I checked on the kitties this morning, of course, as part of my a.m. routine.
Of all the possible nests they could have chosen, they went back to their original nesting box, now shoved under the platform bed frame. The frame itself has something under it, so it’s not directly on the concrete, and there are several boxes with soft, comfy things to lie on, on top of it. But noooo… They go for this crowded space, instead! Even Beep Beep squeezes her way into it!
I was pleased to find that the fan did its job. There is only a tiny bit of wet in the very corner left.
Also, we have our first trees blooming! The plum trees. This variety of plums are very small and more pit than flesh, so not particularly good to eat, but if we get a lot of them this year, we can use them to make some sort of condiment, or even a wine, if we wanted to go that route. We shall see.
It’s turning out to be a lovely day to get some work done outside, though already very hot. As I write this, 23C/73F, with a “real feel” of 25C/77F. We’re supposed to hit 27C/80F, and feeling like 30C/86F for a high this afternoon, with a potential thunderstorm this evening. The forecasts are constantly changing, though, so it’s hard to say. Either way, I’ll be heading outside as soon as I can, to continue working on the sunflower plantings before it gets too hot out there!
Feeling rather haggard this morning, so I’ll start with cuteness, first.
When I saw Big Rig lying on her back, sleeping, I just had to get a picture. Unfortunately, I woke her up in the process, but she didn’t move much. :-D
After rigging up walls around the kitty pool, we waited until the kittens were in run-around-and-play mode, rather than sleeping-in-a-pile mode, transferred their bedding and set them up. Which is also when we discovered that one of the cats that had jumped in to explore had tried to use the tiny litter pan, and peed right next to it, instead.
And that, my friends, is exactly why the plastic pool seemed like such a great idea! It was an easy mess to clean up. Especially since we set it up on the shag carpet in the living room.
Two Face was quick to join them.
And eat their kitten food, while they explored new things. Like tiny litter pans.
Not much changed when Beep Beep joined them.
Things seemed to be working. The kittens had more room. They could explore solid food, water and a litter pan to their hearts’ content. They had their familiar bedding.
It did seem a bit too open, rather than the cave-like nests they were used to, but would it work?
No.
The walls were high enough the kittens couldn’t get out, but that also made them a bit harder for Beep Beep to get in. Which was not an issue until she started jumping out with a kitten in her mouth.
Yup. As soon as she could, she started moving the kittens.
She dragged Nicco into a corner of my closet, but in the time it took for her to return for another kitten, Nicco was exploring my bedroom. This is a large room. I’ve got my office in one corner, my crafting table in another, and there’s still lots of room for a king size bed, exercise bike and other furniture.
In other words, there is a lot kittens can get into.
After a while, we ended up moving the kitty pool into the bedroom, set up a litter box near my desk, put all the kittens back in the kitty pool, and shut Beep Beep in with me for the night. We even added one of the boxes that had been part of their next before, to create a cave inside, hoping that would satisfy Beep Beep.
That. Did. Not. Work.
Beep Beep eventually started moving the kittens back into my closet, and with all the squealing and squawling, I finally got up and took the last kitten out myself. They spent the rest of the night in my closet, but I ended up not being able to get to bed until about 4:30 am.
While getting dressed later, I had to fight kittens off my ankles and feet. I tried having the door open, which lead to a rush of other cats coming in. While Beep Beep immediately left, Two Face rushed in and began aggressively mothering any kitten that came with reach of her paws. As they went past her, she would grab them with her front legs and do a death roll, then groom them like mad while they struggled to squirm out of her grip!
Then there was David, who kept following kittens around, trying to sniff and groom them any moment they stopped moving long enough. Cheddar was also following them around. Especially the orange ones, just sniffing at them.
Fenrir, on the other hand, came in just to growl and hiss. Keith came in, but when a kitten came running up to him, he had a panic attack and ran away.
Keith is just a raw bundle of nerves, that boy!
The rest of the cats, thankfully, stayed away.
I finally managed to get all the kittens into the kitty pool again, hoping I could leave the door open and get to the daily routine. I left the room for less than 5 minutes, only to come back and find Beep Beep already moving the kittens back to the closet, while Two Face, David and Cheddar watched. I ended up taking the rest of the kittens out, because I’m concerned she will hurt them with all the jumping around, kicked the rest of the cats out and shut Beep Beep in with her babies. Now, I’m shut in with Beep Beep and the babies again. Which means being on constant guard for kittens around my feet, or the wheels of my office chair.
