The cats were very hungry, so I made sure they got their food and warm water, first. I actually had to knock snow out of the kibble bowls, first! Somehow, at least some snow always manages to get in, but when the wind comes whipping around the West side of the house, it really gets into that kibble house.
I messaged my daughters for a refill of the water jug while I started shoveling. I wasn’t sure if I’d need one, but I set the kettle going after I filled the first jug (half cold water from the sink, half water heated in the kettle), just in case! The cats really, really appreciated that warm water!
I didn’t want to scare away the cats with shoveling, so I cleared the stairs in front of the main entry, then the sidewalk to the chain link fence, before digging my way back to the sun room. From there, I cleared in between and around the shelters, then a path to the shrine. I actually had to take the ice scraper to the concrete in front of the sun room. I even cleared the snow on the hand rail. From the last photo in the series above, you can see that even the birds appreciated that!
After that, I continued my morning rounds, including switching out the trail cam memory cards. The snow is really light and fluffy, bit it’s also quite warm – we’re already above freezing as I write this, and warmer than the expected high still listed. Which meant that, at first, the snow was very easy to push down the path, but when I paused to shovel it to the side, the bottom was heavy with wet snow. The ground is not frozen yet, and even the grass is green, so the snow as basically being melted from below.
When I was done and starting to head inside, I realized that there was no kibble left in the sun room at all. Not a crumb! Nor was there anything left in the two levels of the shelf shelter I drop handfuls into. There was still a bit left in the kibble house, at least, but before I headed inside, I topped up their food a bit. They need those extra calories, this time of year!
I’ve asked my daughters to clear other needed paths to the garage, the compost pile and the area we dump the litter sawdust as its own compost pile. Burning it would be preferable, but in the summer we rarely had days with low enough winds – we only did one burn all summer! Other paths I would normally shovel can wait. With how much snow there is on the ground now, and the long range forecast changing downward, I no longer expect all the snow to melt away next week. The next couple of days are supposed to be a bit warmer, and the main paths we shovel today will clear faster, which is what we need.
I’m hoping that, this winter, we’ll be able to keep enough of the south yard clear that we can drive right up to the house to load and unload the truck. We’ve only got the little electric snow blower, but it can do that job. The snow we have right now, though, is too wet and would clog up even the gas powered snow blower, if that thing still worked.
In the near future, we need to invest in a variety of straps. With the truck, we can now take the snow blower in to be checked out and, hopefully, repaired, but right now we don’t have what’s needed to secure anything back there, properly.
I’m keeping tabs on the local highway information group, and a lot of people were saying, stay home if you can! Even the local school division closed the schools in our region, because road conditions were too dangerous. The plows and sanding trucks are out, though, and I’m already hearing about some of the highways being clear.
Yesterday, my phone gave me a notification for an appointment I had today. !! I completely forgot about it. It was for a 6 month follow up, with a field of vision test and dilation, so I’d have to make sure my daughter came along to drive me home.
I’m glad I always set my phone to remind me of appointments 1 day ahead! I called and rescheduled to next month. When I told the receptionist I had an appointment for today, which she confirmed, then asked to reschedule, she just laughed! She was not at all surprised, that’s for sure. I wouldn’t be surprised if quite a few out of towners were rescheduling their appointments!
Unfortunately, as I write this, I’m realizing I think my neck and one shoulder is having rather painful issues. Not from the shoveling, though. I think I slept in a bad position or something, because it was already a problem when I woke up. It’s just worse now, after the shoveling.
So… I injured myself by sleeping.
*sigh*
I was hoping to avoid taking pain killers for at least one day!
We have been getting both snow and rain for the past while. Yesterday, while I was feeding the outside cats, we had this.
This morning, we had this!
It was snowing again when I started this post, but stopped by the time I started this sentence! Depending on what app I look at, we are either at 0C/32F or 2C/36F When we cleaned out the cat house, we took out the thermometer that was in there – the cats kept knocking it off the holder – and I’ve got it in the tiny shelf shelter section that I use for storing things. It was reading 1C/34F.
We are expected to have a “storm total” of 3-6 cm/1-2 inches, by tonight, according to one app. I didn’t realize we were supposed to get a storm until I read that! In fact, the other two apps I check, and even the website I check, don’t say anything about a storm. Of course, on the weather radar, I could see those climate bubble gaps in the clouds heading towards us, so while we’re certainly getting some heavy snow at times, we’ll also be getting nothing at all, while snow continues around us.
The only thing I’m concerned about right now is what the road conditions will be like on Saturday morning. From Thursday afternoon through Friday, we’re supposed to be clear, and Friday is supposed to be sunny, which means that the roads should be free of ice, even at 6:30am Saturday, which is when I plan to be on the road with the cats. I still plan on having to take some parts of the route much slower, as they are much more prone to icing over and staying icy. Depending on what I hear on the highway conditions group I’m on, I might even take a slightly different route to avoid those cross roads, though it simply means taking one crossroad instead of two different ones.
