outside cats

What a start to the day!

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

First, the cuteness!

Look at these three handsome boys, posing so nicely for me!

We still haven’t named the orange and white one. He’s mostly friendly, but not too keen on attention. Syndol, on the left, can’t get enough. Patience, in the middle, is becoming more tolerant and accepts pets – on his own terms!

I didn’t get a head count among the outside cats this morning, but there didn’t seem to be as many. I didn’t see Rolando Moon, but Judgement is hanging out more. Which I like because Shop Towel is also hanging out more, but they don’t seem to be fighting anymore. It was usually those two that would go at each other the most. It seems having just one of the boys nipped has made a difference.

The cats indoors have been more of a pain. Ginger is still being bullied, particularly by the tuxedo boys.

When the kittens were small and kept isolated in my room, it was pretty hard on the girls. Especially my younger daughter. Many of the cats would gravitate to her bed – with her in it. There’s not a lot of room, so she would basically be stuck under the weight of all these cats on her covers, with a couple that would worm their way under the covers. They would also cause a lot of destruction in the studio half of their upstairs “apartment”. As you can imagine, it made sleep a difficult thing! Once we could start leaving my door open, that made life a bit easier for them. The cats would instead take over my king size bed! I even have blankets and cat beds in one corner for them, though it’s not unusual for my entire bed to be covered with piles of cats, all mashed together. Even little Peanut Butter Cup now hangs out on my bed, sometimes even in one of the cuddle piles! She’s adapted really well to being indoors, and even lets us see her naked belly and her well healing surgical wound. It’s been harder to check Tiny Beast and Tissue!

With having the door open again, we hoped Butterscotch would finally start leaving the room – and she did start to! We’d be putting food out in the dining room feeding area, before filling the bowls in my room, and I’d find her at the two steps between the old and new parts of the house, very interested in those food bowls! She’d immediately run back into my room, but at least she was starting to check things out.

Well, some altercation must have happened that we missed, because suddenly that stopped. Not only did she stop leaving my room, she even started to isolated herself in my room. Since coming indoors, she’s been in full retirement mode, and spends much of her time in one of the cat caves or – her favorite spot – in the wall shelf that my bed is against, sleeping on my clothes – but she used to also sleep on one of my pillows, with the other cats around. We’d even see her cuddled up with another cat or two, and sometimes engaging in mutual grooming.

Well, that suddenly stopped. She now spends almost all her time in the wall shelf. She stopped coming out to eat or drink, unless there were almost no other cats around. She also started growling at other cats, even when they weren’t anywhere near her. Once we saw she would go to a litter box, see a cat, then run back into her hidey hole, we knew something had to have happened.

When it’s feeding time, the majority of the food bowls are all in the dining room now; we stopped feeding them in the basement months ago, because Ginger was struggling with the stairs. Once those food bowls were filled, we’d go to my room and add food to the few bowls that are there. Unfortunately, for some reason, some of the cats will abandon the food in the dining room and all but attack the food in the bowls in my room, as if they were starving. Somehow, they prefer eating in my room, and I don’t know why!

We used to be able to set a bowl aside on my craft table, or their window seat that’s on my craft table, for Butterscotch so she would get some food while the vultures circled around the other food bowls. However, she will no longer come out for food if they are around. So now, as we go into my room with the food, we close the door so none of the other cats can rush in. There are some we do allow in that Butterscotch seems to be okay with, like our elderly Freya. Then we leave the door closed long enough for Butterscotch to be able to get, drink and use one of the litter boxes before opening the door again.

Well, this morning was a problem.

First, a problem for me, getting any sleep! Aside from waking up because I had so many cats lying on my legs, it was getting painful, I found myself losing about 2/3 of my bed space. It’s a good thing I have such a huge bed! Getting up to go to the bathroom requires a wrestling match with cats that don’t seem to care one bit if I start moving around and pulling back the covers. They don’t move unless I move them!

Then I’d come back and find the only space left for me is the top half of the bed.

I don’t mind sleeping across the bed, though. It’s just more awkward to get in and out.

Which is how I found myself sleeping across the top of my bed, with my head near the shelf Butterscotch hangs out in. She even came out for pets, which was encouraging.

Not for long.

I had finally fallen asleep again when I became instantly awake because my elbow was suddenly feeling very, very warm. I opened my eyes to see Butterscotch next to my pillow, hunched over. I immediately chased her off, then scrambled out of bed, searching for the wet spot. Turning on a light, I spotted Butterscotch, who was not at all happy. I managed to grab her, and put in the most accessible litter box.

The other cats, of course, were milling around. It was getting close to feeding time, after all. At least, in their minds!

Butterscotch ran off.

I managed to grab her again, and this time I tucked her into the big covered litter box. She started to run away, but I guess she just had to go too badly, because I could soon hear her actually using it.

On checking my bed, I finally found a small wet spot on an excess part of a pillow case – I’ve got king size pillow cases, but no king size pillows, so there’s quite a lot of extra pillow case. Thankfully, that’s all I had to change.

Then I went to check on Butterscotch and found David standing in front of the litter box she’d been using, while she was frantically climbing a chair to get away and back to her hiding place.

I could hear that the girls were up, so I got them to help me feed the cats early. While they made noise filling the other bowls, I snuck off with some food for the bowls in my room and made sure to close the door behind me. We left it closed until after I finished doing my morning rounds, to give Butterscotch a good long time to get food, water and use the litter again, if she needed to.

Once the door was opened again, the rush of cats into my room was insane. They converged on the food bowls, as if they hadn’t eaten in a week, scaring poor Butterscotch back into her shelf.

I wish I knew what happened to set her back like this. You’d think a cat that spent most of her life surviving the outdoors would not be intimidated by a bunch of house cats. You’d think she would be more like Toni or PBC; when the usual bullies tried to hiss and growl at them, they would just ignore them completely. Expect PBC. She’ll sometimes hiss back, if they get too annoying.

I know that, in time, she’ll eventually get over it. It just seems to take longer, since she already preferred to spend her retirement curled up and sleeping.

So we continue to try and make life easier for her and keep the other cats away, so she can get a break from them.

We are such sucks for the cats.

The Re-Farmer

Good kitty news!

/ Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

Check this out!

Driver is putting full weight on that foot, and he’s no longer limping! He even followed me around while I was doing my rounds, running ahead, flinging himself to the ground and rolling in the snow.

I only counted about 23 or 25 yard cats this morning, but one of them was Judgement. He was hanging out in the sunroom again, and looking just fine. I wasn’t able to check his nethers to see how things were healing up, but he did allow me to pet him.

As for the indoor cats, Wolfman is behaving as if nothing happened. Beast is behaving normally, too, but has been avoiding me more. Tissue is still mad at me, even as she cuddles against my legs at night. PBC has been running away and hiding more. I think a couple of the other cats have been less than welcoming, and she’s nervous. She hasn’t allowed me to pet her lately. She is, however, exploring the house, and the girls have found her upstairs. We will still keep the basement door closed, at least until she’s healed up. We don’t want her getting her incision infected, dragging her belly on the floor while exploring under shelves. She’s all over the place! Meanwhile, Butterscotch barely even goes out the door and into the hallway at feeding time. The little one is much more willing to check things out, while the grand old lady just wants to sleep in my pants shelf all day. 😁

As much as we need to keep trying to find homes for all these beasts, and they’re eating us out of house and home, I sure do love them dearly!

