We have several black and white kittens that have such dense, fluffy fur, they look like little puff balls running around.
When feeding the cats this morning, I tried to do a head count of the adult. I got either 12 or 15. I’m not sure. Either way, that’s still a lot less than usual. I’ve noticed that not only am I not seeing Brussel around anymore, but her sister, Sprout, has also not been showing up at feeding time of late.
I haven’t really tried to do a head count of the kittens. Some are still hiding in the junk pile near the shrine feeding station, and they just more around and hide too quickly. I can say that I think several are “missing”. There was one in particular that I noticed was not doing well, and by the end of the day, it was simply gone, and I haven’t seen it since.
While it’s possible they simply aren’t around while I put the food out, there is another way I can tell that there are fewer yard cats. There is leftover kibble, even hours later, when it’s time to do the evening feeding. Not at all the trays or feeding stations, but in the sun room and close to the house. I actually have reduced how much kibble I put out, this evening. It’s all cleaned out overnight, but I know that’s because the skunks and raccoons are sneaking over and eating what’s left.
Such is life with colony cats and kittens, but it’s been a strange one this year.
With the cat cave – their usual favourite spot – unavailable last night, these kittens took up the beds inside the water bowl shelter, instead. I checked inside the cat house, which has three cat beds in it, and only saw one kitten in there. I actually thought it might have been another loss, but when I tried to poke around the carpet strips over the entry, it moved, so it was just napping. *phew*
Today we decided to do my husband’s birthday take out, and his choice was our favourite Chinese food place. He actually would have preferred pizza, but his lactose intolerance has been getting pretty bad. So this afternoon, after checking to make sure they were open today, my daughter and I headed into town.
Sir Robin and Eyelet followed me to the truck and would NOT leave! My daughter came back from opening the gate and tried to shoo them away, only for Eyelet to go under the truck, while I was in it, getting ready to back out! She stopped me and started looking for him, and found him grooming himself – directly behind a tire! Eyelet is deaf, which makes it more challenging. By the time I could safely back out, she had both of them, one under each arm!
We really, really need to find a home for Eyelet, if he’s going to survive!
Once in town, we first stopped at the restaurant to place our order (and pick up an up to date take out menu), letting them know we’d be at least half an hour before coming back to pick it up. Then we went to the grocery store to pick up some other celebratory things, including lactose free ice cream for my husband. My daughter are also lactose intolerant, but they are good with using the digestive enzymes for that.
That done, we got the food – we ordered enough to feed us for a couple of days, at least! – then headed home. Once home, my daughters took care of putting things away and getting everything ready while I popped outside to feed the yard cats early.
As I came out the Old Kitchen into the sun room, I disturbed a big skunk.
This skunk has been a regular since it was little, and it would always hide under the counter shelf, instead of running out the door.
It is no longer little.
It still thinks it can fit under the counter shelf.
After much scrambling and flattening of its butt, it finally squeezed itself under the shelf.
That done, we settled in for our celebratory take out. We’ll be doing cake and ice cream later, though maybe after the girls and I have gone out to cover garden beds for the night.
We did get interrupted with a phone call, though.
A happy interruption.
It was the company that’s replacing our front door for us. He’d emailed me while I was in town and I hadn’t checked my email yet, so he called. It turns out the installers can come out here tomorrow morning, and he wanted to know if that worked for us.
We’ll make it work!!!!
So another task for today is to find a way of barricade the entry, so no cats will get out while there is no door at all!
Hopefully, there will be no issues with the stucco and they won’t find anything bizarre when they remove the old, cracked frame.
It will be so good to have a solid door there again! Bonus if they can put the storm door back on again, too.
It will be so good to have a winter with no frost on the bottom of the door. On a really cold year, the frost would be up to the bottom hinge on one side, too.
It’s also going to be a major financial hit. When we had to remove the old door because it wouldn’t close anymore, and I mentioned it to my mother, she had told me to let her know how much it would be, hinting that she would help pay for it. Because God has been so good to her and she had the money (she does, thanks to my brother taking care of her finances for her; God has blessed her with an amazing son!). When I did find out what it would cost, and we made the down payment, I did end up telling her how much we still needed to pay. Only because she was asking about related things. When she heard there was still another $2700. When she heard that, she scoffed and basically accused them of cheating or something, because there was no way it was that expensive. I told her, my brother had replaced a door on their house (on the property that they sold, almost a year ago now), it was the same type of door, he didn’t replace the frame, and he did the work himself, and it still cost them over $2000. I didn’t even bother mentioning that prices have gone up since then. She refused to believe me. So… unless my brother talks to her or something (he’s already paying for so many other things here, they’re in no position to pay for this, too), there won’t be any help from her end.
And we will still have almost $750 we’ll need to pay for our insurance claim repairs on the truck, at the end of September – and that’s after the autobody company went out of their way to reduce the cost to us as much as they could. We’ve got a $500 deductible, and the rest is the “betterment” cost to replace the box cover.
So many years, we managed to stay debt free, and then everything just went nuts in the past year. *sigh* It wouldn’t be so bad, if we didn’t have the truck payments. They got the cost down as much as they could, but it was still more than our budget could handle. Add in how expensive everything is getting, and it just keeps getting worse. I could literally go into town and get myself a job within the week (not that I would want to do that over the winter) but anything I made would just be deducted from my husband’s disability payments, and put his health insurance at risk.
Well, we’ll figure it out.
Adopting out a dozen or so cats, inside and out, would help! 😄
Today is Labour Day, a statutory holiday here in Canada. I was still set to do my mother’s grocery shopping, though, as she didn’t want me coming over on a Sunday. I knew the grocery store in her town would be open for short hours, though. With that in mind, I wasn’t planning to head out until 11.
Which meant the usual morning routine, plus I would have time to water the garden in anticipation of one more really hot day, before the temperatures drop significantly. First things first was feeding the outside cats.
I had to zoom in from quite a distance so as not to interrupt. Lady Hypotenose does not look pleased!
The first thing I spotted as I headed out with the morning kibble, however, was a kitten laying half out of the new cat cave, clearly passed on. Then I spotted a second one in the box nest in the water bowl shelter!
I messaged my daughter and she came out to help find a place to bury them. Once the food was out, I gathered up the remains while my daughter dug a hole to bury them in. I was quite surprised by the one in the cat cave. This was the kitten with one sticky eye I’ve been washing. Other than a sticky eye, it was looking pretty strong! The second kitten was also one that I saw no signs of illness in. One thing in common, though, is that they both had a bout of diarrhea. Which is the same thing I found with the previous three kittens I’d found and buried.
Once that sad morning job was done, I continued my morning routine, then got the garden watered. I even had time for a late breakfast before heading to my mother’s. By the time I headed out, my brother and SIL were out by his tractor that he needs to fix. It’s outside, so he wanted to put a shelter over it, so he could work on it under at least some protection. Since I didn’t know how long I’d be, and they had to go back home today, I swung by to say hello/goodbye. While I was doing that, they told me they got a voicemail message from my mother saying that she’d been trying to call me, but there was no answer. ?!?! I told them I was on the way to her place to do her grocery shopping, but that our phone had not rung. My brother was planning to visit her briefly on their way home, so I was asked to let her know (and to let her know my brother was in work clothes, not dressed to the nines; my mother has suddenly started to criticize my brother for not dressing “civilized” because he was wearing jeans or whatever).
I was more than happy to wage interference for him.
As I was heading to the truck, I messaged my family to check the land line. When I got to my mother’s, there was a message waiting for me, saying the phone was working fine. When I came inside, I mentioned this to her, only to be told she hadn’t tried to phone me today. It was yesterday! That’s when I realized what had happened (and it was actually the day before yesterday that she’d tried to call me). When I saw the missed call (no message), I called her back and she told me she’d tried calling my brother and sister, too, but no one was home. Somehow, my brother didn’t get my mother’s message on his voice mail until today!
