outside cats

Well, it’s all we can do for now

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I had to bring the van to the garage for 9am, so I was outside, doing my rounds, earlier than usual.

I usually wait until it isn’t dark anymore, but of course, it’s staying dark much longer now.

That didn’t stop the kitties from coming out for an early breakfast, though!!

Things didn’t quite work out at the garage, though. When I got there, I asked if it was okay if I could stay in his office/waiting area. With all the restrictions, there’s no place to just sit, and it’s too cold to stay outdoors.

It turned out, however, that he somehow double booked. My appointment wasn’t written in his schedule! He remembered what I was booked for, but he had someone else scheduled.

On top of that, the lift he needed to be able to access my tires was occupied by a truck that was supposed to have had only hours of work, but has instead been there for days.

Considering he had my mother’s car on a lift for almost a month, I could only appreciate the situation.

He asked if I could come back in the afternoon, but with my needing to go to the court office, it wasn’t an option. I could have gone in the morning, but I had no way of knowing how long it would take. I might not have been able to get back in time.

So we re-booked me for Monday. A quick stop top

pick up breakfast at the grocery store, then the gas station before driving the 30-40 minutes to the small city it’s in. While I was inside, nowhere near anyone, waiting to pay for my gas, a masked customer came up to me – so much for physical distancing! – telling me that there was a sign at the door saying we had to wear masks. There is no mask mandate in this municipality, but I just told him I was medically exempt. He slunk away with a snarky “isn’t that convenient” type of comment. I told him, “… and that’s harassment.”

At least he had the decency to seem embarrassed.

The clerk behind the counter wasn’t wearing a mask, either.

A tree, keeping watch over my van in the parking lot! :-D

When I got to where I needed to go, the court itself, in a different area of the building, was in session, so there were two security guards in body armour at the door. Though the mask mandates were supposed to expire two days ago, they got extended (is anyone surprised?). The guards were wearing cloth masks that matched their uniforms. I got questions about why I was there, if I had any symptoms or have been around people who tested positive, etc., and about masking. They accepted my exempt status, though I don’t think they believed me. I was the only person I saw, anywhere in the building, without a mask. Since I had everything prepared and needed only to have things signed, witnessed and to swear on the Bible, that part went by quickly. The lady behind the counter was surprised by my typed affidavit, and I explained I was told I could do that, so she accepted it. I then had to wait outside the doors until someone came to me.

The chairs had been taken away since I was there on Monday, so I tucked into a little cubby in the wall next to the pay phone, opposite the security guards. Which was… interesting.

One of the guards, who was wearing thick cloth gloves, kept pulling at his mask and adjusting it. Because of this, I could see that it wasn’t even layers of fabric, but little more than a single layer of interlock knit (t-shirt material) over his face. Cloth masks are confirmed as being the most useless type of mask to begin with, but this was about as flimsy as could be! Still, they satisfied the mandate. :-/

Then I saw him repeatedly use hand sanitizer.

On his cloth gloves.

It was the strangest thing!

I think I waited for about an hour before someone came out and handed me some printouts.

The application was denied.

The letter explained why. It came down to two related things; one of which I might have been able to dig up old emails to meet their standard of evidence, but the other… I just don’t have it. Since I’ve cut communications off with our vandal, I am not in a position to know those sorts of details. At least not to the extent they need.

So that is that. Unless/until something else happens, I will not apply again. As much as he needs the help and won’t get it himself, there is a reason these mental health applications are hard to get, and I do appreciate that. Too many people already abuse the court system for their own personal vendettas. To force someone to have a psychiatric evaluation, the application absolutely must have the evidence to back it up.

I really should have done this when it was first recommended to me, 2 years ago, when the worst of it was still happening.

Ah, well. Live and learn.

One thing that helps is, my family is very supportive of me in all this. When I got home, one of my daughters made lunch for me. As I spent time writing related emails and making a call to get legal advice (I love my Legal Shield!) for the court date, my husband and I had a chance to talk about it, and I updated my brother. As he now owns the property, what our vandal is doing is against him as much as against us! Later, my daughters put together a charcuterie board for us to share for supper, as we watched an episode of The Edwardian Farm. That did get cut short when my lawyer called back. We didn’t talk for long; he asked me to email him copies of the court form about the peace bond, will do some research, and get back to me next week.

