outside cats

Kitty status, and shopping for Mom

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Today, we were expecting another hot day. There was a small potential chance for rain in the morning, but not a lot.

It was also my day to help my mother with her groceries, so was outside, watering the garden, earlier than usual.

It was a rather strange thing to start hearing thunder, and find myself hoping I could finish watering the garden before the rain hit!

I did get the main garden area watered, then emptied the last of the rain barrel to water the old kitchen garden. I did have an adorable surprise with that, though!

I’ve got two watering cans that I fill and bring with me to whatever section I’m working on. As I was reaching down to pick the second watering can up, something was looking at me!

There, clutching the opening of the watering can, was a green tree frog – on the inside of the can!!!

I tried to carefully get it out, but it let go and dropped into the water, instead. So I emptied the can on the wattle weave bed as quickly as I could. I ended up having to turn the can upside down and shaking it to get the frog out! Thankfully, it was none the worse for it, and soon hopped away.

Gosh, tree frogs are so adorable!

The girls, meanwhile, took care of eye baby. Now that we are out of eye drops, and the antibiotics are given in the evening, this just making sure she got fed supplemented cat soup with the modified bottle, then an eye washing before setting her outside.

The bottle feeding can get a bit messy.

We’re using a nipple that is cut back for a wider opening, but the cat soup sometimes still has chunky bits just big enough to block the opening. Which means, every now and then, it spontaneously plugs, then unplugs – all over the kitten! On top of that, once she’s done, she just closes her mouth and turns her face away, and ends up with cat soup all over her face.

When it started raining harder and I had to come inside, I discovered one of the other kittens, cleaning eye baby up!

The other kitten was very enthusiastically grooming that cat soup, out of her fur!

She seemed to be quite content with the attention.

In the other slideshow photos, there’s that little fluffy cat. She is, if I remember correctly, one of the late litter of eight kittens from last year. She is also the one that dropped her litter of kittens all over the yard and abandoned them. I’m really working on trying to get her socialized at least a bit. If we can catch her to get her fixed next month, that would be awesome! So far, she has started to allow me to pet her after I’ve set food out in the kibble house. She prefers to eat there over the other areas we scatter kibble. Outside the kibble house and no food around, though, she still won’t let me near her.

As for the others, I tried to do a head count this morning, counting both adults and kittens. I think I counted 31, but when I counted again, I got 29. Broccoli and her two were not there; I saw them later at the old garden shed. There were a couple of regular adults that weren’t there, either, including Brussel. There is at least one kitten that has gone “missing”. The fluffy orange one that showed up with Baby Hypotenose – the two kittens that Sprout finally brought to the house. I have been seeing Baby Hypotenose a fair bit, but its orange sibling just disappeared. If this is another loss, that would be the last of the orange kittens gone. We have one orange tabby and one orange and white among the younger adult males, plus the Grand Old Lady, Rolando Moon, and that’s it for orange cats. Quite the change from when we first moved here, and almost all the outside cats were orange tabbies!

Since I was out so early this morning, I actually had time for breakfast before I had to leave for my mother’s. I timed it so that I could pick up lunch for us. She likes the dinners that the grocery store sometimes has available, but there were none today. Which I didn’t mind. I was really looking forward to some Chinese food.

They were closed.

They weren’t supposed to be closed. All the signs said they should have been open, and I could see lights on inside, but the door was locked. I ended up going around the back of the motel the restaurant is in and went in through the bar. The lights were on in the dining room, but the kitchen and back areas were all dark. I asked the woman working the bar before leaving, and she had no idea why they weren’t open.

I ended up going to the gas station to get some of their fried chicken and wedges, getting there just as they were bringing out the first batch of chicken for the day.

Which was good – theirs is the best fried chicken! – but I really was looking forward to Chinese food! 😄

Then I had the problem of getting into my mother’s building.

It was locked!

This has happened only once before. The main doors are usually never locked, even overnight. These are also the accessible doors, with the automatic door openers; another reason for those doors to never be locked!

I do have keys but, for some reason, the outside door key have never worked. It almost works – the lock did start to turn, but towards the “lock” position, not the “unlock” position. I have no idea why it doesn’t work. My mother’s own key does sometimes stick, too, but nothing like this! I ended up having to phone my mother to let her know I was at the door closer to her apartment, but couldn’t get in.

So my mother had to toodle over with her walker to let me in. These doors have a tiny vestibule between an unlockable inner door and the always locked from the outside outer door. My mother was able to open the inside door, then had to use her walker to block it open so she could push the bar on the outside door top open it for me. (When coming in from the outside, there is barely enough room in the vestibule for her walker, and for the door to swing open. It still ended up hitting one of her wheels, but she prefers it over using the main doors.)

The alternative would have been to make her walk down the hall and through the lobby to reach the main doors, and still have to fight to open two doors. The inside one, at least, would have opened with the push of a button, but the walk would have been harder on my mother than opening the doors closer to her apartment.

What a pain!

Once inside, I set things up and we had our lunch. While moving things aside, I saw she had a notice of inspection for bedbugs again. She told me, it was just slid under her door this morning. It looks like they will be back on the 28th. I looked up the calendar on my phone to confirm what day that falls on, while she quickly tucked the letter away before I could read the rest!

It falls on the day I’ll be making my first stock up shopping trip to the city.

