kittens

You, too, Little One! Plus, some vehicle progress?

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I already posted a photo of the new kitten on the block. This is a photo I took, just before I caught it.

The kitten in the back is the one I caught. The puff ball in the front is also on the list for kittens that are so tiny, they need to come indoors.

It is not at all cooperative.

There are two more black kittens with white spots on their chests from this litter (plus a much bigger one from another litter that is more catten then kitten, now). One of them should be fine and is bigger, but the other is staying teeny tiny. I don’t know why there is such a difference in sizes in the same litter, but the littles are at far greater risk, so if we can snag them for indoors, we will.

In other things…

My husband and I headed out fairly early today to get our blood work done. The results should be ready in time for his appointment with a doctor, tomorrow. Hopefully, this is a doctor that will take him on as a new patient. Once of the requirements for his disability income is to be under the care of a doctor, and he doesn’t have one right now.

These were fasting blood tests, so after it was done, we had to go for breakfast. With all the medications my husband is on, he doesn’t feel hunger anymore, but I was at the “getting dizzy and nauseous” stage of hunger. There was one restaurant we’ve been to before that I thought would be open, but it turns out to open just before lunch, not for breakfast, so we stopped at a hotel café not far away. This is one of those places that has been around forever, and where locals go to regularly for breakfast. I haven’t been there in years!

It’s not accessible, though, so my husband had to cane it up the stairs. Once we were there and settled, looking at the menu, I happened to glance across the room and saw a familiar face I hadn’t seen in years! It was an old friend of ours from high school! The last time I saw her was before she’d moved up North to one of the territories! It was really great to run into her like that!

After breakfast, we made a stop at the pharmacy to pick up prescription refills that would normally have been delivered today, then headed home.

My husband told me to go ahead and park in the garage, rather than drive up to the house, once we got home.

Then he fell, trying to get out of my mother’s car.

Well. More like a half fall. He ended up with one knee on the ground, one leg still in the car, and stuck in a most awkward position. After some struggling, he managed to get himself up. There was little I could do to help him.

He thought he was fine at first, but after a few hours, that knee that hit the ground (we have a dirt floor in our garage) was starting to really hurt.

Thankfully, he has plenty of really powerful pain killers, including one that’s “take as needed”.

I had intended to wait until closer to the end of the month but, after this, I sent a message to our mechanic, who also used vehicles available for sale. It’ll be 6 months at the end of September, that I’ve been using a low limit credit card to rebuild my credit score. Which means I should be able to apply for financing on a vehicle and have payments we can actually afford. The last time I applied for financing, the terms and interest rates were insane, they wanted a high down payment, plus the payments would have been $700 a month!

We messaged back and forth for a bit. He actually has a truck available right now. I had walked over to see what he had available, the last time I was at the grocery store across the street, and it’s a really nice truck. We could certainly use one but, for our primary needs, we need another minivan, though we could possibly get away with a SUV. He told me he would look for something for us. He knows our needs by now.

Not long after, I got a call from him. He told me he was with a new financing company now. One that specializes in helping people rebuilding their credit. He’d talked to her about our situation, and that we were living on a disability income. She told him that they could do pre-approved financing. That would go a long way in helping him know exactly what he could find for us, and not be stuck with a vehicle to sell to someone else, if we can’t afford the financing.

So I gave him permission to pass on my contact information and I got a call from the company already. The initial process has been started. The next step at our end will be to send in our ID and probably proof of income, etc., like we had to before. We should know in the next couple of days, what we can get for financing. From there, our mechanic will be able to look for something that meets our needs, and falls into the financing parameters.

I pray this all works out. As much as I appreciate having my mother’s car to use, it meets my mother’s needs, not ours. Plus, that thing needs to be replaced, too! My mother has already told my brother and that we should just sell it, but it’s too difficult for her to get into a larger vehicle, so a small car is needed for her. She won’t buy another car, though. She doesn’t drive or even have a license anymore. She’s got no problem with the idea of us buying another car for her, though… Not that we could afford to have two car payments!

We shall see how it works out!

The Re-Farmer

Caught… and settled in

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My computer was misbehaving, and I think I discovered the cause. There was an operating system update waiting for me to power down the computer.

So while that’s doing it’s thing, I’ll just use my phone to share this bit of adorableness.

Can you spot the new face?

There are now 8 kittens in there. I managed to snag the tiniest outside kitten. This is one of the 8 that were born in the barrel, almost 2 months ago. Some of them are really tiny, still. We now have 3 of them indoors.

I was able to catch Pom Pom only because of a dislocated arm that, thankfully, reset itself.