I did let her know that he was at the farm, working on a tractor, and that he planned to visit while on his way home – and yes, I did bring up that he’d be in work clothes, and probably dirty, so don’t give him a hard time! She laughed and said she wouldn’t.
My mother, however, was having a hard time. She said she was not feeling well, and hadn’t bothered to change out of her night gown. I tried asking questions to pin down exactly how she was feeling. She got frustrated and just repeated her usual litany. The problem is, she keeps saying she feels like she’s about to die, but… well… She’s already been to a doctor about these things, time and time again. For some things, like her legs swelling, something could be done – her water pill dosage was doubled, and she now takes it twice a day instead of once a day, for example. There are other things recommended, like keeping her feet elevated, or sleeping on an include. She’s been recommended for a hospital bed so she can do that more easily by me and my siblings, home care and her doctor, and she simply refuses. She won’t even put her feet up in her reclining chair. Eventually, if we ask enough questions, it comes out that she wants the doctor to “fix” her – but not give her more pills – somehow, like magic. And if a doctor isn’t able to do that, well, they’re just hiding something for her, or they just want her to die, or the doctor is [insert racial/sexist slur here] and not a “real” doctor, and she wants us to find her another one. This when we have a major doctor shortage and she’s lucky to have a doctor at all!
Anyhow. It’s frustrating for all of us, including my mother!
She had not felt well enough to make a list, so we worked on that together. I did have to go into her lock box to get a pen. All the pens on her table were gone. I found five in the lock box. Every time home care give her her medications, they have a form to fill out. Instead of using the pen that’s always there for them to use, they’ve been grabbing whatever pen is in reach on the table – then putting it in the lock box when they’re done! 😄
In making her list, she had a few items that would be picked up at the pharmacy. She had also mentioned wanting me to change her bedding, so I knew I’d be there for a while. I was expecting that.
I had some warning as to how things were going to go when my mother started going on about how my brother should really be the one doing this, not me. She “gave” him the farm, after all, and it’s his responsibility. I reminded her that I’m the one in the best position to help her. Oh, I have too much to take care of at home. I had my (disabled) husband and two “babies” to take care of.
Yup. My mother has got it in her head that we’re basically forcing the girls to live with us, and they do nothing. She just sort of invents scenarios on how we live.
As I was deflecting as best I could, she got weird and asked me if my daughters were born boys or girls.
*sigh*
With the way she treats them, my daughter have little interest in spending time with her, plus my older daughter works on her commissions at night, so she hasn’t even seen my older daughter in years. My younger daughter came with me not long ago, as we were on the way to somewhere else and she was coming along as my mobility assistant, really. My younger daughter has pretty severe PCOS, and the symptoms includes having a pretty rad beard. She can even make little braids in it. She gave up trying to shave it years ago, as shaving was damaging her skin, and frankly, it’s just hair. We’re more concerned about the more debilitating PCOS issues.
When I, rather stunned, said that yes, my daughters are female, she asked, why the beard? I told her, it’s a medical condition. My daughter is seeing a doctor and getting referred to specialists about it. My mother just scoffed and made a comment about how she thought I wasn’t telling her everything. I told her, correct. I’m not telling you everything because she just twists everything to be nasty, anyhow, plus my daughter’s health is none of her business.
At which point, my mother twisted what I said to be nasty.
*sigh*
I managed to get away from that conversation and get back to making her shopping list!
As we were talking groceries, she started going on about how bad she feels, but especially after eating. She loves to blame certain foods for anything, because of something she might have heard on TV (sometimes decades ago!) or read in a magazine. She was winding up to the conclusion that she should basically stop eating anything but “liquid”. So… I guess that’s why she waters down her instant oatmeal so much!
After hearing her describe how she was feeling after she ate, it triggered something in my memory about digestive issues with seniors, so I looked it up. Soon I was reading to her about how our digestive systems tend to slow down as we get older, causing various issues. Going through the list, there were only a couple of things that applied to her. One being the heartburn (that she was convinced were heart attacks for many years), which I’ve already gone over with her about, with what foods can trigger it and what can help. She already ignores that. I’ve made printouts for her in large letters that she can ready easily, and she just throws them out. Another was to eat more small meals instead of large ones; again, something that would help her heartburn. She reacted as though this were a revelation, apparently not remembering that we’ve talked about this before. Last of all was physical exercise – something she just doesn’t have the mobility to engage in, at levels that would make a difference.
Then she asked about dry mouth again. She is constantly bringing it up, even though it, too, is something she’d talked about, and she even still has the spray she was given while at the hospital earlier in the year. She used it at one point, thinking it was an inhaler that would help her breathing. It worked so well! When I realized what she was talking about and told her that no, the only inhalers she has are in her lock box. The spray was for dry mouth, she stopped using it.
She has decided her dry mouth is because she had diabetes, and asked me about her blood tests. While at the doctor, she said she couldn’t hear what the doctor had said. I told her what her A1c was (she is not diabetic), and repeated what the doctor had said; she’s sleeping with her mouth open. All she heard was that it was not related to diabetes and she’s not diabetic, so it was another revelation for her.
As you can imagine, it took a while to get her shopping list done!
Today was a Meals on Wheels day. I made sure to leave before that was delivered, so my mother could have her lunch without interruption. I was going to the pharmacy, first, only to find that they were closed for the holiday. I hoped I could find at least some of what she wanted (she was not out completely, thankfully) at the grocery store, but the only thing they did have was ridiculously expensive, so that didn’t happen.
In the end, if was a much smaller than usual shopping list. My mother did make a request for something she could eat with her medications. Some are not supposed to be taken on an empty stomach. She usually eats a few crackers, but I think she’s tired of crackers. She didn’t really know what she wanted, so I told her I would look around the grocery store for something.
I went through the (rather small) store three times.
What kind of snack was there that was “healthy” (as my mother would accept), that didn’t need any sort of preparation, was either shelf stable or could stay in the fridge for a while after opening, and was easy for her to chew, since she refuses to get her dentures fixed after having a broken tooth removed. Some of the things I saw that would have been good, healthy snacks were things I knew she would refuse to eat, because she heard somewhere that they are “unhealthy”. Others were things that she would have a hard time chewing.
I finally settled on some fruit filled breakfast bars. I knew she’s complain because they are “sweet” (as anything fruit filled would be), but it was something to try.
After I was finally done and the truck was loaded, I found a message from my SIL. They were going to be heading out soon, and would I be able to stay longer, while my brother was there? Of course, I said yes. My SIL no longer visits my mother, after my mother started going on about how she wasn’t really family, just my brother’s wife, and blaming her for my brother not being ay my mother’s constant beck and call. So she was going to be dropped off, while my brother was going to pick up some chicken, then meet me at my mother’s.
Once back at my mother’s and everything was put away, and I explained about the pharmacy being closed, my mother started going on about how her “pink” pills were now a different size.
She doesn’t have any pink pills.
My mother was convinced her pills were changed but this time, after asking some questions, she told me that they were different from what she was taking before they started doing bubble packs.
Which has been for at least five years.
I ended up taking one of her bubble packs out so we could look at them together. The “pink” pill she was talking about was actually orange. My mother’s eyesight is failing, so it’s not really a surprise that she sees colours differently, but she’s interpreting that as the pharmacy changing her meds.
As we went over what was in her bubble packs, I went through how the only change has been is the one pill that she’s taking twice a day instead of once a day. Then I talked about how different manufacturers might have slightly different colours or shapes (this was an issue in the past), but the important thing is the dose. The colour or shape of a pill doesn’t matter, as long as the dose is right.
We were in the middle of this when my brother arrived. While he went through to the kitchen with the food he’d brought, she started to tell him that he should look at the pills, because he’s the one that knows all about them.
…
My brother told her that no, I’m the one that knows the most about them now!