This morning, while feeding the outside cats, I tried to do a head count.
Then I counted again.
Then again.
I kept getting 38, including Sad Face.
Usually I count about 33. With Nosencrantz still here, plus Butterscotch still outside, plus Sad Face, I would get 37, maybe 38, at most, and that would be with the possibility of double counting some cats as they milled around. With Butterscotch now indoors again and Nosencrantz adopted out, I would expect to count 35 or 36, at most.
Which means we have some new cats, and I have no idea which ones they are!
I do think one might be a grey tabby. Recently, while doing my rounds, I saw a grey tabby, then did a double take because I wasn’t sure if I’d seen it before. We have quite a few grey tabbies, though, so I couldn’t say one way or the other.
No matter. If we have some stray cats that have found a safe haven here, I am more than happy to have them – as long as they don’t attack the other cats.
Sad Face (aka: Shop Towel) seems to have stopped attacking the other cats. Right now, one of the moms is acting way more aggressive than he is! She’ll walk past other cats and just start batting at them for no reason. But Sad Face? Not anymore. I’ve even seen him sharing food bowls with other cats he’s been fighting with before.
Also somewhat cat related…
I got some rather shocking news from the Cat Lady last night. They are dealing with a lot right now, with moving into a new home while trying to sell their current home, and all the normal activities that comes from having a large family and her husband running his business from a home office, on top of her health issues. Life is chaos right now.
Well, as if they didn’t have enough to deal with, during a 20 minute window when no one was home, they got robbed.
Seventeen years of zero crime, and then this.
Thankfully – and thanks to their dog – the thief didn’t get past the outside entryway, but there was a lot of stuff out there. She had asked people with cat carriers to bring them back, with two of them slated for us. We don’t need them anymore, so she had them all waiting for fosters to pick up, along with both canned and dry cat food. There was even a bag of crocheted cat blankets someone had made and donated. All gone. The Amazon delivery driver had come by and sent a photo of the boxes at the door as proof of delivery. All gone. The kids’ band uniforms. All gone. The shoe drying rack, with her kids’ boots and her husband’s boots for visiting job sites, all gone. An old, rusted, cat shaped cast iron shoe cleaner that had only sentimental value. Gone. The thief even took the light bulb and shade, and “happy holidays” mat! They didn’t take the new snow blower that was getting its battery charged, but probably only because they ran out of room. About the only “good” thing is that they also grabbed a garbage bag that was filled with used cat litter.
Best guess; someone with a truck or, more likely, an inobtrusive minivan was following the Amazon truck and took advantage of the situation. Since they have so many people coming by, either connected with the rescue, or the house being shown, etc., the neighbours wouldn’t have thought twice to see someone taking the cat carriers, for example, and loading them into their vehicle. They would have seen that before, and it would have been perfectly legitimate.
Oh! There was also a box, clearly labelled as a donation for the Children’s Hospital, of new, unwrapped toys that was taken.
What a sick, sick person. It’s one thing to take stuff that could be resold, like the cat carriers and cat food, and possibly whatever was in the Amazon boxes, but to take the kids’ band uniforms? Their shoes? Toy donations? Things like the uniforms can’t even be sold, since they all have customized embroidered names on them. And a light bulb??? Seriously?? The floor mat? WTF?
Her poor kids are already stressed out with the chaos going on, and then someone goes and steals their uniforms, boots and shoes!
When talking to the police, who knew they had lots of cats, they were told to check their animals. It seems there’s been a rash of theft in their area this year, and in some cases, only pets were stolen. So the Cat Lady was all in a panic because she couldn’t find the cats, forgetting that they were all boarded. One cat that isn’t was with her husband, and the other was with her and her daughter, I think. I can imagine how surreal it must have felt. We’ve come out to find our car stolen one time, and it felt so bizarre. I remember just standing there, looking at the empty space, second guessing my own mind that this is where it should have been. Maybe we actually parked somewhere else?? To have that empty space, but having so many things that should have been in it, just gone… in their own home! What a sense of violation, too.
And yet, as she was telling me all this, she was assuring me that she will meet me at the clinic on Saturday, before she goes for another MRI.
What an amazing, big hearted woman.
A plague on the thief that did this!!! I hope the police catch them soon, they get all their stuff returned, and the thief is appropriately dealt with by the law!
Who am I kidding. This is Canada. Even if they caught the thief, he or she will probably be back on the streets within the hour.
We’ve got some quiet days ahead of us, so there won’t be much to write about. There is never a shortage of adorableness to share, though!
Like this cuddle pile on my bed, from last night. How cute is this??? 🧡🖤🧡
Cheddar is so good with the babies, and they love him right back! But to see Cheddar hugging Sprite like that is just too precious for words!
The outside cats do their fair share of cuddling, too – mostly because they’re all in the bigger cat bed, under the heat bulb!
There is at least six cats in the window; one is mashed in the middle, under the orange and white, and moved while I was taking the picture. I’m pretty sure there was at least one more I saw through that top left corner of the window.
