outside cats

Good news… mostly?

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Okay, we are back from town, and were done with the truck way earlier than expected.

As we pulled into the parking lot at the garage, we saw a truck pulling out and leaving. Then we found the doors locked! It turned out we had just watched the owner leaving to drop someone off. Which was fine. We were about 40 minutes early for the appointment.

I messaged our contact with the rescue to let her know we had arrived and were waiting for the owner of the garage to come back. She messaged back right away, suggesting she come over right then. She had just arrived at work and was only 2 minutes away.

Of course, I said yes!

Then the owner returned. I went in to talk to him while my daughter waited outside, then helped the woman from the rescue load donated cat food into the truck box. None of which I could see from where I was standing inside.

I described to the owner what I was seeing on the gauge, even as we drove to the garage, compared to what we were seeing for weeks after our last oil change, which included an engine flush and the third oil sensor replacement. It had been working just fine after that. I explained how the readings started changing after a while, first only when we made a trip to the city, little by little. There was the direct correlation with engine temperature, which I monitored during the drive in.

After they were done loading the truck, he drove it into the shop and started testing it – well before our actual appointment time.

While he was getting ready to hook up his physical mechanical oil pressure gauge to test it, my daughter told me about the ear mite medications and where she tucked them away, and that she’d made sure to set the biggest cat food bags centered over the axle to distribute the weight. I quickly popped open the tail gate to take a look and was totally amazed!!!

There was SO much in there!

Of course, I messaged the women from the rescue to thank her again.

It wasn’t until later that I realized the larger bags my daughter was talking about were not the 9kg size we typically see, but two 40 pound bags of a brand we buy from the feed store in the town north of us. !!!!! You can just barely see one of them in the shadows in the first photo above.

We had expected that the garage would hang on to the truck for a while, and we’d get a ride into town, but that didn’t happen. We sat outside in the sun for a while, then popped into the waiting room when it started getting too hot. My daughter had brought her knitting bag and worked on one of the ankle socks she’s making for me while we waited.

They worked on the truck, revving the engine at times, testing it out. After a while, the owner came back and got on his computer for a bit, then got a printout to show us, which I got to keep.

What it came down to is that yes, our oil pressure is slightly lower than “normal”, however, it is within range. I told him flat out that, after all the problems we’ve had, I don’t know what “normal” is anymore, so he told me where, on the gauge itself, I should expect to see it. Then we talked about how that can change based on things like temperature (winter is going to show higher than summer), and even just age and wear and tear on the engine.

There is nothing else to show why that pressure would be that small amount lower, so he wants to change our oil to something thicker. He asked if I could come back tomorrow, and we can, so that’s now booked for tomorrow afternoon. As he was starting to remove his pressure tester, I remembered to ask him to change out our burnt headlight bulb – I’d bought a new bulb weeks ago, but we were never able to get it done ourselves, for various reasons. So he quickly did that for us.

The whole thing was done, and it wasn’t even noon, yet.

When I asked about paying, he told me he’ll give me a total after I come back tomorrow and he does the oil change. We both forgot about the check engine light, but the oil change with a new filter might actually fix that. I did remember to text him about it shortly after we left.

My daughter hadn’t had breakfast before we left, planning to take me out for breakfast after being dropped off in town. So the first thing we did was go for lunch. After that, we walked over to the dollar store, as I was looking for some specific things for the Christmas ornaments I wanted to work on. I ended up not finding anything, but my daughter found several small things she picked up.

From there, it was a stop at the pharmacy, where my daughter was a sweetheart and quickly ran in with the signed consent form they needed for my new pain meds. My husband had asked me to pick up a couple of things at the grocery store, and my daughters had their own shopping list, so that was our next stop.

Normally, I would have put some gas in the tank at that point, but I didn’t want to do that until after the truck was done and paid for. So that will wait until tomorrow.

By the time we were heading home, I remembered that we needed to stop at the post office, too. We are expecting several important letters, and one of them was there today. My older daughter now has a time for her appointment that was rescheduled to early November, along with the date they were able to give her right away.

I still haven’t received a call about my own biopsy I was supposed to get at the end of the month. The one I was supposed to receive before the weekend. If I don’t get a call by tomorrow, I’ll call the clinic that referred me and let them know.

That done, we got home and unloaded at the house. After bringing in the groceries, assembly line style, we started bringing in the donated cat stuff.

Then I got some pictures of what we got, which are the rest of the images in the slide show above, though I had already emptied two small bags that were torn, into the kibble bin for the inside cats. The 40 pound bags and two boxes of cat milk went straight to the old kitchen, so they were not included in the photos.

One bag had nothing but cat treat. So many cat treats!!! Another had more cat treats, plus three small bags of freeze dried chicken catfood, plus several loose little cartons of cat milk. There was a freezer bag of loose kibble, plus a slightly bigger bag of kibble that were on the side.

