I was very happy to see Butterscotch’s babies this morning. I didn’t see them at all, yesterday, and even their food bowl was only being pecked at by the blue jays!
When I saw them by the house, I made a point of staying to play with them. Much to my surprise and delight, Creamsicle Jr. was the one to join me!
It’s hard to tell, as they are not very co-operative, but it looks like Creamsicle Jr. is male. He was willing to play on my feet, but would not let me touch him!
The calico made a slight attempt at playing, but was not willing to come too close. She does like to climb the lilac bushes, though! I am pretty sure she is female.
Of the two orange tabbies, I could only get pictures of this one – the other kept itself hidden away! This guy (and I’m pretty sure this one is male) is more willing to let me touch and pet him – or support his butt when he started to slide off my knee! – before running off. He comes right back to play, though. As for the other orange tabby, I suspect it is female, but she would not come anywhere near me today!
Today is working out to be a very windy day. There is a thunderstorm predicted for early this evening, but from the looks of the weather radar, I expect it to miss us. We should still be able to get the rest of the grape hyacinth bulbs planted today. :-) Where we are putting them is a bit more sheltered from the wind.
Before heading outside to do my morning rounds, I spotted 3 kittens out the window…
… playing on the roof of their cat house!
Of course, as soon as I went outside, they ran off, but mystery kitten stayed to spy on me.
It was so funny to see her hide behind the frame, pop her head up, hide, peek, hide, peek… watching me as I brought out some kibble for the outside cats.
In checking out the squash bed, I just had to go looking for our one birdhouse gourd that was developing.
The one, sad, squishy little gourd!
The frosts have completely decimated all the squashes, so it’s time to prep the beds for the winter. I don’t know that we’ll plant squash in the same places next year, but we will definitely plant them again. With what we learned this year, I hope to be able to do more to protect them for late and early frosts.
The squash beds will not be cleaned up today, though. After lunch, we will be planting flower bulbs in the maple grove, in areas that are the hardest to mow around.
We had another frost last night, and today is going to be distinctly chillier. We’ve already had a smattering of rain, which is supposed to continue off and on.
Then, on the weekend, we’re supposed to go above 20C again!
The outside cats seem to be taking it in stride. In this weather, they will be growing in their denser winter coats.
How is this for a lovely family picture!
Starting from the top left, we have Rosencrantz’s baby. Next to her is the mystery kitten; I am unsure which mom she belongs to! Next is Rozencrantz herself – who as even been letting me pet her! Until the food is out, of course. :-D
Next in line is Tabby, then Little Braveheart (her head is hidden behind her mom), and finally, Junk Pile cat.
Junk Pile cat was the one kitten of Rosencrantz’s that we were unable to catch. Keith and David, with their leaky, glued shut eyes, were caught and treated and are now both indoors.
This means that Rosencrantz’s babies are siblings to Junk Pile, while Junk Pile’s kittens are the grandkittens of Rosencrantz. Which means Rosencrantz’s kittens are also the aunts/uncles of Junk Pile’s kittens! :-D
I did see Butterscotch around when I first came outside and started getting the cat kibble. I have put the container for her and her kittens at the side of the house, near the steps I have been seeing them play around most often, lately. She went past me as I was filling it. Later, as headed towards the old garden area, I could see her kittens, playing among the squash beds.
Which confirms that Butterscotch has moved her kittens again.
Across the road, to the neighbouring property! No one lives there, but there is still the house, barn, garage, and various sheds and equipment used by the current owner.
*sigh*
She has done this before, and when her kittens grew bigger, they did stay at our place on their own, but I don’t like that she and her kittens are crossing the road like that. That one is a main road, and gets a lot more traffic than the one our driveway leads to.
I really wish Butterscotch wouldn’t do that. :-(
The frost we’ve been having seem to have finally done in the sunflowers.
The leaves are drooping on all of them, and even the unopened seed heads are drooping. I don’t expect many of them will ever open, even as we warm up again.
With the ones that are already open, I’m sure they can better withstand the frost. The problem is, it’s too chilly for the pollinators. No pollinators, and the seeds will never develop. I’m hoping they will be out again as things warm up.
Not all of them are tucking down for the winter. The wasps on the tree outside the kitchen window – the tree we need to cut back in hopes of establishing an internet connection for the second satellite – is still buzzing. As chilly as it was this morning, I could see a few flying around, too.
It’s hard to know how much longer it’ll be, before we can safely cut that branch down. Meanwhile, we’ve already got our 90% data usage warning, with 2 weeks before the account flips. We’re still rationing our internet usage, but we’d have to basically stop using the internet almost completely, to avoid going over the limit. Our service won’t be interrupted, but we will be charged double per gig once we do.
I really hope taking that branch down works. The tech already checked everything and replaced everything he could, and it still got zero signal. If it’s not the branch blocking the signal, there’s really nothing else left to fix. Yet, if it was just the branch, we would have had at least an intermittent signal, rather than no signal at all.
