All the forecasts showed the rains would be passed by this morning. Instead, we’ve got three large systems heading over us.
Which meant the cat food containers I put by the cat house were full of water.
At least all the food that was in them was gone, first.
I dragged over the saw horses and made them a quick shelter.
I reached into the cat house to grab the container in there to fill, but it was gone. Not just pushed back, almost out of reach, as I’ve found it before. Nope. Completely gone!
There was another container that I’d had that disappeared. I figured it got pushed under the cat house, but with this one completely gone, now I wonder!
The girls heard skunks fighting last night. I wonder if they could have dragged them off? Is that a thing skunks do?
Hopefully, the rain will be done by this afternoon, when we’re supposed to have quite pleasant temperatures. We were going to put the sheets of insulation around the bottom of the house today, as well as cover the septic tank for the winter, but we’ll see how wet it still is.
Well, now… The phone rang while I was writing this. My mother called to let me know she found a note slipped under her door, saying “your daughter has to wear a mask.” When I brought up medical exemptions, and that she shouldn’t be wearing one, either, she told me that they don’t understand that. She doesn’t want trouble, so she wears one and just pulls it away from her face, or under her neck, when she can’t breathe.
*sigh*
That is a problem to deal with another time! For now, I need to head to town to pick up a prescription refill for my husband, at the pharmacy where they are more sane about things like this!
I have been using the food and water bowls outside to slowly get the little kittens used to coming to the cat house, where they will hopefully get curious enough to go inside and discover how nice and dry and warm it is in there.
There had been quite a crowd at the food bowls earlier, but they ran off as I walked around. There had been a couple of Butterscotch’s kittens there, though the others were hanging around near the door to the house, where one of the containers had been for the past week or so.
Nostrildamus is comfortable enough with me to not run off. Normally, Little Braveheart would be there, too, but…
I’ll get to that in a bit.
Yesterday, I was going to take a break from digging garden beds. Partly because I still haven’t decided if I want to make a third one, and partly because it feels like I’ve pulled all the muscles in the backs of my legs. Nothing major, but I figured a couple of days rest would be a good idea.
Which was good timing, because I got a call from my mother, asking if I could drive her for groceries. It was a bit chilly to walk.
So I headed out in the afternoon and did that. I’d forgotten that her municipality is under a mask mandate now. Even in the lobby of where my mother lives, they are supposed to wear masks. Which is so bizarre and arbitrary. Especially considering how low the numbers are right now. But, the goal posts have been moved again, and masks are now the thing.
The problem is, my mother shouldn’t be wearing a mask. She has long been complaining about breathing problems, and we haven’t been able to track down why. I tried to talk to her about it, when she asked if I had one and I told her I can’t wear masks, but it was not a conversation she could handle. She put it on before we left, leaving it under her nose, but as we were driving, I could really hear her struggling to breath. Meanwhile, no one batted an eye at my not wearing one. *sigh*
Unfortunately, my mother was in “fine form” this time. While chatting before we left, I tried showing her some pictures of the garlic beds I was working on, and she became incredibly angry. I shouldn’t be doing any of this, because it should be plowed or tilled. She saw the straw layer and, even as I tried to say I’d added compost first and what I was doing, she kept cutting me off and asking why there was straw under there. Then she got mad about the wood walkways, and said I need to take those out and plant things there, because it was a waste of space. Because apparently, there shouldn’t be room to walk in a garden. ??
That was just the start of things. After shopping, she wanted to go to a restaurant for a quick bite, and that got cut off short when my not living the way she wanted turned into a racist rant (my husband is Metis).
It was not a good time.
When I got home, the girls had the van ready and filled with stuff for the dump, so I basically switched vehicles and did that. When I was finally able to come inside to stay, I noticed the door to the new part basement was closed. Since all the cat food and most of the litter boxes are down there, I commented on it. I was informed that my younger daughter was down there.
With Little Braveheart.
While they were loading the van, she was able to pet and pick up Braveheart and Nostrildamus. She was also able to confirm that Nostrildamus is male, and Braveheart is female.
In the interest of reducing the number of future litters, Braveheart was brought inside.
We now have 15 cats in the house.
Braveheart is semi-feral – and still more feral than semi – so she’s been spending most of the time hiding somewhere. While in the basement, my other daughter would slowly introduce other cats downstairs. Braveheart had been meowing plaintively when Two Face first came down. They instantly got along, and meows became purrs as they ate together. Over the next while, she met the other cats and seemed to get along much better with the dudes than the dudettes! Fenrir does not like her, but she isn’t particularly friendly with any of the cats, so that’s not unusual. Beep Beep batted at her, but Beep Beep is in heat and has been randomly batting at all of the cats.
I’ve been putting the word out on local Facebook groups to try and adopt cats out, but have had zero responses. No one wants cats right now, apparently. Our next step is to print out posters and drive around to different towns in the area and put them up.
