped inside long enough to have breakfast, then headed out to work on the next garden bed.
I decided to work on the log framed low raised bed. I hoped it would not be as bad as the last two beds I worked on. This one had the failed melons, the successful, if stunted, Spoon tomatoes and the failed purple beans and Swiss chard.
The first picture is how it looked after the grass clipping mulch was removed. There were very few weeds and most of those were crab grass.
The question was, how bad were the tree roots?
Since I would be dealing with rhizomes, I started by loosening the soil of the entire bed before I started clean up at the south end of the bed. This is the end furthest from those trees we need to get rid of, being the source of so many of our problems.
I started finding roots right away. The bed is 18 feet long, plus it’s another dozen feet or so to the nearest trees on the north side.
This bed turned out to not only have fewer normal weeds than the other beds, but fewer rocks, too. As for the roots, the closer to the middle of the bed that I got, the harder it was to get the tree roots out. With some of them, it was because the roots were running under the log wall. I could also feel that there was a large root, somewhere deeper below the bed, because I was finding roots that were basically growing vertically from something deeper than I was going with my garden fork, not horizontal, as usual. By the time I got to the middle, though, even with the pre-loosened soil, there were too many roots I couldn’t pull out of the soil, so I went to the north end to work my way back to the middle.
I promptly hit a larger root.
After fighting around it with my garden fork, I went and got a spade to dig around it, plus the loppers. I was able to cut away one larger root that I found in the process, but it was not the one causing me the most problems.
That’s the one you can see in the second picture of the slide show above.
This was not the root that was causing an issue further down the bed, though. This one ran diagonally across the bed, so I was able to use the loppers to cut it close to where it went under the log frame.
In the next picture, you can see where I’d made my way closer to the middle, and some of the other roots I was having issues with. Some would have to be dealt with when working the other side of the bed.
In the last picture of the above slide show, I had finished clearing one side. At the middle, I’d pretty much dug a pit to try and get the roots out.
In the end, though, there weren’t as many roots to fight with as in previous beds. There wasn’t even as many rocks to remove. The amount I had in the bucket after getting the first half done was about what I’d picked from a third of one side on the other two beds I cleared!
It had started to rain while I was working on this. A light and gentle rain, so I kept working, but I was getting pretty damp by the time I finished the one side. It was well past noon by then, so I headed in for sustenance and hydration.
I took my time with my late lunch, which turned out to be a good thing.
I got a phone call from home care, just as I was wrapping up and getting ready to head out again.
They were unable to find someone to do my mother’s evening med assist for Friday evening. They were still working on finding someone, but it was possible I might have to cover for Saturday and Sunday evenings, too.
!!!
Then they told me, they did actually have someone available, but this home care worker was male, and my mother had said she didn’t want men doing her med assist, so they were stuck.
?????
I hadn’t heard about this at all. My mother hadn’t had anything negative to say about the male home care workers, either, other than to mention that they were “from other places” (meaning, recent immigrants that weren’t white). But for her to say no men at all?
We talked about it for a bit, and I told them I could call my mother to find out what was going on. They told me that, if anything changed, to call the number for the home care coordinator (it was the scheduler and a new trainee that had called me) to talk about it.
After the call, I quickly updated my family, as well as my siblings in our group chat, then called my mother. There was no answer so I left a message. I puttered around on my computer while waiting, staying close to the phone, but I didn’t have a lot of time before the home care office would close for the day, plus I was going to start losing daylight to work outside. After a few minutes, I tried again.
This time, my mom answered just as the answering machine picked up. She’d been in the common room and was just coming back when the phone started ringing, so she’d never heard my earlier message.
I told her about the call from home care, that they didn’t have anyone to cover for Friday night’s med assists, and possibly Saturday and Sunday, too. Before she could start going on about how terrible they were, I told her that they actually did have someone available, but it was a male, and they told me she’d said told them, no male.
My mother confirmed this. She had called the home care office and told the home care coordinator, she didn’t want any med doing her med assists.
I asked more questions, and she said she didn’t want a man rubbing the Voltaren onto her bad and seeing her partially naked body. Which, as far as I knew, was something only done in the mornings, as they have extra time booked for stuff like that. She admitted, she had never asked one of the guys (it turns out there are three different male home care workers that have been visiting her) to do it, but eventually said that, if they had been women, she would have asked them to. She also admitted that they have never been unkind to her, and had never caused problems – unlike for example, one of the female home care workers recently not bothering to count my mother’s meds from the bubble pack, and one was missing. It turned out to have fallen to the floor. Or another that always leaves without making sure my mother took her meds, first.
