outside cats

Not working out as planned

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One of the things I wanted to get back to today, was to work on the garden beds again. It’s getting a bit drier out there, though mowing the lawn is still out of the question, but I want to get at least something done.

Well, that doesn’t seem to be working out.

I did get my morning rounds done, as usual.

There were plenty of kitties coming out for breakfast, though I counted “only” twenty. Shop Towel came around, and his face is looking so beat up!! I did manage to let me get a big wood tick off the side of his head, and a few more around a wound on his side that looks like some fur was pulled out in a fight. No major injuries. His presence does make a few of the other cats very nervous, though.

I did get to visit Broccoli’s babies, straighten out their bedding, and leave food for her. They are getting much more active, which is a bit of a concern. There is a lot of stuff in there they can get into, and they’re getting mobile enough to climb out of their bedding. I’d like to set up some sort of box or bin for them to nest in, but I’m afraid if I do that, she’ll move them away completely.

We’ll figure it out.

The cherry tree near the house is in peak bloom now. It looks so pretty, nestled in between the lilacs and their purple flower buds.

Once the morning rounds were done, I came inside for breakfast, and was planning to head outside. Part of the problem is, I’m just not feeling well. I wasn’t able to get to sleep until past 3am – I can only partially blame cats for that! Butterscotch has finally stopped spending her days hiding under the chair, and is back to sleeping on the bed, though any time she sees Susan or Fenrir, she starts snarling. Mostly, though, she has decided that I am her bed! Which is fine, until she starts wriggling and squirming.

Meanwhile, the high humidity we’re having lately has been brutal on my osteo-arthritis. Usually, that’s not been an issue since we moved back to the prairies. When we were living on the West Coats, I could barely walk. Now, it’s all acting up again. The worst is an old elbow injury. Back in… 2010? 2011? I developed the equivalent of tennis elbow. I actually quit my job as a banquet server at the time, because I was afraid I might drop a plate of food or a pot of hot coffee on someone. It got so bad, I couldn’t even turn a door knob, and had to stop crocheting for a year. With physiotherapy, it did improve, but it’s never healed completely, and flares up every now and then, and has developed into OA. It’s my left elbow, and I’m left handed in a lot of things – like turning door knobs! It’s been flaring up a lot since we’ve had the rains, making some of the simplest actions, painful and difficult. At least it doesn’t really stop me from doing big things; it’s the small motions that are affected the most, but I should still be able to handle a garden fork.

But then I started getting messages and had to make phone calls, and then there were other unexpected tasks to get done. To top it off, my younger daughter is feeling even worse than I am right now. For other reasons, but she’s pretty much out of commission for most things.

We are quite the household of gimps!

I’m really fighting the urge to take more painkillers and take a nap right now.

Well. I can at least take the painkillers!

The frustrating thing is, if we don’t get things done today, it won’t get done tomorrow; tomorrow is our first stock up shopping trip in the city. The day after, we’re supposed to get more rain. Then we’re back in the city again, to meet up with a friend that’s back in Canada. Then another trip to the city to do the second stock up shopping trip… on the weekend? After the weekend? Somewhere in there, we’ll be getting contacted about the flat tire I dropped off at the garage, and if all goes well, we’ll be getting that put back on, and the spare stored again. By the time all that is done, we’ll probably be past our last frost date and need to start planting things!

So those beds have got to get done!

At least we do have some spaces ready to plant in.

I just want to sleep.

The Re-Farmer

Morning kitties, and a bit of cat damage

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I was a bit later heading out this morning, so there were plenty of yard cats to greet me. I didn’t bother trying to do a head count, though. I spotted Broccoli, so as soon as the kibble was doled out, I went around the house to the old garden shed with some food to leave for her, and to check on her babies.

I was able to pick them up and cuddle them for a bit, then set them safe in the kibble bin while I straightened out their “nest”. Then it was another cuddle before putting them back and leaving food for their mama.

I did have a pleasant surprise while putting the food out earlier, too.

I saw Judgement! He hasn’t been around for weeks and, my goodness, he was a hungry boy! Wherever it is he wanders, he isn’t finding much food, and was looking quite skinny. Poor thing.

After I came back from tending Broccoli’s babies, I startled a skunk that was in the kibble house. The direction he wanted to run off was filled by a cat, so he ran in circles for a bit before squeezing under the cat house. It gave me a chance to see that one of his ears was just loaded with wood ticks! Poor thing.