My mother is not happy about them coming by again. The last time they did, she didn’t get up to let them in because she wasn’t feeling well. She did yell out verbal permission for them to come in, but they would not. She doesn’t quite understand that she risks eviction by constantly finding ways to avoid them! She doesn’t appear to have bedbugs, but if her neighbours do, that can change very quickly, and they are required to check a certain number of times since the last time they sprayed.

Once we had our lunch, we went over her shopping list. There were a few things I needed to clear up. She writes her list in a sort of mix of Polish and English, and her English words are spelled phonetically – in Polish! She then makes little drawings of the things she has on the list, but sometimes that doesn’t make it any clearer! I mean, a sour cream container and a yogurt container are basically the same. 😄

This time, she had flour on her list – it was even spelled correctly in English! – but the doodle was quite clearly and ear of corn. Corn flour? My mother doesn’t use corn flour, but that’s what she called it.

She meant corn meal, which she uses all the time.

I did explain to her that corn meal and corn flour are different things. I don’t think she’ll remember, though, as she’s never seen corn flour, so she doesn’t have any sort of connection to make to help her remember. Not that it’s a problem, but I did want to clarify, based on what she had on her list!

Her list was very short, so I asked a few questions and a few more things were added to it. She had the newest flier, too, so we went over some of the sale items, and talked about possibly substitutions. There was no meat on the list, and the only thing that could be considered a protein was the cheese I ended up adding to her list after going through the flier with her. She insisted that she still had plenty. I am suspicious, though, as she has increasingly tried to blame eating meat or “heavy foods” (she has her own definition of what that is!) on her not feeling well.

At one point, she started telling me that she feels like she’s dying, every night, and had considered getting me to take her to the clinic in the nearby hospital. She’s also becoming obsessed with an appointment with the “new doctor” that’s there, because it conflicted with a home visit appointment she had on the same day. I was the one who cancelled the appointment for her, so I knew that it was not with the new doctor. It was with a nurse practitioner. It was my sister that had taken her in to the clinic, but no one was available to see my mother, so they made this appointment – and forgot about the date. Neither of them seemed to realize that the appointment was with whoever was available, not the new doctor.

I suggested that if she wanted to see a doctor, I could make an appointment with her current one for her. She actually yelled angrily at me, NO! I told her, you’ve got a good doctor, and she laughed and made a comment about the doctor talking to the computer instead of to her. I told her, the doctor was reading what she was looking up on her file. Some people tend to think out loud, or read out loud, as they do that. I was with my mother during her last appointment, and could see that’s what she was doing; as she read through my mother’s file, she would sometimes say parts of it out loud, very quickly. It’s entirely possible the doctor doesn’t even notice that she’s doing it.

When I explained that to her, my mother finally just said, “I’m scared of black people.”

*sigh*

With how hard it is to find a doctor these days – especially when living outside the city – it’s aggravating that she’s allowing her racism to deny herself the health care she’s demanding!

As we talked, I brought up again, she needs a hospital bed, so she can sleep upright.

Which is when she started saying it was her stomach – her digestive system (she literally does not understand what is or isn’t part of her digestive system, or where the organs are located in her body) – that she now thinks is the cause of her troubles, then tried to make connections with eating “heavy food”, like the chicken we just ate…

I asked her, what does that have to do with her breathing? She’s been complaining that she can’t breathe at night, and that’s why she feels like she’s dying. Now, she says it’s her stomach?

I tried to ask more questions, but she changed the subject.

*sigh*

It’s frustrating that she is so all over the place with how she feels, and latch onto things as the “cause” of all her problems, usually because of something she heard on TV, or one of the people in her building saying. But when solutions are offered – like having a hospital bed so she can sleep more upright – she refuses.

Other than this, though, things went smoothly. I worked out what she needed on her list, then did the shopping for her.

Once everything was put away, I stayed a bit longer, but was feeling incredibly sleepy. The overcast skies and rainy weather has that effect on me. I still had to go back to the grocery store for a water jug refill – just one, for now – before going home, too.

Once that was done and I got home, I went for a nap almost right away. It seems I really needed that sleep, too!

As for right now, the skies are clear again and it’s sunny out there, so I’m looking forward to my evening rounds. Meanwhile, as I was writing this, my younger daughter came in to let me know that she was able to harvest the last of the garlic for me! They were getting a bit over due!

For now, they’re laid out on the freezer in the old kitchen. Once the dirt has dried out a bit more, we’ll brush them off, trim them and string them up to hang with the others in the garage.

As for the cat isolation shelter build in the garage, I won’t be doing anything on it today. I’ll see what I can do tomorrow. Mostly, though, I think I’ll have to go through the sheds and garage again, so see what materials I can find to continue the build, until I have the budget to buy the materials I need to finish it.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to find what I need and get this finished soon. I will have to double check with the Cat Lady to see what date she has booked for us, for a spay or neuter (depending on what cat we can catch!). If we end up with a male, we won’t need the isolation shelter, but if we can get that fluffy little cat, or one of the other mamas, that would be idea.

We shall see!

The Re-Farmer

Cat Isolation Shelter, and decisions to make

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I was not expecting to be able to work on the cat isolation shelter at all today, but with my afternoon appointment cancelled, I was able to get a bit done.

There really isn’t a lot left that I can do right now. I installed the larger shelf across the back of the shelter, then the small one in the front that is meant to act as something a cat can use to climb up to the second level.