Among the things I need to talk to him about is that our vandal has been dropping hints for some time that he’s planning to sue… someone… not sure who. When I first heard of it, it was in a voice mail directed at my mother, but now that my brother is the owner, perhaps that who he plans to sue? Of course, we are “making” him do this but I have no clue what grounds he thinks he has that he can sue any of us for. He apparently still thinks everything has been “given” to me, and by “everything”, he means all the stuff on the farm he feels entitled to because he helped my parents, way back when. It seems he honestly believes he owns it all. When we moved here, my mother expressly stated that we were to treat everything and use everything here as if it were our own, and my brother is on board with that, too. Even so, the stuff that’s here belongs to the farm. It’s not “ours” any more than the farm or house is. It’s a sort of package deal. :-D Of course, there’s more to it than that, which I can’t get into here.

What a mess!

With all the stuff we’ve discovered since moving here – like needing a new roof and a complete renovation, possibly needing a new well, not having the tools and equipment we should have had had to take care of the place, and so on, in the end, this is really the only major problem with living here. In the end, that’s really not too bad. It’s still better than what we left behind.

Life is good.

The Re-Farmer

Long day, good day and a new toy! Still glad it’s over. :-)

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Today was our day to do our monthly shop in the city. It went well, but my goodness, it’s draining! :-D

Of course, my day started with my morning rounds and a visit with the outside kitties. :-)

Which included an explosion of sorts!

I was right by the heated water bowl, near the entrance into the cat’s house, when an explosion of fur and fury erupted through the strips of carpet covering the entrance. It was Nicky the Nose, making a mad dash for it!

That is a big, hefty cat!

Once my rounds were done, I settled in to check the trail cam files. I saw an RCMP pick up truck going slowly past our driveway, then again in the other direction. So it looks like they at least tried to serve our vandal about the restraining order court date, and checked our place out as well. Whether or not he was home to be served, I don’t know and probably will not be notified about.

We had snow last night, so when I checked the gate this morning, I was following all sorts of tracks – cats (of course), the prints of a large canine (likely my brother’s dog visiting again. :-D ) and very, very fresh deer tracks!

There were not, however, any tire tracks in our driveway, on the outside of the gate.

As my daughter and I headed out to the city, a couple of hours later, there were tire tracks. I could see that someone had driven into our driveway. It could be just someone using our driveway to turn around, which is not that unusual, but it should be interesting to see what shows up when I check the memory cards tomorrow.

I also checked the security camera on our garage. It is set to take an image and email it to me, whenever the motion sensor is triggered. I was very interesting to see what would show up, now that it’s in a new position.

Did I mention it snowed last night?

I had almost 200 emails, and all but a few had pictures of snowflakes! :-D

I did a bit of adjusting of the camera’s position before we headed out, and from what files were waiting for me when we got home, I think I found the sweet spot for the motion sensor.

Our trip to the city went well, but also had its interesting moments.

On our way, we stopped at the next town to get gas. This municipality is under a mask mandate. They know me pretty well by now, so when I walked in without a mask, the lady behind the counter was comfortable enough to ask me why so many people coming from up north aren’t wearing masks. I said we aren’t under a mask mandate. Of course, she pointed out that when we come to places that do, we are are supposed to be wearing them. How can I be not wearing one? So I explained to her about the medical exemption, and she was all “but what does that mean?” I explained it, and how PIPA means they can’t ask someone why someone is medically exempt (though I did mention my own chronic cough, because I really don’t care who knows about it). A customer who had started to come in at the same time as me, but turned around to get his mask, heard part of the conversation and started asking, too. We talked a bit about the different kinds of exemptions, and how a medical exemption includes invisible disabilities, like PTSD or Autism. It turns out that the employees were simply told, everyone has to wear masks, but no one told them that the mandate included exemptions. Nothing! So I gave her one of my extra exemption cards, which states exactly where in the mandate medical exemptions are, mentions PIPA’s role, and includes related phone numbers. She was really happy to have it, and I think she was really ticked off that no one explained any of this to them.

Once in the city, we go to a drive through for breakfast, then Walmart, an international foods grocery store, Costco… then, hopefully, nowhere else! :-D

While at the Walmart, my daughter bought me a new toy.

I now have an angle grinder!! Oh, I am so excited. :-)

My daughter knows what her Mama likes! <3

Meanwhile…

At the international foods store, just as we were finishing up at the self checkout, I had someone come to me, reminding me to wear a mask next time. I thanked her and told her I was medically exempt, and she moved on to the next self checkout. Which is why I could hear when a security guard came to her and started telling her not to bother going to people who come in without masks because “suddenly, everyone is medically exempt.”