The last bag I went through had a couple of larger bags of kibble, a smaller one that was partially used and taped shut, and some canned cat food – and even more bags of cat treats!! I also started finding some strange little individual packets that were loose among the treat bags. I found the package they’d fallen out of and found out they are pill pockets.

With so many bags of dry treats like that, we should start mixing some in with their kibble feedings.

Which is what I can do next, as it’s getting time to feed the outside cats.

We did come home to a problem, though. Something is wrong with our toilet. It had gotten clogged, which seemed to be cleared, but now it’s slow flushing. We’ve checked the basement and there’s no sign of problems at the drains to the septic tank, though we’re due to run the hose through and flush it, anyhow.

But not right now.

I’m going outside to feed some kitties.

The Re-Farmer

We pet the baby!

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My daughter came in from doing the morning feeding of the outside cats, so very excited!

She was able to pet the shrine baby. The single older kitten – who has started to come to the house, not just eating at the shrine feeding station!

What my daughter noted was that if she made eye contact with the kitten, it ran away – but if she faced another direction, it came back to the food bowl. Then she came back with the cat soup. It moved away, so she just crouched down near the bowl, looking in another direction.

While the kitten was eating, my daughter was able to reach out and pet it – and she let her! She even got an elevator butt response, while the kitten kept eating soup.

The kitten’s fur, my daughter told me, was astonishingly soft.

I was not doing very well today and ended up going back to bed. While I was down, my younger daughter headed out to start clearing and cleaning the sun room. This is something that needs to be done in stages, and it a huge and filthy job, since we were never able to get a spring cleaning done. She got some cat shelves out and cleared about a quarter of the room to bare floor, before she stopped for the day.

Unfortunately, I never got to see my brother and SIL before they had to leave. It turned out to be a good day for repairs. When he went to move his old pick up truck to move it and the trailer still attached, it wouldn’t start. After checking it over, he thought it might be the starter and was prepared to have it towed to our usual garage. Today, however, he thought of something else to try and it worked. He was able to do some other repairs, move the antique dump truck back onto the concrete blocks it had rolled off of, and even was able to check on the riding mower and get it working. It turned out that something was stuck, and nothing had actually broken. phew!

This evening, I decided I was well enough to do the outside cat feeding. Mostly because I needed to get outside and get some fresh air. Today is the 20th, so I was also hoping I’d be up to doing garden tour videos.

All the food trays that had been in the sun room are currently spread out on the grass near the cat shelters, since the sun room is being cleaned out. While setting the kibble out, I spotted the lone kitten.

So I tried what my daughter tried. I can’t crouch, but I could stand nearby and look the other way, until the kitten came back to the tray to eat. Without looking directly at her, I was able to slowly bend down and touch her.

She let me!

I didn’t stay for long, though. We don’t do cat soup for the evening feeding, but I do add a couple of little cartons of the donated cat milk (we’re on the last case that was given to us) spread out among various trays. I did only trays near the house, since we want to encourage the little one to stay close by.

She came back to the tray with Fancy Pants, whom she seems to get along with, and started eating again.

This time, I was able to pet her more.

She even started to purr!!!

After a while I went to put things away when I heard a noise. A little skunk had come running and pushed itself onto the tray, shoving the kitten aside, startling Fancy Pants away, and started eating greedily. I scooted it away a couple of times before it left. I don’t mind them finishing off the kibble, but I want the cats to have a chance to eat, first!

After the cat feeding, I walked around a bit before going back inside and weighed in on how I felt. I decided to go ahead and do the garden tour videos. I haven’t gone over them yet, so I’ll see if I end up making new ones tomorrow or not.

Tomorrow, we take the truck in and I will be away until it’s ready to take home again. That’s partly way I made sure to get as much bed rest as possible today. My husband will make sure to keep the phone handy, as I never got the call from the cancer clinic in the city on Thursday or Friday, as we were told to expect. It means not much will get accomplished. My daughter will be coming with me, just in case I need help or need her to drive home when we get the truck back.

For now, I’m just happy we finally got to pet the lonely baby!

The Re-Farmer

Weighing in, and hardy survivors

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Well, we finally managed it.

We weighed all the cats.  All 21 of them.

Sort of.

The only way we could do it was to have my daughter stand on the digital scale to get her weight, then weigh her while holding a cat and doing the math.

The problem with that is, the digital scales reading changes based on how the feet are positioned, how you might be leaning while standing, or even what part of the floor it’s on.  When my husband came over and I mentioned this, he tried getting on the scale.

My husband has no balance.

He wobbled so much, the numbers never settled, and the scale turned itself off to no display at all, like it does after you step off the scale. !!!

So we got estimates.

I’m both surprised and not surprised that Leyendecker turned out to be the heaviest at 30 pounds. 

He’s not just a fat cat.  He’s a tank.  He’s got a skull almost as big as a softball.  Hard to believe he was the smallest of his litter!

The lightest cat was Susan, at only 7 pounds.