Today has been nice and sunny, with just a few clouds. The rain has stopped, so I put the tray of transplants out. In general, the cats leave the transplants alone. The only time there is an issue is when they sometimes try to go through a tray to get to a window or something.

Usually, that just results in a knocked over pot, but the trays with cardboard and peat pots had been watered. When the pots are damp, they damage easily. It looks like a cat tried to step into one, and it broke. The seedling inside – one of the melons that was not part of the Summer of Melons mix – was undamaged, though. I found a small pot in the sun room and was able to transfer it over. The drainage holes in these pots are quite large, so I put the remains of the cardboard pot on the bottom to keep the soil from washing out. What I could no longer do, however, was read the label for which type of melon it was! Probably Sarah’s Choice, but it might have been a watermelon. Well, we’ll have another mystery melon is all. If it survives being moved to its new home. I had one Pixie melon on this tray and, for some reason, it just withered away. We have two more in the house, though. This morning, I transferred the last seedlings out of the aquarium greenhouse and into the mini greenhouse frame at the window. They’ll be moved to the sun room soon.

Things are still really wet out there, of course. It’ll probably be a few days before the lowest areas drain, but it does make weeding easier! Aside from that, though, we’re not going to try and get more progress on the big stuff. Tomorrow, I’m taking my mother to a medical appointment for long term care assessment, which will take up most of the day, so I won’t be doing any big stuff then, either. My daughter might be able to get some progress with the dead trees she’s processing for the raised beds, but the spruce grove has quite a few low spots that would be filled with water, too, so we’ll see.

This is usually when I say, “little by little, it’ll get done”, but right now, we’re not even getting a little done on these jobs! However, we are warming up and staying dry for the next while, so we’ll get there.

The Re-Farmer

Hello, little ones!

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I got to sneak a visit with the babies this morning! 🩷

They weren’t too happy to seem me. 😁 Still, I got to hold them for a bit while I straightened out their bedding, then pet them before putting them back. Then I left food for their mother. I’m so glad she hasn’t moved them! The outside mamas have all been notorious for moving their babies as soon as we figured out where they were, until they were too big to conveniently move. Which means these once have a chance of being socialized. I have no idea how many other litters there are right now, or where they are. None of tried using the cat house, nor the old dog houses behind the garage that were set up as general critter shelters. I think Brussel might have had her kittens in the garage, but only because I see her there fairly regularly. It seems to be her preferred home, in general. Where in the garage, I can’t figure out. Nothing in there seems like it would be a good nesting area for kittens.

Ah, well. When the times comes, they’ll start showing up, and then we’ll figure it out.

The Re-Farmer

Checking on the babies

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I had a really hard time getting going this morning, so I was a bit late in feeding the outside cats. Once I saw Broccoli, though, I just had to go and check on her babies!

They are definitely getting bigger and more attentive to what’s going on around them. The little calico would let out a hiss, every now and then. I picked them both up to straighten out their blanket a bit, and made sure to pet them, so get them used to human interaction.

Then I left some food for Broccoli inside the shed, plus a sheltered area outside the shed.

I’ll have to go out to check later, but as I was finishing up, I took the container with the remains of Cat Soup out. Yesterday, when it seemed most of cats weren’t too keen on it, I tried something. I emptied the remains of dry kibbles from the other bowls into the Cat Soup and mixed it all up. That made it more of a paste than a soup, and it made a big difference. Most cats were willing to eat it. So, next time we do this, we’ll use less water. My daughter suggested reducing the amount of ground pumpkin seed, too, as that likely has a stronger taste than using the same amount of pumpkin puree.

One thing that made me happy was seeing our elderly Freya going back to eat throughout the evening. She ate more last night than I’ve seen her eat in quite a long time. That alone will keep us making this stuff when we do their wet cat food!

Still, with the kibble mixed in, there was quite a lot, so I took what was left in the morning and set it outside for the yard cats. I’ve no doubt that bowl will be licked clean by the time I go back to get it!

The Re-Farmer

Yikes!

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I just got back from feeding the outside cats. Shop Towel, aka: Sad Face, made an appearance – and he was really living up to his alternate name! He’s looking so beat up.

The wounds you can see on his side were full of wood ticks, too. He was so hungry, not only did he let me touch him, but he let me pull all the ticks off!