I had been able to catch and hold Soot Sprite before, so he was a bit more used to human contact. He adjusted to indoors faster than Pom Pom.

The new baby (in the top middle) was a providential catch. I managed it shortly after I headed outside to get some work done, so it was just a quick drop off in my room.

It almost immediately found the food bowls.

When I came in again later, all 8 kittens were curled up in a pile on my bed. It took a while before I could get a picture.

Not only was the new kitten immediately absorbed into the creche, when I walk past, it allows me to pet it, along with the other kittens, as I go by!

They are all solidly asleep right now. Which likely means another sleepless night of mayhem and destruction by the older kittens, while the Littles watch in stunned disbelief!

There are at least 2 more really tiny kittens that need to come in. In time, I will take photos of all of them to pass on to the Cat Lady to share among her contacts for adoption.

The Re-Farmer

Count the kitties!

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Well, the little Soot Sprite is definitely settling in!

Can you find it?

There are seven kittens in the photo. 😊

I’m happy to say that I’ve not had a single mess on my bed in quite a while, though I did just catch TTT about to take a dump on it. I got her off in time, but she couldn’t stop herself from making a mess on the floor. She just happened to be over plastic take out lid that I’ve been using as a kibble container, so at least it was an easy clean up.

However.

For some reason, there are kittens that insist on using the puppy pads. They use the litter boxes. All of them. However, for some reason, they’ve started to use two spots under my desk, too. Right next to the litter box!

With the tinies in the room, I’ve got the small, low pan that fit in Baby Jail when the kittens were all in there. I ended up putting it on top of one spot by the litter box. There is no space around it for them to use instead, so that is working. The other spot, however, is one I can’t put something on top of, because it’s right next to where I put my feet. If I put something there, I’d be constantly kicking it or dropping a foot in it.

I could understand it if was the tinies, as they haven’t been using a litter for long, but it’s not. I’ve actually caught one of the bigger kittens as it just finished making a mess on the puppy pad next to the litter box – then go into the litter box to pee! It doesn’t matter if the litter has just been changed, either.

I’m at a loss for ideas on what to use to convince the kittens to go into the litter boxes, not make a mess t next to them. The only thing I haven’t tried yet is cayenne pepper, and I don’t want to actually hurt them.

At least it’s an easy clean up.

The Re-Farmer

Trellis bed progress, and we have a soot sprite

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Since I ended up driving around again today, once I was home to stay, I took advantage of the cooler temperatures and calmer winds to work on the trellis bed.

One larger base log was ready. The next step was to use a garden fork to loosen the soil from one marker to the other. Aside from pulling out as many weeds and roots as I could, I was also able to use a hoe to try and adjust the soil height. The log is, of course, wider at the base, plus the ground has a slight dip at one end, so I brought loosened soil from one end to the other, to try and make it to the log would be more or less level once on the ground. Plus, with the loosened soil, it wasn’t going to roll around out of position on me. Once that was on place, I could start debarking the log that would be set on top of it.

Debarking is pretty fast. It’s all those branch bits and lumps that slow things down!

After doing the top half, it started to get pretty painful on the back, so I used one of the poplar logs that will be vertical posts to raise the end. It worked for helping the back, but the saw horse kept rocking, and the poplar log kept wanting to roll! 😂

Once the smaller log was debarked, I use the baby chainsaw (electric pruner) to sort of flatten the base log from end to end. Mostly to get rid of some lumps where branches used to be. The smaller log was naturally flat next to a couple of branch stumps, so I took advantage of that and flattened the rest of the lot a tiny bit, to match the naturally flat part. It’s not a perfect fit, but I wasn’t really trying for one. I might level things off a bit more, but if I do, it’ll be when I have the chain saw set up, so I’m not killing the batteries on my mini chainsaw so quickly.

Next, it was time to work on the large log that will be the base log for the other wall of the raised bed. It had more branch bits to cut off than the other two, but once those were trimmed, debarking went quickly.

At that point, it was time to stop for the day – and for the draw knife to get a good cleaning and sharpening!

I expect to actually be home all day tomorrow, so I’ll be able to finally make more tomato sauce. When I get back to working on the bed, I plan to make use of the pieces of rebar I’d picked up for the shelter we could never get set up. I’ve got auger drill bits in that size. Once I’m satisfied with out the side logs are resting on each other, I will drill a pair of holes, then hammer in the rebar, so hold the logs together. When the time comes, the ends will be joined with 4′ logs, but first the ends of the side logs will have to be trimmed even. That will be much easier if I can do that while they are already secured into position.

As for the vertical supports, I am changing my mind on how to do those, again. I’d been planning to set the posts inside the raised bed, before they were filled. Setting them in the middle of the beds would result in a trellis tunnel that is 6′ apart across the top, and would give access to both sides of the bed for planting and weeding.