Then I dragged the whole thing outside for pictures in better light.

I’m hoping that shelf across the back will hold up without a support in the middle. It seems sturdy, but this is salvaged wood, and there is some damage on the underside.

In the front view, you can see the little shelf on the bottom right – and the areas on the second level floor boards that will need paint, since that all got changed quite a bit!

The cats have definitely been checking it out when I’m not around.

Syndol likes to hang out with me while I’m working. He kept very politely asking for attention! I’d be working on something and feel a paw gently grab and pull on my arm.

I pet him, of course.

With the shelves in place, I took the time to take the bits of wood and nails off the 2x4s left from the pallet I’d cut apart to use for “nesting” boxes. The wood is pretty damaged, but I might be able to salvage it for something.

Syndol was my helper.

Right now, I’m trying to figure out what to use to support the roof. I want just enough of a slope for rain to drain off. I might have come up with a solution, but I’m not sure, yet. I’ll have to grab out the sheet of metal roof I’m hoping to use and take some measurements, too. I might need to find a second matching sheet in the barn.

Until I figure out and acquire what is needed to make the main door/ramp and the access panels on the second level, I’m not going to put a roof on, though putting the supports in place first might be useful.

At this point, it looks like I’m going to have to start buying material, and that will have to wait until pay comes in.

I am quite happy with how well the whole thing moves around. It is better on the grass than the dirt floor of the garage. I can foresee a time when the wheels would need to be replaced, but it would take a while before that becomes necessary.

It’s not a lot of progress, but I’m happy with it.

I think the cats will like it, too!

The Re-Farmer

Sick kitty statuses

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I’ve been outside most of today, and am finally able to sit at the computer to blog.

Of course, I’ve been constantly interrupted by one thing or another, since I’ve come inside! 😄

Before I get into things, which will be in separate posts, I figured I should write about the important things.

Updates on kitties!

A daughter and I got eye baby’s eyes washed and treated.

Actually, we had to feed her first. When I woke her up by picking her up, she almost immediately went for my fingers. Once the modified kitten bottle was close to her mouth, she practically attacked it! She got a good feeding in, and then she was calm enough for us to do her eyes.

The one, less swollen eye is looking clearer, though we can still only open it half way. The other eye still looks rather horrific. She clearly can see something, though. After trying her off, I took her to the sun room and put her near a bowl of kibble. She ignored it and went right for a small carrier next to the cat cage and used it to climb up and through the cat cage wall to her favourite napping spot.

Where she found a cuddle buddy.

I had been wondering how she got up to the second level of the cat cage! I didn’t think that she’s still small enough to fit through the wire on the second level.

I guess she wasn’t happy with her cuddle buddy up there, so she went to the bottom level to her other favourite napping spot.

There were two cuddle buddies in there. When she crawled in with them, one of them immediately started grooming her!

As I was going back and forth from the house while working in the garage today, I found her in different spots, including another spot that required climbing to get to. So she is managed remarkably well, considering the state of her eyes!

Then, as I was getting things together to go inside, I realized I couldn’t see her anywhere.

I had checked on the garden and the old kitchen garden was looking parched, so I decided to water it from the rain barrel while keeping an eye out for the baby.

I finally spotted her while refilling a watering can. Adam was lying in the grass with a whole bunch of kittens trying to nurse, and eye baby was trying to fight her way past bigger kittens to get some nip!

Adam didn’t like that I stopped to take a picture, though, so I caught her as she was standing up, with eye baby still half draped across her back!

As I finished the watering, I saw eye baby in the kibble house, searching through the kibble trays for something to eat. So I did the evening cat feeding, and she dove right in! She definitely has appetite!

Sadly, another sick kitty does not. I got messages from the Cat Lady about Button. He’s still sick, completely stuffed up and having to mouth breath. They’ve been having to force feed him. She was able to find the antibiotics, though, and he’s had his first doses, and she says he does already seem to be a bit better. Then, just a little while ago, she sent a photo of him, eating off of a plate! Hopefully, this means they don’t have to force feed him anymore.

I’m still amazed that he got so sick after they took him. The changes must have really stressed that tiny body out, and with him already having upper respiratory problems it just kicked right in.

She was able to get extra antibiotics, though, and I’m meeting her tomorrow afternoon to get some for eye baby. We’ll have to weigh her to confirm the dose. It’ll be once a day for 7 days. Between that and the eye drops, I hope that gives her the boost she needs to recover.

I’m honestly still amazed that we lost the orange and white kitten, but not eye baby. I still would not be surprised to find her gone, yet she does actually seem to be getting stronger!

We’ll keep on bringing her in for the night to treat her eyes and keep her in the carrier until the morning, then she’ll go back outside after treatment. This seems to be working out, and I think she’s getting used to this as a routine. The eye drops are supposed to be for 14 days, and now the oral antibiotics will be for 7 days, so we’ll be doing this for at least another 10 nights.

I’d better get busy with the other blog posts I need to write, because we’ll be bringing her inside again, in about an hour!

The Re-Farmer

Not the goodbye I expected

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As has been usual for the past few days, we planned to bring eye baby in for the night, along with the orange and white kitten that she’s been cuddling with so often.

When I walked into the sunroom, much to my shock, I spotted eye baby – on top of the table saw! I have no idea how she managed to climb up there. Thankfully, I was able to grab her before she walked off the edge!