The Re-Farmer

Exhausting change of plans

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

My goodness, what a day!

What??? It’s not even 3pm yet???

Okay, let’s back up a bit!

First, the good news.

While doing my rounds this morning, I saw Driver limping around – and he’s starting to put that front foot down and putting weight on it. Not much, and only briefly, but that’s a good sign.

He went onto the cat house roof for breakfast, and while he wouldn’t let me look too closely, I was able to see this.

It looks like whatever injury he has involves a toe, but that’s all I can see. In fact, I can see more in this cropped picture than I could in person.

Yesterday, I saw Judgement hanging out in the sunroom through the evening, which I was happy with. He seemed fine and content to sit in the bottom of the shelf to look out the window. This morning, however, I saw no sign of him – but I got a headcount of “only” 29, so quite a few cats weren’t around at the time. Shop Towel was also nowhere to be seen.

They very much like their new beds, though! Checking through the window last night, there was a mass of cats curled up among the beds and blankets under the platform. The one smaller bed went on top of the platform, next to the self warming mat. Shop Towel was on that one. He basically covered the whole thing, he’s so big!

After my rounds were done, I was starting breakfast when the phone rang. It was my brother, letting me know he was going to our mother’s place today, to replace the peep hole in her door and get a visit in. He was wondering if I could join him.

Of course, I said yes! 

I had intended to go into town this afternoon to pick something up that my husband asked for, but I could do that at my mother’s town, too. So I left quite early to take care of that first. The grocery store turned out to open a lot later than I thought, so I ran my other errands first and was waiting when I got another call from my brother. He’d called our mother ahead (hands free, of course) to let her know he would be coming by. After giving him grief about how he should be in church with her, she asked him to pick up a couple of things at the grocery store. 😁 Knowing that’s where I needed to go myself, he let me know what she needed, so I picked her stuff up, too. By the time my brother arrived and met up with me, our mother would have already left for church, so we headed straight to her place; my brother and I are the only ones that have been entrusted with spare keys to her place, for times like this – and for emergency wellness checks, if that every becomes an issue.

Once we were settled inside, he very quickly popped out the damaged peep hole.

Check this out.

The last time we were there, and my brother discovered the damage, he’d tried scraping off the stuff, unsuccessfully. We were pretty sure it looked like Krazy Glue. Now that it’s off, it quite clearly is some sort of instant glue.

Kinda like the glue that was used on our gate locks a few times.

We have no real idea of how long it has been like this, since my mother never bothers to look through it.

The new one is very pretty, and has a little cover on the inside so no one can look in from the outside. It turned out to be ever so slightly bigger than the hole, but my brother was able to enlarge it with a pocket knife. He was kicking himself for not thinking to bring his drill. Frankly, I think the pocket knife did the job just fine. You can’t even tell the hole was enlarged, the different is so slight.

Of course, once it was in, we tested it out, with one of us going into the hall while the other looked through. My brother thought it wasn’t focusing right, but when I started from against the wall across from her door and walked forward, he could see me perfectly fine once I was at knocking distance. The peep hole has a 120° view, so that’s good, too.

After that, we had time to check my mother’s CID and messages, and clear some of them out for her (she’s never been able to figure out her answering machine!), leaving a couple of mystery messages for now. One, we’ve determined was a wrong number. The other, the person used my mother’s name, and left her own name – both of which were very hard to hear, with the strong Polish accent, but we were able to make it out. The message was for my mother to call her back, but no number was left. Whoever it was assumed my mother already had it.

We weren’t able to match the CID numbers with the messages, though. Her answering machine doesn’t leave the same date and time information on them. 

Then I noticed something new. A picture. That, in itself, is not odd; my mother has photos, prints, pictures from newspaper articles, etc. all over the place. It wasn’t until we had the table set up for lunch, with me in the extra chair that’s normally never at the table, due to lack of space, that I was facing the picture and getting a real look at it.

It was a picture of my mother, with our vandal and his wife, sitting at a table in a local restaurant.

Which made the location of the picture downright creepy. She set it up on the little mirrored altar that my brother had repaired the light on for her not long ago.

There was nothing to tell us when she had gone out to dinner with them, but it had to have been fairly recently.

After a while, with lunch set up and tea ready, my brother was starting to wonder where Mom was, as she normally would have been home by then. Church is right across the street, so it’s not far for her to go. So he went out to look through the lobby window – and found Mom! She had sat herself down in front of the window to watch people as they left church, completely forgetting that my brother had told her he was coming over!

She was very happy to come in and have everything ready and waiting for her. Of course, that didn’t stop her from finding something to complain about, but we were able to distract her and settle in. My SIL had prepared lunch for us, including a Greek salad that was in a larger Feta container that sealed nicely and could be left behind. My mother, in the most convoluted way possible, eventually managed to tell my brother that he could take the container home, because it was such a nice container, etc. Once we were able to decipher what she was saying (I think she thought it was a yogurt container, so we were quite confused when she started talking about the yogurt container, when she turned out to actually be talking about the salad inside), my brother tried to explain that the container was used specifically so that it could be left behind. There was more than enough for her to have with another meal or two, and then the container could be put in recycling. Oh, no! It was far too good of a container to throw away…

…

After a while, we got to explaining to her about the peep hole being replaced, and my brother showed her the old one, with the glue clearly visible on it. None of the other doors had damage to their peep holes (my brother checked), only hers, and there’s only one person we know who goes around vandalizing things with Krazy Glue.

She then made a big deal about how we were fussing so much about the peep hole that she doesn’t use. We were just explaining to her what was done and showing her what we found. To her, that was “fussing” about it. Meanwhile, she was the one getting all worked up about it.

It did give us an opening to ask about the picture.

It took time to piece together her explanation, as she kept jumping all over the place, and we could see she was trying to protect our vandal. It turns out he and his wife had shown up at her place on his birthday, which was at the beginning of the month. This would have been before I’d come over to her place most recently, to help her with groceries. She’d never mentioned it to me. 

She then told us that he said he’d been trying to phone her first, but couldn’t get through – so she told him that my brother had set up her phone to block scam calls, and after listening to the last message our vandal had left with her, his number was blocked, too. So he now knows all about it, she told us.

*sigh*

Around that point, I told her, we’re working so hard to try and protect her from him, but she keeps undoing what we’ve done!

From there, she tried to lecture us. What’s between us and him has nothing to do with her! I reminded her, it has everything to do with her, and 10 years of abusive messages he’s been leaving with her, among other things. Then it had to be clarified that it was abuse with words, because yes, when he tells her that she’s not going to heaven because she won’t give him the property that we’re on, that now belongs to my brother (somehow, he seems to think she can still give it to him, even as he ranted in his answering machine messages about how she’s apparently given the property to me!). 