The more I think about it, though, the more potential problems I can see with doing it that way. Primarily, I’d have to treat the bottoms of the posts to prevent rotting. I was planning to debark and char them. With the winds we’ve been having, though, the chances of being able to get a fire going to do that don’t seem pretty good. Also, finding straight horizontal pieces that are 6′ long is going to be harder. I have enough vertical supports to have 4 posts for each of what will be 4 beds like this. I could try to harvest more poplar to have more verticals, but finding nice straight ones in the right size has not been as easy as I thought it would be, and I don’t want to be wasting trees. So if we have 4 verticals per bed, they would need to be 6′ apart, and I would need three 6′ pieces per bed – or 12 in total, for the 4 beds we plan to build here. If the trellis tunnel sides are also 6′ apart, that adds another four 6′ pieces needed per tunnel, making 20 horizontals in total.

Now I’m thinking I should attach the vertical supports to the outside of the beds, along each side of the tunnel space. I can see a few advantages to this.

First, I won’t have to dig any post holes.

Second, if they are attached to the outside of the beds, they won’t be buried in soil and I won’t need to treat them to keep them from rotting.

It will also be easier to find shorter, straight pieces for the horizontals, plus it will be easier to reach and work on the tops to attach them. Right now, I’m just aiming to do one low raised bed with a trellis wall. Even if we manage to get the second half done, the horizontals at the top don’t need to be until later. Plus, it will be much easier to attach 4′ lengths onto the verticals later on, than 6′ lengths with half a garden bed to work around.

By not having the verticals in the middle of the beds, they won’t take up growing space. Also, these beds are 18′ long, and 4′ wide on the outside. Our raised bed covers are intended to be interchangeable, at 9’x3′. Without the verticals inside the bed, we’ll be able to fit a pair of them over one 18′ bed, if needed. The logs are wide enough that the actual growing space will be closer to 3′, so the covers will have frame support.

The main reason I wanted to put them down the middle of the bed was to be able to reach the growing space from both sides. It had been my intention to reuse the hardware cloth and chicken wire from the old squash tunnel for this. However, as long as we use something with large enough openings, we’d still be able to tend the bed, through the trellis, just like we’ve been able to do with the cover currently on the high raised bed, made with the stronger fence wire and larger openings.

The one real drawback is now to secure the verticals to the walls. I might still have to dig post holes.

I’ll figure that out, when the time comes.

In other things…

I did the running around I had to do; since I had to go to Staples to get the printer ink we needed, and it shares a parking lot with a Walmart, I took advantage of that and picked up a few things, including more of the shredded cat food the cats in the isolation ward prefer. Or maybe it’s me that really prefers it. It’s much easier to divide into bowls than paté.

Once we had the printer ink, we could print off the label we needed (frustrating to have to buy colour ink to print something that is black and white text!), then pack up the RAM that didn’t work with my husband’s computer and drive to a Purolator depot.

There is one thing that’s new right now.

When feeding the cats outside for the evening, I was able to catch a little black kitten.

I brought it inside.

It’s just the tiniest little soot sprite!

My younger daughter has always wanted an all black cat. Now, she will have one.

So far, it is not too keen on this whole “indoors” thing, and being surrounded by strange kittens. It doesn’t even seem to recognizes its brother. However, it quite enjoyed its first taste of wet cat food! I can hear it wandering around behind me, sometimes giving out a strange, hoarse little meow.

It will take time, but Pom Pom is starting to warm up to attention now, and hopefully that will encourage Sprite to accept attention from humans, too. If things go well, I hope to have it well socialized by the time my daughter gets back from house sitting. 😊

The Re-Farmer

It’s a Puff Ball (Updated: oops…)

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We’ve settled on a name for the new little guy.

He’s such a puff ball, we decided to call him Puff Ball.

Or was it Fluff Ball? Suddenly, I’m not sure what my daughter suggested! 😄

I’m really tired.

Edit: Man, I must have been more tired than I thought!
It wasn’t either of them.
It was Pom Pom.
Hello, Pom Pom.

Also, I’m about 95% sure he’s male. I was able to pick him up and cuddle him, but he’s so fluffy, it’s really hard to tell at this age.

I just got a message from the Cat Lady. She’s on her way. Time to put Turmeric in the cat carrier!

The Re-Farmer

Tiny harvest, kitten update, and a mystery

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I will start with the kitten update!

The kitten seems to be completely normal right now! No favouring the leg that was dislocated. No limp that I can see. The kitten stays away on its own, for the most part, but doesn’t run away when the other kittens come over to say hi. I’ve even seen TTT grooming in on the way by.