The conversation got very intense as she tried to blame home care for not having enough people, etc. She was all over the place with it, and I kept having to bring it back to it just being about her getting her med assists. Eventually, though, we got to the heart of the issue.
My mother didn’t want brown people doing her med assists.
I had no patience with this and pointed out that, because of her not liking brown people, I might have to do her evening med assists, three nights in a row. She tried to make it their fault, saying “they” (the home care office) did this to me but I told her, no SHE is doing this to me.
In the end, I got her to agree to have a male med assist only to do her meds. No rubbing the Voltaren onto her back. If they were doing a morning assist, they could still do her commode, but no back rubs. If she’s uncomfortable with being touched like that, fair enough, but at least they could do her pills.
Once we got that decided on, I told her I had to call the home care office back quickly, as the office wasn’t going to be open for very much longer. She kept going on and on, keeping me on the phone, even after I told her I had to get the call done as quickly as possible. She did, however, finally talk about getting extra home care services, though in a way that had me rather confused, but I didn’t care at that point. We’ve been trying to get her to accept more home care services for quite some time now, and she’s been refusing, even though she really needs more help. I told her I would bring it up with the coordinator when I called her, and they would probably need to make an appointment with her to discuss it, but I needed to get off the phone to call the office. She STILL tried to keep me on the phone and I finally had to cut her off so I could hang up and make the call.
Thankfully, the home care coordinator was in her office at the time, so I was able to talk to her and not just leave a message. I told her about the situation and that I’d talked to my mother about it. I said that my mother had agreed that, as long as it didn’t involve rubbing the medication onto her back, she was willing to accept male home care aids. The coordinator filled me in on the call from my mother and, apparently, one of the men did offer to rub the medication onto her back for her, and she’d said no. I told her that, if the workers visiting her were women, she would be asking them to do her back, but not the men. Which would have been an understandable restriction, but the home care coordinator knows my mother by now, and she already figured out it was really about race.
So that was taken care of. They would be able to schedule men for my mother’s med assists, with the one restriction regarding applying the medication onto my mother’s back.
I then brought up about my mother bringing up her need for more care, and the first question she asked was, is my mother willing to accept more care? Which has been the biggest problem. My mother simply refusing it. I told her that yes, she is willing to do it.
My mother was due for her annual re-assessment anyhow, so we quickly made an appointment for next weed. Along with the care assessment, the coordinator wanted to go over the panel for a nursing home again, as that needed to be updated, too. I told her about how my mother can barely get around her apartment of later, needing to hang on to furniture or the walls to move around, and how I’d actually heard her crying out in pain at times, when I was last at her place to help out with things.
That done, I called my mother back with the appointment time and updated my family.
Grommet was very determined to “help”. Usually by being directly in front of me while I worked, trying to give my hands kisses, or even trying to climb up my legs for attention!
The second side was done a lot faster, thankfully. Here is the finished bed!
The bed actually seems fuller, now that the soil is all fluffy again, instead of compacted. I’m out of stuff to cover it to protect if from the cats, though. When it comes time to do winter sowing in there, I’ll have to watch out for “presents” from the cats!
While working on the bed, I did find three frogs! One had come out of the mulch on its own. I was able to catch it and release it in and area where it would be able to burrow down for the winter. While picking rocks and roots, I uncovered two more frogs! I’m so glad I didn’t accidentally stab them with the garden fork. I was able to catch and move them to a safe place, too.
It was still pretty light out when I was finished, but not for long enough to start another bed. Instead, I did my evening rounds. While I was at it, I cleared up the pile of regrown maples my brother had cut away from the back of the pump shack for me. I set aside the straightest pieces for use in the garden, and the rest went onto the burn pile. Later on, I’ll trim the trigs and side shoots off the straight pieces, then bring the useable pieces to the old kitchen garden. They will made good stakes for the bed that still needs the wall on the inside to be finished.
Now that I have written this, I realize I’ve not switched out the trial cam memory cards yet, and it’s full dark right now. That’s the down side of changing from switching them in the mornings! Ah, well. I’ll survive.