*sigh*
As soon as I’m done here, we’re going to set up some “caves” the kittens can get in and out of in the basement, then down they’re going to go. Until they get bigger, we’re going to have to keep the basement door closed to keep the other cats out.
*sigh*
Having that door open really does help keep the house a bit cooler.
Ah, well. We had it closed up for the past 2 summers. We’ll live. :-/
I had an energy drink with breakfast. I still feel ready for a nap.
With bringing a yard cat into the house to have her kittens, instead of using the sun room as a maternity ward, has us facing some different challenges.
In the sun room, as the kittens got bigger, they had a fairly decent sized room to run around in, and still be safe from other critters. Now, we obviously don’t have to worry about skunks or weasels or foxes or even feral toms coming into the house, there are other safety issues we need to keep in mind. The house itself is not at all kitten proof, so we can’t just let them run amok. Even if we could, however, there is the issue of other cats. At one extreme, we’ve got Two Face, who has been trying to mother them herself. Most are mildly curious or content to just ignore them. A couple, however, are not happy with having new adult additions to the household, never mind kittens. The adult cats can protect themselves, but the kittens can’t even run off and hide at this point.
The other thing is, we need to find a way to give them access to kitten food, water and a litter box, as they begin the weaning process.
We had considered a number of options. Even buying a play pen. Which, it turns out, cannot be found locally. We’d have to drive to the city! A wire dog kennel? The mesh is too wide for kittens, Mom needs to be able to get in and out, so the door would have to be left open. Though, I suppose, it could be used upside down. However, the kittens would be able to climb the wire mesh pretty easily. We could probably figure something out, but that would assume such a thing would be available locally. Once again, nope. We’d have to go to the city.
My daughter and I headed into town today and went to a store where I knew we could find decent cat litter at an equally decent price (the second Costco trip to the city we were planning looks like it’s just not going to happen). As we walked in, we saw a potential solution.
We bought a kitty pool.
The sides, of course, are way too low, but it’s big enough we can put in a litter pan and food and water bowls, along with their bedding, and they’ll still have room to run around.
As I write this, my daughters are building cardboard walls for it, at a height Mom can jump over, but the kittens can’t climb.
We’ll see how this works over the next few days! :-)
While walking around the far end of the old garden area, I found these little splashes of colour.
Such tiny little wildflowers! They were all over an area that is to dry, hardly anything grows there, and what little does manage to grow there, stays small. It’s nice to see what manages to survive there!
Of course, we must have a kitten picture, too!
An increasingly rare moment, when they’re all quiet instead of running, jumping, wrestling and playing around their nest. :-D
The pharmacy my daughter works at now has a small yarn display. Yay! I saw some t-shirt yarn and grabbed it, because I haven’t seen t-shirt yarn in stores in ages.
I made a basket.
It’s 5 kittens big.
Beep Beep tried to get in with them, but it’s not 5 kittens plus mama big. :-D
For my fellow crocheters, the yarn is Madolinni, 97% cotton 3% lycra and 130 meters. It’s 100% “recycled product from the textile industry”. Unfortunately, it turned out to be much coarser and unpleasant to work with, compared to what I was expecting from a t-shirt yarn, but it does make a very sturdy basket.
The base is a disc done in single crochet, starting from 7 stitches, and increased rounds worked in a spiral until about 9 inches across. The first round for the sides is single crochet worked in the back loop only. The next 4 rounds were done in split single crochet, then I switched back to normal single crochet for the remaining rows. This resulted in an almost cauldron shape. The handles were made by making chains of 10 and skipping 7 stitches, on opposite sides. In the next round, a single crochet was worked into each stitch, including into each chain stitch. One more round of single crochet was done, then it was finished with a round of slip stitch worked into the sides of the final round of single crochet, to add stability and reduce stretch.
For those who are not into crochet, here are more kitties!
Of all the cats that were curious about the kittens, Two Face wasn’t really one of them.
Until we started taking the kittens out and putting them on my bed to run around.
She suddenly turned into a mother!
Beep Beep is her mother, but now Two Face is jumping into the nest to mother her mother, and her little siblings. The kittens are even trying to nurse on her! With her belly still half nekkid from being fixed, the nips are easy for them to find. :-D I think they are confused about not getting any milk, though. :-D
The kittens are almost big enough to start scrambling out of their nest! We’re going to have to find a way to get them back into the basement, and walling off a corner or something, where there is less for them to get into and potentially hurt themselves. Plus, they are going to need room for food/water bowls and a litter pan, so they learn how to use them, soon!