Then she started the whole “we need to forgive each other” and “none of us are perfect”, as if we were the ones going out of our way to cause problems! At one point, she went on about how she prays every night that we will reconcile with him, and that we shouldn’t hate him. I told her, we don’t hate him! He hates us! Especially me, at this point. She tries to say that he is somehow harmless, though she is still really upset about what he did to the gate.

…

*sigh*

Then she started going on about how he’s the only one still keeping in touch with my late brother’s (now adult) children. I told her, I did try to reach out to them. They didn’t respond. Our vandal has been lying to them and driving them away from us. Even in one of his answering machine messages, he complained about how they weren’t allowed on the farm. He’s the only one that’s not allowed here anymore. We’ve never said my brother’s children weren’t allowed here! 

She just doesn’t get it, and keeps making excuses for him. 

So we finally got past that conversation, but it did give my brother the segue to get my mother to look out the new peep hole. She got upset and tried refusing to get up, because we were making such a big deal out of is, but my brother got her up and to the door. Then he stepped outside into the hall, so she could see him through the peep hole.

Oh, I just had to laugh!

I’m on the short side of things, but even I need to bend down a bit to look through the peep hole.

The peep hole is higher than her head. 

She tried going onto tip toes, but all she could see was the ceiling, because she was still having to look up to see anything at all!

Well, no matter. The damaged peep hole has been replaced.

My brother did bring up about possible getting one that will record when someone’s at the door, and he and I can later check to see who’s been leaving stuff at her door. She said she knows who’s leaving stuff, and to be sure, with some things, she does. The social workers regularly leave little care packages for all the people in her building. That stuff, however, gets left at everyone’s doors. She has stuff being left at only her door. While we can be almost certain that it’s our vandal, we have no proof. Plus, she’s found notes taped to her door that were clearly not written by him, or his wife, telling her to give the farm to our vandal. We’ve never been able to figure out who did that.

We didn’t push, though. That sort of thing is more than she can grasp, and she was still upset that my brother fixed the peep hole.

The last challenge was just before we had to leave, as we suddenly realized it was starting to snow hard, and my brother had a long drive home on open highways. My mother remembered that she had a phone number for a relative in Poland she wanted to call, but was having troubles. As my brother asked her questions and tried the number himself – it didn’t work – my mother told him that she’s been told she would never be able to make a call to Poland on the cordless phone. Only on the corded phone.

???

My brother told her that was not at all true and asked who told her that. All I could figure out was that it was someone in her building, but whether it was someone who lived there, a visitor, or one of the social workers from the senior’s centre, I could never get the straight of it.

After a quick search, my brother found the problem. The number may have been written correctly for someone in Poland, but not for someone trying to call from another country! 

The other problem was that my mother had written the information out on a scrap piece of paper. As my brother tried to write down the corrected information, she started flipping out about it having to be written clearly – which there was no room for! – while she went digging for the original letter from among her papers. Once she got that out, my brother worked on deciphering the hand written numbers – some numbers are written differently in Polish than is typically written in English – for both a land line and cell phone, I was able to get her to find an actual note pad, where I could write out what she needed without anything else on there to confuse things. 

My brother then helped her call the land line, which worked by got a busy signal. The cell phone number kept ringing until it stopped, with no voice mail. The land line was tried a couple more time, and it finally started ringing, but no one answers – that that number didn’t have voice mail or an answering machine, either.

The concerning thing was that my brother had to walk my mother through pushing the button to hand up the cordless phone. A phone she’s had for at least 10 years. I’ve had to try and find the right buttons myself when using her phone, as it’s different from mine, and poorly labelled. She had been the one to confirm which buttons were for “picking up” and “hanging up.” Now, she can’t seem to remember how to hang up her own phone.

Whether or not she’ll try to call again on her own, I don’t know, but my brother and I had to leave, before the weather got worse.

As we left her place, I could see my brother was looking even more exhausted than I felt! I’m glad I could be there, as she really does behave better towards him while I am there, then when he’s there on his own.

For me, at least, once I got out of town, the weather cleared the further north I drove. My brother, however, had to go south, and I think the weather was getting worse in that direction. He should be home by now, so I should finish this off and send a message to check if he got home okay. Knowing him, he probably found errands to run in the city before going home! 😁

On a different note, I didn’t even turn my new computer on until after I was home and settled. This thing boots up so quickly, it’s amazing! Even before my computer started dying, it was take several minutes to finish booting up. Now, it’s almost no time at all!

I’ve started to set up a few things, but I suspect it’s going to take quite a long time. Yesterday, for example, I installed my movie making software. I found the original .exe in my downloads on the back up external hard drive, but the initial set up assumes a free trial. I also had two versions, but couldn’t tell which one was the upgrade. You’d think it would be the one with the more recent download date, but nope. Turned out to be the other one. Once I finally got the right on installed, it still wasn’t what it should have been. I bought the software, rather than getting the subscription, and it kept wanting me to set up a subscription. After some fussing about, I spotted the “activate” button, logged onto the website and found the activation key. It’s now up and running.

I just no longer have any photos or my old project files. Most, I can get on the new back up external hard drive, so that will take more time to get all set up before I even try to make any new videos.

But not today. Today is supposed to be my day of rest!

I do have one more short post to write after this, though, and I’m quite excited about it! Especially giving the snowy weather we’ve been having lately. 

The Re-Farmer

Five more down!

/ Re-Farmer / 9 Comments

We are home!!!

Shortly before 6:30 am, I got the girls to try and get Shop Towel into the big carrier in the sun room while I got the others into the smaller carriers. They made sure to put on jackets and gloves to protect themselves from getting clawed! It didn’t work, so we ended up snagging Judgement.

By the time we got them all set up (Tissue started to panic as soon as she saw the carriers lined up on my bed!), the gate open (the slide bar was frozen in place by recent rain), and the carriers into the truck, it was almost 7 am. Road conditions were good and the drive went well. It was still full dark when I left, but full light when I got to the clinic, about 10 minutes before the 8am drop off time.

I was the first one there, which I appreciated, since it gave me time to warn them about Tissue and Judgement, both of whom tried to tear their way out of the carriers during the drive out. I never saw which one it was, but from the smell, one of the cats had a stress poop along the way. 😞

After the paperwork was done, I paid for two, then hung out until the Cat Lady arrived. She called ahead to say she was going to be a bit later than expected. Muffin has had all her teeth removed, so they had to force feed her, since her gums are not healed yet. Her husband tried to hold Muffin wrapped in a towel, but she got out. The Cat Lady got clawed up, and even got bit – or should I say, gummed – on her palm. It all took far longer than expected, and in the end, she had to leave her husband to try and finish feeding her.

We’ve been talking about getting that fluffy tortie – now called Peanut Butter Cup, or PBC – adopted out. She needed to get back to me about whether or not she could take PBC today or not. She recently took in three rescued males; they’d been dumped near a farm, and the farmer didn’t want cats, so he never fed them. Which isn’t too bad in the summer, but in the winter, hunting is very lean. So she’s treating them for worms while getting them carefully fed to get to a healthy weight before she can put them up for adoption. 

The good thing is, she now has a completely separate, heated shed that she can use for cases like this!