Unfortunately, he tends to be the one starting the fights, and he’s considerably larger than most of the yard cats. He may be getting on in years, for a feral, but he is brutal.

We gotta trap this boy and get his nibs snipped.

The Re-Farmer

First, the cuteness

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I got an early start today, and a lot has been accomplished this morning. I’ve come inside for a hydration brake. More on that later, though. First, the cuteness!

While feeding the outside cats this morning, Broccoli came over – and she even let me pet her! It’s been quite a while! So I went to check on her babies, straightened their bed out a bit, and left some food for her in the garden shed.

I counted 19 or 20 cats this morning, and one of them was Driver. I haven’t seen him in a while! He was very vocal about wanting breakfast. He even let me not only pet him, but remove some ticks as well.

After getting a few other things done, I started working on the garden bed I’d started yesterday, and was thoroughly entertained.

I’ve been finding some of the markers on the ground pretty regularly. One was hitting a rock, so I dug that out, and now it stays up. Another was down this morning and I was hitting something as I tried to put it back. I figured I would dig out the rock, except it turned out to be a root! One of the markers holding the twine by the first trellis bed was on the ground, too, even though it was braced with a rock.

Yes, all of them have the spinners on them. I figured the high winds we’ve been having were part of the problem, but now it looks like it’s been cats helping them down, too! At least the one at the far end is deep in the ground and staying up. 😄😄

In one sense, I got a lot done this morning. In another, I did not get much done – at least not in what is the biggest job. More on that in my next post!

The Re-Farmer

Morning kitties!

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With the sun room converted for the transplants, we don’t feed the cats in there anymore, though they can still access the room and the beds we have in there for them. Instead, I’ve been making a point of spreading the kibble around more. Knowing there are likely still kittens in the junk pile (I haven’t heard them lately, and wouldn’t expect to see them for weeks yet), we’re back to leaving kibble under the shrine nearby, but I’m also leaving little piles of kibble on the sidewalk blocks in front of the sun room, and even under the swing bench under the kitchen window. This allows the shier cats to access food – and prevent fights. Sad Face and some of the boys do not get along, so if they don’t have to go near each other to eat, that reduces the potential for fights.

If I see Broccoli at the kibble bowls, I also go to the garden shed to check on her babies. Yes, they are still there, and I think she is okay with us knowing they are there.

This morning, I actually took them out and set them in the small bin I use to carry the kibble around, so I could rearrange their “nest”. It’s sitting on top of one of the cover pieces for the carport we found in the barn, but couldn’t assemble last year. It’s been pushed around and got all lumpy, making it hard for the self warming mat I gave them to stay spread out. I didn’t want the kittens to fall into a fold or crevice they couldn’t get out of. So I fixed that up a bit, put the self warming mat back, and returned the kittens. The bonus of doing stuff like this is, it helps to socialize the babies – something we’ve never quite been able to do with their mother!

I think they liked the new set up. More fluffy blanket to squirm around in!

I had closed up the door and was leaving more kibble outside the shed, in a sheltered spot, when Broccoli came around the house and saw me, so I left a bit more kibble while she could see where I was putting it. She came over quickly as I left, but started to run off when I paused and tried to see if she’d let me come closer. Our attempt to get her and the kittens into the sun room seems to have backfired with her (though not with the kittens). She’s been more standoffish since then. It’s a shame. I wonder if that third kitten would have survived if they had been in the sun room, instead? Not knowing why it died makes it impossible to be sure.

Meanwhile…

… the boys are the complete opposite! While the females are getting harder to get close to, even at feeding time (I think Caramel has had her litter; she’s looking a bit skinnier this morning), more and more of the males are getting friendly! In the video above, there were six of them, but three more joined the fray. Not only is it a challenge to pet nine cats at the same time, but Syndol wanted me to pick him up and kept trying to climb up my shoulder!

He is such a sweet boy!

Speaking of sweet kitties, I was chatting with the Cat Lady yesterday. The Wolfman is still with them. He’s so gorgeous, there have been quite a few people interested in adopting him, but every time someone has come to see him, he makes strange and disappears! Which is so weird. He was always the more gregarious one among last year’s kittens that we brought inside. Going to the Cat Lady and all that vet care and treatment for his injured eye seems to have made him much less trusting. He has bonded with their younger daughter, though, and they adore him – in spite of the fact that he likes to destroy their plants! – so they’re not in any hurry to adopt him out.