I didn’t get a chance to do a head count while I was feeding them this morning. They were running around too much.
Last night, I went to chase three massive racoons out of the sun room. When I turned around, I saw a Sad Face, looking at me from my storage shelf in the corner, his head level with the bathroom window. There’s a case to store the market tent in there, and he was using it as a bed. He was watching me, ready to run away, but clearly didn’t want to leave his spot. I made sure to not make any moves to make him think I was going to chase him out.
Now that things are colder, and the cat house is plugged in again, the cats have almost abandoned the sun room in favour of the cat house, overnight. By morning, though, there’s quite the crowd milling around, crying for kibble!
I’ve been tossing the new lysine powder that is more granular than the other brand, into the kibble. It does seem to be sticking, but I find myself thinking more of the granules are falling off before the cats are eating it. I can’t say for sure, since the fine powder also came off. There’s no way to measure. However, with winter coming, they are going to need more reliable doses. I looked it up and found that yes, lysine can be dissolved in water! The sites that talked about it gave warning that this might affect how well it works when used topically, but we’re not using is topically. So I’ve now started to put a bit of lysine into their water, as well as onto their kibble. Between the two, it should make a difference! There are a couple of smaller kittens with gummed up eyes, but I’m also starting to hear more sneezing and raspy breathing among the cats in general.
I think they’re going to appreciate the warmer temperatures we’re expecting next week! We’re supposed to have highs above freezing through this week, too, but we’re also supposed to get up to 10cm/4in of snow in total, starting this evening, through tomorrow night. Given that we’re also supposed to get highs of 2C/36F – at least, that’s what one app is telling me – I would expect it to be melting almost as fast as it hits the ground! Another app says to expect heavy snow this evening – but rain, overnight! Thursday night, into Friday morning, is also expected to have potentially heavy snow, but not rain. At least Friday and Friday night are expected to be clear. Friday evening is when we have to isolate the kittens and Toni for overnight fasting before their trip to the vet. The roads should be clear of ice and snow by then. I am planning to leave much earlier than necessary, just in case. The trip is about 45 minutes, and the drop off time is 8am, but I’m considering leaving at 6:30, so I have time to take it slow, if the conditions warrant.
It should be interesting, fitting the 6 carriers into the truck! I’ve got my emergency kit and a bin with extra winter hats, gloves, etc, tucked in along with our collection of hard sided, reusable grocery bags, so half the space in the back is already taken up. Thankfully, the hard sided carriers can be stacked and secured, so it shouldn’t be an issue.
Until then, I’m going to enjoy some boring, uneventful days at home!
I am so glad we don’t need to go anywhere for the next while!
When I headed out yesterday evening to feed the outside cats, we had freezing rain on top of the snow.
We also had company.
Looks like the big, fluffy beast hunkered down as soon as I came out. I stayed where I was long enough to take the picture. As soon as I moved closer, he ran off.
I love how casual Driver is, sitting next to the racoon!
When I saw him this morning, he was still favouring that front paw. I still can’t see any obvious signs of injury, but I’m not able to get a closer look, either.
We got snow again, after the rain, so things were pretty crunchy, crispy out there! We’re supposed to both get more snow, and warm up, over the next few days. I’m sure the cats will enjoy the warmer temperatures, and the snow melting away. Of course, the long range forecast of up to 8C/46F have changed, but it’s still saying we’ll have several days of 6C/43F next week. My main concern right now is for the 11th. I’ll be bringing the cats in to the clinic quite early in the morning, and the forecast currently calls for sleet. More on that later!
This morning, my older daughter was planning on making a soup today. Using these…
That’s one of the big Pink Banana squash, a Red of Florence onion and garlic. The Sweet Chocolate and Cheyenne peppers were all green when we harvested them, but have been ripening up quite nicely! They’re also dehydrating a bit, too.
I don’t know what else went into the soup, besides shrimp, but my goodness, the house smells amazing. I’m told it’s not very spicy hot, which means I should even be able to do more than have a taste! 😁 I don’t handle spices very well, unfortunately.
I popped outside again not long ago, to get a meter reading, when this strange noise started coming out of my pocket. It always startles me when my cell phone rings! 😄 It was the Cat Lady. She’d been hearing from the clinic about our bookings. They are quite concerned that we might not show up. With all their no-shows last time, and with us having 6 slots, I can’t blame them! She said she assured them that we will be there. I told her to go ahead and tell them we went out and bought 2 more carriers, just to make sure we could bring them all in! If we don’t make it, it’ll be because we’ve gotten into an accident along the way, or the house has caught fire or some sort of emergency like that.