I passed the numbers on to someone at the rescue.   We will be able to buy ear mite medication through them.  The kind that’s applied to the skin between the shoulders, since treating the ear canals hasn’t been working well.  When it doesn’t take for just one cat, they all end with getting the mites again. We will work out getting the medication after the truck is looked at, on Monday.

Later today, I was able to head outside with the girls.  While one daughter did the evening cat feeding, the other helped me with the washed cat blankets and beds, before we got the rain expected tonight.  Some were dry, but most were too thick to be fully dry yet.  The damp ones all got laid out under the canopy tent, most on the wire mesh curing frame, to continue drying.   Hopefully, we’ll get more sunny days to set them out in, to dry and bleach in the sun.

That done, I stayed out to check the garden beds.  It’s surprising to see how much survived the one night that reached freezing temperatures!

Those (wild? Alpine?) strawberries are amazingly hardy.  There are still loads of tiny berries, and they are still blooming.

Even more surprising is how well the tomatoes that could not be covered are doing. Especially the Orange Currant tomatoes.

The California Wonder bell peppers were covered the night it reached 0C, and are getting quite red.

I’ll have to look it up, but I was sure they were supposed to be a yellow pepper.  😄

I took a closer look at some of the sunflowers, brushing dried petals off so I could see the developing seeds.  The seed heads are all very small for the varieties, but it does look like there may be viable seeds.

After checking on things, I  grabbed the loppers to prune dead and dying branches from the pink rose bush in the old kitchen garden.  They are insanely thorny, but I was able to use the loppers to move the pruned branches aside, for the girls to clear away tomorrow.

While I was working on that, my brother and SIL arrived for the weekend, and I got to talk to them for a bit before finishing the pruning.  I really enjoy spending time with them.

Overall, today was a good day.  I was even up to making a quick run to the post office by myself.  I didn’t start having pain creeping up until shortly before my evening meds alarm went off.  It’s been getting worse since then, and I’m currently writing this while in bed, rather twisted up to find the least painful position.  It’s not too bad… yet?  We shall see.

One thing about the new dose and variation of painkiller.  It makes me sleepy.  My sister happened to call only a minute past my meds alarm going off.  I had meant to lie down right away, but we spoke for a while.  I ended up having to say goodbye, before I dozed off and dropped the phone!

Of course, now that I’m finally lying down, the sleepiness has passed. 😒

Not that it’s anything to complain about.  Just something to work around.

Anyhow.  I’m mostly really happy that we got the cats weighed as best we could.  It’s been delayed for too long!

The Re-Farmer

Well, crud

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I did the evening cat feeding today, before checking on the garden.

We’ve had so many cats disappearing, but sometimes coming back, I have been asking my daughter which ones she sees when she does the morning feeding. Sprout and her daughter Sprig, the two calicos, were ones I have not been seeing much at all, though Colby, Sprig’s brother, has become quite socialized and stays near the house.

Colby is very happy to stay nearby and often begs for pets.

My daughter had been telling me she has sometimes seen Sprout – and yesterday mentioned that she’s looking pregnant.

This evening, I saw a calico. It was not Sprout. It was Sprig.

And yes, she looks pregnant.

Sprout and Sprig look very much alike; especially as Sprig got older, and can be hard to tell apart. I’m starting to think Sprout has disappeared completely, as we’re only seeing the one calico.

She is quite feral, unfortunately. Not quite as much as Sprout, in that she will sometimes come into the sun room looking for food.

*sigh*

I am not sure how to get her. We need to get that white and grey kitten that’s left, of course. That kitten is also Sprout’s, making her Colby and Sprig’s baby sister.

I’ve put the wire trap with a back door inside the catio as something to get used to, and the other one that’s the same size but doesn’t have a back door on the table under the canopy. They are just open, not set, so cats can go in and out freely. I’ve not put bait in them. I really don’t want to use those traps because we are far more likely to get a skunk or some other cat than Sprig. Sprig prefers to eat on the tray under the water bowl shelter, where there is no room for any sort of trap at all.

This is so frustrating. We were finally able to get the 6 kittens to the rescue today! Now we have another cat that’s pregnant, very late in the season. We need to get her. If she has those kittens, they will not survive the winter.

Crud.

The Re-Farmer

We got them!!!!

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More specifically, my daughter got them. My job was to distract Sweetie as much as I could.

While doing the morning feeding, none of the shrine feeding station bowls were filled. Just a small two-part food bowl inside the big carrier. Once that had cat soup in it, it wasn’t long before the littles were in there – though for a while, not even the fishing lure cat toy could keep Sweetie from trying to push her way in.

Then all three kittens were in and my daughter simply closed the door. They didn’t even freak out. We got the carrier inside as I messaged the rescue and sent them this picture.

We were able to leave almost immediately. After getting the carrier into the truck, my daughter ran back to get her meds while I opened the gate. She didn’t even change out of her pajamas.

They were completely quiet for the entire ride. When we got there and my daughter took the carrier out, she found the three of them mashed onto the crochet mat, one asleep, one blearily looking up at her.