I’m also not finding any messes. Not even on the puppy pads under my desk. It looks like TTT has finally starting using a litter box. Not while I’m in the room, though, so I’m hoping she’s using the covered box in my closet – the only one I can’t see into – and not in some secret corner somewhere. I’m not seeing any tiny messes, either, so it looks like the kitten figured out litter boxes right away.

The main thing is, the kitten appears completely uninjured! I was able to sneak a pet this morning, but otherwise it stays away. Now that it’s indoors, socializing it will be much easier, so I am not concerned.

Today is supposed to be “cooler”, with a high of 27C/81F. We currently have weather advisories for smoke. I can see it on the security camera live fee, hanging in the old hay yard like a fog. It is worse now, than when I was doing my morning rounds.

Our squash flowers are very popular.

They are pretty much the only things blooming right now, other than some wild yarrow, so the bees are happy!

I wasn’t expecting to harvest anything this morning, but I found these!

I was surprised to find such large patty pans. They got missed yesterday, hidden under leaves, but this morning I could actually see them. I normally like to pick them a bit smaller, but these will still be tender, without a seed cavity yet.

I was not intending to pick the pepper, though. I had moved it to look at the back and see how much green there still was, and the stem broke off!

Some of the beans growing in the compost ring are completely dried on the vines, so I picked one of the pods. Once inside, I opened it up and found…

A mystery.

When I first opened the pod, I thought they were black, but once I uploaded the photos to the computer, I could see they are actually a deep, dark blue.

I have no idea where they came from.

I have never bought seed beans like this, nor do I remember buying dry beans like this. If we did buy some that I can’t remember, they would have been cooked; no viable, uncooked seeds would have ended up in the compost heap.

I’ve tried looking them up, but have had no luck. These had pale purple flowers, green pods, and now deep blue, almost black, seeds. I’ve found seeds similar to this, but they all come from yellow or purple pods, none green.

Well, whatever they are, we’ve got more of them with pods drying out on the vines. I’ll keep the seeds and maybe try growing them in the garden next year, and seeing if they are actually a tasty bean.

I’m considering a couple of things in the garden beds right now.

One is going to have to be done; it’s just a matter of doing it when it’s cooler in the day. The Roma VF look like they’ve picked up a fungus. I don’t know if it’s tomato blight or something else. Either way, all the remaining tomatoes need to be picked and the plants pulled. They will be burned, not composted.

I’m debating the bed along the chain link fence. The peas are pulled, but there are still some of those Czech lettuces in there that I’m allowing to go to seed. Plus the volunteer tomatoes.

The tomato plants are really small, but if the long range weather forecast is at all accurate, they still have more than a month of growing season. So I am thinking of transplanting them into the empty bed in the old kitchen garden, where the Irish Cobbler potatoes had been. I would need to protect them from the kittens that like to play or nap in there.

Once that bed by the chain link fence is clear and ready to be prepped for the winter, I’m going to make it a bit narrower. It’s too painful to reach near the chain link fence to weed. Plus, some of those pieces of concrete patio blocks I found run under one corner of the bed, and I want to dig those out.

I have those tillage radish seeds still. I am thinking, once some beds are emptied and cleaned up, I can plant some of those as a cover crop. They won’t reach full size before winter, but they should drill far enough to make a difference. These are meant to be left in the ground, where they will freeze in the winter, decompose, and add organic matter to the soil in the spring.

Amending this soil into something healthy again is definitely a years-long process.

The Re-Farmer

Kitten scare, but it’s okay now!

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Oh, my goodness. What a rush!

I headed out this evening to do my rounds, starting with feeding the outside cats, as usual.

One of the kittens from the youngest litter saw me and tried to run away, but something was very wrong.

It’s left front leg was backwards.

It was completely dislocated. I’ve never seen anything like it! It couldn’t move very fast, so I was able to pick it up and bring it inside, being very careful to avoid the injured shoulder – and teeth. It was not a happy camper!

After bringing the hard sided carriers in, we like to leave them out and open for the cats to go in and out of at will, so I quickly went and put the kitten in our carrier and closed the door. Then I went to phone the vet clinic.

They were closed, and the message said, for emergencies, to call a clinic in the city.

The other side of the city, it turns out.

I looked up other clinics, but it’s a holiday weekend here in Canada. Not only were there no clinics open, but none of them had emergency vets on call.

I did get through to the one in the city, and found out that there would be only 2 clinics in the entire province open right now.

I was messaging the Cat Lady at the same time, and she told me the same thing – adding that they are very expensive.

Getting the kitten to one of them would have been a 2 hour drive. Even for the closer one, because it’s in a very high traffic area.