At one point, while I was again explaining to my mother about her medications and doses, etc. I realized my brother had started to record the conversation. Which would be a good thing, as it would be a record of how my mother can get.
It’s such a good thing her meds are kept in a lock box now. In the past, when she got it in her head the her meds were changed, she actually took her pills out of the bubbles and “sorted” them. I found the ones she had issue with a while back and had to take them to the pharmacy for disposal. There was at least 50 of these pills that she had stopped taking, because she thought they weren’t the same medication anymore.
Once her bubble packs were put away and my brother was taking the food out, I remembered seeing my mother’s water bottles were needing to be refilled. So I got my brother to pass them to me, then left for the tap her building has in the laundry room for drinking water (I think it’s softened water, but my mother can’t quite remember the explanation she was given to use that water for drinking, not her tap water).
When I came back, my mother was already at my brother.
It got…
Interesting.
In the end, what became clear is that my mother still has zero understanding of the thing she did a while back that stubbed my brother in the back, and the year. In fact, she doesn’t seem to remember what she’d done, and isn’t accepting that she is now facing the consequences of her own actions. She also seems to have forgotten that she has already prepaid for her own funeral, years ago – she basically accused us of planning to have her cremated, like the sons of an old neighbour of ours did when their mother passed. She was also going on about all the things my brother should be doing for her when she passes – things he will not have the legal authority to do, once again thanks to her own actions. She pulled every trick in the book. Guilt tripping. Gaslighting. Accusations. She even started calling herself and orphan, because we were trying to explain to her that she was asking for things that could not be done by my brother. She even brought our sister into it, and had some pretty unpleasant things to say about her!
It took some doing, but we eventually got her calmed down and to some semblance of understanding of how things were, not how she thought they were.
Meanwhile, my mother refused to eat the food my brother bought; not even a single piece of chicken. Because she had her Meals on Wheels (some time ago, by then). I ate only a bit, as did my brother, which meant my mother would have enough prepared food for herself, for at least a couple of days. Which is good, because Meals on Wheels is available only three days a week. She seems to be thinking that, because she gets those meals on those days, she shouldn’t need any other food for the rest of the week… because… she needs to slim down???
*sigh*
Finally, my brother said he had to leave, because he still had a long drive and needed to go to work tomorrow.
My mother immediately started to give him a hard time for leaving “so soon”.
*sigh*
I left at the same time and walked my brother to his car – then gave him a huge hug. I think he really needed it by then! He had come, expecting some sort of behaviour like this from my mother. The good thing is that I was there, which tempers her a bit. When he’s there on his own, she is much, much more difficult and downright abusive. I’ve flat out told her, she teats my brother terribly. Her response is always to justify her treat meant of him because she “gave him everything” by signing the farm over to him. She seems to have completely forgotten that this was done so that her will could not be contested by our vandal, and to take a burden off of her. Since my brother was already taking care of everything for her before then, she doesn’t even understand just how much of a burden it was.
*sigh*
No one has done more for my mother than my brother, and she has no understanding of that. Instead, she seems to actually hate him. It breaks my heart to see how much she is hurting him, and she has no clue. None.
*sigh* again.
After that, I was more than happy to come home and just decompress for a while. I still need to go out and water the garden; I’d gone out earlier, and it was still too hot to stay out for that long. I might not actually need to, though. We’re going from a high of 25C/77F – 28C/82F (depending on which app I checked) today, to a high of only 16C/61F tomorrow. Tonight’s low is supposed to be 15C/59F, but tomorrow’s low is supposed to drop to 7C/45F, and then down to 4C/39F the night after. On the weekend, we’re supposed to get a low down to 3C/37F, and then it’s supposed to warm up again. If the garden is going to have any chance to survive, we’re going to have to cover some things, even if there’s no frost.
This morning, I found and hand pollinated more winter squash. If I can find a way to cover that bed, they might survive the colder nights. It’s so unlikely, but I want to give them every possible chance to produce! As for the tomatoes, we’ll probably just have to pick whatever green tomatoes there are, and let them ripen indoors. Except the Spoon tomatoes. They’re so tiny, and have been nice and productive, we’ll probably just leave them be for the season.
We’ll see how it works out.
For now, I’m going to at least enjoy doing my rounds outside, get some fresh air, and get my brain space back to where it should be, instead of constantly going back to all the things my mother was saying today. Just writing about it here actually helps with that. Now that it’s “documented”, it’s easier to let it go.
I just really, really feel for my brother. He deserves so much better than this.
With all the extra stuff that needed to be done yesterday, I did finally get to water the garden yesterday evening. The poor Turkish Orange eggplant were drooping so badly!
This morning, I made sure to give it another watering, before things got too hot – we’re supposed to break past 30C/86F, and the humidex will make it feel even hotter! Before I did, though, I checked on things and got a harvest done.
I’ve been hemming and hawing for a while now about the corn. Being a short season corn, with only 65 days to maturity, they should have been ready to harvest a while ago but – like everything else – they were way behind. In the process of taking a closer look, I found something else.
Our very first female Arikara squash flower buds. There had been only male flowers until now, but now that we’ve got some females about to bloom, there isn’t a male flower to be seen!
*sigh*
Today is the last day of August. We’ve got one more hot day, and then things are going to cool right down, with overnight temperatures low enough that we’ll need to cover some things.
While watering, I also spotted new female flowers on the Mashed Potato and Baked Potato squash. I’ll have to check them again this evening and see if they opened up and can be hand pollinated.
Why I bother, I have no idea. They won’t have enough time to mature, and they are in beds we won’t be able to cover.
Ah, well. You never know. It’s not like weather forecasts don’t constantly change!
I came prepared to do some harvesting, including stainless steel container for the Spoon tomatoes.
I decided to go ahead and harvest some of the corn. Since the stalks had one cob each, I pulled the entire stalk on the ones that looked ready enough. Handily, the beds are right next to the compost pile.
While I was picking beans and corn, I had company.
Sir Robin was absolutely fascinated by the reflections inside the stainless steel bowl and was busy trying to catch whatever he was seeing.
In the next picture, you can see I got a whole bunch of tiny corn cobs. This is not a large cob variety of corn, but they should have been bigger than this. A few little ones had so few developed kernels on them, they weren’t work keeping. So I just ate them. 😄
It was SO nice to finally pick a decent amount of beans! Finally!
The one Sub Arctic Plenty tomato looks like it should have been picked earlier. I think the heat got to it a bit. There was a decent amount of chocolate cherry tomatoes to pick this time.
The carrots are from the bed that was sown in the spring, rather than the ones sown in the fall. With the Atomic Red ones, it’s still somewhat of a thinning by harvesting situation. The Uzbek Golden carrots were planted using home made seed tape, so spacing was not an issue.
I’m always amazed by the Royal Burgundy bush beans. We have only three surviving plants, and one of those got chomped by a deer. Yet even that one had beans to harvest today! The plants are still really prolific, considering how small they are and how delayed their growth has been.
It wasn’t until later, when I was watering the summer squash, that I realized I missed a zucchini! Just one, though I found a couple that I was able to hand pollinate.
I’m quite happy with this harvest. Sure, we’ve had better in previous years. A harvest like this was something I had picked every couple of days throughout the summer but, for how things have gone this year, this is pretty amazing!
Also, it took forever to pick all those little Spoon tomatoes. Aside from the plants being stunted and short this year, it was pretty painful to pick them from the low raised bed. It did help that I could put a foot on the log wall when I needed to, to take some of the pressure off. In theory, I should be squatting to pick them, but I can’t squat with the condition of my knees, so I’m having to bend over, instead.
Thankfully, I got the harvesting and watering done before it got too hot. The watering got interrupted for a while as I spent some time with my brother, going over my mother’s car. It’s going to need a new battery, and that tire was almost flat again. My brother will take care of a few things on it, and we will take care of emptying it out and getting it detailed, and then it’s going to be sold.