She said she would get back to me within an hour or so to let me know about taking PBC right away or not.

Once we connected and she took care of the bill for the other three cats, she passed on some donated supplies for us. Several cat beds, blankets and a fluffy towel, a new litter box, some cat food and treats, and a cat-size hard sided carrier. The carrier is missing most of the wing nuts to hold the two halves together, but I’m sure I can find new ones, somewhere.

After that, I could finally go for some breakfast and hang out until I got a call to pick up the cats. I ended up just going to a nearby Walmart, with a McDonald’s inside, because not much else was open, yet. Plus, it gave me a chance to do a bit of shopping, since I was there, anyhow. I ended up getting a larger, covered litter box. Eventually, I want to replace all our open litter boxes with covered ones, but they have to be larger. The one smaller one I have in my room doesn’t get used as much, and I think it’s mostly because of the size. Most of the adult cats don’t seem to like it, though they’ll use the one big one we already have, just fine. That one has three broken latches, so it needs to be replaced, too. We’ll see how the cats do with this one before getting more.

I did hear back from the Cat Lady, letting me know she would not be taking PBC quite yet. She’s going to focus on getting the three starved and sick males she took in. Once she has the space again, she’ll take PBC and Ginger, with a priority on getting Ginger adopted to a calm home, where he won’t be bullied by other cats.

I’m pretty pragmatic about saying goodbye to the cats, but just thinking about adopting out Ginger gets me a bit choked up. I’m going to hate saying goodbye to him, but he really deserves a better situation. Frankly, I’d rather adopt out the bullies, but they’d be much harder to place than him!

I ended up getting a call from the vet shortly after 11, letting me know they were ready for pick up. Really fast! They probably didn’t even start surgeries until 9 am, at the earliest.

The Beast was in the soft sided carrier, so she got the front seat. 

The other carriers stacked up securely in the back.

I think Judgement was done last, as he was still pretty groggy. Wolfman was, surprisingly, the most desperate to get out of his carrier. He almost knocked his carrier right off of Tissue’s! He and Beast where the most alert and active. PBC was quite calm on the drive home. Tissue, while still pretty groggy, was clearly in half-panic mode.

The drive home was… interesting!

As soon as I was outside the city, I was driving into light snowfall. The further north and west I drove, the heavier the snow. By the time I was in the final stretch of highway from my mother’s town, the snowfall was heavy, the highway was covered, and visibility was poor! It was light, fluffy snow. The sort of snow I could appreciate as being very beautiful – once I was no longer driving in it!

I was very glad to get home, that’s for sure.

Once we got them inside, the carriers were all stacked on my bed to start with. I made sure there was food and water in the sun room, along with a couple of new beds for the outside cats, before putting Judgement in the carrier in. I set a bowl of food inside with him, and the heated water bowl was just outside the carrier, then left the carrier door mostly closed, so he could come out whenever he felt ready to.

Tissue was starting to try and tear her way out of the carrier by the time I got back. We put food out for the other cats to lure them away, then food in my room – with the door closed – before letting them out of the carriers. Normally, they should have been left in the carriers longer, but we didn’t want them to hurt themselves. Tissue was still in panic mode. Strangely, Wolfman was pretty wired up, too! The Beast actually stayed in her carrier and had to be persuaded out. The problem with the soft sided carrier is that other cats try to climb on top, and don’t care if there’s a cat inside, getting squished! 

I wanted to leave my door open, but we had concerns that PBC would end up hiding somewhere in the basement. So, after making sure not cats were in the basement, I closed the door.

It’s a good thing we got extra litter boxes because, with the door closed, they no longer have access to the litter boxes down there!

The new litter boxes are now set up. 

It’s getting hard to find space for litter boxes.

So far, all seems well. We do have a few cats that are growling at PBC, but most of them are pretty laid back out there being a new cat in the house. We did keep her closed up in my room for the night. To make it easier for fasting, we put all the food bowls away, so there was no need to close up any other cats. Which meant I was getting up many times during the night, opening and closing my door as the night wore on. They were looking for the food bowls. Finding another cat in the process was far less interesting to them! On top of that, PBC tried exploring my room, which meant things getting knocked down that needed to be picked up.

I got next to no sleep. It’s all I can do to not go back to bed right now, but if I do that, I’ll really mess myself up!

The usual cats have hissed at PBC. Fenrir, of course. Big Rig. Meanwhile, Cheddar and our old grandma were all ready to start grooming her, though she only allowed sniffing. When it comes to human attention, though, she is quite enjoying the pets. Still not keen on being picked up, but starts purring almost instantly when we pet her! She’s going to love being an indoor cat. Whoever adopts her is going to get a real long haired beauty!

As I’ve been writing this, I’ve been able to keep an eye on her. She’s made no effort to leave my room, yet, and I’ve seen her eating, which is good. 

I’ll feel much better once I’ve seen her use a litter box, though! 😂

So, that’s five more done. No more inside cats need to be fixed. We can now focus entirely on the outside cats. 

Little by little, it’s getting done!

The only problem is, without being able to do the females right away, we’re going to be dealing with more kittens before we can get much progress!

Ah, well. We do what we can, when we can

The Re-Farmer

One last time? And cat stuff

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

While I am using my phone to make this post, because I can’t do anything with photos on my desktop, this might be the last post where this is an issue.

My new computer is ready to be picked up at the post office.

Unfortunately, I can’t get there before it closes over the lunch period.  It reopens at 2, so I’ll head our then.  After that, we’ll see how long it takes to set it up and see how it works.  It will take a long time to set up or transfer my data over, but I should at least be able to go online and write posts.

I really hope this turns out to be a good machine.

In other things, cat related.

I’ve been chatting with the Cat Lady.  They now have several cats from us, living with them permanently.  They have pretty much all had weird health issues.  Thankfully, Cabbages is now hale and hearty.  Leo – a kitten we never named and never expected to survive – had lung issues but is now officially declared healed. 

Then there is Muffin, a muted calico that was supposed to be adopted out, but bonded instantly with her husband.  For some reason, she hates the Cat Lady, but gets along with everyone else.  She also goes to job sites and coffee runs with her husband!

Well, one day, while the family was out of country, her mother, who was taking care of the cats while they were gone, found her with a bloody mouth.  After an emergency weekend trip to the dentist, she had some teeth removed.

Since then, they got a diagnosis of stomatitis.  She’s going to need all her teeth removed.  !!!

Telling my daughters about this, they told me of a cat they follow online (Yes, a cat; not the owner!) that had all her teeth removed a couple of years ago.  Apparently, cats can handle being gummies just fine.  So hopefully, things will work out for Muffin.

I shared this with the Cat Lady, along with mentioning how we feel so bad that she has all these cats from us that turned out to have major health problems.  She told me it was okay.  Other cats they’ve found themselves with have been much more difficult.  And she wasn’t talking about the one that was do physically abused, he can no longer eat without help, and had to have a leg and tail amputated. 

Which is rather alarming!

Then she got back to me later, after talking to someone with 41 cats, wants to adopt some out and get some of them fixed.

Just some?