I’d already prepared her very own cat soup in a bottle to feed her with, and had the bathroom ready to wash the eyes of both kittens. After carefully washing her eyes – gosh, they look so awful, and are still swollen shut – I held her while my daughter added the eye drops. Then I went and got the bottle to try and feed her.

She was very hungry! She kept trying to eat the top of the bottle while I was trying to be gentle about squeezing food into her mouth. I think she even bit the tip off the nipple, and almost pulled it out of the cap a couple of times! It all got very messy. After a while, my husband came out to hold her while I tried to feed her some more.

If she gets hungry later, all she’ll need to do is groom herself! 😄

My husband was going to put her into the carrier to give her a chance to settle before we brought in the orange and white kitten, and then added the food and water bowls. If the bowls are already in the carrier before she is, she ends up walking through them and knocking them over. He ended up settling in my desk chair, just holding her, while I put what was left of the bottle in with the rest of the prepared food, then washed up before heading out to bring in the orange and white kitten.

Instead, I found myself burying him under the honeysuckle and rose bushes, with the many other kittens we’ve buried under there this year.

Between the two of them, I honestly did not expect to be burying him, first.

Earlier this evening, I got messages from the Cat Lady. Because the clinic had been so busy when she brought Button in, she ended up not getting any antibiotics for him right away. Well, all the changes happening to him right now are pretty rough on that tiny body, and today his upper respiratory issues kicked into high gear. He’s so stuffed up, he’s mouth breathing. She called the clinic and they’ll have antibiotics ready for her when she’s back in the city. I told her that eye ball kitten and the orange and white kitten seemed to be getting worse, not better, and she told me she would have extra antibiotics that she can pass on for them, too.

Well, it’s going to be just for one kitten, now.

I’ve since messaged her to tell her about the orange and white kitten.

Eye ball kitten, meanwhile, may be essentially blind right now, but feisty as heck! For the first time, as I was washing her eyes and before I started feeding her, she was fussing to get free and actually started to bite at me! Once in the carrier, she started clawing to get out. I ended up taking her out to cuddle her for a bit, but she wanted down – something we can’t allow her to do – and she tried to bite me again! So, back into the carrier she went! I’ve got purring cat sounds playing again, and she settled soon after. She may not have her orange and white friend to cuddle tonight, but she does have her plushy, so she will at least have something soft and fluffy to sleep against.

What a way to end the day.

It was most definitely not the good bye I was expecting to make.

The Re-Farmer

Little sickies, and a Button update

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Some updates on the yard cats for today.

We had eyeball baby inside for the night again, and she got her eye drops in the evening, after and eye wash. This morning, another eye wash and more drops. This time, I was able to get the eyelids open more, and she didn’t seem to be too bothered by the drops, which is good. I’m pretty sure she’s going to loose one eye, though. It’s hard to say, since the lids are still so swollen. On the plus side – I think – there is no oozing infection like before. The eyes are still leaking, for sure, but not the gunk like she had before.

After her eye drops, she went back into the carrier to hopefully eat and drink some more, before letting her outside again. I put her in the cage in the sunroom, as far onto their favourite cat bed on the bottom as I could reach. She went right onto the bed, and settled into a corner. I set a plushie beside her, but she didn’t go near it. The outside cats had already been fed, and the orange and white kitten had gotten his eyes washed, too. He was loafed in front of the sunroom door, so I picked him up, cuddled him a bit, then set him into the cat cage, too. He went straight for eyeball baby and snuggled with her!

The photo above was taken just a little while ago. Eyeball baby may not be able to see, but she can still find her way out of the cat cage and make her way around, so she must be able to at least see something.

Meanwhile, I got an update on how Button is doing.

When the folks at the clinic first saw him, they were convinces he was only three weeks old. The Cat Lady said, no way – I would have told her if he was born just three weeks ago! They ended up aging him at 11 weeks, but he weighed only half a kilogram – about a pound. Also:

Panleuk test: negative
feline leukemia test: negative
He has URD (upper respiratory), but I expected that.
Grade 3 heart murmur
Earmites are so bad, they believe his hearing is permanently damaged, but he was definitely born hearing.

To quote the Cat Lady “they have seen a lot of tiny kittens but this takes the cake.” She sent me a picture of her youngest daughter as she took Button outside for some exercise, and he looked even smaller than ever – barely the size of her foot!

The vet was saying they think he has failure to thrive.

Uhm… yeah. That’s really obvious.

One visit, and they’re already saying that this kitten has already really beaten the odds. My thought it, there was probably a reason he was abandoned by the mother, whoever it was. He’s a feisty little one, though.

They’ll be seeing him in two weeks, and hope to be able to vaccinate him then.

Which means, I guess, that he won’t be going to his forever home in one week, as originally planned!

I hope the woman that said she would adopt him doesn’t back out.

Since the folks at the vet clinic had been so sure Button was much younger, I went looking up my posts and photos to confirm when we found him. It was on July 4, and it’s August 16, now. So we’ve been tending him for 6 weeks, as of yesterday. When I found him, I was pretty sure he was close to weaning age, based on his behaviour and eating habits, which would typically be 6-8 weeks old. So them aging him at 11 weeks adds up.

Well, he is in excellent hands now. I just hate that we ended up passing another sicker-than-expected cat to the rescue!