As much as it would be good to have a second vehicle again, we just don’t have the budget to insure and fuel two vehicles anymore – and I would really use the space the car it taking up in the garage! That addition was made to be a work/storage space. My mother’s car is just small enough to fit in there, as long as the passenger side it close enough to the wall, so the driver’s side door can be opened wide enough to squeeze out. I would rather store things like the lawn mowers, snow blowers and wood chipper in there, so that the other side they are stored in can be a work shop again. When I was building the cat isolation shelter, I had to keep our vehicle parked outside for months, so that I had the space to build in.
All in good time. There is no hurry, but it would be nice if we could sell it before the winter.
Winter is on my mind a lot these days, even when we’ve got heat like today!
I had a pretty sleepless night, with concerns about our foundling kittens. I kept checking the critter cam and had to chase out the raccoon family and a couple of skunks. The foundlings were set up in the carrier that has a lid in the roof, in hopes the mother, or one of the creche mothers, would go in to them, but none did. One of my daughters and I fed them kitten soup with a syringe again. They were very hungry, but it was a very messy way to feed the kittens! A couple of them preferred to either lick the food off my hands, or “nurse” on my hand while my daughter carefully squirted the food next to their mouths. Before returning a kitten to the sun room, I made sure to wipe down their bellies and tried to stimulate their neither regions, like a mother grooming them, with a cloth to get them able to eliminate.
The first picture is the kittens, after we found them yesterday, and the second is where we found them. Not the clearly visible mower on the right. We had to move that one out completely to reach the second one, barely visible on the left. That’s the one they were under!
With a couple of kittens preferring to lick at the food, we also place a small shallow plate in the carrier with them, in case they wanted to eat again during the night. It was empty by morning, but that could have been some other cat jumping in with them and eating it. When we fed them this morning, we left the plate with some food in it with them, again.
Meanwhile, I reached out to a stray cat group chat I normally just lurk on. After talking to the Cat Lady, I am a bit leery of being active on there.
I explained about the kittens, and that we had come to the conclusion that the mother is no more. I was hoping someone knew of anyone able to foster the kittens, as there’s no way we could keep up with the care they needed. Even just feeding them every 2 hours was not something we could manage, and we aren’t even in a position to bring them into the house. I estimated them to be about 3 weeks old but, after looking at some photos, came to the conclusion that they are less than 3 weeks old. Not by much, but definitely not more than 3 weeks.
After some discussion, my morning plans changed. I needed to go into town to pick up some refills for one of my husband’s injections. It was suggested I try the local branch of the humane society, so I looked up their hours. They had some very strange hours, but they were open today, for two hours starting at 8am, then again for two hours starting at 5pm. I left in time to get there just a few minutes past 8am…
… only to find a hand written sign saying they were closed for the “rest of” the day. “Rest of?” They hadn’t even opened at all!
So much for that.
My next stop was at the vet clinic to see if they had any kitten formula. They did, so I picked up a tin. Talking to the staff as I bought it, I got the names of two other rescues to try.
That done, I had half an hour before the pharmacy opened, so I made a stop at the grocery store to pick up a breakfast I could eat in the truck while waiting for the pharmacy to open their doors. My husband’s refill was already prepared, so that didn’t take long at all, and I was soon on my way home.
Throughout all this, I was updating various people, including the Cat Lady, keeping them up to day. One of the people on the stray rescue group started messaging me privately. She was in the city and ran a small cat rescue, and she told me that, if I couldn’t get through to any of the other places recommended to me, to let her know, as she would take them. As we were talking, I explained why we were in no position to give the kittens the level of care they needed. In the end, she told me to please bring them to her! All she asked was for me to include the formula for them, which I was more than happy to do.
I had not been home for long when that decision was made. I mixed up a small amount of formula and was going to feed them, before we worked out when I’d be heading out. The kittens were sleeping peacefully, though, so we skipped it for the time being. The kittens, however, were a real mess! They looked like they had taken a bath in the now empty plate of kitten soup!
When the time came to leave, I quickly grabbed a puppy pad to put between the kittens and the now messy cat bed that I’d put on the bottom of the carrier for them, then headed out.
I had my phone set up on the dash board holder with Google Maps giving me directions to where I needed to go in the city. I was almost at my mother’s town when my cell phone started to ring. I recognized the name as the woman from the group that had given us huge amounts of donated cat food last year. I should have been able to answer the call hands free, but it just wouldn’t work. I finally had to pull over and tried to talk more directly into the phone, but it still wouldn’t work. I could sometimes hear here talking, but couldn’t even turn on the speaker phone to hear her properly. All I could tell is that she was starting to get angry because I was … using up her minutes? Her battery? Something like that.
It was the Google Maps app that was messing up the call. I finally figured out how to stop it from trying to give me directions, even after I’d closed the app, and could finally talk to her on the phone.
She had called to tell me, don’t give the kittens to this women.
???
I asked why, of course.
She is overwhelmed. She takes on too many cats. She keeps asking for food donations. She was asking for ear mite medication. She had some cats with really bad ear mites… Her heart is in the right place, but…
Funny. When I was going to meet up with her about the donated cat food, I’d gotten a warning about her, too, saying “her heart is in the right place, but…”. In her case, though, her actions have gotten the province involved and resulted in colony cats being killed rather than rescued. To have her now “warn” me about this other woman with a rescue that said she would take the kittens was… intersting.
She again basically ordered me to not give the cats to this woman. I finally told her, I’m pulled over on the highway, on the way to the city, right now. Do you have somewhere else I can take them, or what? Because we are not in any position to care for such small kittens.
Oh, you’re doing a good job already…
She was making assumptions based on what I had been telling the group about what we were doing with the kittens. I did not, of course, tell them about other stuff, like the various disabilities and other health issues we are dealing with in this household.
When it became clear that I was going to this woman’s place anyhow, she seemed to get pretty angry at me again. She then told me to scope her very small house myself when I got there, and to only believe a quarter of anything she told me.
I thanked her for the warning, and continued on my way.
Thankfully, getting to her place was pretty straightforward. After parking as close to the house as I could, I messaged to let her know I was there, and what I was driving.
Which is when I saw the messages in the group chat, where the woman that called me was telling the woman I was about to meet that she should not take the kittens because she already had too many cats and had an ear mite issue. Both claims that she responded by saying it was already dealt with.
Before I could even get out of the truck, she was coming over with a box to transfer the kittens into.
She told me that she had already been to a dollar store and back to get puppy pads and other such supplies in preparation for the kittens – and she mentioned the woman that had told me not to bring the kittens! I told her that I had just read the conversation about it, and that I’d gotten a phone call, too. It turned out that the ear mite situation had already been addressed, and she was just looking for more meds to have on hang, in case she got more cats with ear mites again. The other issues had already been dealt with.
From all I could see, everything was looking fine. I had zero issues over turning the kittens over to her.
That done, I was soon back on the road and headed home.
By the time I parked the truck, I had received messages and photos. The kittens have been bathed, toileted, fed and set on a warming pad.
Here are the before and after pictures; the second one was sent by the women who took them in.
I took the first picture through the door of the carrier, after they were loaded into the truck. What a mess! that cat bed turned out to be just covered in spilled kitten soup.
The second picture is after they got bathed and fed, and there is a warming pad under the blanket they are on. She got all that taken care of so quickly!
Meanwhile, I’d kept the Cat Lady up to date. Once home, I let her know about the kerfuffle on the group chat and being ordered not to give the kittens to this person. The Cat Lady knew both of them and was honest in saying she didn’t trust either of them! It seems the cat rescue community if filled with all sorts of such antagonism.
No wonder she’s getting out of rescue.
The kittens, however, are now rescued and will be well cared for!
I am now more convinced that their mother was Brussel, though I’ve gone from about 10% certainty to maybe 25% certainty.
Note I say “was”. Once again, Brussel did not show up at feeding time today. By now, I don’t expect to see her again.