The Cat Lady is going to be in town that day anyhow, and will be meeting me. She’ll be going in for another MRI at the hospital just across the road from the vet clinic. All the kittens will be coming home with us. Currently, all her own cats, except 2, are being boarded as they prepare to move. Unfortunately, every offer made for their house fell through because the potential buyers couldn’t get financing. It’s adding an insane amount of stress to their lives! Meanwhile, the two cats that are not being boarded are also the two calicos from us, that both hate her for some reason! Cabbages came back because she refused to eat. I don’t think Muffin (who now has a different name) ever left. She is wildly attached to the Cat Lady’s husband, and goes off to job sites and coffee runs all the time. She’s good with the kids, too, but the Cat Lady has never even been able to pet her. She walks by and gets swiped and growled at! She’s never had a cat act like this before! Still, with only the two cats in the house, and one of them gone out for coffee with her husband, the house is amazingly quiet! At this point, I would not be surprised if Muffin has become a de facto sales cat! I can easily imagine potential clients and contractors being happy to see the guy with the cat come around. It is strange that she is so nice to everyone else, but not to the Cat Lady!!
Anyhow. I hope the next offer they get actually finally pans out, and they can finish moving to the new house they bought – a house with a whole other heated building that will be dedicated to cats! It would be awesome for them to be able to celebrate Christmas and New Year’s in their new home, without the added burden of two mortgages!
Oh! There was something else she told me that just blew me away. The last time we got a female done at the nearest vet clinic, it was $350. That included getting a tattoo and… something else I can’t remember right now. Things like vaccinations, etc, are extra. Males were half that. The Cat Lady was talking to the clinic with the cheap spay day about the possibility of bringing in a stray cat in their area and get her spayed. The vet told her that they’d be able to do it at the discounted price, since she is a rescue.
$408
!!!
She asked what the regular price was.
$497
That includes a wellness check, vaccinations, etc, right?
Nope. Just the spay. The other stuff she mentioned would be extra.
Good grief!!!
She did find a place that would give her a much better discounted price, but it involves a much longer drive. At under $200, though, that’s what she’ll be going!
One more reason to really appreciate the cheap day we’re booked for. It just blows me away that anyone would simply not show up when it’s only $75. I found out that the large animal rescue that moved in just a mile away from us had similar issues. They arranged for a mobile spay and neuter unit to come in. They would have been $175, male or female. We never booked, as we didn’t have it in the budget, but it turns out they had a lot of no-shows, too. Which really chokes me, because I saw all the excited responses and people asking to be booked for that day, when they announced it on Facebook. I figured they would have run out of slots and had to turn people away. Instead, they had people book and not show up!
Well, that won’t be us.
Less than a week, and we’ll have 5 kittens and 1 cat recovering from spays and neuters, all at the same time!
I am so glad I did the drive to find cat carriers yesterday! The predicted rain and snow arrived overnight. As I was doing my morning rounds, we were getting ice pellet type snow and high winds.
The winds were enough that most of the cats ate in the kibble house, instead of the cat house roof! I counted 33 this morning, which did not include Sad Face, though my husband saw him in the sun room, later.
That fluffy black cat in the photo is Driver. He was favouring his right front paw this morning, so we need to keep an eye on him. I could see no obvious injury. As I was finishing my rounds and coming inside, I spotted him in the sun room, on the cat bed inside the cage, so that was good.
This morning was the second time I came out to find that not only was the heated water bowl in the sun room empty, but the big one outside was knocked out of the water bowl shelter and hanging by its cord (the cord is reinforced and protected with steel wire). There is a piece of wood across the front specifically to prevent that happening, so it takes a lot to knock that bowl out! I had thought it might be a deer, but last night I chased two giant, fluffy racoons out of the sun room, so it might have been a racoon that did it.
The metal water bowls (old stainless steel frying pans with no handles) were solid ice, of course. The cats seem to prefer those over plastic bowls. Usually I just top them up with a bit of water, but they needed to have the ice knocked out this time, before I could add more. With the big heated water bowl alone holding 1 1/2 gallons, I had to go back for more water to refill them all!
I also made sure to give the cats a little extra food to tide them over. I try not to give extra at the end of the day, as I don’t want to be feeding the racoons! At least, not much… But with the cold and wind, the cats will definitely need the extra calories. Happily, they are mostly staying close to the house, and really enjoying that warm corner in the cat house, under the heat bulb! It’s funny to walk by and see half a dozen faces or more, all mashed against each other, looking at me through the window.
All in all, it’s looking like an unpleasant day today. Looking at the weather radar in the wee hours of the night was funny. As I zoomed in closer to our area, I could actually see where the weather system split up to form an open space as it passed over us. We were catching just the edges of that open space. My mother’s town was looking completely clear. Our climate bubble, in action! 😄
After today, however, it’s going to switch up. Things are supposed to start warming – and keep getting warmer! Check out the most recent forecast I captured this morning.
They’re now saying we’ll be getting as high at 8C/46F!
The nice thing is, we’re in the middle of planning a trip to the city with my husband, to visit family. By the time we’re doing that, all the snow should be gone and the roads should be completely clear. Even after that, for pretty much the rest of November, we’re looking at highs above freezing on most days.