I have to admit, I’m honestly starting to think seriously of culling the outside cats. Maybe not all of them – we did manage to get some of the dudes neutered – but most. They seem to have way too many health problems. We seem to have an unusually bad strain of feline herpes that seems to be resulting in life long URD, even after they’ve been taken indoors or adopted out. Cats from other colonies around us that got adopted out have been recovering, then never having problems again, so this is unusual. However, we’ve found several of them have had heart problems, several of the ladies that got spayed turned out to have uterine abnormalities. These are things that can’t be treated by simply getting them fixed, vaccinated or adding immune boosting supplements to their foods. We do the best we can for them, but it may be that our good intentions are actually causing more problems.

It’s an unpleasant line of thinking, but we just may not have a choice. Not just about the ongoing health problems, but the sheer cost of taking care of them – and that’s with help from the rescue and donations! We’ll never be completely without yard cats. They earn their keep and keep the rodent population down. But to have so many is something else entirely. We don’t even know how many we have right now, since they come and go, this time of year.

Meanwhile, we’re doing things like bringing in a sick kitty to tend to and medicate it that nature probably would have taken care of some time ago, if we weren’t such sucks for the cats!

Speaking of which, I got more progress on the isolation shelter. I will write about that in my next post.

Yeah. We’re such terrible sucks for the cats!

The Re-Farmer.

No more Button! (and unexpected family drama) (updated)

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Yay, for Button!

Poor little guy passed right out, during the drive. For a while, there, he was really trying to get out of the carrier, and almost got the door open!

The exchange has been done, though. He is now with the Cat Lady. He’ll stay at the rescue for a week for standard vet care, then – if all goes well – be on his way to his forever home.

Even the Cat Lady commented on how tiny he is. He has definitely grown since we found him in the junk pile, but not by much!

One of the Cat Lady’s daughters was in the vehicle with her. She ended up holding Button rather than putting him in their carrier, and he actually started to fall asleep in her arms within minutes!

The Cat Lady also gave us a donation of cat food. There was a couple of cases of cat food – the kind that comes in pairs of packets with individual meal portions – plus a small bag of “immunity boosting” kibble.

She also found her bottle of the antibiotic drops for the eye baby. We are to give one drop in each eye, every 12 hours, for at least 14 days. She also warned that this stuff does does tend to burn, but to make sure not to wipe it off.

The hard part is going to be opening the eyes enough to get the drops in there!

I’ve got the kitten inside and in the carrier for the night. I’d gone out for my evening routine and found her in the outer yard, heading for the driveway, giving out her squeaky meow! The poor thing can’t open her eyes at all, even after we wash them. The eyelids are just too swoleen.

The girls and I will be doing the first dose of drops, soon. The kitten has already eaten and settled down in the carrier. Thanks to the individual portion cat food donation, it was easy to mix up some cat soup, just for the eye kitten, with the same supplements we use for the big batch we made for all the cats. When we added the food and water bowls to the carrier, I got some of the soup onto her mouth a few times before she figured it out and started lapping it up.

She asked us to keep her up to date on how things go. After Button has gone on to his forever home, they might be able to take this one for care. I appreciate that, but fear they’ll be stuck with another one of our sick cats – to go with the 6 cats from us they already have, all of which have had some sort of health problem! At least with The Wolfman, it was an injury that healed, rather than things like viral infections or heart problems.

She has us booked for the beginning of September for a spay or neuter. She’ll send me the exact date when she has a chance. This will be whichever cat we can catch, so I really want to get that isolation shelter finished before then. I was able to do the last of the painting this afternoon, which means assembling the frame can start tomorrow!

Several minutes later…

Wow. So much just happened in just a short time!

First, I started getting updates from the Cat Lady. Button has been eating well and sleeping well.

From his teeth, he looks like an 11 week old kitten, but he’s the size of a 6 week old kitten!

His eyes are weepy, which we could see, but he also had ulcerations in the back of his mouth, which we did not know about! Classic calicivirus, she says, and expects him to be put on antibiotics when he sees the vet tomorrow. Which likely means other kittens have it, too.

She also warned us that there is a severe panleukopenia outbreak in the province right now, and what symptoms to watch out for, and recommending to use bleach to clean even the outside bowls, if possible.

As we were chatting, my daughter came down and we took the eyes baby into the washroom to try and get those drops in. I don’t know that we managed to open the eyes enough, but at least it’s a start.

While that was happening, the phone started ringing. When I got to it, I found a message from my mother to call her.

*sigh*

My mother just heard geese flying by, and that reminded her that she wanted to take me and the girls to a nearby migratory reserve.

She has no idea what a problem this request is.

I told her, I would talk to the girls.

She didn’t like that, and then offered me a choice. We could go to the reserve and have a picnic there, or we could share a meal at the one local restaurant, then go to the cemetery where my father, brother and other family members are buried. That, I definitely don’t want to do, because then she’ll want to come here, and that’s never pleasant.

She could tell I wasn’t enthused, and I tried to explain.

First, there’s the fact that we all keep different hours, so my daughters would have to mess up their schedules. Which they wouldn’t mind doing, if it was for something pleasant, but my mother is never pleasant with them, but rather always testing and prodding and judging.

The other thing is, it would leave my husband here at the farm on his own – and no one to be on watch in case our vandal has another mental break and decides to burn the house down or something. A concern she dismissed.