While doing my rounds yesterday evening, I spotted a stinky visitor crossing the barn yard. He caught up with me some time later.
He moves pretty fast! :-D
I often see signs of where they have been digging up grubs during the night. Last night, I could hear their odd screeching noises out in the old garden – soon followed by some distinctive whiffs! – so I made a point of checking the area out when doing my rounds this morning. As long as they aren’t digging up our potatoes, I’m happy.
The potatoes beds are looking untouched. :-)
The kittens, meanwhile, are getting so much more active! And Beep Beep has been leaving them alone more often, even if it’s just to lounge nearby.
The kittens are also getting increasingly curious about that big world out there!
Leyendecker (the tuxedo) came very close to scrabbling his way out!
They may want to climb out, but if we actually take them out, they can’t wait to get back into their nest! :-D
Hard to believe they’re almost a month old, now.
With their increased activity, we’re going to have to find some way to set them up in the basement again. It is much safer for them down there.
Today, I’m hoping to get some more planting done, but at the moment, it’s amazingly windy out there! I was happy to find that our new garden bed, where we planted carrots and parsley so far, is quite sheltered from winds. Meanwhile, I’ve set up the trays of transplants in the open mini-greenhouse, next to the open door. I want to expose them to some wind as they harden off, but not too much! It’s a bit difficult to harden off the larger seedlings, when there are still new seedlings emerging in other ares of the trays.
Still no gourds, though.
Oh, my goodness! Looking out my window as I write this, I can see that the winds have increased again. Those maple branches are really swinging!
Hopefully, it will settle down a bit and I’ll be able to get some more planting done. Until then, I’ll use the time to head down to the basement workshop and help my daughter make some more plant markers. :-)
I’m just loving the longer days and weather conditions we’re having right now. I was doing my evening rounds of the yard some time past 9:30 last night, the temperatures were perfect, and I got to watch this gorgeous sunset through the willow branches and spruce trees.
This morning, I was thoroughly entertained by feline antics.
David so wants to play with the kittens! When he jumps into their nest with them, though, and they come running over, he gets skittish and leaves. Lately, he’s taken to dangling at them from above, and waving his furry paws in the air above their heads. :-D
For the most part, the other cats have been ignoring the kittens. Sometimes, they’ll come over and peer into the nest, but that’s about it.
Then Beep Beep started taking Nicco out to a new spot under my crafting table, repeatedly. I thought I’d gotten her to stop, but one of my daughters found Nicco under my table – with David! The two of them were looking very confused at each other.
David is now very curious about the babies.
This morning, that curiosity got the better of him!
The kittens immediately went over to check out this furry new visitor! The tuxedo, now known as Leyendecker (I remembered it! LOL), was especially interested in burrowing into that luxuriant fur.
David was a little freaked out by that and left. He ended up on top of the nest, looking down at them. :-D
The babies, meanwhile, are now very active, if still very clumsy, running around, wrestling, climbing and generally being very playful.
And now I have to get some things finished early today. I am taking the van in after dropping my daughter off at work, for an oil change and getting the summer tires put on, so I may as well stay in town and have lunch with my daughter. :-) We’re supposed to hit 18C (64F) today, and while it will likely be cooler so close to the lake, we might actually be able to eat outside. Of course, if she ended up with a really early lunch again, and the van isn’t ready yet, we might not have much choice! :-D
The orange ones now have names. The bigger one is Turmeric. The tiny one is Saffron. :-D
As I write this, Beep Beep is curled up with them, but things were not so peaceful, a little while ago. I heard some strange squealing and looked over in time to see her jump out of the nest, with Nicco in her mouth, then dash over to a corner under my crafting table. There is shelf under there that’s empty, since it’s unreachable, and she was starting to move him into it. I had to move some storage bins to be able to reach Nicco and bring him out, but she tried again, later. I’m hoping I’ve dissuaded her from moving the kittens into there. Aside from this being a hard, colder, smaller space, they would eventually damage the wood of the shelf, and the carpet in front of it, as they get bigger and start pooping and peeing all over.
I now have storage bins all over my bed. With the area uncovered, it’s less tempting of a potential nest!
Meanwhile…
While doing my rounds this morning, I paused to take another look at one of the chokecherry trees among the lilacs, and consider some possibilities. Here is how the tree is growing.