The Cat Lady says she is getting so tired of dealing with the public, she just wants to focus on us and our cats.

What does that say about the other situations she deals with, when ours is the least problematic??

Speaking of which…

We have a problem with Driver.

A couple of days ago, he seemed to be limping on a back leg.  I wanted to keep an eye on him, but yesterday, I never saw him walking.  While feeding them, he was in the cat bed under the platform in the sun room, and didn’t get up.  When I came back after finishing my rounds, he was gone.  Checking through the bathroom window during the night, though, I spotted him on the top shelf by the window.   I figured if he could get up there, he was doing alright, or at least improving.

This morning, however, he was walking around on 3 legs, holding a front paw off the ground.

About the only positive thing I can say is that the leg isn’t dangling.  With Ginger and with Toni, when I saw how their legs were dangling and flopping around, I knew right away, amputation would be the most likely recommended course of action.  With Driver, however, he’s holding the leg up, but there is nothing swinging around or flopping.  As I had not noticed him favoring his front leg before, this may even be a new injury he somehow got last night.

The last I saw him, he was disappearing under the storage house.  I wasn’t even allowed to get close to him, never mind pet him, which is now unusual for him.

The problem is, we can’t even take him to a vet.  With the spay day coming up this weekend, plus expenses like the new computer, expecting new glasses for my husband, etc, we just don’t have any more budget left for vet bills.  I’ve told the Cat Lady about it, but not with any expectation that they should take in the expenses. 

We have had cats show up favoring paws or legs before, that healed on their own.  We will watch closely.  Hopefully, it’s not anything serious, but at the moment, I can’t get close enough to check.

*sigh*

Well, we do the best we can.

What else is there?

The Re-Farmer

Cat count, and here we go again?

/ Re-Farmer / 6 Comments

I popped outside briefly last night, when raccoons showed up in the sun room again. It was raining ever to lightly at the time.

By morning, we were still above zero, with a light fog. Things are pretty wet and slippery put there!

We’ve got the “moat” forming around the garage – something more typical or March or April.

That didn’t stop Driver from following me around and demanding attention! He kept flopping in front of my feet, until I finally picked him up and carried him.

I managed a head count this morning. The cats still aren’t all back to using the sunroom at night, but I think I counted 35 this morning!

Meanwhile…

I am having major computer issues again.

I tried using my movie making software last night. I finally started seeds and was going to make a quick little silent video.

The computer started making grinding noises.

As the noises got worse, I tried shutting down the machine, but it wouldn’t shut down. After numerous attempts, I finally did a hard shut down and tried again, after waiting the 20 minutes or more it takes to boot up now.

After doing a few things to make sure it was functioning, I tried the movie making software again. As I was going through Windows Explorer to find some images to include, it started locking up on me.

Oh, and I can’t see my external hard drive, where i have been moving my photos and video to conserve space.

When I tried navigating around WE, it started “not responding” on me. Of course, with WE, you can’t just End Task it. The only option is to restart it.

Which locked up even worse. I got a white screen that wouldn’t go away.

After having to do hard shut downs several times, I called it a night.

This morning, I tried turning on my computer.

It wouldn’t boot up.

After having to do a couple of hard shut downs, I got the dreaded blue screen, and the “this device needs repair” message.

Much to my surprise, though, I was able to go through the prompts and get it started! While I’ve been tapping this on my phone, it managed to finish booting up.

Meanwhile, my husband has been looking up computers on Amazon for me. Not that we can afford one that has what I need. He was even looking at ones with payment plans, but those were even out of budget.

As much as I love the truck, the payments we ended up with were over budget, and that’s really affecting what other things we can do.

Well, it is what it is.

Time to see how the computer is working.

The Re-Farmer

A rough night, but much improved

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We have GOT to get more of the inside cats adopted out.

Last night was a rough one. 

With my arm still giving me grief, I tried going to be early again. While I could move my right arm forward and back as normal, if painfully, I still couldn’t get it move more than a few inches straight outward. 

When I go to bed, I often has several cats that insist they MUST be either right against me, or me, and they don’t often give me a chance to finish getting into bed before they do it! Cheddar is one of several that has decided where I sleep is his spot. He’s a big boy, so moving him with one wonky arm was a challenge! Others will move as I pull the covers back, but not Shadow in the Dark. He’s one that likes to curly up near my face or against the back of my neck, and he won’t move. So lifting the covers usually results in him being rolled over and over, then he lies there, all sprawled out, looking at me like I’ve offended him somehow!

That’s not unusual, though. 

Butterscotch made things unusual.

She’s been doing quite well, and even gotten to the point that she has started to leave my room, if only to go as far as the steps to the dining room, or peak around the corner at the basement door, to look down the hallway, before running back into my room.

Lately, however, she has taken to growling and snarling. 

Sometimes, I can see that there’s a cat nearby that she’s snarling at, but they’re usually just there, and not even looking at her. A couple of times, one of them would go at her, but it seems more a response to her snarling, and not the other way around. Other times, I’ll hear her snarling, and I can’t even see any other cats around her.

Well, it seems that having so many cats in my room, usually covering my bed, sleeping in groups, is stressing her out to the point that she isn’t going to the litter boxes. She’d have to go past the other cats to do that.

The first time I heard the odd noises, I found her squeezed onto one of the boxes I’ve set in front of the wall shelf, under my craft table. I’ve got other boxes inside the bottom shelves; with the table there, they can’t be accessed for us, but when they were empty and I thought the cats were just using them as places to sleep, we discovered they were defecating in them, so we blocked them off with empty boxes. One of those overhangs the edge of the shelf, and she was squeezed between the box on the floor and the overhanging box.

Then I started hearing a very strange sound indeed.

The sound of hard turds dropping onto the box she was on!

I managed to get her out of there, but then she went into a shelf above where I sleep; the shelf I keep my glasses in, as well as where I put my phone on a stand to charge at night, among other things.

I got her out of that, and she squeezed herself into the space of another shelf, in between my cookbooks and the top of the mattress. I tried lying down again, but more noised had me getting up again to investigate, and this time she was digging into the shelf that I use for some of my clothes. I got her out of there and tucked her into the nearby cat cave, and she stayed there.

Not for long.

I was again awakened by strange noises, and this time I found she was making a mess on my bed, between my pillow, and my leaning sheep – a large stuffed sheep I sometimes use to lean against when sitting up in bed, but is normally stored in the shelve under where I keep my glasses. It’s large enough to almost fill the space completely.

Well, this time, it was a very messy mess.

My daughters are still timing things so that one of them is always available to help me with his, so I messaged my older daughter to help me. We wiped up as much as we could, then stripped the bed. The fitted sheet and the leaning sheep had to be washed, along with one pillow case, but the mess was bad enough that we had to strip the waterproof mattress cover for washing, too!

By then it was past 1am – so much for going to bed early! 

While my daughter got the laundry going, I started putting out wet cat food. That lured all but one cat out of my room. I set wet cat food out in the bowls I have there, which allows for Butterscotch and a few of the the shier cats to get some, without being pushed around by the other cats. This time, I was able to close the door and keep the other cats from coming back in during the night.