Transferring them over didn’t go as well. We forgot that the carrier opens from the top again, and the rescue worker tried reaching in through the door. One of the tabbies got out – the most skittish one we almost caught before but let go before she broke her teeth biting at the carrier door. She had three dewormer syringes ready. The escapee ended up under a dresser, so she went for the others. The first one, she got a good grip on (while wearing a scratch proof glove) and was able to administer the dewormer before putting it in the kennel cage with its siblings we brought on the weekend. The second was was harder to grab, but I was able to administer the dewormer while she held it, then got it in the cage.

She had to move the dresser to get at the escapee but, of course, it ran off and into a closet, climbing up another cage like Spiderman, terrifying a mostly feral cat that was lying on top, and eventually scooting down between the side and the closet wall. The rescue worker was able to get it with the gloved hand while my daughter helped by grabbing a blanket to hold the kitten. It was very loud and upset! The rescue worker finally got a good grip and I was able to quickly administer the dewormer, then into the cage it went.

The three we brought earlier were doing very well. She’s been able to pick them up and hold them, which is huge! They were confirmed male. Today they were ready to go to a foster and probably still will, though it’ll be harder for her to get them out of the cage and into a carrier with the other three in there. They did, at least, start calming down while we talked.

We are now down to one kitten. The older singleton (confirmed female). I suspect that one will be a spay and return, but we shall see.

The main thing is, the littles are all caught! They will stay with the rescue until they are old enough to get fixed, and will get all the usual vetting and tests, before going up for adoption. Being as young as they are, they are far more likely to be adopted. Few people are willing to adopt adult cats or older kittens, no matter how well socialized. 😢

I am so happy they are finally all in!!!

The Re-Farmer

Morning kittens and a birthday visit

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This morning, I headed out with my daughter while she did the morning feeding. We were hoping to catch some more kittens for the rescue.

The kittens are definitely more comfortable around my daughter, and were willing to come over for cat soup while she was right there, and she was able to pet them. When she tried picking them up to put in the waiting carrier, though, that was too much. These kittens are a lot more skittish than the ones we took in yesterday.

Sweetie, of course, didn’t help much!

After a while, my daughter and I talked about it and decided it would be better to wait. We made sure to leave the big cat carrier out, door open, so they could go in and out as they pleased and not find it scary. The white and grey singleton also came out, but it’s even more nervous that the littles.

We will try again tomorrow – if the weather holds. We’re supposed to get heavy rain in our area overnight and all day tomorrow. It’s supposed to be worse to the south of us, and the city is getting flash flood warnings, so we shall see.

Once inside and having breakfast, I remembered to tell my brother about the chainsaw mill. He would have seen it by now, but I wanted him to know that he was welcome to use it at any time, since it’ll be a while before I am able to. While we were chatting, I mentioned my plans to go into town to buy a birthday card and visit out mother, since I wasn’t able to do it yesterday.

He was planning to visit our mother today, too, so he offered to drive me in his car, which was very sweet of him. I had enough time to head outside again to move some hoses, as my SIL said she wanted to mow the inner yard for me, then I picked some Orange Currant tomatoes and even a few Blueberry tomatoes for my mother. I figured she make snarky comments about them being so small, but thought she would still enjoy them.

We dove out in their recently acquired electric car, and there’s a charging station almost across the street from the nursing home, so we went there to top the charge up, then walked over to the dollar store, half a block away. I found a card but decided against looking for the other stuff I had been thinking of on this trip. My brother had already brought a card last weekend, but found an actual 95th Birthday card and got it for her, too. Then we walked over to his car to fill the cards out inside.

We had brought my walker along and, by then, I felt that I was going to need it, so he got it out for me and we headed in. It was coming up on lunch time, but my mother was asleep in bed when we got there. Once she was awake enough to realize we were there for a visit, she got up and moved to her corner chair.

The visit was… draining.

My mother almost immediately went at my brother, going on about how she wanted a “good” radio – she simply will not accept that the station she wants to listen to cannot be picked up in her room, and insists the problem is the “junk” radio. My brother had not intended to tell her yet, but he ended up explaining that he did get her an internet radio, like she asked for, and had spent the last week setting it up. She can’t understand any of it, but when she gets it, she’ll only need to push a button to get a Polish radio station. It was not easy, since the one station she wants doesn’t broadcast online like most others. It took him 4 days to figure out how to get their website stream connected to the radio. It was just that one station that was an issue, but none of it was easy. The next step is to activate the new internet that was installed in her room. He tried to explain all this, but she kept interrupting him and complaining.

The rest of the visit did not get any better.

She mostly dismissed the cards we got her. She mocked the tiny tomatoes, then was wondering where her garlic was. She had asked for a bulb of garlic, which my sister had brought, but apparently it wasn’t good garlic (small?). Then she asked me if I had garlic in the garden. I told her no, it’s harvested. She glared at me, asking why. I told her, it’s September. It’s all harvested. She then went to talking about how my sister and her husband eat garlic every day, and that’s why they are so healthy, so she wants garlic.