It’s hard to see among the lilacs, so I put in the lines to show how the main trunk is leaning.
Here is a closer look of the base.
While I was not planning to work on the lilac hedge for some time, I am debating with myself on whether I should just go ahead and clear out around this tree. It is pretty choked out by the lilacs, so on the one hand, it would make for a healthier tree and higher yields of berries as quickly as this summer. Now would be a good time to clear it out, before the leaves are in. On the other hand, this tree is leaning so far over, I think the lilacs may be the only thing holding it upright. Whenever I do clear it, I would add a support of some kind, and start training it to grow straight again.
What do you think? Should I do it now, or stick to my original plan of doing it when we work on the lilacs a year or two from now?
First, I wish to share with you this image of domestic bliss I get to enjoy from my office chair of late.
Just look at those blue, blue eyes! And the little guy, splayed on his back. We had been calling him Nicky Pants, but it looks like we’ve settled on Nicco for a name. Mini-BeepBeep, has earned a different name. She is growing much bigger than the other kittens, and is now known as Big Rig. :-D
One of the things I had scheduled for today was a quick stop at my mother’s. Originally, it was to hang up the beautiful flowers on the beautiful plant hanger my brother (who lives an hour and a half’s drive away) had bought her for Mother’s Day. Something lovely for her to see outside her window. I’d picked up some solar powered rope lights to wrap around it, so she could have something to see at night, too.
Well… to say that my mother was less than gracious about the gifts would be an understatement. Rude, angry, even cruel, would be better words to use. Now, I’ve reached a point where my mother’s behaviour can’t hurt me anymore. At least not in any tangible way. My brother, however is a better person than I am, and he still bleeds. When I spoke to her on the phone after the visit, and about my coming back to hang the flowers when it was supposed to warm up and stay warm, she continued with her ungrateful and hurtful comments.
So my brother drove the distance and took back the gift she made very clear she did not want. Keep in mind that my mother has always been an avid gardener, has two green thumbs, and was just complaining about how the caretakers had dug up all the annual flowers, including hers, and thrown them out. This gift was so that she could have flowers that the caretakers wouldn’t dig up.
The solar powered lights, she had told me, never turned on. It turned out there was a yard light outside her apartment, and it was simply too bright for the light string to turn itself on. When they were wrapped up on her couch, waiting for me, they did turn on, and she said they looked lovely – but she didn’t want them.
So my trip to hang up flowers became a trip to retrieve my unwanted gift.
I did, however, have a chance to talk to my mother on the phone about her behaviour and how hurtful she was. Her words may not have hurt me directly – I was not at all surprised by the behaviour – but to see how much she hurt my brother does make my heart ache for him. I tried to explain this to her. She is really big on people behaving “properly” (which typically means, they should act the way she thinks they should, dress the way she thinks they should, be interested in things she thinks they should, and not act, dress or think in any way she doesn’t like). So I told her that the proper way to respond when someone gives you a gift is to say thank you, and to be kind and gracious.
Well, she had all sorts of excuses to justify her behaviour, but I kept coming back to, “you can still be kind.”
Then we talked about when I could come over, and for her to meet me at a particular exit, since her building will remain locked down to the general public and most visitors for a while, yet. She was in need of some groceries, so I drove her over and she took advantage of having access to a vehicle and stocked up on more than her usual week’s worth of supplies. I helped bring all the bags to her apartment, and then left right away, but before I did, my mother seemed to make a real effort.
She thanked me. Then she talked about how grateful she was that I, and my siblings, help her out so much, and how thankful she was that we do.
Now, if only she would do this with my oldest brother! Of all of us, he is the one she has been the most unkind to. She had certainly tried it with me, since we moved out here, but it doesn’t work, so she has largely stopped.
*sigh*
So the whole thing went longer than planned, which would not have been much of an issue for what I wanted to get done today, had something else not changed. Today was supposed to be the day things started to warm up.
It hasn’t.
The forecast is still saying we’re supposed to reach of high of 11C (51F) with a “real feel” of 10C (50F) today.
They lie.
It’s been cold and damp and very unpleasant out there.
So instead of working outside and prepping the potato beds, I decided to focus on warm things. Like slow roasted ribs in BBQ sauce, and a massive batch of scalloped potatoes in a cheese sauce in the slow cooker. Both of which are being cooked low and slow.
The house smells amazing.
Oh, my timer just went off! Time to check on supper! :-D
The Re-Farmer 