Of course, that meant frequent interruptions by cats trying to claw the door open.

Eventually, though, I did hear Butterscotch going into a litter box, which should have been a good thing, but… something didn’t sound right. So I used the flashlight on my phone to try and see her.

*sigh*

Yeah, she was using the litter box, finally, but didn’t quite go all the way in. 

She ran off again and hid in her cat cave while I got up and cleaned up the mess.

*sigh*

After that, things did finally quiet down, and I managed to get some sleep, but all this having to get up and check things was quite painful. 

I have discovered on thing, though. While my girth may make it seem otherwise, I’ve got some pretty decent abs! I had to sit myself up many times using just my abs, and not being able to use my arms at all. 

With just Butterscotch in her cave and what turned out to be Susan sleeping somewhere else, I actually was able to get some decent sleep, if only for a few hours.

This morning, I felt good enough that, when my younger daughter went to feed the outside cats, I went along to help out, then do the rest of my rounds and switch out the trail cam memory cards. 

I was very happy to demonstrate to her that I can now lift my right arm straight out again! While there is still some pain, I have almost full mobility of my arm again! The level of improvement since yesterday is amazing. I’m so relieved! There were times I seriously considered getting my daughter to drive me to the hospital, but giving it a couple of days of rest seems to be what I really needed. In fact, while writing this, I just tested my arm again, and I could do a full rotation at the shoulder, with no pain! Not even my left shoulder, which was not strained as badly, still has more pain now than my right shoulder does. I’m so relieved!

While doing the morning feeding, neither of us tried to do a head count. There were clearly fewer cats than usual, but they were also running around a lot, making it hard to keep track. There were these two, though…

The cats still aren’t going into the sunroom as much as usual. Checking it just a short while ago, there was a small pile of maybe three or four cats on the platform, and that’s it. Usually, we’d see about 6 or ten on the platform, and almost as many under the heat lamp or on the cat bed below, plus more in the shelf, at the food bowls or just wandering around. It’s going to take time for them to start feeling safe in there again.

These two are almost always in the sunroom. Syndol can’t get enough attention, but the little one (can you believe they’re only about a month or so apart in age?) is now getting to the point of enjoying pets and being picked up. We’d brought this one into the house a couple of times to give his nethers a thorough washing. He was so patient about it, the girls have named him Patience.

Even his tortie sister has started to allow me to pet her more often, and will tolerate being picked up more. Which is good, because it means we can bring her indoors for overnight fasting at the end of the week, before taking her to get spayed. Oh, how I wish more of the females could be socialized enough to get them done! My daughter was able to pet Broccoli this morning, but she wouldn’t let me near her. I did manage to pet Junk Pile – the first time in ages. She seemed shocked at being pet, and liking the shoulder skritches, but didn’t allow it for long. Even Caramel was around, but I only managed to touch her while she had her back to me while eating. Brussel won’t let us near her, but she will go into the kibble house and even into the sunroom. Sprout keeps her distance. If we’re around, she won’t eat at all, and she prefers to eat from the bowls under the shrine, across the yard. We’ve seen Slick around, I think (aka: Octomom), and there’s another grey tabby that’s more spotted then striped that I think is also female. That one will eat at the kibble house or on the cat house roof, but is even shier than Sprout, so we haven’t been able to confirm, either way. Another one we have not been able to confirm is one more from that late litter of either kittens; a small grey tabby with dense longer fur. It will go into the sunroom to eat, and I’ve been able to sneak a pet on its back, if it can’t see me, but that’s it. Given how it won’t let us near it, I’m going to just assume it’s female. 😕

Anyhow, that’s the current status.

In other things, my daughter was able to help me move a chair out of the living room so I have access to the aquarium greenhouses again. With my arm mobile again, my goal for today is to get the big aquarium ready for seed trays, then hopefully actually get seeds started. We’ve got the red onions, yellow onions and shallots that should have already been started by now, plus some peppers and eggplant. Possibly some oregano and thyme, too, but those can probably wait a couple more weeks. I’ll have to go through our seeds that need to be started the earliest and make some decisions. With having to build or rebuild so many beds, once things are thawed out enough, I’m going to work on the assumption we won’t have room for everything we want to plant. Especially for things that would need to be planted in ground, like corn.

We shall see how things work out. For now, I’m just glad to 1) be pain free and mobile enough to get back at it and 2) not have any unexpected running around to do, but actually be home to get my own stuff done!

Time to grab a stool and get at those aquarium greenhouses!

The Re-Farmer

What a messed up, mixed up, day.

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

I’m going to start this with some cuteness. I could really use some cuteness right now.

Not a very clear picture, but it was getting pretty dark and the time. This little sweetie is starting to actually enjoy being pet and even picked up, if only briefly.

Also, I’m very happy that he’s alive and unhurt.

I’ll have to explain that particular statement in a bit, but I’m rather unhappy right now.

I had called my mother last night and made arrangements to help her with her groceries today. At her request, I was going to pick up a hot lunch at the grocery store first, if they had them ready, so I left earlier and expected to be away for some hours.

They didn’t have the hot lunches, but I was still able to pick up a meal for us, and we had lunch together, then went over her grocery list. Grocery shopping by myself, with just her list, is a lot faster, and even got a bit more of a visit in before she left for a regularly scheduled social gathering some social workers arrange in her building. 

I hadn’t had much sleep the night before, having discovered a huge puddle on my bed and needing to do laundry in the wee hours! Once I was back home and settled, I tried lying down for a bit, on the half of my bed that wasn’t still air drying. Yes, I had the new waterproof mattress cover on, and yes, the puddle actually soaked through it in spots.

While I was lying down, I had my phone on the charger on my desk when it started making notification noises. I ignored them, partly because I was buried in cats. After a while, though, my husband came by, commenting on how surprised he was that no one commented on the photo he’s sent.

Before I left my mother’s, she gave me some stuff to take with me. One of them was a baggie of different types of candies and chocolates that the social workers give out to everyone in her building. The girls and I had split them up, with a few going to my husband, including some caramels.

The picture he’d sent was of a caramel.

This a crown stuck to it.

The candy had actually pulled it right off!

After talking about it briefly, my husband made a phone call to the dentist. It was shortly after 3, and they were willing to take him in right away, but with how long it takes to drive into down, it was too early. So they said to come in for 4.

I could hear his side of the conversation and, once I realized he was able to get in right away, I extricated myself from the cats and started getting ready to head out again. I drove the truck into the yard, then went to the sunroom, which had only the outer door tied off, so I could open it from the outside, to get his walker.

I reached in to untie the door, and it growled at me.

I opened the door, and there was a big white dog standing there, looking at me.

At first glance, I thought it was the dog belonging to the younger of my brothers, who lives on the quarter across from our driveway. He doesn’t come around anymore, so that was a surprise.

Then I realized, it was not my brother’s dog. First off, this dog was not as fluffy. My brother’s dog gets very fluffy in the winter. Also, this dog had very distinctive eyes; one blue, one half blue, half brown.

I stepped aside and the dog left the sunroom, but it didn’t go far. It was very nervous and wagging it’s tail, but it was the sort of “if I reach out, will he lick my hand, or bite it?” nervous behavior. I didn’t reach out to it, of course, but the dog did start barking at me.