Oh, dear.

She did not need to be given a hard time for doing her job, and that comment was just too much! For me, it’s not a big deal, but if someone that is medically exempt for something like anxiety or trauma had heard that, it would have been extremely difficult for them.

So when we were done, my daughter went ahead with our stuff while I asked to speak to a manager.

I made sure to say I had no problems with being told about the mandate, that the staff member who approached me was doing her job; I told her I’m medically exempt, and that was it. He was nodding along as I spoke. Then I told him about the security guard going to her, and what I heard him saying to her. As soon as I repeated “suddenly, everyone’s medically exempt”, even with his mask on, I could see his face cringing! We spoke for a while, and he was very glad I’d told him about it, thanking me for doing so. I really stressed I understood what is required of them to meet the conditions of the mandate, and the staff member who approached me didn’t need to be hassled for doing her job, but also, there are a lot of reasons people can’t wear masks, so that comment by the security guard was not right. He said he would talk to the security guard about it, and agreed with me that it came down to training. He also added, it’s not their job to be the mandate police! :-D It was a very pleasant and positive conversation.

Costco went smoothly, except for a couple of things. One being a customer. We had our flat cart pretty heavily loaded, making it hard to steer, when there was a bit of a bottle neck around a woman who stopped her cart to look at some produce. Behind her was an older woman with a walker. I pulled back a bit, smiled and indicated that she could go around first. No, she told me. She didn’t want to go near me, because I wasn’t wearing a mask. :-/ So I just went ahead and pushed my flat cart forward – which meant I had to walk past her, anyhow! She ended up moving around the other side. As I passed, I told her I was at more risk from her than the other way around, but I don’t know that she heard me. Ah, well.

We were nearly done when I had a staff member approach me, asking about a mask. I told her I was medically exempt and she asked if I had a card or a letter from a doctor. I said it wasn’t a requirement, but she said they had a policy that people without masks had to have a card from a doctor. Now, I know doctors have been told not to write exemption letters, but she kept saying “card”. So I dug out one of my exemption cards and asked if that was what she meant. She said yes, and told me to keep it handy; there was a health inspector in the building, and she didn’t want me to get fined!

I never saw the health inspector but, as we were leaving, I made a point of telling the woman checking our receipt as we left, how much I appreciated them not giving me grief about the mandate, and how awesome they were at this location. I know people who have tried going to other locations and have gotten a lot of hassle, and this place never has. I wanted to make sure to say thank you and make a positive comment about it.

As smoothly as things went overall, these trips are really draining at the best of times. We were both pretty exhausted by the time we got home!

As we unloaded, I took the cat kibble for the outside cats to the sun room and refilled the bin. On cutting open a bag, I had Creamsicle actually sticking his head in and starting to eat! It was like he was starving! LOL After emptying the one bag into the bin, both he and Potato Beetle climbed right in to eat. I scooped some to top up the containers in the kibble house, but they didn’t leave the bin, even as I emptied another big into it. :-D I finally had to drag them out and over to the kibble house, just so I could close the bin and put it away.

Junk Pile was hanging out, too, and she has been willing to come closer to us, even if we still can’t touch her.

Which is why I could see, she’s starting to look very round. !!!

I really hope I’m wrong, but she might be pregnant again! This is a very bad time of year for it. :-( We’ll know soon enough, I guess.

Anyhow.

We are now well stocked for the month, and I am so glad to be done with it.

The Re-Farmer

Looking for peace

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We have some happy kitties this morning!

There’s even two of them tucked under the kibble house. :-) I’m glad they like being able to do that!

Since we are not using the sun room as a cat shelter this winter, we will not be putting the rigid insulation against the windows inside again. With the doors now closing properly, we can get away will keeping the light, and any passive solar we might manage to get this winter, instead.

Which means we can re-purpose some of the insulation. There should be several large enough that we can cut one to fit under the floor of the kibble house. It won’t do much for insulating, but it will make things a bit less wiggly. It would be nicer on their little toe beans to have the insulation on top of the floor, but the cats just LOVE using this stuff for scratching, and can tear it apart rather quickly!

After that, I can look at whether I still need to put something across the front, to keep the kibble containers from being knocked out. They’re not being knocked out every day, so I may not need to.

This morning, I was able to give the outside cats and extra treat with their breakfast; the pan juices from some pork we roasted, including some much needed fat to help them build up their reserves for the winter.

Yes, we’re careful about what’s in those juices, and I make sure not to cook with anything that might be harmful to the cats when I am planning to give them the meat juices.