What I couldn’t figure out how to explain was that, because of her own behaviour towards them – and how she treats me – the girls just don’t want to be around her.

It didn’t matter, though. She instead went on a rant about how I keep the girls basically imprisoned upstairs, and they should be free to go places.

I told her, just because she doesn’t see something, and it doesn’t involve her, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. The girls can go where they want (frankly, I wish they did want to go out more, but they don’t). They are adults and free to do so.

She instead started ranting that no, they aren’t free, and now she can see why the government takes children away from their parents, because they don’t know how to parent…

Which is when I said goodbye and hung up.

I think she has forgotten that the girls are 28 and 31 years old, not the 9 and 12 year old’s they were when we left this province because of her. She did not approve of our homeschooling and kept reporting us to different levels, making up lies about what was going on in our household (which she knew nothing about, but thought she did). Each time, we got “investigated” and they recognized that this was a problem with her, not us – but at that point, the next place left for her to report us would be children’s services, and she would have been perfectly willing to do that, and have the girls taken from us, simply because she did not approve of how we were raising our kids.

*sigh*

Well, that’s it. I’m done for now. I need to update my family and siblings on what just happened, because she’s going to cause problems for us over this.

*sigh*

I would really love to have a boring life right now.

The Re-Farmer

Update: Well, I talked to my daughters, and they really do want to go to the nature reserve. With my daughter’s work schedule, though, she had deadlines she needs to meet before the end of August, so we looked into September. My mother’s 93rd birthday is in September, so that fits, too. So we picked an open day, I called my mother back, and now she’s all happy – though she really tried to get it to be sooner! September will be too cold, she says… 😄

All that drama, and for what?

*sigh*

Kitten news and isolation shelter progress

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First up, the good news!

I need to head to a Walmart to get more cat kibble, and the Cat Lady will be able to meet me.

That means, Button is finally going to be going to her forever home!

She’ll be staying with the Cat Lady for about a week for standard vet care, then go to the home of the large animal vet that is adopting her.

Finally!!!

Button is in the bottom cuddle pile of the photo above, wrestling with the black and white kitten.

The kitten being used as a pillow by the orange while white kitten is the one with the messed up eyes. We brought her in last night again, to spend the night in a carrier in my bedroom. We have to keep her completely isolated from the inside cats. She seems okay with the carrier. I gave her a stuffy, and she spent the night sleeping right up against it.

Unfortunately, her eyes are still swollen shut and she’s essentially blind. We’re washing them, of course, but that helps only so far. We did make sure she had cat soup for food – extra thin, for more hydration – with supplements that should help boost her immune system. The Cat Lady has medication to give us, but as of this morning, she still couldn’t find it. Hopefully, she’ll be able to find it before we meet up this afternoon.

After they have Button for a week, then pass her on to her forever home, they might be able to take in eyes baby, too. I have really been trying to avoid that. They’ve taken so many sick kittens from us, and end up keeping them permanently, because hardly anyone is willing to adopt healthy cats, never mind any with past health problems. Plus, it seems the cats at our place have a particularly bad strain of herpes. The sick cats they’ve helped us with before have recovered, but are still prone to relapses. Other sick cats they’ve helped from communities around us have recovered and not relapsed.

Also, it seems the cats from us have a bit of a reputation among several vet clinics now. We’ve had some very unusual cases, with Cabbages being the first anomaly. At least her treatment is now saving the lives of other cats. Then there’s the one that turned out to be Down’s. Who know cats could be Down’s?

Anyhow.

All the more reason we need the isolation shelter, and I got a bit more progress on that this morning.

I cut more corner supports from the remaining true to size 2×4 piece that I have. I was able to cut them larger this time. The smaller ones were ready for more painting, as were the frame pieces. As of right now, the only things left that need to be painted are a couple of 2×4 frame pieces, and the larger angle cut pieces. Once those are done, assembly can start. I’m hoping I can get that done this evening, if this morning’s coat of paint is cured enough.

As you can see by my hat in the last photo, it was quite hot and muggy in the garage while I was working! I normally wear a hat to help keep the sweat out of my eyes, but today was just too hot, and I took it off pretty early on, so all that wet is from a very short time! Lately, I’ve taken to folding up a strip of paper towel and putting it between my forehead and the hat band, to help absorb the sweat. That does make it more bearable, but by the time I could have done that, my hat was already soaked!

Well, time to start getting ready to head out with Button. I need to make sure the smallest cat carrier is ready. We keep it with several others in the sun room these days, so cats are in and out of them – and climbing on top of them – regularly, so they get pretty dirty.

I still need to go to the post office first, but I’ll do that along the way. I did already go this morning, but I went too early. I was sure the post office opened at 9am, but when I got there at 9:30, they were just opening up and hadn’t sorted any of the mail, yet! I think Button will be okay in the carrier alone in the truck for a few minutes.

I’m so happy she is finally going to her forever home!

The Re-Farmer

[addendum: I just had to include the AI generated feedback I got for this!

The content reflects a heartwarming story of finding a forever home for Button and the dedicated care for the kitten with eye issues. The updates on the isolation shelter’s progress are interesting. Consider adding subheadings to distinguish between the different topics discussed. Additionally, breaking up the text into smaller paragraphs can enhance readability and make it more visually appealing for the reader. Good luck with the ongoing care and shelter construction efforts!