I still had to get the walker, though, so I went into the sunroom. There, I found a few things knocked out of the shelf against the window and onto the floor under the platform. The only cat I saw was the little fluffy tortie, and she was clambering her way up the shelf to the very top. It wasn’t until I was outside with the walker, after picking some stuff back up again, that I saw there was another cat already up there. They were watching me – and the dog – out the window.

The dog was still barking as I got the walker set up. My daughters, of course, came out to see what was going on, so while I fussed with the walker, they were on the other side of the kibble and water bowl shelters, and able to see what I missed.

A cat, lying dead in one of the paths in the snow leading to the food bowls under the shrine.

It was the single calico cat among last summer’s kittens. We’ve never been able to socialize her, but she was a talkative one and would always greet me when I came out to feed them. 

I had to confirm that she was dead, of course, and she had clearly not been gone for long. I was able to move her to where she will later be cremated, and I’m sure that if I’d touched her with my bare hands, she would still have been warm. 

Needless to say, that dog was no longer welcome. 

We did some banging around and commended him to go home, but he just ran around the house. I chased him away some more, and he eventually ran out of the yard.

We were all quite unhappy with the situation.

My husband, meanwhile, had come out of the house and was in the truck. We needed to get going. We left the girls to take care of things, including locking the gate behind us, so we could get to the dentist. 

It was just 4:00 as we came through the doors!

They got my husband in quickly and, while I waited for him, I posted a message on an FB page for our community, as well as on my personal profiles (since recovering my stolen original account, I still keep both old and new accounts active), about the dog, what happened, and our general location.

We did have a bit of a surprise at the dentist.

They already had a file for my husband.

Neither one of us remember him going to the dentist since we moved out here, but apparently they have him on file for 2021. 

I was in the process of messaging my daughters to update them when my husband came out.

He was done.

When he made the appointment, they asked him to bring in the broken off crown. It turns out, all they needed to do was cement it back on again! 

Then it was time to pay the bill. They do direct billing with the insurance company, but when they tried to process the payment, they got a message to get the new card information. There had been some changes within the system and we got new cards, but they had the exact same information on them. In fact, they sent us new cards twice, because of some other issue. I had both older cards, plus the newest on, in my wallet, so we were able to look at all three to compare.

They all had identical information on them.

Rather than fuss with it then, the receptionist said they’d clear it up with the insurance company, then bill use the rest later.

I remembered to ask how much it was, and it came out to $190. Our coverage is 90%, so we won’t have much to pay at all, when the time comes.

Since we were in town anyhow, my husband suggested we get something to eat. Clearly, his mouth was feeling just fine!

So we went to small restaurant nearby, and I was a very rude person, frequently checking my phone. There had been a number of reactions to my posting about the dog and what happened.

Then I started getting some private messages. A friend and neighbour sent me a picture of a dog. I couldn’t tell if it was the same dog, though. It had its fluffy winter fur, for starters, but I couldn’t make out the colour of the eyes. I asked about the eyes, and my friend said it was his brother’s dog (they live on the same quarter section), but he wasn’t sure about the eyes.

Then he sent me another picture. This time, it was a summer picture, so the dog’s fur was sleek. More importantly, it was a clear shot of the dog’s face – complete with porcupine quills in its snout!

Once I saw the eyes, though, it was confirmed. This was the dog that we found at our place.

We messaged back and forth a bit, and he gave me his brother’s phone numbers.

When we were done eating, and getting some take out for the girls, we headed straight home. The light was fading fast, so as soon as I parked the truck, I wandered around the house to see what I could see. Which was nothing obvious, but it was really getting too dark by then.

While we were out, our daughters kept an eye out for the dog, and did the evening feeding of the outside cats. A few of the cats had started to come back, including some friendlies that wanted pets. 

The sunroom doors were also secured with both doors tied off, and tightly. There would be enough room for cats to squeeze into the sunroom, but no dog is getting in there!

My husband took his walker in through the main doors and is now storing it in the entry, in front of the washing machine, again. It’s more in the way, there, but we can’t get into the sunroom from outside anymore, when both doors are tied off like that.

Once things were settled indoors, I went through the old kitchen to go to the sunroom. There were only 3 cats in there; the fuzzy black one in the photo above, Syndol and one of the white and greys that’s really friendly. When I had been walking around outside, I did see a few cats around, but they were understandably very nervous and quick to run off. I did see Rolando Moon as we drove into the yard, and Brussel by the garage, plus a few more identifiable ones. It won’t be until tomorrow morning that I’ll be able to try and get a head count and take a good look around.

Meanwhile, I did phone the guy the dog belongs to. He had already been told what happened by my friend, and was in total shock. When he got home from work, the dog was at home and everything seemed normal. Plus, this is a dog that is not prone to wandering, even when chasing deer out of the yard. The dog looks like it’s part Pyrenees, and they like to guard their own territory. That he should wander to another farm a mile away, then kill a cat, is extremely odd behaviour. 

Had my husband not had to go to the dentist unexpectedly, I wouldn’t have gone out for at least another hour, to do the evening cat feeding. I would have found the sun room half trashed and almost devoid of cats, and I would have found that little calico in the path, and never known what happened – and the dog’s owner would never have known his dog had wandered off.

As we were talking, one of the things he asked me is if we had a BB gun or pellet gun. We do have a pellet gun. I have permission to use it to scare the dog off.

Which is unlikely to happen. I don’t typically carry it with me when I do my rounds! 

To be honest, though, I was thinking thoughts about having our crossbow handy.

I am seriously unhappy.

We are dog lovers in this household, but a dog that’s a killer is a different situation altogether.

Hopefully, we will never see it again.

I’m going to miss seeing that gorgeous little calico. 

Oh, and jus to top things off, I’ve wrenched my shoulder. When the dog had gone around the back of the house, and my daughter could see it through the sunroom window, in the old kitchen garden, I went around to chase him off. Right now, instead of a rain barrel at the corner, we have the diverter set up. It extends as far as the hand rail with the rose bush growing at it, near the steps for the laundry platform. With how warm things have been lately, there’s been a lot of melted snow from the roof that flowed onto the ground in the space between the handrail and the laundry platform, and towards the cat shelter.

The very space I needed to go through, to get to the old kitchen garden.

It was, of course, very slippery. I used the hand rail to keep myself upright, but still came very close to falling a couple of times. I didn’t think I’d hurt myself, but the more time goes by, the stiffer my shoulders are getting. My right shoulder, in particular, is getting so that it’s painful to move, or raise my arm at all. I’m going to have to pain killer up if I’m going to get any sleep tonight!

What a messed up day today has been.

The Re-Farmer

Waiting

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

Here is a rolly polly Rolando Moon to delight you…

… while I wait in a parking lot, for our quarter beef pick up.

It still makes me giggle, every time, that we do this like some sort of illicit drug deal.

Though the way things are going with the powers that be, I might not be far off the mark. So many groups are now calling to end the eating of meat, especially beef, I wouldn’t be surprised if they try to make it illegal.