This picture was taken as I was finishing my rounds and heading back in, well after that initial mad rush when the kibble is first brought out. :-D They are a lot more peaceful and contented at this point!

Peace and contentment is what I’m hoping we’ll get for today, but I don’t know what to expect, really. Chances are, our vandal will get served for the court date regarding the restraining order today. I also sent an email – a group email, that included family members who need to know what’s going on – pointing out the escalation of his behaviour, and telling him he needs to get help. Long ago, I had to tell him to not only stop coming here, but to stop phoning and texting. Email was the one method of communication I left open, even if it’s through his wife. Yes, she was included in the group email, too. I don’t know how much she knows of what he’s been doing.

Things can go one of two ways, at this point. Either he’ll back off completely and keep playing the victim. Or it’ll trigger him into doing something stupid, and he’ll still keep playing the victim.

Meanwhile, we’ll maintain higher vigilance. Thanks to Silk Cords‘ comment, I decided it was worth adjusting the security camera on our garage. I have had it zoomed in and focused on the gate, as much as possible from that angle, since the gate itself has been such a physical target. An obsession, really. Now I’ve got it zoomed out and adjusted so that, in my live feed, I can see the driveway inside the gate, the old hay yard and most of the barn. It’s unlikely he’d go in through the barbed wire fence to access the barn, since he’d need to bring a vehicle in to take what he wants, but who knows what he’d do if he gets triggered. Between all the cameras, we have his key targets covered.

If all goes well, they will all be completely unnecessary.

The Re-Farmer

Procrastinating

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I had quite the crowd greeting me when I headed out this morning!

Of course, they immediately abandoned me, once there was food! :-D

I will have to be more careful when I do this. One of the spice boys slipped into the sun room without my noticing, and got trapped! Thankfully, one of my daughters heard his plaintive meowing after she’d turned the light on to go into the bathroom, lighting up the sun room a bit through the window. He’d been in there most of the day! I went in through the old kitchen, then opened the outside doors of the sun room to let him out. It didn’t quite work! Instead, his brother immediately ran in, and the two of them started to snuggle and rub their faces against each other. They missed each other so much! :-D I was able to lure them out while topping up their food in the kibble house. :-)

Yesterday, I headed to town and finally got the opportunity to check the outside of the gate. Checking the gate is part of my morning rounds, but I don’t take the gate key with me, so I can’t check the outside of the gate very well. And why should I have to? After seeing how our vandal had reefed on the south gate, I took a closer look.

Sure enough, he actually managed to cause damage.

It may not seem like much, but he reefed the gate against the post hard enough to create permanent dents in the pool noodle bumpers. The top one had been shifted a bit, though I’d put it back before taking the picture. If you look at the gate post in the first photo, you can see a nick in the paint. That nick is right to the metal. The posts were originally painted black, so that is through two layers of paint. It had to take a lot of force to slam the gate hard enough against the post to cause even that little bit of damage, while there were still the other bumpers to cushion the gate.

Thank God my brother did such a fabulous job in replacing the broken hinges! Our vandal was clearly trying to break the gate. The other half of the gate had nothing, thankfully.

Dealing with this is what I’m procrastinating. I need to transcribe old phone messages to present to the court when I make my applications for a restraining order and involuntary psychiatric assessment. I am not looking forward to it.

One of the things I’ve done instead is finally put up the shelves I’d painted for the entry.

Previously, I’d had a net hanging from hooks to hold various things. The net was from our previous van, to keep things from rolling around. I’d kept it to use with the van we have now, but it doesn’t fit anywhere, but I still hung on to it. It was good enough to hold random things, but not very easy to get at those things, once they were in!

I’d painted the boards I’d cut from a piece salvaged from a shed, and they were ready to put up several days ago. My daughter provided some shelf brackets she was no longer using. I suppose I should have painted them, too, but – unlike the board I salvaged – they don’t have any damage to hide. :-D

The shelves are attached to the outside of a closet, but there is a joist only on the front and back. The rest is just paneling. With the window, I couldn’t have the shelves extend right to the wall, so only one side of each shelf is screwed into a joist. Inside the closet, there is a board that supports the rod, but not at a useful height. So for the bottom shelf, the bracket closer to the window is screwed into paneling, only. I wish I’d thought to attach the bracket to the wall, like the top one, before I’d screwed it into place, but… ah, well. We’ll just have to make sure nothing heavy gets put on that end of the shelf. :-)

We are now waiting for the inevitable crash of a cat deciding to explore the shelves and knocking everything over! :-D They love to sit in that window and watch the cats outside.