Today I hope to finally get my day of rest. I did start soaking down the garlic beds last night; I plan to do that again today, and will continue wetting them down over the next while until the garlic comes in. I want them to be soaked through the compost layer before planting. I’m leaning towards not doing a third bed and, if the two beds we have now are not enough, we can plant garlic in the retaining wall blocks in the old kitchen garden. Of course, that assumes our back order comes in in time!
I have also been keeping an eye on the various materials I’ve been finding lying about, and I think I have what I need to make a quick little shelter for the outside food and water bowls. I want to keep those by the cat house, but don’t want them to be buried in snow. We’ll have the heated water bowl plugged into the second outlet in the cat house. The cord should be just long enough to reach outside the entry, so I’ll want to set something up there to keep it from getting snowed under, too. Last year, it was set up inside the sun room, so that wasn’t an issue. I will be working on plans for that, today, and hopefully will start building something tomorrow, when it’s expected to be warmer, and not raining.
We’ve been very fortunate this fall, so far. Last year, we already had a snowfall by this time, and a blizzard on Thanksgiving weekend. The long range forecasts have us warmer, with rain every now and then. I’ve heard predictions for both another bitterly long and cold winter, and for a long, mild fall followed by a milder winter. So far, the longer, mild fall seems to be the one that’s coming true.
This morning, I was awakened by my husband, asking me if there was some trick to starting the washing machine.
I think it was a rhetorical question.
Our new washing machine, which we’ve had for only 2 1/2 months, simply stopped working. It won’t turn on.
Of course, my husband went through the usual check list. Breaker? It was fine. Outlet? Tested both plugins. Meter reads fine. While I went through the manual’s trouble shooting chart (which basically said, check the breaker, check the outlet), my husband went online and found that there’s a hard reset you can do, so we tried that. Still nothing. It simply will not turn on.
So I started looking at how to contact the LG to get it fixed, since we’re well within the 1 year limited warranty. I tried their website, first. Made an account, registered the item, started a request for getting warranty work done…
Got a note saying we were not under warranty, and we would be billed for the service call.
???
So I finally just phoned.
The good news is, the person I spoke to confirmed we are still under warranty; their website glitches sometimes. She was apologetic about that. Since I had just made an account on the website, she was able to find me in the system, so that made things faster.
They didn’t have any technicians available for where we are, but there is a local company that does warranty work for them, so they will contact this company on our behalf, and we will get a phone call from them.
Soon, I hope!
While I was working on this, I heard the well pump turn on and the noise it made really threw me. Since our plumber hasn’t gotten back to us, and I happened to catch the name of another plumber being recommended on a local Facebook group, I asked my husband to try contacting them.
It turns out that, this time of year, a lot of people are closing up their cottages for the winter, so he’s really busy with those jobs right now. So busy, he recommended we try someone else, because there was no way he could come in within the week. I don’t imagine other plumbers will be any different, so we might have to just wait until after Thanksgiving, which is next weekend.
By the time we got all that done, I was still earlier than usual to get the outside rounds done. I figured the cats wouldn’t mind being fed early! :-D
It was -1C/30F at the time. The cats’ water bowls had ice on them, and the ground was covered with frost. It was quite beautiful.
Cat paths!
Frosted burdock
Rosencrantz was not impressed.
While going through the garden areas, I noticed the one sunflower with the seed head that was killed off by grubs looked… odd.
It looks like the grubs continued eating their way down the stalk – and then got killed by the frost!
When I go outside in the mornings, Braveheart is usually the one to come running towards me. Then she stops and acts surprised that she’s so close to me and starts backing off. :-D This morning, however, she came up to me – and let me pet her! She even started purring! This is the first time she has allowed me to pet her, without her being at the food bowl and eating.
What a crowd!
I was very happy to see Butterscotch’s kittens hanging around – and to see a Creamsicle Jr. and the calico hanging out with the bigger ones! The two orange babies were with their mom at another kibble container, but I didn’t want to potentially scare them away from food, just to get a picture.
Rosencrantz and her baby, keeping their distance!
I got to pet both Braveheart and Nostrildamus while they were eating. Mystery kept running off and coming back before finally settling in to eat. The calico was doing much the same, but once she saw all the others staying to eat while I was so close, she finally joined them. I didn’t try to pet her; this was progress enough for now!
It was nice to see one of the little kittens sharing food with the bigger kittens this morning.
An interesting thought.
Butterscotch (in the back) is mother to Rosencrantz, who is mother to Junk Pile who is mother to the three big kittens here. Which makes Butterscotch their great-grandmother.
Butterscotch is mother to Creamsicle Jr. there, which makes him brother to Rosencrantz, uncle to Junk Pile and great uncle to the kittens that now tower over him.
The cat house we now have to provide the outside kitties shelter for the winter has power to it. There are two outlets inside, one of which has a light plugged into it. We’ve never been able to plug it in. The nearest source of power is in the old kitchen. We’ve got an extension cord going through the window that we use, but it wasn’t long enough to reach the cat house.
Yesterday, I was able to pick up a new outdoor 25ft extension cord.
It just barely reached!
But reach, it did!