Time to shoe up, grab a flash light, and go take care of that!
One more bed is done. Three more in the main garden area to go!
Wow, were the outside cats ever determined this morning!
When mixing up their softened morning kibble, I made sure to include the turkey stock I made for them, along with some of the meaty bits that fell off the bones. Maybe they could smell it because, even though I’d tossed out a scoop of kibble to distract them before I started mixing, I could hear them clamoring at the door. I got a daughter to stand by for cat herding duty while I tried to get out the door, and she was completely overwhelmed by the stampede before I could even get through!
As much of a crowd as there was in the sun room, some prefer to eat outside, and the ferals hover around, waiting for their chance.
By the time I got all the kibble divvied up around the yard, and topped up their water bowls with warm water (the unheated ones had a layer of ice on them), the kibble was almost all gone already!
Even on the cat house roof, there were just crumbs left.
You can tell the heat bulb inside is working – no frost on the roof above it!
I ended up giving them another light feeding later on, just to make sure the shier and less assertive cats had a chance to eat their fill, too.
I tried for a head count and got 40. Then I tried to count only the kittens, including the teenagers. I think I got 18 or 19, and I’m sure I missed some.
I sent pictures to the chat group I have with the new rescue. They are pretty taken aback by the numbers!
With the temperatures, I didn’t try to get anything done outside after my morning rounds. Instead, I headed out in the late morning to pick up prescriptions for both myself and my husband. We were almost out of kibble for the indoor cats, though, so I made a side trip to the feed store in my mother’s town. They were out of the brand of kibble I usually get, so I had to pick up the more expensive brand. It was still cheaper to get that, then either buy smaller bags locally elsewhere, or drive all the way to a Walmart to get some.
I then headed to our pharmacy, where I was able to pick up my husband’s refill, but not mine. They checked the system and it turned out my doctor hadn’t responded to their fax yet. In the end, I asked them to put it on their delivery schedule in a couple of days. Hopefully, that will be long enough for the updated prescription to come in.
I did remember to pick up some more potassium supplements. I’d run out a while ago and hadn’t bothered to get more. I think that was a mistake. I was wondering why I started to get leg cramps again. Not Charlie Horses, though those were threatening last night. Just weird leg cramps. They would happen any time my legs or feet got uncovered during the night. I’m guessing the temperature change triggered them, but it was very unusual for me. It was usually my calves that would start cramping, but my feet would, too, pulling at my toes, of all things. All of them. It’s the strangest sensation! The cramping would start, I’d pull my feet back under the covers, and they would soon stop.
I haven’t been doing any level of physical exertion that normally would trigger these, so I was at a loss as to why this was happening, until I remembered I’d run out of potassium a while ago. Adding the potassium to my vitamin regimen seemed to be the last thing to finally stop my Charlie Horses. That the cramping started up like this is enough confirmation of that for me!
Once done at the pharmacy, I remembered to stop at the grocery store at my husband’s request, then headed home. By then, it was about time for the outside cats evening feeding. After refilling the bin for the inside cats, the rest of the kibble went to the outside cats. Most of them aren’t old enough to have had this brand of kibble before, and they really seemed to like it!
Through all this, I was messaging with the cat rescue group, including the woman that’s going to be taking six cats from us. She’s going to be in the town nearest us to drop a cat off on Saturday, so we’ll be meeting her there, instead of further out on Sunday. We still have to work out a time, as she’s not sure what her schedule will be. As long as we have enough time to get the six cats and kittens into carriers, we can make it work.
Just a little while longer, and six cats and kittens will get their first step to finding forever homes indoors!
Once all the running around was done, I actually did get some work done outside, but that will be in my next post.
Well, the wind never really slowed down today until is was basically dark out. I was really feeling it when I headed out to visit my mother for Thanksgiving, fighting the wind for the entire drive. It wasn’t as bad on the way home, as I no longer driving against the wind, but it was still threatening to blow me off the road!
My mother was quite happy with my surprise visit. I made sure to time it for after she got her Meals on Wheels, which she said was extra special for Thanksgiving. She was back in bed when I got there, so I went to her to show her what I’d brought. She told my that my brother had visited the other day, also bringing food for her, and how we feed her so well! I told her, it’s Thanksgiving! It’s all about the food! She was also quite happy when I told her the girls had done all the cooking, so I could get some rest.