So by procrastinating one thing, I accomplished a job that had been procrastinated for a couple of years, now. :-D

Looking at the date, I am realizing that, for my husband and youngest daughter, they have been here for 3 years! In less than a week, it’ll be the 3 yr anniversary for this blog, too.

We had an idea of what we were walking into, when we decided to move out here, but my goodness, there was a lot we didn’t expect!

Having to deal with someone close to us becoming our own personal vandal, especially to the point that it has, was one of the last things we could have expected!

*sigh*

I guess I should get to transcribing those files.

Oh, wait… I should probably work on supper, first.

The Re-Farmer

I need some cat therapy

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The kitties were very happy to see me this morning!

Okay, so maybe is wasn’t me they were happy to see, but the food I bring!

The heated water bowl was partially frozen again, so I had to lift the roof to plug it back in. I’ll have to go through my work station in the basement to find an appropriately sized hook to support the cord.

Which I will do later, because my morning was dedicated to a more unpleasant project. I have been putting together a package to bring with me when I go to apply for a restraining order. Thankfully, the type I’m after covers more “minor” stuff, like believing there is a threat to property. Which has already happened. I would have a more difficult time proving my need for, say, a protection order for stalking.

Before our move, we unfortunately had to deal with the police and court system quite a bit, and it left me incredibly jaded. Thankfully, I had long developed the habit of journaling and documenting things to share with family far away. It didn’t take much more to switch focus to document things for police files and courts.

As much as I try to keep everything organized on my computer, it still took some digging. Especially since I was going back to 2018, to establish a history of vandalism, as well as the more recent stuff showing that, whatever program our vandal was required to go through, it didn’t help.

The hard part is going to be going through what I have to present my case for an involuntary psychiatric assessment. It’s not like I can give them a bunch of electronic files and expect them to go through it all. I’ll have to select images and screen captures to print out and, what will be most difficult, transcribe some of the voice mail messages that this person has left. I’ve had to do similar documentation of many hours of security videos, before our move. Two others had already started to but had to stop because of how traumatic it became. It takes a lot for me to reach that point, but even I had to stop after a while. In the end, it was futile, since the police wouldn’t do anything about it, anyhow.

It’s particularly hard to disassociate when you’re right in the middle of the events that need documenting, and that’s what I’m dreading about all this. We’re talking about having a person arrested and forced into a psychiatric hospital for evaluation against their will. This is a big deal, which has a lot to do with why I haven’t done this since the police first started recommending it to me. It seems to be the only way to get this person the help they need. If he doesn’t get that help, it’s not going to stop, and will likely get worse. I need to make a really solid case, and while there is plenty I can produce to show this, going through it all is going to be really unpleasant.

So, I’ve got my work cut out for me over the weekend; Monday is the earliest I can make the drive and start the process.

I had really hoped living out here would mean getting away from stuff like this.

It’s still better than what we left behind, though.

The Re-Farmer

The kibble house is working – and creeper is creeping again

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It started to snow last night, and continued all night. Where we live, it was still a light now – other areas got much more – but it was enough to be a test for the kibble house!

The inside is completely free of snow. :-)

Unfortunately, three of the containers were on the ground – you can see the patch of grass on the left, where one of them ended up. It is most likely the skunks doing this.

I might add a narrow board across the front to try and prevent that. As long as the floor boards can slide under it, that should work fine.

The heated water bowl was still plugged in. :-D There was almost no water left, though, so we had some thirsty, as well as hungry, kitties!

While doing my rounds and heading to the trail cams, I noticed this.

Though a light layer of snow covered the paw prints enough that I couldn’t make out what they looked like, I can be pretty sure that this trail was left by a skunk. They are low enough to the ground that their belly fur would leave that wider trail in the snow. :-D

Once I was done my rounds outside, I settled in to check the trail cam files.

I have since called the RCMP.

Our vandal was back.

Between the still shots from one camera, and the video from the other, I have about half an hour documented. While the appliance repair guy was here, the gate was left open. Our vandal showed up in the driveway, going from side to side for a while, before moving the two sides of the gate. The video picked him up stepping in to grab one side of the gates that was open to the inside, pulling it all the way to the outside, then reefing on it. Because of where the hinges are set in the post, when opened all the way to the outside, the gate can hit the post. After repairing the damage our vandal did last time, and repainting the gates, I added pieces of pool noodle to cushion the gate. This way, even if the wind blows the gates all the way open to the outside, the foam slows the swing down, and they bounce gently, rather than slamming, metal against metal. It also reduces stress on the new hinges. So when he reefed on the gate, the foam protected it, but with his pushing it so hard, there is only so much the foam can do to reduce the stress on the hinges. (At this point, there does not appear to be any damage.)