The problem is, I’m not sure how much the cats will use it, all lit up like that. It’s a 100 watt bulb (under a protective, waterproof cover), so it will also help with warmth a little bit, but I am thinking we might want to find some way to create a shaded area more conducive to sleep.
As for warmth, we’ve been looking at different possibilities, but the biggest issue is one of safety. Most types of heaters would not do well enclosed in a small space full of flax straw and a bunch of cats that like to scratch and dig. My daughter, however, thought that maybe a terrarium heater might work. When clearing out the shelves in my mother’s old bedroom, I did find a red heat bulb for chicks, but it’s a 500 watt bulb. We could get a terrarium bulb in black or blue, that’s 100 or 150 watts – or a no-light ceramic heater that screws in like a light bulb. Like this. (not an affiliate link) I think that would be much safer than some of the warming mats we’ve been looking at.
In fact, I just interrupted writing this post to ask my husband to find a ceramic heater type on Amazon Prime to order. This is not something we would be able to find locally.
Solution found! :-) I think the cats will be much happier with that. Since the cat house has three windows in it, they will still have daylight, or even moonlight, rather than being blinded. We still have a couple of sheets of rigid insulation we can add to the walls or under the roof.
Maybe not the walls. They like to use it as scratching posts! :-D
Meanwhile, we still need to replace the skid under it. When we do, we can move the whole thing a little bit closer to the house, to give the new extension cord some slack. I’ll also be picking up one of those waterproof cord protector boxes, since it will definitely end up buried in snow at some point.
I left the cat house plugged in last night, to see if the cats would use it while lit up. When I came out this morning, I didn’t see any cats in it – though I did see cats on it! :-D Unfortunately, looking through the window, I did see that the cats have been pooping in a corner. *sigh* That didn’t take long! :-(
This little baby looks ready to help me with the yard work!
She was actually hunting leaves blown around by the wind. :-D
I was actually able to pet her, Rosencrantz AND her brother this morning, while feeding them!
I’ve been calling this one Little Braveheart, but the girls have named her Tissue, because she looks like tissue paper blowing in the wind as she runs across the yard.
What do you thing? Braveheart or Tissue?
I’ve been calling her brother the oh-so-original “Tabby”, but the girls have been calling him Nostril, because he had one black nostril. I was telling my husband this, and he immediately went to “Nostril-damus.”
The inside orange babies watching an outside orange baby!
This little buggers snuck into the sun room behind my back and got closed up in it! It wasn’t until I came out to give the cats some treats that I heard her plaintive meowing. She had jumped into a tall box we use to hold long-handled tools. She wasn’t too happy with my trying to help her out and went into an absolute panic. She did let me give her treats, and later on, I was even able to pet her while she was eating, so I think I am forgiven. :-D
I don’t know what’s more remarkable. The fascinatingly symmetrical pattern of holes on this leaf – or the fact that, of the thousands of leaves surrounding me at the time, I spotted this one immediately!
It’s the time of year for tree ‘shrooms!
Aside from having to cut the part that was around the one cable, I was able to remove this abandoned wasp nest completely intact. It’s now sealed in a bucket in the sun room. There is no sign of any wasps in it. Where the cable went through, I could see empty egg cases. Even the dead wasp I’d seen in the opening seems to be gone; likely fallen in between layers of paper below the opening. In fact, the only living thing I saw while taking it down was the big !#%$! spider the crawled out the top when I cut it loose from the box!
I’m not bothered by spiders, but I admit, that did make me jump a bit! :-D
Creamsicle decided to come and play this morning. I think it’s pretty clear he’s a daddy! :-D
I suppose it also explains why Butterscotch lets him hang around, but will chase Potato Beetle away. I don’t know where she found the other daddies, but none of them were tabbies! :-D
While going through the trail cam files this morning, I was reminded of something I found hooked onto the chain of our gate when I got home, yesterday. A little card like would normally have been slipped over a door knob by a delivery person. The trail cam recorded the guy that left it. I’m pretty sure I saw the same car leaving my brother’s place as I was coming up the road. :-)
It was a notice, with contact information and a file number, that an aerial photo was taken of the property, if we were interested in buying it.
I intend to check it out!
We currently have an aerial photo of farm, framed and hanging in our entry for as long as I can remember. Some guy had flown around, taking pictures, then visited the farms and offering to sell them. This guy basically did the same thing.
The photo we currently have may well be older than me. Things have change quite a lot over the decades!
As you can imagine, I am very interested in getting a photo that was taken almost 2 generations later!
Last night, I came out of the house to find I had an audience, watching me. :-)
Very attentively!
When I came out this morning to refill their food containers, Braveheart came running right up to me – but not enough to let me pet her! :-D
Her brother, on the other hand, actually let me pet him!
His fur is soooo soft. :-D
Now, it would be because I had the scoop of food in my hands, and had just added some to the container – he was far more interested in the food than in me! When he did finally seem to notice I was petting him, he sort of moved away, but then went right back and let me pet him some more.
I honestly expected this level of progress with Braveheart, not Tabby!