I was talking to my brother this evening and mentioned to him that, if I didn’t go outside, looking for a data signal during the power outage yesterday, I would not have heard the kitten crying. With no mother around, they probably would not have lasted long at all, and we would never had known there were even kittens in that old shed.
Serendipity, to be sure!
Speaking of my brother…
Not long after I got home, I got a message from my SIL, letting me know they were on their way out! I was not expecting to see them this weekend, but I guess their grandson was already returned home, and now they’re here.
My brother had a bunch of things he wanted to check out, including their riding mower that I told him I feared I’d broken, because it wouldn’t move anymore, though everything seemed to be fine about it.
Before I even realized they were here, my brother had already taken it out and checked it.
Then he wanted to check on my mother’s car, but it’s been sitting so long, the battery was almost completely dead, so he had to charge it, first. We parked it after I tried using it, and it started making a very alarming banging noise when I tried to drive it. I turned around and came right home, and it hasn’t moved since.
It also had a flat. I’d found it with two flat tires during at the end of the first winter it was parked. I used the compressor to pump them up and the rear tire has been fine, since, but the front tire was flat by morning, every time I pumped it up. So I eventually stopped.
Then there was the compressor itself, which had started to trip the breaker every time we used it. When that happened, I would have to get a daughter to come over with a small step latter to climb onto the counter against the back wall of the garage, to reach the breaker panel and switch it back on.
Today was a scorcher and I’d intended to water the garden this morning, but with all the kitten stuff, that never got done. I went out to water it last this afternoon, while my brother was checking and fixing things, and my SIL was already mowing the rest of the outer yard with their zero turn mower (which I won’t touch!).
When to got to where I was taking the hose to water the East garden beds, I suddenly realized my mother’s car was in the yard, as my brother hosed off the accumulated gravel dust it was covered with. I went over to talk to him and learned:
… the riding mower that wouldn’t go? Worked fine for him. He got it up on a ramp and checked under it and he found zero damage.
… the compressor was working fine. He’d even used it last weekend, with no issues.
… the banging noise I heard from my mother’s car? He found zero damage. There was nothing to make the noise. After charging the battery enough to start the engine, and pumping up the tire, the car was running fine. He was driving it around the inner and outer yard, leaving the engine running to keep charging the battery. No banging noises. Not troubles at all. We just have to make sure it’s plugged in, for the trickle charger.
… I told him why I’d stopped pumping the front tire and said it would be flat in the morning. He said that yes, it will be!
So there’s all these things that went wrong for us, but as soon as my brother checked on them, it was all working fine.
I told him afterwards, I feel like an idiot now.
He told me, that’s just how it is with him. Even at his work, it’s the same thing, People have troubles with something, he comes over to try and fix it, and there’s nothing to fix. Things just start working again for him, all the time!
So it’s not just me… 😄
I still feel like an idiot. All this time, and we could have had access to my mother’s car.
Well.
Not really.
Now that we have the truck payments, we don’t have a budget to pay for the insurance on two vehicles anymore, not to mention the extra gas. The insurance for my mother’s car, however, is just suspended, not cancelled. If we need to, we could get it active again, even if for just a short time.
Not until that tire is replaced, though.
Which means that we will still be needing the courtesy vehicle while our truck’s box frame is being repaired and the new cover installed, at the end of September.
So we almost have a back up vehicle…
Meanwhile, not only did today turn out to be another 30C/86F day, but tomorrow is expected to be even hotter. Tomorrow, I will do what I intended to do today; water the garden early in the morning, then again in the evening. Today, I used the rain barrel to water the old kitchen garden. The poor eggplants were seriously drooping in the heat! That garden got ambient temperature water, and I drained the barrel as much as I could, watering, watering and watering again! I got the other garden areas done with the hose. I even did the fruit trees and berry bushes. Everything was just so, so dry.
We’ve got just a few more hot days, and then it’s supposed to drop right down, and I’ll likely have to cover the more sensitive plants in the garden at night, in less than a week!
As for right now, I am so very tired. Hopefully, I will get a good night’s sleep tonight, now that I’m not concerned about the foundling kittens!
We really need to do something about having so many cats.
I headed to the city shortly after 10am, stopping at a gas station at my mother’s town along the way, only to pick up a drink and a road snack to tide me over. I tried a new brand of beef jerky.
I should have gotten the hint when there was no price. In fact, none of the beef jerky, nor most of their snack mixes have prices on display.
It turned out to be almost $21.
Along with the super large Monster energy drink I got, it came to just over $26 after taxes and enviro fees.
It was good jerky, at least, but I won’t be buying it again! I only had a few pieces and the rest is in its sealed bag in the console where we keep things like water bottles, road snacks, extra tissue boxes, extra wet wipes, etc.
When I got to the city, my first stop was at a mall for “breakfast” in the food court. I ended up getting a three item Chinese food meal and a drink – about $16 and change – but only ate half of it. The other half was my supper when I got home.
Before going to the Costco, I swung through the Dollarama that’s right by the food court (I don’t think I’ve ever checked out the rest of the mall) and the doors I parked near. I ended up getting a few things there; four shoe-box sized storage boxes with lids, a refill bottle of liquid soap, and a 4L jug of cleaning vinegar. They have the 10% acidity vinegar that I’d been looking for. The grocery store had only 7% acidity cleaning vinegar. (4% is cooking vinegar and 5% is pickling vinegar) The 10% is noticeably better at descaling our kettle, that’s for sure!
I also picked up a couple more clear vinyl table protectors for the garden. Or for winterizing cat shelters. Either one. I’ll probably pick up more before the snow flies.
I ended up buying another hard sized bag to carry the stuff, and my breakfast leftovers, to the truck. I have lots in the truck but hadn’t expected to get things like the vinegar or soap refills, so I hadn’t brought any with me. Usually, I just take my cart to the truck and pack things up there, but the Dollarama carts can’t leave the store.
That done, I finally drove the couple of blocks over to the Costco, with my first stop being for gas. Their gas was at $1.329 instead of the $1.449 everywhere else in the city, so they were pretty busy! I was just under half a tank, and my fill cost $61.54
Once that was done, I was fortunate enough to find a parking spot right away. Yay! With the long weekend coming up, the lot was pretty full.
This is a “family size” package of stew meat. We used to get these all the time. I remember getting this size for under $20. Now, that same size pack costs in the $60 range – and this was NOT the biggest pack in the display.
This is what I DID get.
I got six 9.1kg/20lb bags of kibble. They had the 11kg size, but the Kirkland brand is a better price/gram. I also got a 48 pack of wet cat food and more puppy pads. The cat supplies all together totaled $223.32 before taxes.
*sigh*
The other stuff on the flat cart they scanned included a case of Coke Zero for my husband and I, a case of Monster that my daughter will pay me back for, a 3 pk of oat milk for my daughters, toilet paper, paper towels and a double flat of 60 eggs.
For meats, I got a chub of ground beef and a pork blade roast. I got a pork loin, and plan to try something different with it. I was able to find and get curing salt a couple of weeks ago, so I’m going to try curing it. I also got a couple of 3 pks of Spam (that’s sure gone up in price, too!).
In dairy, I got 4 pounds of butter and Old Cheddar cheese.
For breads, I got two 2pks of rye bread and two packs of wraps. There is also a big case of spaghetti, a big jar of mayonnaise and popcorn. I remembered to get some fabric softener sheets for the drier; that three pack will last use a few years. Last of all, I got a Tuxedo cake. My husband’s birthday is in the beginning of September, so he’ll be getting his cake early!
And… that’s it.
That’s $619.41 before taxes. Of that, $259.94 was actual food for us (not counting beverages).
For the month.
Good grief.
True, we did do an earlier stock up trip at the international grocery store where the only non-food items were some hair accessories, on sale, for my daughter. Costco is also the place were we get the big stuff, like the paper products, along with the cat supplies, and typically bulk sized meats.