The files then show him going back and forth a few more times, before we can see the appliance guy leaving and me locking the gate up. There is, however, a 14 minute gap, where there is nothing to show where he was or what he was doing; all I can say is, he wasn’t in front of the cameras to trigger the motion sensors.

I remember as I walked to the gate, seeing how the two sides of the gate were positioned and thinking it was the wind again. It was odd with the one side, because I’d deliberately left it open as far as it could swing, which means it was in the fence and on the old tire I’ve got as a bumper. That side is the one that the wind blows around the most, but not so much when it’s open all the way. Now I know it wasn’t the wind at all!

So I called the RCMP as soon as I was able, and started a new file. The person I spoke to went over my options with me, and gave me the name of the constable that would be calling me back about it. I then looked up and called the nearest court where I can start the process to get a restraining order (there are several types available, one of which includes damage to property), leaving a message. This is also where I would be going to start the process for a psychiatric assessment.

While I was writing this, the constable called me back. We talked about our options again, and after going over the past files, he didn’t feel that pressing charges of mischief again would be the most productive. If I did do that, they would arrest him, file charges against them, then let him go and the whole process that happened last time would happen again. That the charges were stayed after he’d finished whatever program he went through, the constable felt that this was highly likely to happen again. Obviously, it didn’t work last time. However, as long as there were charges against him, I would effectively have a restraining order, and would not have to apply for one. I could still apply for a psychiatric assessment through the courts, but if I did, a judge would throw out the charges, since basically he would be viewed as not responsible for his actions, and I would no longer have any protections.

One main difference between the restrictions he’d be placed under if I press charges, as opposed to getting a restraining order, is that with charges, he’d still be keeping his guns. With a restraining order, there is enough documented justification for his guns to be seized, and he would be required to stop drinking alcohol, which is another big part of the problem. I could apply for a psychiatric assessment, and it would not affect the restraining order the way it could with pressing charges.

So for now, I will wait until I talk to the court clerk before making a decision, but it looks like the most effective route to take is to apply for both the restraining order and a psychiatric assessment. And I’m far more interested in our vandal getting help for his mental health issues than I am in getting him arrested.

*sigh*

While we have seen him on the cameras doing things like walking to the gate and giving the finger to the cameras, or slowing down as he drives by to peer down the driveway, etc., this is the first time we’ve seen him come to the gate while it was open like this. Which means we now cannot open the gate and leave it unattended to let people like the appliance repair guy drive in and out. We now know that, if our vandal happens by and sees the gate open, he will do things.

This is so tiresome.

At times like this, I wish we lived even more remotely than we already do!

The Re-Farmer

Whoops!

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When I headed out this morning to feed the outside cats and do my rounds, I had a bit of a surprise.

Along with finding two of the kibble containers had been knocked out of the kibble house, there was something wrong with the heated water bowl.

The water was frozen!

A quick glance into the entry of the cats’ house found the problem. They had managed to unplug it!

I am so glad I added that counterweight to the roof…

When I lifted the roof to plug it back in, I think I spotted why it came unplugged. I had put their favourite cat toy inside, and I found it in the entry, on top of the power cord. It’s likely that, while playing and knocking it about, they accidentally unplugged the heated water bowl. It should be harder to yank out now, but if they do unplug it again, I can add a hook to hold the cord in place.

I might just do that, anyhow, so it’s not an issue over the winter. I’d really prefer to not have to lift that roof when the snow gets deep! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Happy kitties, not so happy washing machine, and awesome customer service

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I’m happy to say the kibble shelter set up seems to be working just fine!

I found one of the food containers under the kibble house this morning. I was able to reach it to get it out, but even if it had got pushed back further, that’s okay, since the floor boards can be lifted to reach under. An unexpected benefit for our change in plans.