Of course, the forecast will probably be different in a few days. Hopefully, though, it’ll still be warm. The last couple of times we tried to go into the city to visit family, we ended up turning around to come home because a weather system hit and the roads were too dangerous. Then my husband’s back got worse, and it’s now been 4 or 5 years since he’s seen his dad. Thankfully, the truck’s front seats have so many micro adjustments that can make the trip less painful for him.
Now we just have to pray those weather predictions are correct!
After doing my searches for cat carriers at our local Walmarts, Canadian Tires, and even Peavey Mart and Princess Auto – both places I have never been to, and would be very dangerous for me to go to with money! – I finally decided it was worth ordering a couple of those clearance soft sided carriers.
We are supposed to get a mix of rain and snow today, but not until later on. While doing my morning rounds, it was so nice out, I decided I should place the order and arrange a pick up, since I needed to go to the city, anyhow.
I’ve never ordered anything online from Walmart before, so I set up an account and selected two black soft sided carriers. The two together came out to just under $22, so quite a good price. I made sure to arrange pick up at the nearer Walmart in the smaller, closer city, instead of delivery. All throughout, I was reading that delivery would be November 24 – assuming they even delivered to our area in the first place. Pick up, however, was to be done before November 24. Since we needed them for November 11, delivery wasn’t an option, anyhow. Also, I figured picking it up meant no shipping costs.
Then I went through the checkout.
With shipping, handling and taxes, the total came out to just over $53.
Oh, and it wouldn’t be ready for pick up until November 24.
Seriously???
Okay, considering the clearance price, even with the insane extra costs, it would still be cheaper to get the carriers this way. I would have been okay with that. However, it wasn’t until the order was completed that I saw it made no difference in when they would be ready for pick up. Turns out this isn’t something you’d find in the physical stores at all, I guess – which is what I understood I was looking at. As near as I could tell, they’d be shipped from China!
I cancelled the order immediately.
I still needed to go to town, however, so I figured I’d give it a go. I did find a small, hard sided carrier for about $30 at Canadian Tire – and there was one listed as still in stock at my location.
I found it.
They did have some others, but they either had fancy features (the top slides off to uncover the animal, rather than trying to pull a nervous animal out the door) or were sizes more appropriate for a medium sized dog. Interestingly, the hard sided carriers were all quite a bit cheaper than comparable sizes of soft sided carriers.
At least I was able to get the one carrier, along with a couple of bags of litter pellets.
Then it was across the street to the Walmart – however, there is an actual pet store in that area, so I decided to stop there, first.
They did have a good selection of carriers, including basic, hard sided, cat sized ones. The price was a bit much, though. I decided I would try the Walmart first, and if I couldn’t find one there, I’d come back for it.
I didn’t need to do that.
According to the website, this location did not have this carrier in stock at all. Nor any of the others I saw! They even had the slide out carrier, just like I saw at Canadian Tire, for quite a bit cheaper.
This one, however, was basically $30 – and the last one in stock. The only other one in this size was the slide out version. All the others were much bigger.
So now, we have two new carriers. With the hard and soft sides ones we have at home, including the one donated by the cat lady, we have the 6 carriers we need to bring the cats to the clinic for their cheap spay and neuter day. Yay!!!
Of course, I also got other things we needed, and a few extra. I’ve decided on what I will do for this year’s hand made Christmas decorations, and picked up a couple of skeins of yarn. A bright red with a sparkling metallic silver strand, and white. I would have gotten other colours, but there weren’t a lot of option. I remember when Walmart would get all sorts of cool Christmassy yarns and other craft material every year, but that pretty much stopped. Even the sparkly yarn I got wasn’t a Christmas yarn, but regular inventory. I’m not about to drive to a Michaels in the city, just for that, though. When it comes to craft stores, Michaels is pretty much all we’ve got, here in Canada. I have no problem with them. In fact, I used to teach crochet at one of them, years before moving out here. I just wish there was some competition! The closest to it would be from the various dollar-type stores, and they’re not much competition at all.
I’ll have to go through my stash of yarn and see if I’ve got something I can use as a contrasting yarn, that isn’t too fancy. I’ve got some gorgeous yarns that would do, but my hands are so rough from yard work, I can’t do anything with them. They stick to my fingers and I keep yanking the loops right off my hook. So I stick to very plain, medium weight acrylic yarns for now.
Anyhow.
I just realized I’ll probably need to get more fibre fill, too. No hurry on that part, though. I still have some left.
After I loaded the truck, I took the time to message the Cat Lady and let her know we had the carriers, so she no longer needed to try and find any to loan to us. She told me that she would be able to meet me at the vet that day, as she had donations of wet cat food for us. !! So sweet!
Then she told me, she just had to call 911.
She had been driving with her daughter when she saw some men “slamming down” a dog. She pulled over and was basically told it was not her concern. So she drove around a corner to a safe place to pull over and call the police. She then went to message her husband, who was at a job site and would not hear a phone call. That was they only reason she happened to be on her phone and saw my message come in.