Ah, well. We’ll find out, one way or the other, once those branches come down.
It was a gorgeous evening tonight, so I headed outside to move the metal ring back to the taller apple tree stump and burn it away, along with more of the branches we’d pruned away, earlier in the year.
Before I set up there, though, I topped up the various containers we use for cat food. With all the kittens getting so big, the amount of food that used to last until the next morning, is pretty much gone by evening.
As I did the ones near the old dog house, mystery kitten came out from under it. It didn’t run away completely, though. It just went behind the doghouse, then peeked back at me.
When I came back from topping up the container by the junk pile for Butterscotch’s kittens, I saw this.
Mystery kitten (the one with it’s head above all the others) started to run off as I came closer, but came back. Much progress, there!
I’m starting to think this must be Junk Pile’s third kitten. It’s hard to say for sure, since we only ever saw glimpses, but I was sure it had even more white than Little Braveheart. But it seems to be most comfortable with this little group.
I found Butterscotch and her kittens playing among the squashes! Which, by the way, seem to still be surviving, so I haven’t picked the last of them yet.
While tending the fire, I had Potato Beetle with me the whole time. Which did make things a bit difficult, since he insisted in being in my arms!
Also, he is very sharp.
He doesn’t hang around as much, lately, and I think Butterscotch has something to do with that. While she will tolerate Creamsicle around her kittens, she has all out attacked Potato Beetle, even when he was just sitting on a log, nowhere near her kittens, minding his own business!
Speaking of Butterscotch’s kittens…
I had all 4 of them playing with me!
I have a log set up as a seat next to this old planter. It was cut at an angle and, the way it’s set up, I can’t sit on it and face the planter, because it’s tilted the other way. It makes it a bit awkward to play with the kittens when they decide to go into the planter, but there is one benefit to having to twist around to face them.
One of the orange tabbies has discovered I have a braid. A couple of times, he made a leap up at me, to try and get at it! He also kept trying to get my hand and fingers, batting with his claws retracted.
Not even our inside cats do that! :-D
Finally, as I was heading to put things away in the sun room, I had my biggest surprise.
Success has been achieved!
The tabby kitten was contentedly INSIDE the doghouse, watching me go by.
Though I have seen Creamsicle inside it, none of the other cats seems to want to go in, other than to reach the food bowl in the entrance. I am sure adding that big blanket we used for them in the sun room made the difference. I think they just didn’t like the flax straw inside very much.
I think we can now officially start calling this the cat house, instead of the dog house!
Yesterday evening, while doing my rounds and walking around the back of the house, I startled some babies!
Butterscotch seems to have moved her kittens from the junk pile to under the garden shed.
Her kittens are getting so much bigger and more adventurous, wandering further afield in the yard.
I suspect this has something to do with why Butterscotch as moved them. Wherever they are inside the junk pile, it must be getting a bit tight for her and the 4 of them to fit!
Which means that, with the wasp nest gone and the kittens elsewhere (though they do go back to the junk pile to play), I can continue cleaning up in that area.
Now, if only Butterscotch had been willing to move them to the other side of the house, where the food bowls and the old dog house are!
When topping up the kibble, I put one of the containers in the entrance to the doghouse. Recently, I was noticing a definite skunk smell in there, so yesterday, I lifted the roof, fluffed up the straw and left it open to air out for a while. I am trying to think of other ways to encourage the cats to go in there for shelter, but I think it’s going to take winter temperatures to finally convince them!
As for bigger things, look what I found this morning.
It’s the only one that got big like this!
It seems we had a light frost last night (there were no frost warnings), and some of the little squashes actually look a bit frozen. At this point, I don’t think they’re going to get much bigger. I will check them later today, and might just pick what’s left, then start cleaning up the beds in preparation for winter.
This morning, I got a shipping confirmation for part of the fall plantings we ordered. Unfortunately, the garlic was among the things that are back ordered, so they will be shipped later. Still, we will be able to get started on the varieties of flowers we will be naturalizing in the maple grove. I can also leave the beets and carrots in the ground a bit longer, while we wait for the garlic that will be planted there once they are harvested.
It looks like I’ll be able to accomplish more in a few weeks in the fall, than I’d been able to over the past few months, with this summer’s heat! :-)
The girls and I made our trip into the city. While I didn’t need anything myself, I did take advantage of the trip – and summer clearance prices.
While we had cleaned and painted the old wooden bird feeder and replaced it on its metal post, not a lot of birds are using it. I believe it’s just too crowded by the novelty lilac, next to it. I’ve seen some of the smaller birds around it, but the larger birds, such as the mourning doves, are still trying to find seed on the ground by the old platform feeder (where we stopped adding bird seed, since our supply filled the newly painted one).
If I could get that metal post out of the ground without having to dig, I’d transfer it to the other end, where the platform feeder and bird bath are. It seems the better location for it, plus we can see them from the living room. We can’t see the metal post set up from inside the house.