When my daughter popped outside last night, she found Sir Stinks Alot in it. She moved in his direction, making noise to shoo him away, and was unexpectedly entertained. It seems the floor is a bit high for a skunk’s short little legs! It took him a few tries before he was finally able to get down and leave. :-D

The heated water bowl is working just fine; the water in the other containers was frozen solid. I’m thinking we might want to find something to put under the heated bowl to raise it higher. The cats have been trying to drink from it from inside the kibble shelter. I think it’s similar to how they often prefer to drink from the other bowls while on the wood of the sledge under the cat house. Likely, it’s because the wood is warmer on their paws than the ground! :-)

In other things…

Our new washing machine has once again stopped working! I used it on Friday, and it worked fine. My daughter tried to use it on Saturday, and it just wouldn’t turn on. I figured it would stop working again, and actually prefer that it happened again sooner, rather than later. I called the appliance guy and left a message about it, and he called back today. He will be able to swing by tomorrow afternoon. Thankfully, he left the parts with us, when it suddenly started working after he’d opened up the back, so we don’t have to go through the warranty process again.

I headed into town today with one of my daughters who needed to do some errands. I took advantage of the situation and stopped at the garage where we have had so much work done this year. I showed him the picture of what is loose under my mother’s car. I had talked to the garage by my mother’s place, but I just don’t go to her town often, plus I needed to book our van for an oil change and to get our winter tires put on.

I now have my mother’s car booked to come in on Monday, while our van will be brought in on the Friday after. I asked about how much it might cost to get my mother’s car fixed. The loose shield should just need to be screwed back into place, but they will still need to at least jack it up to be able to reach, so I figured it would be similar to what I was told at the other garage. Basically, they’d likely have charged for half an hour.

Not here!

He said it would likely be free.

!!

If all it needs it to be screwed on, he’ll just do it and that’s it! Of course, once he’s actually under there, he might find it’s cracked or something, but it doesn’t look broken in the picture.

I am so happy my mother’s car got a flat next to this garage! :-D The owner is just awesome! As much as I liked the place by my mother’s, this place goes that little bit further. I am a very happy customer! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Progress: kibble house is done!

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

We did it! We were able to finish the winter shelter for the outdoor cats’ kibble containers!

The only thing it needs now is to be painted, which will probably wait until spring.

Of course, things didn’t quite go to plan, but that’s pretty much how everything goes! :-D

One of the first things we did was raid the barn to see what we could find for a roof. There was a sheet of 3/4 inch plywood that we dragged over.

It had some mysteries on it.

On one side was a drawing of a picnic table, done with black marker.

The other side had what looks like the template for a shed roof!

My daughter was kind enough to take those boards off for me. Each of them had about 7 screws in them!

While she did that, I set up to assemble the rest of the frame, adding in the horizontal supports.

This was where things began to deviate from the plan. In putting on the bottom horizontal supports, I forgot I’d intended to put them on the inside of the vertical supports, instead of lined up with them. This made it longer than 6 ft.

Which is not a bad thing. It’s actually more stable this way, and there’s more room on the inside. However, I wasn’t able to match the top horizontal supports. Since the roof supports are at an angle, the screws that hold them in place are more staggered, so the chance of hitting one while screwing on the vertical support was pretty high. So I moved the top horizontal posts and attached them in front of the vertical ones.

Those horizontal supports, however, were supposed to be what the back wall was attached to.

Before we worked on that, though, we popped on the plywood to see how it fit, and if we needed to cut it to size.

We decided to leave it as is. I wanted at least some overhang. More just means more shelter for the kitties.

Then it was time to get creative.

We were going to use scrap wood from the junk pile for the walls and floor, but that idea quickly was discarded. Back to the barn we went, where we found a couple of pieces of 1/2 inch plywood that were almost 4 feet square.

We finally got to use the table saw I found in the shed! :-D

When cutting the frame pieces, I had cut two spare 2 ft lengths, and we made good use of them. I happened to have right angle plates I’d expected to use for something else and those were used to attach one length to support plywood roof in the middle. The other became support for the back wall. The bottom of the new vertical support could be screwed in place from underneath, but the top took a bit more creativity to get it attached!

We cut one of the squarish pieces in half to get the height of the wall, then cut one of the halves shorter to fit, and used them for the back wall. The pieced we’d cut off turned out to be the right size for a side wall, so we just traced that on the other squarish piece of plywood and cut a second one.

I dragged two buckets of nails from the basement to put the walls and roof one. One had roofing nails that were the right length for the walls, while the other had 4 inch nails that were perfect for attaching the roof.

That left the floor.

Cutting a wall piece off the second square of plywood left an L shaped piece. After taking several measurements, I cut the short part of the “L” off. The remaining longer piece got a notch cut out of it.

The smaller piece got a bit of a trim to fit the remaining space, and now we have a floor that can be removed, if needed.