Kitten interruption: I went to chase raccoons out of the sun room. The foundling kittens were all crying in distress. No sign of a mama, and the creche mothers weren’t going into the cat cage, though Lady Hypotenose was nursing 5 or 6 older kittens in the middle of the sun room. We don’t have kitten formula, so my daughter and I ended up making “kitten soup” with a can of wet cat food and fed them, one at a time in the bathroom, using a syringe. They were confused by the whole thing, but were very hungry. In my last check on them, they had settled in together in the cat bed and seemed to be calming down with full little bellies.
On the down side, I think there are still four very stupid little raccoons jammed between the counter shelf and the window!
Back to our regular programming…
So this trip did go over our Costco budget, even though we got less than typical. Frustrating. Especially since we’re supposed to be stocking up extra in the pantry to tide us over for the winter, should we get snowed in or something again.
*sigh*
Well, it is what it is. We’ll work things out. We’ve been in tighter spots before.
Excuse me while I go chase some skunks out of the sun room…
After coming home from the Costco shop, it was late enough to feed the outside cats – which also lured them away from the truck that I parked by the house!
The cats didn’t have much appetite, though, and no wonder. As I write this, it’s just past 5pm. We’re at 28C/82F, with a humidex of 32F/90C The cats did come to eat, but it wasn’t long before they were all splayed out in any cool spot they could find.
The above image has two short videos in the slideshow. Poor Adam, trying to keep cool on the dirt, and she’s covered in littles!
That kitten on top of all the others, with the splotchy white and black fur on its back, it currently the only one that has eye troubles. Just one eye has been stuck shut. I’ve been trying to get at it for a while. This morning, I finally did – sort of! I was able to basically hold it in place with one hand, while it hissed and spit and tried to bite me, then started wiping the stuck eye with a sopping wet paper towel.
The kitten stopped fighting me and let me get its eye cleaned up and open!
While doing the evening feeding, I saw its eye was stuck shut again. It too a while, but after it had an Adam snack, it went into the shade under the kibble house. I was able to make it come out, where I could grab it and hold it down. Once again, it hissed and spit at me, right up until I started washing its eye. It immediately settled down and let me finish. The goop had dried pretty hard, so it took a while, and it was very patient about it!
I saw a few among the influx of littles that started to get sticky eyes, but most of them cleared up almost immediately. There’s still one that looks messy in both eyes, but that one is already doing better. This kitten has just one sticky eye, but otherwise looks fine.
And yet, we are still loosing kittens. I found another one in the new cat cave this morning. Of the three littles I had to bury so far, none of them had looked sick before hand. I was pretty surprised by which one I found this morning. What I did notice when gathering them up to bury them, however, is that they all seemed to have had diarrhea.
So is this still that endemic herpes virus, or is something else doing them in?
I don’t know, but I did notice that there’s one kitten with a messy butt – I actually expected to find that one this morning! It’s still puttering around and playing with its siblings and cousins. There are a few that look super tiny and super skinny. That doesn’t mean much. Grommet and Sir Robin both still look super small and skinny for their ages.
[pause for an almost 2 hour power outage]
Well, now… that was fun.
Okay, what I was going to do next was show Blot (as in… ink blot…), blocking my access to the old kitchen!
According to one of my weather apps, we actually hit 30C/86F earlier today – higher than was in the forecast, and I don’t know what the humidex was at the time. The old kitchen manages to stay a bit cooler. I wasn’t able to close the outer door as I went out to feed them. When I came back to put the kibble bowl away, I was blocked! Blocked by an adorable ink Blot.
Blot is one of the super tiny, super skinny kittens. I’ve managed to sneak a pet while s/he has been eating, but that’s it.
Okay…
So…
The power went out as I was working on this post. I had to go outside and wander around to find somewhere with data signal strong enough to log into the power company’s app, where I could report the outage and check for any others. The map even loaded this time! There was something like a dozen other outage reports in our area, so it was pretty widespread.
While I was outside, I suddenly hear a tiny, distressed sounding… squeak?
I headed into the outer yard, trying to fallow the sound, and eventually pushed my way through the jungle of tall weeds in front of the shed with the collapsed roof. I then pinpointed the noise to one spot.
More the roof had collapsed, with parts of it right on top of a couple of old, broken lawnmowers that had been pushed in, against one wall, before the roof fell in. After more poking around, I spotted some orange fur sticking out from under a board.
It took a while, but I was able to get the kitten out.
It was distressed at first, of course, but as soon as I had it in the palm of my hand and close against my chest, it settled right down.
In the process, I heard another squeak. There was at least one more kitten somewhere in there.
I went back to the house, kitten curled up in my hand still, and called for my daughter through the door to give me a hand with finding kittens. I then went and got one of the carriers from out of the sun room.
By the time I wrestled it out of the shelf it was in, my daughter was outside around the cat shelters, wondering what kitten I needed help with.
Then she saw the orange fluff I was holding!
Off we went to the shed together. We put the kitten into the carrier and started looking around for another. We had only a single squeak to let us know we were still in the right general area.
We tried moving out some of the pieces of broken roof, but some were just too large and still attached to each other. I ended up getting a saw out so we could cut away broken truss pieces.
While my daughter was cutting the first piece, she saw movement.
In the opening of one of the lawn mowers, where the grass clippings would fly through.
I was able to go over, reach in and grab it.
It hissed and spit a bit, but I handed it to my daughter to cuddle before putting it with its sibling, and it calmed right down.
Meanwhile, I took the saw to cut through the next piece of wood. As I was doing that, we saw another kitten emerge. My daughter caught it and we snuggled it a bit before adding it to the carrier. This one was totally chill!
We were able to move out more pieces of wood by then, which is when we were able to spot and catch a fourth kitten.
When my daughter pulled that one out, she commented on how cold and damp it was underneath!
We cleared away more bits and pieces until I could lift out one of the old lawn mowers. I didn’t dare try to roll it away, in case there was a kitten under it. Finally, my daughter was able to use the handle to lift the second mower so I could check under it.
No more kittens!
We checked some more to be extra sure, but that we could not hear or see any more kittens.
We then took them to the sun room, and put them in the bed in the cat cage.
The almost completely orange one is the one I first found, under the rotten board. Then my daughter found the orange and white one, and finally we got the little tortie and tabby. They all look strong and healthy, but can’t be more than a couple of weeks old.
The question is, who is the mother?
The only cat I’ve been seeing in that general area has been Brussel. I suppose it’s possible she had a second litter, considering how early in the year she had her first (only Sir Robin remains of her two kittens). She had her two right in the cat cage, so it’s an area she’s already familiar with.
In the next picture, you can see where we found them. I had to pull the one mower out completely and, once we were sure there were no other kittens, I pushed it back. It’s the other mower that can be barely seen in the photo that the kittens were under.
We ended up putting a food bowl with wet cat food right in the cat bed with the kittens. They’re too young for solid food, but I hope it will be a tempting reward for the mama when she finds them.
I can see the kittens in the critter cam, all curled up together and sleeping.
If nothing else, they’re warm and dry now!
I do hope we don’t end up having to hand feed them, though. That’ll be rough!
While doing my morning rounds, three kittens were playing on the hand rail in front of the sun room – but did not what me anywhere near them! They know that rose bush will protect them. 😄
The third image of the garage kittens was from this evening. I went to tie off the catio door for the night, so it won’t blow around. I didn’t even seen them in the cat bed at first! I wasn’t able to get closer, though. I was able to pet them both when I fed them this morning, while they were eating, but that smokey one will not let me touch her, any other time.
Yet.
The littles are all over the place in and around the sun room, and I was able to get a couple of decent shots. That white and black kitten in the last two images has such surprisingly blue eyes!
Sadly, though, we lost another kitten last night. Once again, I found it in the new cat cave in the sun room, like the last one. About the only thing I can say is, at least they passed away in the warmth of a cuddle puddle, and not cold and alone.