What on earth is wrong with people? Someone who would do that to a dog would very likely have no issues doing the same to a person, either. I’m glad she was able to find someplace safe to call the police from. Her poor daughter must have been so incredibly upset to see that.
On top of that, they’re having problems with selling their house, so they can move into the one they bought. People are having trouble getting financing, and deals are falling through. With all that stress in her life, I so appreciate that she still manages to think of us and help us with the cats. Getting burned by so many others that she’s tried to help makes me even more appreciative. I wouldn’t blame her at all if she just threw in the towel and dropped the rescue entirely. She is just so amazing! I’m so glad we connected with her.
While on the subject of cats, I’m glad our new lysine order finally came in. I discovered one potential problem with it, though. This lysine is more granular. What we were getting before was a super fine powder. I dose the cats by tossing the kibble with a scoop of lysine to coat. There’s only so much that will stick to the kibble, but I am watching to see if we’re loosing too much of it into the container, rather than onto the kibble. So far, it doesn’t seem to be any more than what I saw with the fine powder.
Some of the kittens are starting to get gooey eyes, so the lysine will be very helpful for that. One little black fluff ball, with a tiny white bib – slightly bigger and fluffier than its sibling, Soot Sprite – has had one eye getting gummed shut. This was one I’d been able to pet every now and then, so it was easier to catch and bring in for an eye wash. I did that again this morning, and this kitten now allows me to walk up to it, and even starts purring when I pick it up. It does NOT like the eye washing, but it’s discovering it likes cuddles and pets.
After unloading the truck at home, I made sure to feed the outside cats, so I could safely drive the truck away from the house. On returning to the house, the little puff ball let me pick it up again, so I tried to check.
I’m about 99% sure it’s male. It’s really hard to tell with the fluffy black fur!
There is another black puff ball from another litter. Slightly larger, slightly fluffier and with a larger white bib on its chest. It has had both eyes get gooey, and I was able to bring it in once to wash its eyes while my husband held it. It is definitely less friendly, though it will allow me to pet it, if it’s in the right mood. I can pick it up, but not for long. I tried, though, and took a look.
I’m about 90% sure this one is male, too, but it’s even harder to see with this one!
Why is it that only the males are letting us come close? I even got to pet Shop Towel (aka: Sad Face) again, today!
There is one very fluffy little tortie that I’ve managed to pet once in a while, but it is not friendly and more likely to run off. That one, we can be pretty sure is female, just because it’s a tortie, so I’m trying to focus on that one as much as I can.
She is not cooperative.
I also spotted a little grey tabby – another sibling to Soot Sprite and Tiny – with one stuck eye. Today, I managed to get hold of it and pick it up, but it did not like that at all, and broke free. I didn’t even get to apply the magic of ear skritches.
I did see the one calico we got this year, eating kibble next to Shop Towel. I managed to pet her back a couple of times before she ran away from the food. A first!
Now, if only we could get closer to the adult females. The only reason I know some of them are females is because they are either calicos, or they had litters this year and I saw them with their babies. One of them – a white female with black markings – is downright mean to all the cats, cattens and kittens. I don’t even remember which kittens were hers. She hates them all! I’d love to get hold of her and get her to a vet. I have strong suspicions about her behaviour. She may be in pain and lashing out. Given what has been found with some of the other females we’ve been able to get fixed, she may be another one with a twisted or otherwise damaged uterus.
Well, first we need to get the indoor kittens and Toni fixed, and hopefully adopted out soon. Then we can focus on the outside cats. That will be up to the Cat Lady and her rescue to arrange, and hopefully that vet will do another cheap spay and neuter days over the winter. I’d really love to get Shop Towel done! The males will be easy to catch and that will help, but for population control, we’ve really got to get those ladies done! If we can adopt out some of those really friendly males, I’m hoping we will have better luck socializing the females, without having one of the males barge their way in between, demanding pets.
One thing’s for sure. If we ever do manage to get Shop Towel, we’d have to use the big carrier. He wouldn’t fit in any of the other hard sided carriers, and would easily tear his way out of the soft sided carriers!
Speaking of carriers, time to go assemble the new ones and let the cats get used to them. They really enjoy going in them and having a nap!
It’s been difficult to get close to some of the outside kittens. Especially the smallest ones. There’s one little black one that I’ve been able to pick up now and then, and a couple others I’ve been able to pet while they are eating – sometimes. Mostly, they run off before I even come close.
Today, I was able to pick up the two black kittens with white bibs.
That’s because their eyes were messed up! (click through the Instagram slideshow above, to see both)
The one that lets me pick him up every now and then (I think it’s a male, but I’m not sure) had one eye stuck shut. He let me bring him into the bathroom and my husband held him while I washed the eye and got it open.
No sooner did I deposit him into the cat bed in the sun room (I’m concerned the wet fur will freeze!) that I saw his slightly bigger and fluffier sibling.