My sister and her husband are not that healthy.

Then she went on about how she’s gained weight (she hasn’t; she has water retention and bloating) because they feed her too much and keep “pushing” snacks, and “they” put chemicals in food and that’s why she’s gaining weight and why people are getting cancer. She’s cutting our beef and pork, convinced it’s the cause of her “stomach problems”. Then she started talking about something she saw on the news (she doesn’t have a TV, so I’m guessing in one of the common rooms?), except she was clearly combing two completely different things into one, but that’s why everyone is dying of cancer. ??? Then she started on how, after she’s gone, she wants my brother, sister and I to all get along and not fight and push each other away – clearly she had imagined some sort of scenario and believes it happening or will happen, or… I don’t know, but she was making a big deal of it. Not the first time, though the first time she assumed we were behaving a particular way. Then my brother mentioned she’s used our sister for something (he didn’t even try to cover how badly she had stabbed him in the back and broke his heart in the process) and I mentioned she has specifically told our sister to keep it a secret from us, pointing out that she is the only one doing things like that.

It went over her head.

On and on it went, until someone came in with her lunch. We helped her set up with her table and tray to eat, then my brother said he and I would be going out for lunch now, leaving her to eat.

I think we were there for maybe half an hour.

My brother is a saint. I would have left much earlier. Mind you, by then the pain killers were wearing off and I had very little patience in me.

We did not go out for lunch. Neither of us had the energy for it.

Once at home, I had to pretty much lie down right away and my brother, being my brother, had many projects to work on. Later, he said that with all the manual labour he did over the next few hours, none left him as tired as that half hour or so with my mother! I’m glad we were able to go in together. If it had been just him, she would have been much worse. *sigh*

I eventually made it outside again, too, and get into the garden, but that will be in my next post.

See you there…

The Re-Farmer

We got three!

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Finally!

When my daughter came in after feeding the outside cats, she told me she was able to pet ALL SIX of the little kittens. They were too interested in cat soup to run away.

We ended up going outside together to see if we could get any. My daughter was able to use the “fishing lure” toy to get the braver kittens closer to me, next to a cat carrier. It took some doing, because Sweetie kept very enthusiastically going for the lure, bowling right over kittens in the process.

The two braver ones – the ones I’ve been able to touch before – came out to play. The tuxedo, first. Once it was close enough, I was able to scoop it up and into the largest carrier that can open from the top. A while longer, and we were able to get the tabby in as well. They were not happy, but they didn’t freak out, which was encouraging!

The other kittens were more interested in playing with each other on the junk pile side of the fence, so my daughter had me sit on the old tractor tire with a carrier next to me, staying still, while she tried to lure a kitten over. Sweetie was a real problem. Even when I got another fishing lure toy to use as a distraction, she wanted that fuzzy orange lure! A kitten started to go into the opening of the carrier, following the lure, and I was able to get it the rest of the way in and close the door.

We actually ended up releasing it. It was so panicked, we were afraid it would hurt itself and break off some teeth on the door.

I let the rescue chat group know right away. I knew people had been available earlier in the week, but nothing about the weekend – forgetting that it’s a long weekend until yesterday! One person was out of town completely, others were working or had stuff scheduled.

Eventually, one of them asked if I could drop them off at her place in a beach town to the south east of us. I’ve done that before, so I said yes. They were still looking for someone to meet up with me earlier, but I let them know the kittens were all right. I had brought the carrier into the house and onto my bed. Inside cats started sniffing around immediately, which seemed to calm the kittens down.

We had already put a small container with cat soup in with them. I added a folded up puppy pad at the door and was able to add a shallow water bowl with the food bowl at the back. After a while, I salvaged a crochet project I was unable to finish because the cats kept digging it and the yarn out, no matter how well I tucked it away. It was just a flat rectangle at this stage. The last row I was working on had been undone completely, so I cut the yarn, sewed in the ends, then folded it so it fit across the middle of the carrier, between the pee pad and the food and water bowls.

Each time I reached into the carrier, I moved to pet them, and they let me. They didn’t like it, but they let me! Later, when I stuck my finger through the door, the tabby started to lick and gently chomp on it!

As time went on and we were still waiting on when we could get them to the rescue, my painkillers were starting to wear off and I had to lie down. I moved the carrier so that I could see the kittens through the carrier door. Then I found a YouTube video on my phone of kittens purring and set that up near the carrier door.

It wasn’t long after that was set up that I got a notification. The sounds stopped while I checked the message, but I could still hear purring.

That was when I let them know that the kittens were doing very well, so there was no urgency in finding someone to meet me for them earlier. We settled on dropping them off at 3:45. By the time we got that settled, I was able to take my next painkiller dose and lay down again with the purring noises going again.

I fell asleep to the sound of both recorded kittens and carrier kittens purring!

My daughter and I decided on leaving at 3, for a 3:45 drop off. At about 2:30, my daughter went out to try and get more kittens.

She got one!