Once the morning routing was done, I had time for a quick breakfast before heading out early to my appointment. I wasn’t sure how long things would be, so I made sure to go to the post office before it closed from 11:30am to 2pm. They close for the day at 5pm.
Then, just to be on the safe side, I made sure the packages of seeds were put into an insulated bag, in case the cab of the truck got too hot. I’m glad I did, because yes, it certainly did!
I got to the shopping commons the clinic is at early enough to grab a proper meal for lunch. I’m glad I did because I ended up getting into my 1:30 appointment about 45 minutes late.
The first thing the doctor did was ask how the new prescription was working out. I told what a huge difference it made, and that I’ve hardly had to take any painkillers since I started taking it. She was really happy to hear how well it went. Especially when I told her I have only been taking it once a day, before bed. She commented that I’m already on a low dose (I can take it up to three times a day), so it was really amazing that it’s made such a difference. She commented on how this particular anti-inflammatory is really good, and she thinks it should be prescribed more often. I did mention the one time I took with with just a snack rather than a meal and how that really did a number on my stomach. She was just nodding her head and saying, yup… it does need to be taken with a full meal, because it can be so hard on the stomach, otherwise, and mused that that’s perhaps why it isn’t use more often. All I can say it, it has helped me so much, I’m willing to make the effort to take it properly so that doesn’t happen!
I then told her about my hip issues and asked for X-rays to find out what’s going on. She looked in my file and it’s been more than 5 years since my hips have been X-rayed, so it was time. We already know that I have OA and bone spurs, but something is going on with that left hip that’s making it worse. She wrote me up for a complete pelvic X-ray, so both hips would be checked out.
Then we got to why I was there in the first place. My arm.
I was able to read the report on her monitor with her. They found no anomalies in my shoulder or elbow. Which surprised me, because they do still hurt at times. Especially the shoulder. Which suggests to me that the issue is now soft tissue damage – though the anti-inflammatories are helping with the arm pain, too!
Then there was the hand/wrist. There was a potential anomaly, so they recommended to get it X-rayed again in 1-2 weeks. We were already past that, so she printed out another requisition to get my wrist done again, along with my hips.
As for the follow up, normally they would call me to book a follow up appointment, but I mentioned that my daughter already has an appointment coming up on the 9th, so she said to go ahead and book my follow up then. Which I took care of while picking up my printouts.
Next stop was the hospital, where the lab and X-ray is. Once I gave them the forms, I had time to message the family with an update, and was soon called in for the X-rays. The tech took X-rays of my hand in some very different positions from the last time it was done. At this point, all they can do is confirm whether or not something actually broke in there. After all this time since my fall, it’s not like they’re going to put my wrist in a cast or anything.
Once the hand was done, I got the hips done, and that was it. It was very fast.
That done, it was back to the shopping commons where my doctor’s clinic is, this time to make a quick stop at the grocery store. I hadn’t realized we were out of bread until last night. While I was there, I picked up some sandwich meats that were on sale, and a few other little things.
From there, it was a stop at the gas station and the home.
When I was about 10 minutes from home, I could see the highway ahead of me, disappearing in a cloud of white. It turned out to be an absolute wall of rain! It was coming down hard enough, with so much water on the road, I had to slow down and was about ready to pull over and wait it out. It did lift a bit, though, and I was able to continue. By the time I got home, it had blown over – something I was very happy about, since I needed to get out to open the gate. Particularly since, with the inside handle on the driver’s side door broken off, I need to open the window so I can open the door from the outside.
No complaints about the rain, though. We needed it.
Anyhow.
So all went well with the doctor, though I am surprised nothing showed up in the X-rays for my shoulder and elbow. The shoulder injury it still sometimes an issue, and I was expecting some sort of damage to my rotator cuff. My left elbow has been a problem for a long time, since well before my fall, but that is due to nerve damage, so I guess that wouldn’t show up in an X-ray.
In a couple of weeks or so, I will be back to find out what they find in my hips.
That should be… interesting! I hope I get to actually see the X-rays this time, and not just a report. I’m very curious as to what shows up!
Meanwhile, it is now past time for me to have the supper my daughter made – a nice, substantial meal to take my anti-inflammatories with!
Well, I called it last night. I just didn’t think it would happen quite so quickly.
While in the sun room, just starting to put food out for the yard cats, I could just see a kitten that wasn’t moving. In the new cat cave, of all places!
I had to finish getting all the food out before I could do anything about it. By the time I came back, some of the littles were done eating and actually back in the cat cave. They didn’t even run away when I reached in to get the one I’d spotted. It turned out to be a white and grey, and one that I’d noticed was having runny poops. I hadn’t thought it was that sick, though! It is now buried near one of the rhubarb patches.
While topping up the water bowls, I had to chase a skunk away from the shrine feeding station. The kittens that were there had run up one of the willows when the skunk came over. After I chased the skunk away, I had this little guy starting down at me!
Colby is such a handsome one! He’s the bravest of the litter and the one I think most likely to get socialized, but today, he was having none of it. I did try to come closer after taking the picture, and he wouldn’t allow it.
When bringing food to the bowl in the isolation shelter, I have been regularly finding the cat bed in there full of kittens. Unfortunately, they all run off when I open the window to reach the food bowl. They seem to all be from a litter (or two?) that showed up in the junk pile on the other side of the fence, behind the shrine feeding station. I’m glad they’re moving into the isolation shelter, though I do wish they wouldn’t panic and run away when I bring food!
I did manage to get this picture, after doing the evening feeding, zooming in from quite a distance.
As you can see, they were still watching me closely! Well, except that little black and white one. I think that one is from another litter. I think it also does come into the sun room, but there are two or three mostly black kittens, so it’s hard to tell at times!
Hopefully, these ones will start coming to the house soon, too.
As for the ones I regularly see in the sun room, we’ve been able to pet and even pick up a few of the mostly white ones. The one with the sticky eyes had stuck eyes again this morning, so I was able to bring it into the bathroom for an eye wash. There’s a tabby with white that also has messy eyes, though not stuck shut. I can’t get anywhere near it.
I did pick up some squeeze treats to hopefully use to lure in the shier kittens, but I’m not sure how to do that, without the socialized adult cats pushing their way to the treats, instead. Some have no issues with bullying the littles!
I still don’t know how many kittens there are, and I still get the sense that some are “missing”. I just have no way to tell if they’re gone, gone, or just happen to not be around when I’m looking. Some of the kittens that have settled into the sun room, or under the cat house, have figured out those noises they hear from the old kitchen means that food is on its way, so I do see quite a few as soon as I open the door!
The morning started out as usual, with the feeding of the yard cats and my morning rounds.
Oddly, I seem to be seeing fewer kittens? I think? Meaning the littles that have been showing up in the past couple of weeks. They tend to hide so quickly, I’m not sure, but it just feels like there are fewer of them. The older kittens are still around, but I just can’t get a handle on how many littles there are.
Even though I’d picked up another 9kg back of kibble for the outside cats recently, we were already running out. I was already scheduled to pick up my mother’s bubble packs and do her grocery shopping today, so I decided I would keep going from her place and hit the Walmart. Plus, my husband is having issues with his cracked tooth that won’t be worked on until the middle of next month. So I wanted to pick up foods that were safer for him to eat.
My younger daughter was able to come along with me, which was nice.
My brother, SIL and their older grandson were staying in their trailer this weekend and were going to be heading back to the city soon after I needed to head out, so we made a quick hello and goodbye visit. My great-nephew will be heading home next weekend, before school starts, so I wanted to make sure we got our hugs in!