That one had an eye that was mostly stuck shut, but both eyes were very messy. Normally, I would not have been able to walk up to it and pet it, never mind pick it up, but he did let me pick him up. He wasn’t as happy about being held, but I got him inside and my husband was able to hold him long enough for me to clean both eyes.
The second picture above was the first kitten I caught, that needed only one eye washed. In the picture, it looks like the eye is still shut, but that it actually isn’t stuck.
We ran out of lysine about a month ago. Our subscription never arrived. I checked on Amazon and it seemed they were out of stock but, over time, it started to say that they (Amazon? The supplier? it didn’t specify) were trying to find an alternate source.
I started searching for other suppliers, but was not having much success. Lysine powder marketed specifically for cats was typically twice the price for 1/3 the quantity. I’d been able to get it in 300g tubs. In looking for lysine marketed for humans (it’s the same thing), they tended to be either as capsules, loose powder in much smaller tubs, or mixed with vitamins.
Thankfully, a friend did some looking as well, and she did find some marketed for horses in 1 pound bags! The price was good, but they didn’t ship out of province. I was planning to check out some of the local livestock supply places, when I had the chance, but I have no idea when I’ll have that chance.
Meanwhile, my friend was able to do some searches on Amazon and find some that did not come up for me, for some reason. I now have a larger container – over 400g – of lysine powder ordered. If it works out to be a suitable replacement, I’ll see if I can set it up as a subscription in place of the other brand. It will be particularly important to make sure the yard cats are getting lysine over the winter, as that’s when their respiratory issues can get really bad!
Hopefully, through the winter, we’ll get more of the inside kittens adopted out, and can bring the smaller outside kittens in for treatment and adoption, before the real cold hits!
It’s a bit of a habit of mine to look through the bathroom into the sun room, checking on the cats, during the night. Usually, as things have been getting chillier, there’s a huge pile of kittens in the big cat bed in front of the cat cage. Yesterday, I’d put some scrap pieces of rigid insulation on top of the cage – they had been over the smaller window last winter, but are too scratched up to use again this year, so I just set them aside. The cats love that insulation (and not just to scratch at!), and I was soon seeing several at a time, sitting in the sun spot on top of the cage. I’ll also see cats in the window, or at the food and water bowls, etc.
Last night, however, I wasn’t seeing any cats. Even this morning, as I was about to go out to feed them, the sun room was empty. They didn’t start coming in until they heard the old kitchen door, and the sound of kibble being pored into the little bin.
Even after they were fed and watered, they were staying out of the sun room! I saw most of them running around the yard, but I also saw this…
There are five of the older kittens in the window! The fifth one is a black cat in the bottom left corner of the window. As I was taking the photo, I could see yellow eyes watching me, but it moved as I took the picture, so it’s basically just disappeared in the photo.
Nice to see them using the cat house so much more, as the temperatures drop.
As I was finishing up and heading in, I went into the sun room and looked around for cats. I saw none, but just as I reached the old kitchen door, I started to hear purring! There turned out to be one of the adult males tucked into the cat cage. I took a donated cat bed the inside cats don’t like for some reason, and tucked it into one of the bottom “rooms” of the cage. The cats won’t lie on most of it – the filling somehow bunched up in the middle, and I have not been able to get it spread out. Instead, they lie on one of the edges, right up against the back wall. That’s where he was, barely visible. When we tried to keep Toni in there after her leg was amputated and discovered she could squeeze through the 2″ square openings, we lined most of the outer walls with cardboard. We’ve left the cardboard there, since it helps keep things cozier, and the cats seem to like it. It does make it harder to see who’s inside, though! 😄
We’re supposed to have a mild day today. It’s been lightly snowing, and our high is supposed to be 0C/32F or so, depending on which app I check. We don’t need to go anywhere today, unless it’s to the garage. I’ll be phoning our mechanic in a bit to talk to him about the codes coming up on the truck. Tomorrow, I’ve decided to go to the big city rather than the small one. We don’t need to go to the international grocery store this month, so I was considering going to the smaller city, but for the stores I do need to go to, the big city locations are better. I’ll take advantage of it and check out a Fresh Co. I keep hearing their prices are really excellent, but we usually don’t have time to check out new places during our city trips.
We’ve got a gorgeous day out, today! Cold, of course. The weather apps told me it was -6C/21F out there, with a “real feel” of -12C/10F, but we’re sheltered enough that I’m still not breaking out the parka. My only concession to the cold was to wear one of my ball cap ear warmers that I made recently.
The kittens – even the smaller ones – seem to be handling the snow rather well, though this one looks quite affronted by it! 😄
In the slide show above; the fluffy tortie is making use of the self-warming pad set up in their favourite shelf to sit in and watch what’s going on outside. I got that shot yesterday. The other two, I took this afternoon. We have several very handsome black cats with little white bibs this year. The one sitting on the shelf shelter looks downright angry that the snow is on their favourite corner! 😄 In the last picture, you can see that the cats are making full use of the cleaned out and heated cat house.