The AI is hilariously complimentary!]

Such a good mama! plus, isolation shelter progress

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Must start with the cuteness!

I spotted Adam nursing this brood in front of the sun room – and I needed to get past her! I had to go back and forth from the sun room a few times, and saw her nursing in the same spot again, but with different kittens!

She is such a good creche mama. So chill with the babies!

Not with people, though. She still won’t let us near her, and ran off when I got too close. Unfortunately, she seems to choose high traffic areas to lay down and nurse!

Meanwhile, I got a bit more progress done on the cat isolation shelter.

As I mentioned in my last post, I changed the plans a bit. The original plan was to basically have a cube with the outside frame divided into quarters, vertically and horizontally. I had it in my mind to attach the vertical pieces first, like wall joists, then horizontal pieces to support the floor boards in the second level. The problem was, how to attach the shorter horizontal pieces, with the materials I had on hand. There are brackets and braces that can be used to make the job easy and secure, but I don’t have any, and don’t have the budget to get them.

Then it occurred to me that this shelter doesn’t need vertical support. The true to size 2x4s are strong enough on their own. I’ll still add them, as they will help hold the welded wire mesh, but it’s the horizontal pieces that are more important, since they will be supporting the floor boards.

So the longer regular size 2×4’s I cut will now be mounted horizontally instead of vertically – they will be doing inside the 4′ square front and back frames, so the measurement doesn’t change. I needed two more for the shorter sides, which meant I needed to more pieces the same length as the pieces that will be the top and bottom.

In the first photo of the Instagram slide show, you can see the two new pieces that were cut. The others, meanwhile, were flipped and ready to get their other sides painted.

The rough cut true to size 2x4s sure use up a lot more paint compared to the smooth regular size 2x4s!

I still had the problem of how to attached them to the front and back frame pieces. They will be butted up against the edges. I decided to cut pieces at 45° angles that will be butted into the corners to give me something to screw into. These will be needed for the top and middle pieces of one side. I’ll need 4 more of these for the other side. I used leftover scrap pieces of true to size 2×4 I do have a short length of that left. I’ll see how these work out before cutting more. I might decide to do it a different way. Or just cut them a bit longer. That was my original intention, but the pieces I had left over weren’t long enough.

Hmmm… now that I think about it, I can use longer pieces to support the top corners of the frame, and these shorter ones to support the horizontal pieces in the middle of the frame. I’ll have to think about that some more.

I did have an issue making the 45° cuts. I’m using the miter saw I picked up at a garage sale a couple of years ago. Today is the first time I needed to make angled cuts.

I don’t know how long its been since this thing was used for angle cuts, but it had to be a long time! I had to get lubricant to get it to turn all the way, from one side to the other! But, I got it done, and am soooo happy I have this saw! Previously, I used a hand saw and miter box to make cuts like this, and that really sucks. Especially with wood as hard as this! My soil sifter’s frame would have turned out much better if I’d had this when I made it. 😄

At this point, there isn’t much more I can do until all the painting is done. Once I have the outside frame assembled, I can take the measurements I need for the cross piece that will go through the middle to support the floor, and for the vertical pieces. I’m not working with two different sizes of wood, so I don’t want to count on just doing the math.

I’m not that good at math!

After cutting the 45° angles, I was left with a bunch of equally sized triangles that I’m hanging on to; they might come in handy, later. I should have had 8 of those, but one of them fell apart, because the end of the 2×4 I was cutting off was one of the more damaged pieces.

The painting, unfortunately, is going to take a while, since it basically needs a whole day to cure. It wouldn’t normally take that long, but it’s humid enough to slow things done and keep things very tacky! About the only other thing I can do in between flipping and painting the boards is cut and start painting four more angled pieces.

Still, progress is progress, and I’m happy with how it’s going so far.

The Re-Farmer

Starry skies, shelter progress and a surprise visit

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First, the cuteness!

With all the tasks outside I’ve been working on, I’ve been forgetting to take pictures of kittens!

Today turned out to be a fairly productive day. I’m actually a bit surprised, all things considered! 😄

The girls and I headed out around midnight to watch for meteors. We did see some, as well as some Northern lights.

We set up the tripod and just randomly took photos of different parts of the sky, hoping to catch something. We did catch some meteors in a few photos that were so small and faint, we didn’t see them as they happened. There were a few brighter ones that happened in between shots, and one huge, bright one with a bright green tail that flashed by. That one was awesome!

In the photos in the Instagram slideshow, the third one has the spotted streak of an airplane’s lights. We actually have a pretty busy sky with planes and satellites visible. It was a gorgeous night for starwatching, that’s for sure! We could see even more stars than the night before.

Unfortunately, once we got back inside and I finally went to bed, I wasn’t able to sleep for most of the night, so my daughters were sweet enough to take care of some of the morning stuff for me so I could sleep in. Once I did get outside, my priority was watering the garden before it got too hot. Our expected high was 27C/81F, which I’m sure we passed. As I write this, it’s past 6:30pm, and we’re still at 25C/77F, with the humidex putting us at 27C/81F.