My daughter and I got to my mother’s town early enough that the pharmacy wasn’t open yet – but the gas station with the best fried chicken and wedges in town had their chicken ready – so we picked up a meal for my mother boxed up separately, then got some for ourselves to eat in the truck. The truck’s seats are more comfortable than the chairs and tables they have in the station. 😄
We still got to the pharmacy just minutes after it opened. My mother’s bubble packs were ready, and most of it was covered this time, so I had very little to pay for it this time. I’m glad I made sure to pick them up today. When I put them in my mother’s lock box, I checked what was there. She had only enough for this evening, plus tomorrow morning. The pharmacy’s records show she should have had enough to last until Wednesday. However, with so many messed up times with her meds, and her abusive behaviour towards the home care aids for not using the partial packs of meds because they were the wrong days, etc., I have taken a few old partial packs back to the pharmacy. They were required to dispose of the meds, which I haven’t mentioned to my mother, or she’d blow a gasket, but it was that or have her constantly harassing the care aids about them. I’ll have to call the pharmacy tomorrow and talk to them about that. They do the bubble packs on the weekends, and that’s cutting it really close for my mother at this point. Better to have her meds prepared earlier. Normally, she would have had them delivered, but that leaves her medications outside the lock box, and she’s already tried hiding a week’s worth of meds away because she doesn’t trust the home care aids.
When we got to my mother’s, it was still not much past noon. Mass was still going on in the church across the street, but I was able to find parking. I wasn’t sure if my mother would have had the energy to make it to church or not, but thought it was unlikely.
I was right. My mother was home and praying the rosary, with her table all set up in preparation for when someone from the church would come by with communion for her. The interruption of us coming when we did messed her up a bit. Which I totally get. When I’m right into something and get interrupted, the mental shift can actually be physically painful.
My brother had given me a new drip pan specifically for my mother’s model of stove, to replace one she has that is completely rusted out for some reason, so I popped that in for her while she got out her shopping list. It was really short this time! We went over it and I asked a few questions, but she said she was well supplied with everything I remembered to ask about.
She was happy to see my daughter, though, and didn’t make any of her usual rude comments, which was nice.
She told us to take our time because she didn’t want to be interrupted when the guy came with communion, but her list was so short, we were back just as church was letting out. My mother was once again thrown by us coming in when we did. I told her that people were just starting to leave church, so we were quick about putting everything away, and making sure her mild carton was opened for her (the local grocery store no longer has 2L milk in plastic jugs, just cartons, and with my mother’s hands, it’s a real struggle to open a carton). My mother was a bit upset about the rush. She had been expecting me to come later, and had been looking forward to being able to “talk for hours and hours”… ??? Especially since my daughter was with me. So she said, no more Sundays for grocery shopping! Which is fine, but I was there today, on a Sunday, so that she could get her medications before running out!
We were in and out quickly, though, and soon on the road to the Walmart. I didn’t take a photo, but it totaled almost $200. Ouch! We got two 9kg bags of kibble, and a package of XXL (30″x30″) puppy pads, plus some on sale TP. Peanut butter, bananas and bread for my husband at times when no one is available to cook for him, and hot dog wieners/hoagies for times when there is someone to cook for him. He can’t chew “real” meat right now, no matter how tender! We got some water flavour packages for him as well. We remembered to grab a couple of containers of popcorn seasoning, and found a charging cable for my daughter’s older phone with a micro-USB port. After that, it was some cheese mini-croissants to snack on for the ride home, and some $1 chocolate bars for each of us as a treat.
I keep thinking I’m forgetting something, but nope. That list is all it took, to cost almost $200.
Once we got home, it was late enough that, while my daughter put away everything else, I refilled the kibble bin and did the evening cat feeding.
Which brings me to the cuteness!
I’ll actually start with a couple of pictures I got, yesterday.
Can you spot the Little in there? One of them has figured out how to climb up to the platform and discovered the cat beds up there. Here, it’s being snuggled by Eyelet on the left, and The Grink on the right.
Can you believe The Grink is about 2 years old? He’s barely bigger than Eyelet!
That black kitten was absolutely snuzzling its face into the tabby. This cat bed is in the back of the water bowl shelter.
When opening the door into the sun room to do this morning’s feeding, I found a while pile of kittens – large and small! – waiting right under the threshold, making it very difficult to step through! I need to be careful, as Sir Robin in particular REALLY wants to be inside. He managed to sneak into the house while my older daughter and I were bringing the cured garlic in, after covering the eggplant for the night, and my daughter found him in the kitchen!
Most of the kittens scatter as I step through, but one kitten didn’t. It stayed loafed and moved its head around, as if confused.
It turned out its eyes were stuck shut, so it had no idea what was going on around it!
I finished putting the food out but, when I got back to the sun room, I couldn’t see the stuck eyed kitten. I finished my rounds and tried looking again before heading inside. That’s when I spotted a little white kitten bum through the opening of the new cat cave.
It’s a bit difficult to get close, since it’s in a shelf, and I need to step around food trays and the little plant stand that’s there for the cats to use to get to the platform. I was able to reach in and felt a couple of kittens in there, but managed to get the white butted kitten. Once I got it out, I could confirm it was the one with the stuck eyes. It wasn’t happy, but I was able to get it to the bathroom and into the bathtub to chill a bit, while I ran the hot water in the sink while getting something to wipe its eyes with.
The kitten wasn’t happy about being picked up again, but stopped fighting me once I started washing its eyes. Once both eyes were cleared, it just started up at me for a while. This kitten is mostly white with grey “eyebrows”, like Button, Eyelet and Grommet – but where Button and Eyelet have blue eyes, and Grommet has yellowish eyes, this one has really dark eyes!
Once done, I took it back to the sun room and tucked it back into the cat cave. Then I used my phone’s camera to take a picture and see who else was in there.
There were AT LEAST six kittens in there! Including another one that could have used an eye wash. It’s amazing I was able to grab the right kitten right from the start!
That little tabby with white in the foreground… he always looks so furious! 😄
As we were getting ready to head out, I went to open the gate first and spotted this adorableness, under the truck.
This is the garage kitten that will sometimes let me pet him and pick him up.
Still no such progress with his sibling (I’m about 98% sure the smokey one is a female).
Yes, we ALWAYS check the truck before starting it and driving.
After we got back from errands and the evening feeding was done, I did my evening rounds. As I was heading in, I spotted Lady Hypotenose on top of the cat cage… and what was that not far from her?
We already have a cat we call Ink, because she looks like she got into a pot of ink with her mouth and paws. This one also looks like it got into some ink.
We’re debating whether to call it Spot or Blot.
What do you think?
I did try to do a head count of the littles this morning, and I think I counted twelve but, as I mentioned earlier, I’m pretty sure some are “missing”. Especially the ones that showed up in the junk pile by the chain link fence, instead of the sun room or cat shelters by the house. It could be that they’ve been moved on by their mothers, or they simply didn’t happen to be out while I was putting the food out.
The next few weeks will be ones to keep an eye on them. This is the stage where, if they are going to get hit with the local variant of herpes, now will be it. That’s the ones with the leaky eyes, and that’s what did in Kale and, I’m sure, Zipper. This year, though, not all the kittens got it. Poirot’s babies have had zero issues, nor have the outer yard kittens that started out coming to the shrine feeding station (they are now willing to go right into the sun room!). The garage kittens have shown no sign if it, either. It looks like some of the littles are resistant.
From what the Cat Lady told me, that would be because of the lysine we’ve been adding to their food for the past year or two. For the cats that are already struggling with the virus, I’m told it’s “lysine for life”, and if they stop getting the lysine, they can get really sick again. BUT, it benefits the next generation, and they can not need it at all. That’s what I seem to be seeing now, with the littles. In fact, at this point, it seems like more of them are resistant than not.
Still, if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen over the next few weeks. Which means we might start finding losses.
Well, it is what it is, and there’s not much we can do about it, that we aren’t already doing.
The Re-Farmer
[addendum: I was curious as to what WP’s AI image generator would come up with based on the contents of this post.
The Re-Farmer 