Failing to find a clinic, I figured the least I could do was give the kitten some food. I went to get the carrier to bring it into the isolation ward, tried to pick it up and…

It was really, unexpectedly, heavy.

Our hard sided carrier as a door at the top – handiest thing ever!!! – so I took a look.

David and a kitten looked back at me!

Turns out David had been napping at the back of the carrier when I put the kitten in! I’m glad it was David, because he’s always been great with the kittens. I still had to take him out, though. 😄

Once the carrier was moved, I made sure to do the evening wet cat food for all the kittens, and Toni, to distract them away for the little one’s food bowl. I then opened the top of the carrier again, put in the food bowl and..

… the kitten practically crawled bodily into the container and began devouring its first taste of canned cat food.

Using both front legs.

I kept watch on the kitten for the next while, and sure enough; it’s shoulder was relocated again! It was moving its leg normally, and even putting weight on it.

After awhile, other kittens started jumping into the carrier from the top to check out the new addition. The kitten completely ignored them and kept eating.

I went and got a small water bowl for it, watched for a while longer, then headed back outside to finish my evening rounds – after updating the Cat Lady, of course!

While I was out, my husband checked on it, then messaged me to let me know that the kitten had gotten out of the cat carrier, through the top, and was busily hunting for more wet cat food! That it could climb out of the carrier through its top door told me more than anything else that the leg somehow managed to set itself and all is fine. The kitten might have some residual weakness and pain, so we’ll have to keep an eye on it.

Well… It looks like we have a new kitten in the house.

We were wanting to bring in the long haired kittens, anyhow, so they wouldn’t end up badly matted, like Decimus got.

The first picture in the above group is the other long haired kitten in this litter. The second photo is one of its black siblings that is slightly larger. The little tabby in the third photo is quite tiny, but there is a brown tabby among the litter that is even smaller. I didn’t see it to get a picture.

In the fourth photo, Octomom (aka: Slick) is nursing the other black kitten – and a couple of teenagers!

We reached 34C/93F today, and while it did cool down to 26C/79F when I first came in for the night, it is now almost 9:30pm, and the temperature has actually gone UP, to 27C/81F! So I made sure to water the garden while I was out. When I was done, I spotted the tiny black kitten in the last photo, in the water bowl shelter. Other kittens ran off, but this one just looked at me and hissed. I slowly reached in, and it actually let me pet it and scritch its ears! Once I straightened up again, it slunk out of the water bowl shelter, and I was able to get that last picture. This is the black kitten I’ve been able to catch and hold before, so it seems to not be as frightened by me anymore. Progress!

As for the little one indoors, we are leaving it to do its thing for now. It has access to food, water, litter boxes, and a whole pile of other kittens to cuddle. Who knows. Toni might even let it “nurse” on her along with the others, too!

Normally, I would not want to bring a kitten in that isn’t weaned unless we had a wet nurse, like we did with Ghosty and Question with Decimus, or if we could bottle feed it. As tiny as this kitten is, however, it seems to be really happy with solid food! The kittens in this litter are all quite different sizes.

I just went looking back to see when we first discovered them in the barrel, and that was in the middle of July. Which means the kittens are at least 6 weeks old right now!

So we now have another kitten in the house – one that is far more feral than any others we’ve brought in before – but thankfully, it doesn’t look like we’ll have a vet bill! At least nothing beyond a wellness check, if we feel it’s needed.

I am so thankful that shoulder was not broken. I have no idea what happened to pop it back in place, but I so glad it did!

The Re-Farmer

First things first. Good news, and an adopted mom

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Look who showed up this morning!

While feeding the outside cats, I could hear a quiet meowing from the storage house and went to check. There she was, peeking around the corner!

She did eventually come over for pets. I was even able to pick her up. As soon as I turned towards the house, though, that was it. She was done!

So I continued what I was doing, and soon saw her at what had been her favorite spot to eat; at the food bowl under the shrine.

Unfortunately, while I was way out by the sign cam, I started hearing a cat fight. I ran over and when I got there, I saw Butterscotch being chased up a tree by Shop Towel (aka: Sad Face), the visiting tom!

I was not impressed.

I did manage to chase him off, but Butterscotch wouldn’t come down from the tree while I was around. She was still up there when I left for the city, but she was gone when I got back.

At least she did come back, and I hope we can eventually persuade her to come back indoors!

This next photo is from last night, and it’s just hilarious.

Yup. Two Toes Toni is “nursing” all of the babies!

A couple of them had tried to nurse on her before and she let them. I was on my way out of my room when I saw Tin Whistle trying to latch on, and she seemed okay with it. I came back to my room a couple of minutes later and found all of them latched on, and TTT looking so very content.