While doing my morning rounds, I finally got around to a few things that either got missed while we had to do other things, or that kept getting forgotten about. One of those was to empty and move the rain barrel by the sun room. It was full, and had the diverter over it, so that got removed first. Then I had to break up the ice on top until I could remove the hardware cloth cover. We keep a rock and a brick on it to weigh it down, as the cats sometimes jump up on it. They also serve to hold the diverter (which is just a scrap piece of eavestrough) in place. I got the brick off easily enough, but I ended up removing the cover with the rock still stuck to the wire by ice! After emptying about half of the barrel into the old kitchen garden with a bucket, I was able to tip it over and empty it down one of the paths, then set it aside by one end of the wattle weave bed for the winter. After that, I had to use a hammer to break the rock loose from the cover. 😄 The cover is now stored away, but I ended up having to use the diverter and its supports later on!
I waited until this afternoon, when it was warmer, to deal with the old rain barrel way out in the garden. It didn’t have a lot of water in it, but it would have been somewhat frozen to the ground. I didn’t want to risk breaking the cold, brittle plastic any more than it already is. So that got taken care of this afternoon. I had a pile of branches we’d used as trellis supports on it to keep the critters out, since the cover for that barrel didn’t survive the winter, even though it was in the garden shed. Just in case, I also had a couple of branches in the water, so if a critter did fall in, it could climb out. Those all got set aside, then the emptied barrel set on its side next to the pile of branches. The watering can that’s kept beside the barrel and filled with water to keep it from blowing away, got emptied and stored inside the barrel itself. Leaving the barrel out like this also provides another shelter from the weather for small critters that won’t come closer to the house.
(As I write this, we’ve warmed up to our expected high -2C/28F, but the “feels like” is apparently -13C/9F. Not where we are!)
One the way back to the house, I remembered to grab the folding saw horse that was set up by the new trellis bed construction area. We’re not going to get more progress on that until spring. When I got back to the house, I realized that it had warmed up enough that all the snow was melting off the roof – and there was no longer a rain barrel or diverter to keep the water away from the base of the sunroom wall! That corner has already been undermined by water, and the last thing I want is for a freeze/thaw cycle happening under there. So I set up the diverter again, using the saw horse to support it, and the weights from the barrel cover to keep the diverter from sliding off the saw horse. I’ll probably have to come up with something else, though. The cats could very easily knock it all down. I might end up tying a rope loop the the nearby hand rail to hold the diverter, instead. For now, however, it’s doing the job.
We’re supposed to have highs above freezing in the middle of the week. Just for a couple of days. I don’t expect it to be enough to melt all the snow, but it will definitely get rid of most of it, I think. That will be when we cover the garlic and carrot beds with a deep mulch for the winter.
There’s just a few things left that absolutely need to be done before the ground freezes. The rest can wait until spring.
The Re-Farmer
Addendum: one of the yard kittens had gotten into the old kitchen earlier and wouldn’t come out, so after I hit publish on this post, I went back to check on him. This time, he was willing to come up to me and even let me pick him up and take him out. We’ve got bright sunshine, the yard cats are enjoying their sun spots, and things are melting all over. So I checked my weather apps on my phone. Of the two apps I have, one of them says we are at 1C/34F right now! The sun room thermometer reads even warmer, of course, and the thermometer outside my husband’s window is right in a very sheltered sun spot. I just checked. It’s reading 15C/59F!!!
Overnight we got what I would call our first real snowfall. Enough snow is on the ground that it might actually stay. At least in the shadier spots. We shall see.
It doesn’t stop the outside cats from preferring to eat on the cat house roof!
Junk Pile has found the warm spot, above the terrarium bulb inside. 😄
Most of the cats have been using the sun room. At least the smaller ones. I’m seeing more cats peeking through the window of the cat house now, too. I counted possibly 33 or 34 cats this morning, including Sad Face.
I’ll be heading into the city within the hour. I’ve been keeping tabs on the local highway conditions groups and chats. The highway I’ll be taking has been described as icy and filled with packed snow. Not too bad, but enough for people to warn about driving carefully and taking it slow. As I write this, we are at -3C/27F, with a wind chill of -12C/10F. We’re pretty sheltered from the wind around the house, as it’s coming from the northwest. I just wore my light hooded jacket while doing my rounds and didn’t feel much chill at all. This afternoon we’re supposed to stay at 1C/34F for several hours, so I expect the roads will clear pretty quickly.
I am so glad we got the truck when we did. I would not be comfortable driving my mother’s car in this at all. It’s not even the tires, which checked out fine, or the road conditions, which aren’t that bad. It’s more that I keep expecting it to suddenly break down. It keeps checking out fine, but it makes so many noises and just feels wrong when I’m driving it. So going back to driving it only when I need to help my mother is a relief.
This will be my first time driving the truck in the city. I’m going to love having better visibility, but I’ll have to pay attention to those few extra inches in length! I don’t want to be “that” vehicle that parks with the back end sticking into the lane. 😄
The Re-Farmer 