Hopefully, sanity will prevail.

Until then, let’s appreciate a fuzzy orange belly and all those toe beans!

The Re-Farmer

A disappearing day!

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

I didn’t quite get to all I intended to do today.

I was awakened by an army of cats demanding to be fed, so I finally got up to do that, a bit earlier than they usually get fed in the mornings. I tried going back to bed, and several of them “thanked” me, by laying down with me.

And on me.

At one point, I had four cats lying across one arm alone! 

Eventually, I was able to crawl out from under them and got out to do my morning rounds about an hour later than usual. I was just finishing up when I came around the corner of the house and saw this.

There had actually been more of them in the paths to the bowls under the shrine, but a few ran off before I could get my phone out for a picture. It’s been so much warmer, I can’t get a good count of how many there are. They are a lot more active, and not staying as close to the house. They’re also not as hungry, which can only be helpful when it comes to the cat food supply! In fact, I went out to do the evening feeding before starting this, and didn’t have to add more kibble at all, there was so much still left!

I got a message from the Cat Lady this morning, to confirm how many females will be brought in for the cheap spay day. The clinic needs to know by Feb 1st, as spots are filling up fast. They’re doing males, too, but the spays are more intensive than the neuters, so they need to know. I’ve confirmed we’ll have 2 indoor females and 1 outdoor female, plus 1 indoor and 1 outdoor male. We’ll try to get the fluffy tortie indoors for overnight fasting, but we won’t be able to do that with an outdoor male. In fact, when it comes to an outdoor male, we’ll just grab whichever one we can get into a carrier! I would like it to be Shop Towel, but I didn’t even see him today, and there’s no way to be sure he’ll be around. We already do their evening feeding while it’s still light out, so the food is typically gone before 8pm, and that’s as close to having the outside cats fasting as we can get. The clinic does trapped ferals, too, so they are understanding if some cats may or may not have had an overnight fast, and are as prepared as they can be for that.

I’ve been informed that, along with the donated cat beds and other stuff the Cat Lady has for us, she’s got another kennel – by which she means, a cat carrier. I still am not used to her calling carriers, kennels. To me, a cat kennel is one of those wire cages, sometimes with multiple floors inside, and enough space for a litter box. Which I do want to get, to make it easier to isolate cats indoors. Right now, to do the overnight fasting, we’ll have to keep the fasting cats closed up in my room overnight. With needing to isolate 3 cats for fasting, that’s not too bad, but if we only need to do one, or a few kittens, a kennel would be far more efficient, and I wouldn’t have to worry about cats escaping if I have to go to the bathroom during the night!

After the morning rounds were done, it was my turn to do the upstairs cat litters (I can’t do the downstairs ones, as with my knees being so unstable, going up the stairs while carrying the buckets would not be safe for me to do). At the same time, I had the computer starting up. Last night’s upgrade was downloaded and the computer shut down, so it needed final installation when I turned it on. As a result, start up was even longer than it has been of late. Thankfully, everything seems fine. I’m still slowly going through things that I haven’t accessed for so long, all my saved passwords, etc. need to be input all over again. In some cases, I’ve even had to change passwords, because the ones I tried were coming up as “you are using an old password”. Frustrating. Still, it’s getting done, and the computer is behaving, and that’s what’s important. 

Anyhow.

I never even made it to the computer this morning, other than turning it on. By the time I finished my chores and made breakfast, it was almost noon and, for some reason, I was incredibly sleepy. My daughters apparently were having issues, too. My younger daughter has been trying to go to bed early, then get up early, but Sunday nights is their regular gaming night with friends in various time zones. So she got up later this morning. My older daughter, who has gone back to working at night, partly to keep the cats from attacking her sister (who does the same for her during the day) had work to do, but was falling asleep at her computer, and ended up going to bed much earlier than usual. Neither of them got much sleep.

I was finished up my breakfast and my older daughter was chatting with me, and I was so tired, I was actually falling asleep mid sentence! I finally gave up and went for a nap. It wasn’t even 12:30, and I was planning to go to the post office to pick up a parcel when it opened at 2. Still, I figured at least an hour would be good!

Well, I did get about an hour or so. Which was interrupted.

I think I was lying down for less than half an hour, when the first interruption happened. My older daughter was in the kitchen, getting started on some cooking, when the power went out.

My daughter’s first thought was that the kitchen breaker was tripped, but nope. The furnace had been running at the time, which I can hear the loudest in my room, and that shut off. 

Of course, what really got my attention was my hearing my computer shut off.

Not good, on a computer that is already on its last legs!!!

My daughter mentioned she had seen some trucks milling around at the intersection near our place, and wondered if they had done something. With all the fans and furnaces and whatnot off, even I could hear the reverse alarm from the trucks on the road. 

My husband was in the process of trying to find a strong enough signal to report the power outage to the electric company with his phone, when my daughter, still in the kitchen, saw some guys at our power pole!

My husband went out to talk to them (I was only half awake through all this). He was told it was regular maintenance, and they apologized for cutting our power; they didn’t think anyone was home.

!!!

Normally, for things like regular maintenance, I would have received an email from the electric company, but not this time!

It was good to know that we lost power on purpose, though, rather than some sort of failure somewhere. It was back on again before long.

When 2 rolled around, my daughters did the wet cat food, and the cats surrounding me exploded the moment they heard a can open. While being used as a launching pad was rather painful, it did mean I could finally roll over onto my non-aching hip! It wasn’t long before I was enveloped in cats again, but I figured I could lie down for a bit longer. In fact, I’m going out to pick up our quarter beef tomorrow. Picking up the parcel can wait until then, right? I’ll just get a little bit more sleep.

Of course, when I did try to get up, I had even more cats on me. One of them was David, who doesn’t usually cuddle me – he prefers my daughters – so I didn’t want to move. My bladder, of course, had other ideas, so finally I dragged my butt out of bed. It wasn’t until after I’d talked to my husband for a while that I suddenly realized…

It was well past 4pm.

I’d slept for at least another two more hours!

I had no idea I was that tired! I’m not even sure why I was so tired. Sure, I had a cat-interrupted night, but it wasn’t any worse than usual!

So my plans for this afternoon just sort of disappeared, along with my day. 

My plans involved things like vacuuming, so I’m not exactly heartbroken about it.

For now, I need to go through the trail cam files, which I normally would have done in the morning, and see how many more old files I can delete to clear more space on my computer.

It’s just past 7pm as I finish this. It’s full dark out right now – sunset is shortly after 5pm these days – but it’s still 2C/36F out there. So warm!! We had a high of 4C/39F, which is what we’re supposed to reach tomorrow, too – but the say after, we’re now getting a predicted high of 7C/45F!!! The 10 day forecast has us with highs above freezing every day. Woohoo!!! The record high for today was 3C/37F, back in 1976, while the record low was -38C/-36F in 2004. The average high for today is -12C/10F, so I am quite enjoying this break from our typical winter temperatures!

Not having the furnace running all the time is going to be much nicer on our electric bill, too!

Anyhow. Time to get my butt in gear, and get at least a few productive things done this evening!

The Re-Farmer