No, she is not lactating. They’re getting nothing from her right now but the comfort of nursing, and not getting hissed at, hit or bit by their mother. In fact, TTT was right into grooming as many of them as she could reach.

Looks like they have claimed each other. 😄

If they keep nursing on her, she may start lactating again, but it would depend on how often and how consistently they do it.

Maybe they can teach her how to use a litter box.

Before leaving for the room for any length of time, I scatter stuff all over my bed to keep her from peeing on it. So far, it seems to be working. No more wet spots. However, she is dedicated to using the space under my desk. If I’m in my room, I’m working at my desk, so she won’t even try to go under there (though it certainly doesn’t stop the kittens!). She waits until I’m either asleep or out of the room. I caught her trying to dig around on my bed yesterday evening, so I shooed her away, spread stuff over where she had been digging, then left the room, in hopes my being gone would let her feel relaxed enough to use a litter box, or even the puppy pads, while I was out. She didn’t. In fact, even this morning, the puppy pads were still laid out flat. I couldn’t tell if she used any of the litter boxes, though. So I wasn’t surprised when I got back from the city and found one of puppy pads dug up and used.

I don’t get it. The litter box is RIGHT THERE. Why won’t she use it??

She’s healed up enough we can let her out of the room, though she’s still pretty hesitant about going out the door. The kittens have no such hesitation and I end up having to close the door before she has a chance to leave, just to keep the kittens in. They are too small to let out. Mostly because they can get into things in the basement that larger cats can’t. When they do escape, they usually right straight down the hall and either into my husband’s room, or the bathroom. Tin Whistle likes to run around the basement door and sit there between the door and the 1″ hardware cloth “door” we made to keep the cats out of the old basement, but still allow for air circulation. So far, they have not tried to go upstairs, nor up the steps to the dining room.

Some of the other cats are intensely curious about them when they do escape!

Do you have any idea how hard it is to juggle 3 kittens on one arm, while trying to open a door with the other and not letting the remaining two kittens out?

I really hope we can adopt these babies out soon.

The Re-Farmer

Who are you? Plus kitty update

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With the increasing heat over the next while, and no rain in site, I made sure to water the garden beds this evening. While the sprinkler was going in the main garden area, I used a watering can and the rain barrel by the sun room to water the south garden beds. The barrel was no longer full, but with the potatoes harvested, and other beds not needing watering anymore, it was enough to water what needed it, and not be stretching to fill the can at the bottom of the barrel.

As I was going back and forth around the rain barrel and the old kitchen garden, I was keeping an eye out for the missing ladies. I didn’t see them (though I did get to catch and cuddle a tiny black kitten, who was not happy to be caught!), but I did see someone else on a path in the old kitchen garden. Later, it moved to the area by the back water tap, and I was able to get a better picture.

I don’t recognize this cat.

I keep wracking my brain, trying to remember if one of last year’s kittens had markings like this, and I just can’t. As far as I can tell, this is a stranger.

It was also making strange. It didn’t run off while I was around, but as soon as I seemed to go closer, it got up and moved away.

Along with the watering, I ended up picking a whole lot of tomatoes, including a couple of Black Beauties, though one had already fallen to the ground on its own. The Roma are really liking these temperatures. I had considered pulling the bush beans, but ended up picking some, instead. I did pull the peas, and just dropped them where they were growing. In the process, I found more volunteer tomatoes! There is a total of 8 there now. All but one of them would be Spoon tomatoes. One is growing where we had the Chocolate Cherry tomatoes growing last year, though it might be from the Mosaic Mix we had there the year before, at the same time we grew Spoon tomatoes for the first time.

While I was outside, I got a call from the Cat Lady. Which surprised the heck out of me, because she called my cell phone, and I actually got enough signal to have a conversation! Even with Wi-Fi calling, I usually either can’t make out most of the call, or it gets dropped.

She was about to go and pick up the ladies from the vet, and wanted to update me. The spays went well, but the vet was not happy with her. Apparently, Decimus was really engorged, which made the surgery more difficult and dangerous. It went well, but she’s going to need extra antibiotics, apparently. The vet thought that she had a litter of actively nursing kittens. When I dropped them off, I made a point of telling the person doing the intake that she had kittens that she was actively and aggressively weaning, and she was going to be very glad to not be nursing. Decimus had made no effort to come to her kittens all night, nor did she want to go in, in the morning. The last time she did, yesterday evening, just before we did the wet cat food, the kittens basically attacked her and knocked her to the ground, and she was hissing and batting at them. My daughter had to actually rescue Ghosty, who was in reach of Decimus’ teeth, because she kept trying to bite Ghosty’s face! Once I started doing the wet cat food, the kittens lost all interest in nursing.