She put one of the kibble soup bowls into the carrier for it to have something to eat. It crawled into the bowl and stayed in it, the whole time!

She did try to get more, but we had to head out, so we settled on the three. I made sure to let the rescue group know, and that we were on the way. We took the “longer” route to the address to avoid highway construction and gravel roads. We got there early, but not by much.

The rescue lady had a cat kennel ready for them. She has several of them around her house, with one of them holding a newly trapped feral who was staring at us with frightened eyes – but did allow her to reach in and scritch it’s neck and cheek! Mostly, it was too scared to move, to be honest.

The transfer of kittens went very well. She asked some questions about their temperament. They are feral, but “friendly” feral. Not terrified feral, or angry feral. If they are calm enough, they will go to a foster in another town for socialization, vetting and eventual spays/neuters before going for adoption. If they are too feral, they will stay with her. There are no fosters available that can/will handle feral cats. She’s the only one.

We need our own Furball Farm Cat Sanctuary so badly!!!

Meanwhile, we will keep trying for the others. Sweetie is turning out to be our biggest hurdle in this! Once we get the remaining three little kittens, we’re pretty sure we’ll have an easier time of getting the white and grey singleton, and they will take that one, too. It wants to play and have company so much! The older cats would chase it away but when the little kittens started going to the junk pile, they happily played together. It will be incredibly lonely with all the littles gone. As we were driving out, my daughter said she was considering laying a blanket on the grass, with a carrier nearby, a book and some cat toys. She’s sure the white kitten will come over to check her out if she does.

Unfortunately, the skunks probably will, too!

So that is done! We are down three kittens. Chatting with the group, one of them said we need to get the mother spayed and I had to remind them that the mother has disappeared. Right now, the only females we have left that I know of are Sprout and Sprig, the two calicos. I saw Sprig today, but haven’t seen Sprout in a while. There is a long haired grey tabby the girls call Munchkin that I thought was female, but I’m not sure. There was a mostly feral long haired grey confirmed female, but it might be among the cats that have gone missing this summer. The only reason why I think Munchkin isn’t female is because it didn’t get pregnant this summer – but then, neither did Sprig. The rest are all fixed, except a couple of males that still need to be neutered. Two or three for sure, depending on whether Munchkin is male or female.

It’s been a long, hard road, over many years, and we needed so much help, but the numbers are finally down. That some are gone most likely because of coyotes is not good, but there really isn’t anything we can do about that, unless we build a big catio and shed for all the outside cats. That would keep the raccoons and skunks out of their food and water, too, but it would mean no more rodent control. Just this morning, as I was taking the carrier with the two kittens to the house, I saw Pinky crossing the yard with a big mouse in her mouth! Such a good kitty!!

I miss Adam. And Havarti. And Judgement. And Slick. And Domino…

*sigh*

Thankfully, these kittens have won the lottery, though they don’t know it yet. At this age, they will be much easier to adopt out.

We just need to get the rest of them, hopefully over the next few days! I’ll be going outside with my daughter in the mornings for the next while, as that seems to be the time when they are all hungry enough to come close to my daughter.

She has become quite the cat whisperer!!

The Re-Farmer

Birthday treat and playing with bebbies

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Today was quiet, for the most part. We’re all pretty drained, exhausted and fighting different kinds of pain.

I’m incredibly frustrated. The weather and temperatures are absolutely ideal for working outside, and I can do next to none of it.

I never took the hydromorphone my husband gave me, last night. I waited until I was more confident that I had no T3s left in my system and, by then, the pain had subsided on its own. I wasn’t about to take such a high dose without genuine need. When my 6 hour alarm went off during the night, when I would normally have taken more T3s, I wasn’t even dealing with a lot of pain in my hip, so I skipped it. In the morning, there was just a dull ache. This time, I took a tramadol instead.

It made no difference.

Aside from my daughter doing the morning routine outside for me, we mostly just took it easy. We did have a planned outing, though. My husband has a birthday this month and my older daughter treated us to his dinner of choice. Normally, that would be pizza, but he can no longer tolerate dairy, even with Lactase, so he chose Chinese food, instead. With this, we typically order just a lot of meat and seafood, with my husband also getting some chicken fried rice. We order enough to last us a couple of days, at least, which got us some free rice and deep fried wontons, and we prefer to do our own vegetables at home. This time, my older daughter baked the last of the bush beans and summer squash we had in the fridge, which was quite delicious.

My younger daughter and I headed out shortly before 1, to miss the lunch rush and to pick up a 40 pound bag of kibble on the way out. We both were thinking today was Tuesday, though. It’s Wednesday, which means the general store closed at noon. We’ll have to go tomorrow, instead. Which is fine.

When we got to the area around the restaurant, we had to drive around the block a couple of times trying to find parking. There was nothing nearby at all, and we ended up parking closer to the marina. I wasn’t even sure it that area was public parking, or parking for boat owners.