The Cat Lady is burning out, though. She told me her phone goes off constantly, every day, with people wanting her to do something with strays to the north of us. She’s telling people, no more intakes. Part of the problem is, while there is a local branch of the Humane Society, she’s basically the only rescue specifically for our region. Right now, they’ve got so many cats that are pretty much unadoptable – too many medical needs – it’s pretty overwhelming, even with at least 7 or 8 people taking care of them. That fact that she’s still open to helping us is so greatly appreciated. There is the province wide rescue that she used to be connected with, but we won’t be going back to them. Aside from how badly they treated her, finding out that they were accusing us of deliberately breeding cats means we likely wouldn’t be getting help from them, anyhow. Plus, it seems the bigger a rescue gets, the less they become about the animals, and more about internal politics and drama.

So we do the best we can, and try not to put too much on the Cat Lady.

I’m glad that The Wolfman is with them, though, and his eye is all healed up. We couldn’t have done that for him. As it is, we’ve got two cats that need to see a vet, and we just don’t have the funds. Peanut Butter Cup concerns me. She still has leaky butt issues, though at least it’s not so liquid anymore, but she’s having increasing problems with her breathing. Not constant, but sometimes she sounds like she’s got stuffed sinuses, and starts coughing or sneezing. Something is definitely going on with her breathing. The fact that it comes and goes is curious.

Then there’s our old grandma that moved out here with us. She’s about 14 or 15 years old (we’re guessing she was about a year old when she first showed up on our balcony). There’s something bothering her with her mouth, so she’s not eating as much as she should be. She won’t let us look and see. I’ve been making a point of making sure she has soft food, including softening lysine enhanced kibble for her. She enjoyed the cat milk that was donated a while back, but we’re all out of that, and my goodness, those little boxes have gotten expensive! We pick some up when they are on sale, but that’s not often. We do what we can for them, and have to be satisfied with that. There’s no sense in angst-ing over something we have no control over. 🫤

Oh, there’s something we’d like to try one of these days; making “soup” for the cats. I found a recipe on the Furball Farm Cat Sanctuary website. They are for adult feral cats only, and I absolutely love their facilities! I’d love to make a smaller version for our own yard cats. It would be much easier to get those ladies spayed if we could get them into a giant fenced in haven!

Anyhow, this is their recipe.

“Soup” Recipe makes one blender
1 Tablespoon Lysine
1/4 cup pure pumpkin
10-12 cans pate/grilled/shredded cat food**
2 cups warm water**
**actual measurements for these items can vary based on cat preference of soup consistency

We’d be doing this for the inside cats, and would probably do half the recipe. Maybe even a quarter, since it would be a supplemental treat. We have no pumpkin, though. The next time we’re at a grocery store, I’ll see if I can find canned pumpkin with nothing else added to it. I supposed we could make it without the pumpkin at first. Pumpkin is supposed to be helpful for loose stools, constipation and hair balls, and very little of it can go a long way. Something to try, anyhow!

It would also make it easier to dose the cats with lysine. I had found a new source of the fine powdered lysine that sticks to the kibble when tossed together, but it has disappeared. That’s two different brands that carried lysine in that form that have disappeared, since we started using it! I had to go back to another brand, which is more granular. It doesn’t like to stick to the kibble very well at all, and most ends up on the bottom of the kibble bin. Making the soup won’t help the outside cats any – we just can’t afford to feed the outside cats wet cat food as well as the inside cats. Plus, they hunt, so they don’t need it like the inside cats do. If we do end up making a fenced in sanctuary for them, though, that would change, to supplementing with wet cat food would be on the table.

What can I say.

We’re sucks for the cats.

Now, about winning that jackpot, to pay for all this…

The Re-Farmer

Still there!

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Broccoli was eating at the kibble house, so I took a quick check.

She has not moved her babies! 

The old garden shed is a good place for them, other than the fact that we actually still use it. 

In other things, the rain started yesterday, off and on, and will continue throught today.  No downpours or anything like that.  Just intermittent light rain.  Enough to make the ground too wet to work in the garden beds or process the felled spruced.

If my husband is up to it, there will be a trip into town for some blood work. 

I don’t think he’s up to it.