The Cat Lady knew Decimus’ kittens were older and she wasn’t wanting to nurse them anymore, and tried to explain that to the vet, but I don’t think the vet believed her. The Cat Lady promised that the next batch would be all males!

The kitten was another one with issues. As an outside kitten, it was no surprise that she had ear mites, but apparently she had an ear infection of some kind, too. We saw no sign of a problem. She wasn’t even scratching at her ears. Apparently, when they tried to flush her ears, there was a lot of puss. !!! Also, she has weird ears.

In fact, the Cat Lady has been hearing that comment from various different vets in treating different cats from our place. They all have weird ears. It seems they are unusually narrow. One vet, while treating Augustus (who is doing great now, btw, and recovered well. Even Leo is getting over his pneumonia) had even said something about how the ears looked like the cats from [our hamlet], and wondered if they were related?

Probably.

In the past she’s taken the same cat from our place to several different vets in different town and, because the first one had commented about the weird ears, asked them to check the ears. They all said the same thing. The ears are weird!

I’m not sure what to make of that.

But it’s done. The three of them will stay with the Cat Lady for about a week before going to their new home. The lady that’s adopting them is still interested in having a 4th cat, and is considering taking Turmeric, too, after the first three are settled.

The kittens are doing just fine, too. Even they seem to be happier with no adult cats around; just TTT, who spends most of the day in her closet cave, sleeping.

Now, if only we could at least catch sight of Butterscotch, Nosencrantz and Marlee, that would make a very good end to our day!

The Re-Farmer

Morning disaster

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It could have been worse, though.

What a start to the morning.

No disaster with this kitten. This kitten was adorable and friendly, and decided my daughter’s fingers were delicious.

I was up rather early, after a restless night. I’m happy to say that I didn’t wake up by rolling over into a puddle on my bed, but there was a mess under my desk, right next to the litter box, instead. It was on the puppy pads, at least, but those were the last of them, so I set up the fan to blow on the area the messes are always on and hoped for the best until I could get more.

Today was our day to do a Costco run, but I wanted to clean the litter boxes after doing the morning wet cat food feeding, first. As I was mulling about, I could hear a kitten plaintively meowing outside my window. I looked out, but couldn’t see anything. It was too close to the wall.

To do the wet cat food, I lay out a towel on the end of my bed, then line up all the food bowls. At this point, all of the cats and kittens know what’s going on, and the kittens are crawling all over the towel and the food bowls. TTT is always with the kittens, while Marlee starts meowing from her perch on the window shelf, and Butterscotch and Nosencrantz start milling around the floor. With The Phantom in the room now, she has started to jump up on the bed in anticipation, too.

But not this morning. I only saw TTT with the milling kittens.

I looked around, but couldn’t see the other cats anywhere. I could still hear a kitten meowing plaintively outside, though, so I stuck my head in the window to look again.

I could see the kitten this time, milling around the cap of the septic tank.

Which is when I realized I was seeing way to clearly though the open window.

The screen was gone.

It was on the floor, below.

At that point, everything else planned when out the window. I let the girls know what happened, and they were able to head outside right away while I quickly got dressed. I did a head count on the kittens, and one of the tabbies was missing – that was the kitten I was hearing outside! There are so many others that look like it, I didn’t realize it was one of the inside kittens. Thankfully, it was not the kitten that’s slated to go to the vet tomorrow morning!

The girls got the kitten very quickly and one of them brought it in to me. My other daughter found The Phantom and got her inside. They both went back outside while I eventually got The Phantom to come to me and put her back in the isolation ward with the kittens, then went outside with the girls.

The main thing was that the cats due to go to the vet were all accounted for. But that left Butterscotch, Nosencrantz and Marlee outdoors.

I did see Nosencrantz, lurking under my window, but when she saw me, she went around the house. The girls tried to come closer, but she ran off to the outer hard, by the fire pit, with another cat.

While they kept looking, I put food out for the outside cats, hoping the sound of kibble hitting the trays would get their attention.

No such luck.

Eventually, we had to stop looking. I came back into my room and found The Phantom was really putting the cat proof screen mesh to the test. The window was now closed, but she was really trying to get out! I left my room back outside to look around again. When I came back, I found the kittens had discovered places they could climb that they’d never tried for before. Things were knocked about, and one kitten was at the top of the wall shelf. One of my display heads, and the hat it was wearing, was knocked onto my bed, and the kitten was milling about around an antique lamp that’s up there to be safe from the cats!

Then I saw the wet spot, in the middle of my bed.

