outside cats

Double-sided

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Most of the kittens are pretty easy to describe.  We’ve got the tuxedo, Doom Guy.  The grey tabby, Corvo.  Two orange tabbies, Jim and Bob.

Then there are the calicos.  Or are they torties?  Or something else entirely?

It doesn’t help that one of them is double-sided.

Here is Rosencrantz (or Guildenstern), side A.

20181021.kitten,sideA This is side B.  20181021.kitten,sideB

It’s like two different cats!  When I see her (him?) from this side, I sometimes mistake her for Corvo, until I see the bits of orange.

Today has turned out to be remarkably warm – 13C!  Well above the predicted high.

Time to go outside and enjoy it. :-D

The Re-Farmer

Gotta be careful!

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Seeing our furry visitors, it reminded me that, when I was out in the yard earlier in the day, I had noticed the cat kibble was almost gone.  So I decided to top it up for the night.

We keep the kibble in the Old Kitchen now, so those were the doors I went through.  The kittens were on the swing bench – 6 of them!  They seemed to know I had food with me, which made their responses to me rather funny.  There’s Doom Guy, who comes right up to me.  The cautious ones, like Jim and Bob, sortof hang around, but are still not comfortable with me coming close, even with a bowl of food.  Then there are the super shy ones, who are clearly torn between wanting the food they can see I have, and wanting to run away from me, at the same time!

As I went for the outer doors, however, they all dashed ahead of me and started for the bowls outside.

Just to be cautious, I looked around, and sure enough, there was our Pepe Le Pew, hanging out by the steps of the clothes line platform.  Making himself look big at me!

So I put the food out for the cats, then got some video.

Just so you know, I am NOT really that close to him.  This is zoomed in a bit.

Getting back through the sun room took a little more time than usual. ;-)

The Re-Farmer

Warm

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While checking around the yard, to see if any other branches came down during the gusts of high winds we had yesterday, I came to the remains of our straw bale.

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Beep Beep and her boy, taking advantage of something warmer than the ground! :-D

Smart kitties.

The Re-Farmer

Not sure how to fix this…

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While out and about this morning, the kittens were out in full force.  Including Doom Guy, who can’t seem to figure out that, if he wants me to pick him up, he has to be in FRONT of me, not behind…

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I’m going to have little puncture marks, all up the back of my legs, thanks to him. :-D

Yesterday, I was able to clean up the platform to the clothes line.  The line itself needs a bit of maintenance before we can use it.  A bit more, if we want to set up three lines again, instead of the one that’s left now.

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Whoever rebuilt this platform did a good job of it.

The original platform doubled as a dog house.  On the side, where the mock orange is growing now, there was an opening, and we kept it filled with straw for the dogs.  I even remember being able to crawl into it, myself, for some canine snuggles!

The cats can squeeze under the stairs.  At least, the smaller ones, can.  I don’t think Rolando Moon could fit through there.  Nor the skunk.

Of the stuff that was on the platform, I’ve only kept the bin, as a potential shelter for the cats in the winter, and a piece of eaves trough that I am wanting to re-purpose, but doens’t fit anywhere else right now.

I noticed, however, that there is stuff underneath, so I used my phone’s camera to see what it is.

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???

Why is any of that, there?

Who thought it was a good idea to shove it under there?

The only way for any of this to be there is by pushing it through the opening under the step.

How am I supposed to clean that up?

The Re-Farmer

Standoff!

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While working in my office this morning, our Mama cat started getting all agitated, and going up to the window.  That’s when I realized I was hearing a low growling noise from outside.

This is what we saw.

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It’s a dad-cat standoff!

No wonder our Mama wasn’t happy!

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I’ve never seen this cat before, though I think the girls have.

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This is the one that showed up in the sun room, one day. :-D

It should be interesting to see how things pan out with these two, over the winter!

The Re-Farmer

 

 

Birdwatching…

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Heading over to my crochet corner, I noticed something odd on the bird feeder.

At first, I thought it was Butterscotch.

Then it looked at me.

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Why, hello, Rosencrantz…

or Guildenstern.

All the birds were on the ground while she was up there, and she was VERY interested in watching them.

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Guildenstern (or Rosencrantz) wasn’t quite sure what to make of me.  Normally, she runs off as soon as any of us comes near.  Which means this is probably the best look at her I’ve ever gotten!

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Of course, as soon as she was on the ground, all the birds were on the feeder. :-D

Such a pretty kitty!

The Re-Farmer

A Day of Rest

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We try to keep Sundays as our day of rest.  It has been made easier by colder temperatures and a continuous, if light, snowfall.

Last night, I found a way to prop the doors into the sun room so we could let the kittens in overnight, but the skunk should not be able to squeeze in and leave a mess for us in the morning.

It seems to have worked, though I suppose we can’t really be sure that the skunk didn’t come in and out without us seeing.  All I can say for sure is, no “presents” on the floor for me to clean up!

20181014.feeding.time My husband wasn’t up to doing the cats this morning, so I took care of it.  Here are the moms, three of Butterscotch’s kittens, and one of Beep Beep’s, plus The Outsider.

I’m fascinated by the markings on Rosencrantz or Guildenstern.

Bob has filled out so much, he’s almost as big as Jim, now!

It seems the kittens have decided today is a day of rest, too!

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I’m not sure if this is 6 or 7 kittens.  There’s that ear behind Doom Guy’s back.  I can’t tell if it’s attached to The Outsider or not. :-D

I am appreciating being able to rest today, as tomorrow is going to be a long one for me.  I will be taking my mother to a follow up appointment for her surgery at the smaller, slightly closer, city.  Then I plan to go to the RCMP and file a report about the vandalism on our lock.  Whoever is doing it may think it’s just a nasty trick to play on us, but this is a potential safety issue, if we ever had to evacuate suddenly.  There’s nothing the police can do at this point, but as long as there’s a file, there will be a past record, for when it happens again.