And yes, I did want the floor to extend past the frame.

Time to test it out!

My daughter had to go in earlier, so I carefully maneuvered the whole thing by myself, to where I wanted it by the cat house. The containers we use for the cats’ food were pretty much empty, so I put them in and topped up them up.

A couple of cats were crawling around in it before I even came out of the sun room with more kibble! Once they heard that distinctive sound of kibble hitting the container, there was quite the rush of kitties!

I wanted the shelter to be close to the cat’s house, to provide shelter for the entry, but also wanted to make sure they had a path in between them. They already go around the cat house in that spot often enough that they’ve worn a patch in the grass. They can also fit under the kibble house and, if they really wanted to, they could probably get in from the back, through the gap under the roof.

One more thing to do!

It was time to open up the roof on the cats’ house and plug in the heated water bowl.

I also tucked their cat toy inside. They love that thing!

The cord on the heated water bowl is long enough that the bowl can be well under the overhang of the kibble house roof.

I then spent the next while putting everything away and cleaning up, which meant I could watch the cats checking it all out. They explored all over, including jumping up on the roof, and seem quite happy with their new shelter!

Since it’s unlikely we will paint any of it this year, we will probably cover the roof with a tarp for the winter. The rest should be fine.

I’m so glad we were able to get this finished today. It was just a couple of degrees above freezing, and we’re supposed to get a couple of centimeters of snow in a couple of days. Not the sort of weather I want to be outside, building stuff, if I can avoid it!

The Re-Farmer

I am such a suck

/ Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

I had a very enthusiastic crowd when I gave the outside cats warm water and kibble. :-)

The one potential down side of the kibble house I’m building is that there will not be as much room for the cats themselves to spread out. The very shy one in the back, for example, is not just shy of humans, but some of the other cats, too. Then you get Butterscotch, who has been getting more ornery in her old age, and will randomly start hissing and batting at the other cats – including her own kittens!

No Rolando Moon this morning, but she’s another one that has been hissing at the other cats, though the other cats have been going after her, as well.

However, they do tend to tone it down when the weather gets cold. At that point, I think they’ll take the extra body heat over their usual aggressiveness.

I was able to pet Butterscotch’s kittens this morning. Creamsicle Jr. wasn’t too keen on it, but I was actually able to pick up the little calico and hold her. She stayed in my arms, looking at me like I was crazy, but purring. I didn’t want to keep her from food for too long, though, so I put her down and finished my rounds.

Before going inside, I visited the cats again.

I was able to pick up the little calico again.

She was willing to settle in my arms, purring away.

I took blatant advantage of the situation.

She’s now in the basement.

One of the girls very noisily scattered cat treats upstairs to lure the other cats away and close the door. Keith and Cheddar wouldn’t leave, though, being far more curious about the new addition. They’re pretty safe around the newbies, though, so that was okay.

Then I opened a tin of wet cat food, and Turmeric magically appeared from somewhere under my work table! :-D

I spread out blobs of wet cat food in the kibble platter to get the other cats interested, then brought the rest of the can near the calico and lured her over with the spoon.

It’s her first time eating wet cat food, and she was quite enthusiastic about it!

Turmeric, unfortunately, kept wanting to chase her around. I think it was more playful than aggressive, but it’s just too much for the little one. I was eventually able to escape the basement, bringing Turmeric out with me and managing to NOT let any other cats down. There was a whole crowd of them at the door, wanting to see what was going on!

She ignored Cheddar sniffing her while she ate, and he seemed pretty laid back while checking her out. Then he very slowly, casually, batted at her!

So today, we’ll be taking turns going to the basement, bringing the “safe” cats for introductions, and paying lots of attention to the new addition. That will mostly be on the girls, since I need to get outside to work on the kibble house. Not until late afternoon, though, when the temperature is expected to finally get above freezing.

I am such a suck. I have been so adamant about not bringing more cats into the house, and now we’re up to 16!! The problem is, bringing the females inside is the only way we can keep the yard cat population down. It costs about $260 to get a female fixed out here, and we’d have to bring them inside anyhow, since we’d have to make sure they don’t eat at least 8 hours before surgery, then give them 2 weeks to heal. Males cost half as much, so we were able to get the few males inside fixed. I have to admit, though, I would have loved to see David kittens! :-D Anyhow. No chance of more kittens if the females are inside.

Now that Tissue is socialized, we have 9 cats available for adoption, but so far, no takers!

Well, what can we do but keep taking care of them as best we can?

The Re-Farmer