I messaged a daughter to give me a hand. The first thing I had to do was get that kitten off the top of the shelf! I managed to get that done before my daughter got to my room, so she helped me strip my bed, including the mattress cover. Thankfully, I’d put puppy pads under the mattress cover, so the mattress itself was protected.

After that, my younger daughter had to finish packing for her house sitting venture, then we headed out. I was really glad she was with me and could respond to messages with my SIL. We were supposed to meet at a restaurant for lunch, but she mentioned the name of a different one than the one we’d met at last time. She was already there and letting us know what table she was at! So my daughter was able to clarify just which location we were at. We kept getting mixed up with restaurant names that started with S. 😄 At least it was easy to spot her car when we got there, and I was able to park right behind it.

After a lovely lunch (breakfast, for me), we moved my daughter’s stuff to my SIL’s car and we parted ways.

My first stop was the Walmart, since I had to pick up more puppy pads. I’ll do a separate post on the shopping. Then I did the Costco shopping, which was insanely expensive, before heading home.

Once at home and everything was unloaded and put away and the ground floor litter boxes cleaned (since I didn’t get to do them this morning!), I emptied 3 bags of kibble into the kibble bin, then fed the outside cats.

No sign of Marlee, Butterscotch or Nosenctrantz.

I’m not too concerned about Butterscotch. She was here when we moved in, so she would remember that this house is home, and the yard is a reliable place for food. She is, however, getting old and the indoor life has made her soft, so she’s at predator risk, if she goes too far. Same with Nosencrantz. She was an outside cat, and our yard was all she knew before coming indoors, so I don’t expect the Anxiety Bear to wander too far, but she’s been indoors for quite a long time now!

Marlee is the one that really concerns me. She was getting used to being around Nosencrantz and Butterscotch, but then the kittens got big enough to be active, and she really didn’t like Decimus and the kittens. Then TTT joined us for recovery, and she didn’t like the new addition. Finally, another kitten and The Phantom came in. Decimus, the kitten and Phantom are leaving tomorrow morning, but Marlee was just so unhappy with them being there, I’m afraid she won’t want to come back! She did survive on her own for 2 years, but she doesn’t know to at least stay close to the house, for food, water and shelter. With so many other cats and kittens around, she may not want to come over at all, though I do make sure there are kibble bowls set up further from the house, for the shier cats. Hopefully, she won’t wander too far.

I’ll go outside again to look for them when I do my evening rounds.

Meanwhile, we need to make sure that Decimus, The Phantom and the kitten don’t eat after 9pm. We usually do the evening feeding at around 8, so that should be okay. I have to be on the road by 7:30am to get them to the clinic, so the fast won’t be too onerous. I just have to make sure someone does the morning feeding in the isolation ward after I’m gone.

It’ll be just the kittens at that point, probably. While I was going in and out of my room, with kittens trying to escape, TTT politely asked to leave the room, so I let her. She’s been wandering around the house and, to my amazement, none of the other cats are bothering her! Not even Turmeric, who has gone out of her way to hunt down Nosencrantz, any time she’s managed to get into my room. She’s the main reason Nozencratnz stopped leaving my room in the first place. After she and Butterscotch recovered from being spayed, we started leaving my door open, and for the first while it was fine. Then suddenly, Turmeric just decided to go after Nozencrantz and that was it.

If TTT is fine with the other cats, there’s no reason to keep her in my room. I just hope she figured out to use the litter boxes there. She’ll have many to choose from.

I even got clumping clay litter for the litter box under my desk, as the tech that removed her staples suggested trying.

*sigh*

I really hope the cats are okay outside. I’d rather they weren’t, but they might actually be happier out there. I just want them to at least stay close to the house! At least we got The Phantom inside. Once she’s at her new home, and has spent 2 weeks indoors in the barn that will be home base, she will be free to go indoors or outdoors as she wants.

As an aside, while I was writing this, Shadow in the Dark climbed up on my chest. After watching my cursor move on my screen for a while, she curled up and is now asleep under my neck. I think Shadow was the kitten that got outside this morning.

It most definitely could have been much worse.

Oh, while I was in the city, my husband checked on the my room frequently. He also made a change on the window screen. It is designed to be removed by pressing downwards, then pulling the top inwards. That’s what Nosencrantz managed to do just by scratching at it. The simple solution is to just put the screen in upside down. It now requires being pushed up to free the bottom; something a cat isn’t going to be able to do.

That’s something I should have done after we switched to the cat free mesh. Until recently, the box fan had been in the window. The cats couldn’t get at the screen, so I didn’t bother.

*sigh*

Live and learn, I guess.

The Re-Farmer