By this point, I was having trouble walking, but still well enough that I turned down a cane when my daughter offered to get one out of our collection in the back of the truck for me. We placed the order and paid for it, then set a pick up time long enough for us to make a side trip to the grocery store. We wanted to pick up drinks for everyone, but ended up getting a Boston Creme cake that was on sale, even though there is still a bit of the Costco slab cake left. I noticed some good sales on grapes and a few other things, so my daughter and I also picked what we needed to have a small charcuterie later on, to go with the new cheeses we got in the city. By the time the groceries were paid for, I was relying on the cart to use as a walker.

When we got back to the restaurant, there still wasn’t any parking nearby, so I dropped my daughter off by the door then pulled over in the lane around the corner. After she got back with the food, I had to ask her to do the driving. My alarm had gone off for my afternoon T3 dose just as we returned to the truck after ordering the food, but it made no difference. The pain just kept getting worse.

It has since subsided again, and I’m down to a dull ache. Tomorrow, my Percocet gets delivered. I’m really hoping that works better than the T3s. If it doesn’t, then I’ll probably end up with my own prescription for hydromorphone – just not as high a dose as what my husband is getting!

After we enjoyed our first day of birthday take out, I felt well enough to go outside and do the cat feeding. I even watered the south garden beds, though I wasn’t up to doing the main garden area, too. After a couple of hours, I went out again to top up the kittens’ bowl of kibble softened with cat milk in the catio, since other critters have been stealing their food. Then I set up the camp chair and started fishing for kittens.

The little black one with the white stripe up the side of its nose is more enthusiastic about it. One of the tabbies got curious and started coming over, but not close. The other kittens were much more interested in playing among the white lilacs.

The Grink wasn’t interested this time, but Sweetie sure was! At one point, she was stalking the lure at the same time as the kitten, but she does not like the kittens at all. Without the distraction of the lure, she growls and spits at them, and I’ve even seen her bat at them.

I did manage to get the little black one close enough that I could reach down and touch its back, but it did not like that, so I didn’t push my luck with it.

Then my alarm went off for my evening meds, so I headed back inside.

Tomorrow and the day after, there are people from the rescue available to meet up with us, so I’ve talked to my daughter about working on getting kittens closed up into the carrier. That will mean heading out fairly often to see if they’ve gone in, and maybe setting some treats out as bait. Hard to do that and keep the other cats away, though. Thankfully, the rescue have us quite a lot of donated treats, including some just for kittens, so we could probably set out some for the bigger cats as a distraction, then put the kitten treats out for the little ones.

I pray for quick success on this! With their mother gone, there’s only so much we can do to protect them. We really need to get them in to the rescue for fostering and adoption! Otherwise, their chances of survival are very low. At this point, it even looks like Sprout and Sprig, the two calicos, are gone! Sprout had Sprig last year, along with two others that disappeared. The older white and grey that we are also trying to catch is Sprout’s from this year, and I am sure she actually had more than one kitten.

We have had so many adult cats disappear this year. We would expect that with some of the males disappearing for the summer, then coming back for the winter, but these are mostly females that have disappeared. At least a couple that I’m sure had a litter somewhere. Among the others, both fixed and intact cats have disappeared. The person at the rescue whose daughter had been fostering Domino is pretty devastated that they brought her back, and now she’s gone.

Such is the reality of yard cats.

I say as I hear the sounds of cats fighting outside my window!!!

Excuse me while I go check on that.

The Re-Farmer

A quiet day at home

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My daughter and I didn’t have to go anywhere today, which turned out to be a good thing. We were both pretty wasted.

My daughter had done out to do the morning cat feeding, but was feeling quite terrible, so she ended up going back to bed to try and get some sleep. She told me she’d had nightmares for some reason, and got little sleep. !!!

While my doctor has not officially put me on bed rest, I did try to take it easy.

It didn’t make a difference.

As the day wore on, the pain returned even though I’d done nothing that might trigger it. I tried lying down again and it just kept getting worse.

I did eventually give and and went outside to do the evening cat feeding and switch out the memory cards. I do that every week or two instead of daily, now. As I went by the crab apples to get to the sign came, I made a discovery.

We lost another tree to yesterday’s high winds. Another dead spruce. This one looks like we can actually salvage it to use in raised beds. The last one that fell in this area – falling right on a crab apple tree – the trunk split down its length, so not something I want to use longer lengths of. This one seems pretty intact.

By the time I was done switching out the memory cards and walking through the garden beds, I was at my limit. I ended up setting a camp chair near the catio with the cat toy fishing rod. All the kittens were in the junk pile. I messaged my daughters and let them know the status of things, and they later came out to water the garden for me and take care of a few other things.

I had significant success with one kitten in particular.

The Grink and Sweetie made things difficult, as they were very interested in catching the worm, even if it meant going right through a kitten. After a while, though, they tired out enough that the kittens had a chance. The black one with the white line on the side of its nose came close enough that I was able to pet it and almost picked it up.