One of my older daughters, however, has offered to treat us to some Chinese food today, so a trip to town is still a possibility!

That would be a nice treat on a wet and chilly day. 🩷

The Re-Farmer

Morning cuteness

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We are supposed to get rain this afternoon, which would be great, considering it is fire season right now, so I made sure to get some work done outside. As I was putting things away, I noticed Broccoli by the house, so I dashed around to check the garden shed.

Yes, the babies are still there! Which means there is still hope of socializing them. Broccoli seems to be content with her nest, though lately she won’t let me anywhere near her. Not even at feeding time. It is, however, normal for the yard cat mamas to move their kittens several times, before they get big enough that they start bringing them along to the kibble houses for solid food.

I was thinking of sticking to the brassica theme for naming the calicos. We started with Cabbages, then Broccoli. We’ve got Brussel and Sprout, who are even more feral than their mother. What should we name the two calicos here?

Boc and Choy?

Kohl and Rabi?

One of the calicos is quite a bit larger than her siblings. You can’t really see it in the photo, but her head is huge compared to the other two!

They are so flippin’ adorable. Broccoli makes beautiful babies!

We really need to get her fixed.

The Re-Farmer

The morning outside

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We’ve got a much cooler day today – as I write this, it’s coming up on 1pm, and it’s still only 6C/39F, with a high of 13C/55F by about 6pm expected. I took full advantage of the cooler temperatures to get some things done! We’re supposed to start getting rain tomorrow, have more rain, off and on, over the next few days, so the more we can get done out there, the better!

The first job, of course, was to feed the yard cats. I counted 28 in total, I think. Knowing that we have kittens in the junk pile, I now put food out under the shrine, and even on the bench nearby. Which the Blue Jays appreciate… 🫤

Stinky, Hypotenose and Syndol were all pushing each other around, trying to get at pets!

I spotted Broccoli at the food bowls, so I interrupted my usual morning rounds and dashed to the garden shed.

I started taking out as many things as I could think to grab – garden stakes, hoses, netting, etc. I had to get under where the kittens were, so I lifted them all up in the self heating mat and set them on the ground as I worked. Once I got the stuff I thought I would need right away, I returned the tarp and the felted grow bags Broccoli has made her nest in, made sure it was flattened in such a way that no kittens would accidently roll off and get stuck somewhere, then carefully put them, still half snoozing, back in in their soft, fuzzy and warm mat.

By this time, Broccoli had come around the house and was watching me. When I was done and continued my rounds, she followed me around the garden. I’m hoping she will be okay with what I did, and not take her kittens away and hide them. By removing the stuff I did, I’m hoping we won’t need to open the door and disturb her and her babies for a while. I’ll still check on the, of course, but will try to do it only when I know Broccoli isn’t in there with them.

That done, I started doing garden related stuff. While rain may be on the way, we can’t count on it actually reaching us, so I did the watering. It looks like we finally have carrots sprouting, so I’ve moved the protective boards off of them. The German Butterball potatoes got the grass clipping mulch returned. I’m still putting the cover with the plastic on it over them, to keep the cats out. The garlic also got their mulch returned, now that they’re bigger, and watered.

After all the watering was done, I checked on the grapes. The false spirea growing nearby is trying to spread into them again, so I got some pruners to cut them away. Normally, I’d try to pull them up by the roots, but I can’t do that when they are right in with the grape vines.

Then I started clearing other spirea to clear more space around the grapes.

Before I knew it, I’d gone through the entire corner, clearing away dead false spirea, trimmed dead branches and last year’s flower husks, finding and clearing around a perennial flower that gets buried by the bushes every year, and really opening things up and cleaning them out.

The cats are very happy with this! They like to go under there. When they are in full leaf, it’s a shady spot they can hide in, and now it’s nice and clear of dead branches and twigs.

While the false spirea is leafing out, and the grapes are showing leaf buds, other things are further along. The “Mr. Honeyberry” haskap is in full bloom right now. I even saw a bumble bee among the flowers! The “Mrs. Honeyberry”, however, might have some leaves, not no flower buds yet. There’s no way proper cross pollination can happen, which means no berries.

*sigh*

The plum trees are blooming; they always bloom before they get their leaves. Quite a few tulips are showing flower buds, which is pretty awesome. The trees are also getting very green. So nice to see!

I look forward to getting back to work, when I get back from running errands!

The Re-Farmer