While I was watering the garden beds, I took advantage of the fact that we have some lovely grass clippings that has been lying out long enough to start drying, and topped up the mulch on some beds. For a few, I just scooped up some armloads, but in some areas I brought out the wagon and raked up a windrow. I gathered a couple of wagon loads, but there’s still plenty left to collect. I want to make sure to collect the thickest areas, as they are thick enough to actually kill the grass below if they’re left where they are. I’ll take care of the rest, tomorrow, though.

Once the watering was done, I paused for … brunch? … then headed back out again. I had one last edge of the isolation shelter boards to paint, and then I wanted to calculated and cut the next set.

I had a few pieces I could cut out of the true-to-size 2×4’s I had, though I ended up having to cut off rotten/uneven ends before I could make my measurements on these ones. Once I got four pieces that will be joining the front and rear frames, that was it for the true to size boards. The next ones had to be cut from a regular 2×4’s. I actually need 2 more of that length, but I got distracted and forgot.

After I’d laid the newly cut boards out to brush the dust off, I was going to give the paint more time to dry and switch out the foam bumpers on the gate and replace the twine and pin for the sliding bar – all of which were disintegrating from being in the elements for several years.

I happened to step out of the garage when my phone dinged at me. I had a text message from my sister!

There is no signal in the garage, so I got it several minutes after she’d sent it, and she was asking if I was home.

It turns out she was in the area, visiting the local cemetery.

Also, did I want some cucumbers? 😄

What she didn’t say was whether or not my mother was with her. I did tell her that I’d gone to the cemetery last month and left fresh flowers at our family graves – and said no, thank you to the cucumbers. The last time she gave us cucumbers, we couldn’t finish them all, even after making a dozen jars of pickles!

I figured her ability to receive texts would be about the same as mine, so I had no idea when she was going to get my answer. I had to go to the house to get some of what I needed for the gate, and made sure to grab the gate key, as well. As I was walking back to the garage, I could see through the trees.

There was a car at the gate already! 😄

I’m glad I grabbed the gate key!

Also, as I write this, I am eating a cucumber salad my daughter made from the cucumbers my sister gave us. 😄 Not as much as the last time, though, so we won’t be overwhelmed!

I ended up giving my sister a tour of what we’ve been doing around the place, including the garden, of course. She wanted to see it as she wasn’t sure she’d make it out this away again this year. My sister being my sister, she took lots of pictures, including some with me in my grubby, torn up work clothes! 😂 Then we sat in the the shade on one of the benches I made and just talked. She was still planning on visiting my mother on her way home – and drop off more cucumbers! – so she didn’t stay too long.

As she was leaving, I followed along and worked on the gate. We use sections of pool noodles as bumpers. With where the hinges are attached to the posts, when the two halves of the gate swing outwards, towards the road, the metal gate hits the metal posts, so the bumpers prevent more damage. Small sections are also added over the hinge pins to protect them from the elements.

The pin for the sliding bar was just a long screw with its tip cut off, tied to the gate with twine. The twine was barely holding together, and the screw was rusting, so I picked up a long screw eye to replace it. I use mason line instead of twine. Having the screw eye to attach the line to was a lot more secure than just knotting bale twine under the head of a deck screw! 😄 I was even able to attach the line to the gate in a more aesthetically pleasing way, too. The only potential problem I see is that the weight of the screw’s eye might cause it to fall out, however there’s enough slack in the line that I could use it to wrap around the end of the screw eye and hold it in place.

At least, that’s the theory!

Once that was done and everything was cleaned up, it was back to the garage.

The painted boards were just dry enough to move them off the sawhorses and onto the pallet to finish trying, and I was able to get the first sides painted on the newly cut pieces.

Once all these pieces (including the two more longer ones I need to cut) are painted, I can then assemble the external frame of the isolation shelter. Once that’s together and secured to the pallet floor, I’ll be able to figure out the best way to put together the inside parts and get the measurements needed.

I’m hoping I have enough salvaged lumber to finish the frame, including the pieces that will support the floor of the second level. I have wider boards left over from another project that will make a good floor on the second level.

This above Instagram slideshow has my original sketched plans. I’ve had to change some things, but the general concept is the same. The second level will have a floor covering 3/4 of the space, but there will be room to add other things, as inspiration strikes. All of the inside stuff needs to be put in before the mesh walls or the roof are added. Though if I can figure out the best way to do it, a hinged roof would certainly make it easier to access the inside, should something need repair or replacement.

I’m happy with the progress made so far. I just hope I didn’t screw up on my math!

The Re-Farmer

Diiiipppp…

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I got a giggle out of one of the fluffy kittens.

We’ve set up a pair of water bowls in the shade of the kibble house. They are heated water bowls, but the larger one stopped working this past winter. The smaller one still works. The kittens like to drink out of the larger one, even though it’s harder for them to reach. This is the first time I’ve seen one use the larger one to drink out of the smaller one!

What it was actually doing was dipping its paw into the water, then licking the water off its paw.

Adorable.

One thing that was not adorable, though, was the state of a white and black kitten. I was able to picked it up and hold it, and could see its eyes were really leaky, with one swollen shut. It was dripping with puss! Poor thing. My daughter brought out a cloth wet with hot water to wash its eyes as I held it, then tried to clear its nose, too. We’ll have to watch for this one to clean its eyes out regularly – if it will let us! Thankfully, it is one that lets us pet it sometimes.

Once that isolation shelter is built, it could also be used to house sick babies so we can provide treatment, too!

Gotta get back at that!

The Re-Farmer