The tabby in the last picture of the above slide show is another braver one. My younger daughter sat in the chair to play with them before they came in and that one went under the chair – and she was able to pick it up and put it on her lap!!

None of them were going into the catio, though. The kittens that weren’t interested in the toy were busy playing in the junk pile, along with the older white and grey singleton.

So, no chance of catching them today, but progress on the socialization front.

Meanwhile, my pain levels are still increasing. I think today, I’m gong to skip the evening T3s, wait a couple of hours and try the hydromorphone. I forgot to call the pharmacy to see if the fax with my new Percocet prescription came in. I’ll have to do that tomorrow.

It I weren’t planning to wait to get the T3s completely out of my system first, I’d be going to bed right now, and it’s not even 7pm yet. I’m having difficulty sitting upright in my chair.

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

Costco stock up shop: this is what $900

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$900.72 to be exact.

Ouch.

I had a much interrupted night last night, so I was quite thankful that my younger daughter is still insisting on doing the morning routine so I can sleep in. When I got up, I was feeling quite good, overall.

Which made me very suspicious.

As we were getting ready to head out, I checked on the catio and found this adorableness looking back at me.

They still run off when we come by, but not as far, and they tend to stop and watch. When this one started looking like it was going to run out of the catio, I backed off and continued on my way, rather than give it a reason to feel more nervous.

I felt well enough to be doing the driving on the way out. We stopped at a gas station in the town along the way to get some road drinks and a snack to tide us over. My daughter had eaten breakfast, though, while I hadn’t, so the fresh potato wedges I got for both of us ended up just for me. Which meant we didn’t need to stop for lunch while at Costco.

When we got there, our first stop was filling the tank. Regular gas was at $1.489 and it cost me $68.99 to fill the tank from a little over half.

I did make sure we brought my walker while my daughter pushed the flat cart and loaded it for me.

I am so glad I had that walker.

By the time we reached Costco, the pain was starting to return. The more time went by, the more often I had to stop and just sit for a while, keeping an eye on the cart as my daughter ran around getting things. When we got to the line to pay, I gave her my cards and settled at the other end of the cash desk until things were being loaded onto the belt and the cashiers were scanning things on the cart. With a long drive ahead of us, I let my daughter know before dashing to the washroom. By the time I came out, she was done and heading in the direction of the exit. Once I caught up with her, we squished ourselves to the side and paused. My alarm was about to go off, so I took my pain meds then my daughter dashed off to refill my water bottle from the fountain. Which gave me time to get my usual photos.

Does this look like $900 to you?

Yes, we have a birthday coming up! This time, my husband’s. It’s early to get a cake, but we have never been ones to celebrate on the actual day, and a cake that size will last us several days!

So, what did we get for our $900 and change?

Let’s start with the cat stuff.

We got two 9kg bags and two 11kg bags of dry kibble, a case of wet cat food and a box of XL puppy pads.

For non-food items, we got our usual toilet paper, plus a case of facial tissues, all purpose cleaner, and a 2 pack of the Head and Shoulders that we use as an anti-fungal body wash.

In beverages, we got a case of Monster, a case of Vanilla Coke Zero, a 3 pk of oat milk and two 2L of kefir. We also got a large box of Earl Grey tea.

For dairy, we got 5 pounds of butter, a block of Old Cheddar and of Mozzarella cheese, plus a shaker of Parmesan that was on sale.

We did not get a lot of meats. Two panini packs of sandwich meats, a 6 pack of canned chicken, and two packages of loose mild Italian sausage meat.

In breads, we got two 2 packs of rye and two packages of tortilla wraps.

In case lot foods, we got an instant oats variety pack, a case of tomato soup, spaghetti, Ramen noodles. In fresh/frozen stuff we got a case of Pizza Pops, rainbow tortellini and our usual double flat of 5 dozen eggs.

Then there was a large jar of mayonnaise, another of peanut butter, a box of Sweet and Salty mix granola bars that was on sale, a bag of Basmati rice, and a jar of strawberry jam that comes in a jar my daughters like to reuse for their tea.

For my husband, there’s the birthday cake, plus a giant bag of nachos and a large Caesar Salad kit. My daughter chose two nigiri platters for herself and her sister (which I have been reimbursed for), plus I chose a sushi platter for myself.

That’s everything. That all came out to $900.72 While there were a few things on there that we don’t get every month, the only thing that was completely not usual was the birthday cake.

*sigh*

My daughter took care of bagging our stuff (we did remember to bring ice packs) and load up the truck, and she drove home. We made a rest stop at a gas station just outside the city where we got a couple of drinks and small snacks to pay for our toilet paper 😉 and then it was straight home.

Once at home, I left everything to my daughters to unload and put away so I could lie down for a while. I actually did feel better by the time we got home (the drive is about an hour and 15 minutes, give or take), but I definitely could not have made this trip on my own without leaving myself in really bad shape.

I think this worked out. We should be able to do our second stop up shop in the weekend like this, before I see the doctor on Monday afternoon.

I am so tired.

The Re-Farmer