What a pain.

The Re-Farmer

Settling in, little by little

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I did my rounds around the yard this evening, and it’s really something to see how everything is settling in for the winter.

While I have been fighting those invasive vines all over the place all summer, there is one area where I am keeping them.  They are, after all, quite pretty, when under control!  They have gone to seed, now, and are all covered with lovely little puffs.

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I spent some time going around the yard, picking up the fallen branches, and going through where I cleaned things up in the maple grove.

When talking to my family about what I was finding, I mentioned the rows of trees that were planted too close together, with many dying because of it, and how I wanted to eventually transplant the three poor little tamarack trees.  One family member told me to just cut them down to give the other trees space.

Nope!  Not going to do that.  I really want to save these trees.

This is one of the reasons why.

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They turn a most glorious golden yellow in the fall!

In the future, I would really love to plant more of them!

It’s not unusual, when I make my way through the yard, for me to have a cat follow me.  That’s typically when Rolando Moon makes an appearance.  Otherwise, it’s Beep Beep or Butterscotch.

Today, I had two cats following me!

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Beep Beep and her boy!

Later, my younger daughter helped me move some leaf piles onto the flower garden by the Old Kitchen.  The girls have been raking the grass, but with the latest drop of leaves, it’s rather yard to tell in some places! :-D  We are starting to use the leaves as mulch in different areas as well as adding more to the garden – and that’s without doing any raking at all in between the trees!  Those will be left to decompose where they are.  We’ll just stay on top of picking up fallen branches in those areas.

Earlier today, we made a trip into town to get some prescription refills.  When they were ready, the pharmacist went through the three bottles with me.  There was supposed to be four, however.  So she went back to check what happened.  It turned out that, for some reason, the insurance wasn’t coming up to cover that one at all.  They figured it was a glitch in the system.

They ended up giving me the refill, without charging us for it now.  When I come back in about a week, for some other refills, they will charge us for it then.

Which kinda blows me away.

When we had issues with insurance, shortly after moving here, the Costco pharmacy my husband had set up with wanted to charge him full price. We didn’t even know there was a problem until they wanted some $400, when we should only have been paying $40 or so.  It was a most frustrating experience, and my husband went without some of his medications for a long time before the mess was fixed – and then even longer, because the fix put him at the wrong rate, which meant we still couldn’t afford it.

I’m rather glad we are with this pharmacy, now!

One of the benefits of going with a small town pharmacy, instead of one in the city!

Something to be thankful for, for sure!

The Re-Farmer

A lovely day

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Today is officially Thanksgiving, so I will happily say again, Happy Thanksgiving!  I hope my Canadian visitors had a wonderful holiday weekend, with lots of food and family – or a lovely, quiet, non-party weekend, like we did!

Since we did our celebrating yesterday, and today was a fairly pleasant day, we were able to get some work done outside.  The girls were able to rake up lots more leaves to layer on the flower garden by the Old Kitchen, which I’m pretty excited about.  Lots of lovely organic matter! :-D

We are going to have to stop keeping the sun room doors propped open overnight.  More turd bombs were discovered this morning, plus something chewed a hole in the bottom of the open back of cat kibble.  Most likely the skunk, we think.  We did end up still leaving the door open during the day.  Which makes looking out the bathroom window something to look forward to!

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I was called over to see this adorable pile of fluff, and while I was taking photos through the bathroom window screen, I started getting called to look out the living room window, to see a deer!

It was under the crab apple trees, looking for apples, and we did get some photos with the DSLR.  I will upload those tomorrow to see how they turned out.  Unfortunately, I did not manage to get a photo of the deer standing up on its hind legs, trying to reach the apples on the tree!

After a while, it slowly wandered away down the garden, and we couldn’t see it anymore.  However, when I went into the master bedroom, I found I was able to see it through the maple grove.  As I stood watching it, I suddenly saw a second one, going through the trees and heading towards the house!

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I was able to get a few photos through the screen of the west facing window.  This one was also going under the crab apple and plum trees, looking for fallen fruit.

So beautiful!

After the deer left, I went to work on the sun room.  Most of the kittens took off when I came in through the Old Kitchen.  Doom Guy, however, managed to dash in before I could close the door!

Good thing the inside door to the rest of the house was closed!

I started taking things out of the sun room so I could clean the floor.  In the process, I have come to the conclusion that the turd bombs are not from the cats, but from the skunk.

After I got the mess cleaned up, washed the floor and transferred the cat kibble from the bag with a hole into a bucket, I sat outside to clean my late father’s wheelchair with a disinfectant cleaner while the floor dried.

When I was able to start putting things back inside, I found the sun room occupied already.

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Doom Guy is such a cutie!  He even let me pick him up and sit for a while with him cuddled in my arms.

Later on, I found him back again – this time with company!

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Corvo is letting me come closer, but still won’t let me pet him.

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Adorable brothers!!!

After all was finished and we were settling in for the evening, I found out about a legendary raid – Mewtwo – in Pokemon Go that was happening in town.  My daughter and I have not been able to do one yet, so we decided to head into town and join the raid.

When I came out the door, I was immediately set upon by Doom Guy.  As I picked him up to cuddle, I saw we had company…

20181008.skunk

He’s back!

(In fact, he’s back right now.  I can hear him under my office window, knocking the metal food bowls around, as I write this!)

Before we left he dashed into the sun room.

*sigh*

Well, it’s now closed up for the night, so hopefully, no more turd bombs!

The Re-Farmer