I stayed for a fairly short visit, letting her know what the weather was like, and that I wanted to get back home again sooner rather than later, because of it. It was even a good visit, with only one side track when she started going off on a racist tangent and I started saying it was time for me to leave. She stopped and asked me to stay, and that she would stop. Which was a first! Usually, she doubles down!
Since I was there anyhow, I did a few little things about the apartment for her and made her some tea, then we just sat and talked for a while before I headed home.
I didn’t mention it to her, but my brother and SIL were at the farm when I left. My brother wasn’t up to visiting with her along the way, as he had things he needed to do while there was light to do it, and she would have demanded he stay longer than he was able to. When I got back, they were settling in for a late lunch and messaged me when they saw me get back, inviting me to join them. Which I was happy to do, and we got all caught up, until my brother had to get back at things, so I left to get out of their way. 😄
I was soon back outside to try and get things done. It was too windy for some things, but I was at least able to putter around and get quite a few little things done.
I had lots of cat company, like Fluffy, watching me from the top of the shelf in front of the bathroom window.
What a stunning cat! We can even pet her, sometimes.
Most of what I needed to go outside was putting things away for the winter, though some things were kept handy so I could use them when we have a calmer day. The 100′ extension cords were all wrapped and put away, the space around the old basement window was cleaned up again, and the winter window put in. The folding camp chairs that had been in the sun room got brushed clear before getting stored in the old kitchen. I’d given the “roof” of the broken market tent a good scrubbing with the stiff bristled sun room broom, then hung it on the chain link fence to dry. The wind was starting to blow it away, so I made sure to fold it up and stored in in the old kitchen for the winter. The frame may be broken, but the canopy and four wall panels are just find. I’m sure we can find some way to make use of them.
I didn’t work in the main garden area, but I got to put things away from the old kitchen garden and the portable greenhouse. That is also slowly being set up so that the cats can use it for shelter in the winter, with a couple of food bowls in it. One of them had been kept on the well cap with the isolation shelter’s entry protecting box over it. That’s at the isolation shelter now, and I didn’t want to leave the food bowl out without some kind of shelter over it. I did end up setting it over the isolations shelter door to try and block at least some of the winds that’s blowing things around inside.
Stinky is quite happy that it’s there! I’ve seen a few cats sitting on the ramp, now that the box is there, taking advantage of the shelter. I’ll need to figure out a better way to secure the vinyl that will be wrapped around the bottom, to protect it from the winter weather. Last winter, I just used tacks, which mostly did the job, but they weren’t enough for the severely windy days.
While cleaning things up and putting things away outside, I had a pile of scrap pieces of rigid insulation in odd sizes I needed to deal with. One of the walls in the upper level of the isolation shelter has a piece of insulation cut to fit that the cats have been using as a scratching post. to the point that one corner is basically gone. I didn’t have any pieces large enough to cut a new piece, but I did have a piece larger enough to cover the area that was scratched out. It fits snug enough that it’ll take quite a bit for it to be pulled out of position by cats.
Then I decided to use some of the pieces in the cube shelf in the sun room. A few cats are using it, but it’s a harder surface and could potentially get cold on the toa beans over the winter. So I found a piece large enough to cut to size and fit on the bottom of a cube. Once I had the size worked out, I used it as a template to cut as many more as I could, out of the scrap bits of insulation I had to work with.
I was able to cut enough to set into 7 cubes. They are really snug, so they won’t get knocked out of the cubes easily. It wasn’t long before I saw cats and kittens checking the cubes out. If I happen to find more scrap pieces of this rigid insulation that are large enough, I want to cut and add more to fit into the cub shelves. This way, in the winter, the cats can use the shelf to watch things out the window, and their to beans won’t get too cold.
I also found a place to secure the second heat lamp. This one has a 150 watt heat bulb. The other one is 250 watts.
There are 11 kittens in that bottom shelf, plus Grommet under the heat lamp. That tuxedo in the front is, I think, the one that I expect we’ll be able to snag for the rescue, next weekend.
Speaking of which…
As I was heading inside, I spotted Smokey on the hand rail outside the sun room. It took a little while, but I was able to start petting her, and she started purring! Then Collin came by and pushed his way under my hand, and Smokey jumped down onto a bin that’s stored under the rail. I was still able to pet her there, and then…
*drum roll please!*
… she let me PICK HER UP!!!! Not only that, but she let me cuddle her for about 5 minutes, purring the whole time!!! That is massive socialization progress! By the time we bring her in to the rescue, I’m hoping she will be fully socialized.