The platform on the platform feeder, however, is in really bad shape. So today, when I spotted supports for bird feeders or hanging baskets on clearance, I grabbed one.
I’ll… go back and straighten that out, later. :-D
It’s a lot shorter than the platform feeder. Perfect for short little me to reach!
The old one was constantly being blown over in the wind, until we stopped actually hanging a bird feeder on its hook. One of the hanging feeders hit the ground so often, it no longer holds together very well. The base wasn’t very stable and, as you can see, where it was touching the ground is rotting.
The platform is also a complete loss, but the hook itself, and the pressure treated 2×4, are just fine.
I am thinking of removing the rotted platform, the pieces on the bottom, and cutting off the rotten end. If I can figure out a way to make it more stable, it might be worth making a new platform and setting it up again. Having hanging feeders is good, but some types of birds prefer the platform to feed from. Plus, with two hangers, we can have the suet feeder out again, too.
We shall see.
Meanwhile I wanted to share a really terrible, zoomed in photo I took this morning, before we headed to the city… :-D
The kittens were playing on the steps at the other door! I had started to move their food bowl further from the junk pile, to encourage them to come closer to the house, but Butterscotch beat me to it. :-D
Ultimately, I’d like the kittens to start coming around to the south side of the house. I’ve started to place food bowls near the entrance to the old doghouse my brother brought for them to use in the winter. It would be great if the whole little family would just move into there. As this litter is so much younger than the other kittens, they are more at risk when the cold weather hits. There is enough room in there that all of the yard cats can fit in there and be nice and warm, just like they used to all pile up together on the swing bench in the sun room. Petty differences between the cats seemed to disappear when it came to staying warm!
It was very encouraging to see the kittens playing by the house. What an adventurous bunch they are! They were just loving those stairs. :-D
For a few times now, when going about the yard, I would see a cat among the trees. First glance, and I would think it was Junk Pile cat, only to realize that this cat looked slightly different. More white in the fur, and more the size of her own kittens – though they are almost as big as she is, now!
Last night, all possible doubt about whether or not this cat was really Junk Pile cat were cast away. While walking around the house, I startled a cat away from the food bowls by the sun room. It dashed off towards the storage house and disappeared under the lilacs at one corner – just as Junk Pile and two of her kittens came out from under the spirea at the other corner.
This morning, I finally got photographic proof of our cryptic cat’s existence. :-)
I stayed well back and zoomed in as much as I could, so this was the best my phone’s camera could do.
The kitten on the steps is Junk Pile cat’s tabby kitten, and they are very much the same size. Another kitten – possibly Junk Pile’s third kitten that is so very shy – had already run off.
This mystery kitten is most likely one of Rosencrantz’ kittens, but I honestly don’t know where it is from.
I’m glad that the shy ones are at least getting some food.
I just got back from doing my evening rounds. Our yard is littered with fallen branches. Especially willow branches in the South yard. I only picked up the biggest ones tonight. When the weather next allows for it, we’ll need to go around with the wagon to pick up all the smaller branches.
Two of Junk Pile cat’s kittens were running around while I was out. Little Braveheart was following Creamsicle around. He seems to get along with them very well! I topped up the kibble bowls, and while he was eating, Little Braveheart came over and booped her head against his before starting to eat, herself. :-) So cute!
I didn’t see Butterscotch’s kittens, which is no surprise in this weather. I did, however, get to spend some time with them yesterday, and they were co-operative enough to let me get some good photos of each of them!
Their eyes are starting to settle into their adult colours now. Which means the calico no longer looks terrifying up close! :-D Now she’s just all adorable!
We’re going to have a hard time telling these two apart!
Creamsicle Junior? He seems to be fuzzier than Creamsicle was at this age.
I think I have spotted another older kitten around. I’ve seen it at least twice, and had mistaken it for Junk Pile cat, but it has more white, and looks to be about the same age as her kittens. I have no idea where it is coming from, or which mama cat it is with! Perhaps one of Rosencrantz’s kittens? I thought she had three, but I just went back through my old photos, and I only ever captured two in the pictures; an orange one that we haven’t seen since, and the white one with grey and orange spots that I sometimes see.
Last night, the outside kittens got their first taste of cat treats!
It got their interest, but not quite enough to come close. ;-)
They were enough to keep Tabby from running away, though!
If Little Braveheart got any of the treats last night, I never saw it, but she has been increasingly less jumpy around me in the mornings, and preferring to eat by the house.
Even Tabby is not running off quite so quickly.
As for Little Braveheart and Tabby’s sibling, we still hardly see it at all. It’s the same with Rosencrantz’s baby – and it appears there’s just the one left from her litter. I have not seen any sign of the other two, since that one day I spotted them at the pump shack. :-(
Another reason to socialize the outside cats as much as possible. They’ll stay closer to the house, where their chances of survival are higher.
One of these days, I want to break out the big guns.
The Re-Farmer 