Now, that is something to be thankful for, this Thanksgiving day!
All in all, I was able to actually get some decent work done outside before It was starting to get dark. Stuff that I would normally defer until later, while I prepped beds for winter sowing. Since it was too windy to prep garden beds for the winter, I’m quite happy to have been able to get the work done on a day like today.
As I write this, we are at 3C/37F, or 1C/34F, depending on which app I use. The wind chill right now, has it feeling like -3C/27F right now. Among the things I did was bring the rechargeable battery tools for winter storage indoors.
Meanwhile, good progress on getting things ready for the winter, though it does ten to be… questionably, that is! There’s still lots to do. We shall see how it works out.
Well, Canadian Thanksgiving has blown in like a tempest. Northern parts of the province have had snow and conditions severe enough to shut down a highway.
I can’t complain. I think it was our first Thanksgiving here, when we got hit by a blizzard.
The high winds, at least, as supposed to go away this afternoon. We’re supposed to warm up a bit over the next while but, depending on which weather app I look at, on the warmest days we’re expecting rain. I’m just hoping the weather holds so I can get more beds ready for winter sowing. Aside from a pharmacy trip tomorrow, and a telephone appointment to follow up on my hip injection, I should be able to stay home enough to get things done. Weather willing!
When I headed out to feed the cats outside this morning, they were absolutely bonkers. I used our turkey carcass to make a stock for them in the slow cooker last night, and that’s what I used to soften their kibble this morning.
They inhaled it so quickly, I mixed up a bit more so the less dominant cats could get a chance to eat!
I also had to pick up the catio, which had been knocked over by the wind (I left the vinyl wrapped around it for last winter, specifically to cut the wind and provide passive solar warmth in there. We will need to re-wrap it!). I had removed the weights on the roof to use them while painting. A couple to left the plant stand above the grass, and a couple more to weight down corners of the isolation shelter roof, where I’d used some wood glue under a support. I hadn’t put the weights back. Last night was windy, and the catio seemed fine, but the wind picked up so much since I did my evening walkabout!
Once the cats were fed and the catio secured as best I could, I moved the isolation shelter’s ramp door box in front, to reduce at least some of the wind. The upper level is enclosed, but the lower level is all wire mesh walls. We’ll be wrapping it in vinyl for the winter again, but not quite yet. The wind from below has been enough to actually blow one of the corners of the hammock loose from its hook.
I then did a thorough walk about, looking for wind damage. In the outer yard, I only found this.
The door on that rotting old … storage shed? … finally fell.
It’ll be good when we can clean up that garbage in there and get that away. It’s a shame it was allowed to fall apart like that. It’s got several shelves in there and looks like it used to be pretty sturdy. Once the roof was allowed to fall apart, that was it. I have no idea when this was built, but I expect it was built by my late brother, probably about 20-30 years ago.
For now, all I could do was lean the door back and find an old tire still on its rim as a weight to hold it in place.
While going through the inner yard, I found quite a few fallen branches. Not enough to need a wheel barrow or anything. This was the largest one I found.
There were 11 kittens on that shelf, but Sir Robin jumped out while I was taking the picture.
Seeing Smokey in there is encouraging. She’s starting to enjoy being around other cats. The only concern is, she’s getting old enough to go into heat. I don’t expect her to, as they tend not to when the weather starts getting cold. Thankfully, she will be going to the rescue, next weekend.
Meanwhile, I’ll be heading to my mother’s this afternoon, with a couple of turkey dinners for her. My brother and SIL are actually coming here to the farm today, to do some more winterizing around their stuff. I’ll have a chance to see them before I head out to my mothers, but they’ll probably be gone before I get back.
It already looks like the wind is dying down, and the sun is shining! Our expected high for the day is still only 6C/43F, and we’re at only 4C/39F. We’re supposed to go below freezing overnight, too.
I did plug in the cat house, so they should be getting heat in there when the light sensor turns on the bulb as it gets dark enough. The heated water bowls are plugged in now, too, except the one in the isolation shelter. That one is nowhere near an outlet, yet.
We’re fortunate, really, so have temperatures as nice as they are right now. More time to get things done before the snow flies!
The Re-Farmer 