outside cats

Seriously?? Got ’em, though

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

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!

The Re-Farmer

I guess that’s one way to do it!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

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!

The Re-Farmer

Can you find them all?

/ Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

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 shall see.

Time to call our mechanic.

The Re-Farmer

This and that

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

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!!!

Found the warm spot!

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

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

First snow. “I meant to do that!”

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

We got a bit of snow last night. It’s already pretty much gone but, for this year’s kittens, it’s the first time they’ve encountered the stuff!

Gosh, this guy reminds me of Decimus so much! That permanently stunned expression is what does it. The white arrow on his head reminds me of Pointy Baby.

We’ve passed on photos in hopes someone will adopt him, but he does have lung issues. We can hear his lungs rattling as he breaths. Unfortunately, we’re out of Lysine, and our Amazon subscription supplier seems to be either out of stock, or no longer carries it? I’m not quite sure which it is, based on the very brief notification. I’ve looked at alternatives, but those in the bulk size I’m after that’s meant for humans seem to all have other vitamins mixed in, while the ones marketed for cats cost almost twice as much, for 1/3rd the quantity! I hope our usual supplier starts shipping again. Winter is always the hardest when it comes to respiratory issues in the cats.

Yesterday, my daughter and I finally lifted the roof on the cat house to give it a cleaning. I’d hoped to be able to brace it somehow, but there’s a large ridge beam down the centre; it’s the beam that extends out the back that the counter weight is attached to, so it’s very substantial. Unfortunately, the roof has such a low slope, it means I can’t attach cross pieces (collar beams, I believe they’re called) to the rafters. The ridge beam it in the way.

Once open, we took out all the bedding and threw away the sheet-wrapped pillow that had been in a box, because it got damp on the bottom and started to mold. The litter box was simply switched out for another with clean litter pellets in it. The smoke detector battery was tested, the heat shield put back around the light fixture, then we plugged in the electrical and tested the terrarium heat bulb. My daughter also found a way to secure the timer so that the light sensor should stay upright and facing the window. It will turn the bulb on when it gets dark, then off when it gets light.

We also cleaned the windows, inside and out! Gosh, they get greasy on the inside. All those cat faces rubbing on them. 😄

We had cats in and out the whole time we worked on it! Once the bedding was returned and it was time to drop the roof, we had to be extra careful to make sure no cats decided to jump in from the top! That roof is really heavy, and even with the counter weight, it drops hard if we’re not careful. With how much the roof has been wiggling around, we’re being extra careful, anyhow. We’ll have to plan ahead for building a new cat house, because this one is just getting too old and the wood too rotten. That and the cats are using the inside walls as scratching posts, and WOW are they tearing it apart!!

That done, we’re also starting to do things like put away the hoses for the winter. We haven’t shut the taps off in the basement, yet, so we do still have access to water for a while longer, but mostly we’ll be bringing warm water out from inside, instead.

We ran out of kibble for the outside cats already! When I got another bag, I didn’t realize we were so low for the inside cats, too. By the time the bin for the inside cats was refilled, plus the one I keep in my room for the kittens, there wasn’t much left. Rather than take from the inside bin, I took advantage of delivering Nosencrantz to her new home by arranging to meet near a Walmart, then picked up another 10kg bag. I’ll be doing our first stock up shopping trip to Costco in a couple of days. Now that we have the truck, I should be able to get the entire month’s worth of kibble in one trip!

While I was driving, I started to get some messages that turned out to be from the Cat Lady. I’d brought up about bringing the 5 kittens to get fixed during the clinic’s cheap day. She came back to tell me she has us booked for 6 slots – all females! We don’t even have 6 females to bring in. There are the 3 older kittens (Tiny is just too tiny), Toni and Tissue. We have had no progress in getting at any of the outside females. It would probably be easier if the males weren’t so aggressively friendly and pushing their way past the ladies and spooking them. But this clinic wants to do only females for their cheap day. The rescue would pay for 4, and she was asking if we could pay for the other two. We were already expecting to pay for one (Toni).

Bringing Tissue, though… Tissue: Destroyer of Cars. That’s a risk!

I’ve messaged the Cat Lady about how many we can do, but haven’t heard back. She’s in the middle of getting her house ready for sale, and to start moving next month, if things go to plan. Thankfully, the new house is very close, but moving is always very stressful. The hardest move we ever had was only half a block. It took us a week and we all were sick with colds. At one point, I just collapsed and was bed ridden for a couple of days. And we had only 4 kids and two cats at the time, too! So she has a lot to focus on that are a higher priority. All that, and she’s still hoping to come out here this weekend to drop off a donated cat carrier for us to keep! With the move, she’s not positive she’ll be able to take Ghosty after the spay. It might be better for her to come back with us for a bit longer, instead.

With us now having car payments, starting next month, finding the money to do spays – even super cheap ones (only $75, instead of $350!!) – is going to take a bit more juggling of the budget than usual. We’ll manage. Especially if we are able to adopt out more cats, and not be spending so much on cat food every month!

The Re-Farmer

Saying goodbye

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

Oh, my goodness.

This was an unexcepted thing. I was connected with someone last night, we got together this morning, and it’s done.

Nosencrantz no longer has to be constantly stressed out being around so many other cats. She has a new forever home, and she’s already settling in nicely. When feeding the cats this morning, she came out of her hiding places as usual, and I was able to get her into the carrier. She got treated to some wet cat food while I finished my morning rounds, then off we went to meet her new family.

I am feeling really good about the family she went to. You know how, when you sometimes meet someone and there is this automatic connection? That’s how it was when I was introduced to someone who was looking for a new cats. Nosencrantz checked all her boxes, and she checked all of ours!

This is a hard one for me. Of all the cats, Nosencrantz is the one I connected with the most. She, however, was so stressed out. There’s a reason we also called her Anxiety Bear! Too many other cats. Both inside and out, she had specific cats that targeted her, too.

Now, she has a safe, warm “suite” to stay in for a couple of weeks as she gets used to her new home, before they let her out to explore. She’ll have one other sweet and friendly cat to get used to, and cat loving children to dote on her. They also have other cats that are completely indoors, including a rescued tripod. I have been promised lots of pictures, and look forward to getting to know the family more!

It feels like this family was put in our path at just the right time, too. I am going to miss Nosencrantz, but this was the right thing to do for her.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden: Last onion harvest, plus adorableness

/ Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

Let’s start with the adorableness!

Shadow in the Dark has turned into a pretzel!

It occurred to me that these guys are coming up on 6 months old. The Cat Lady was looking into getting 5 slots for the cheap spay and neuter day, including Toni, Ghosty and a couple of outdoor males, but I just asked if her if we could get the 5 oldest kittens done, instead. She still wants to get Toni done, too, so she’ll see if she can get 6 slots. She might be moving next month, though, and things are really hectic for her and her family right now (and their 27 or so cats!!), so she’ll get back to me on that one. I told her I’m less concerned about Toni than I am about having 5 kittens old enough for their first heat (well… three female kittens going into heat with intact males around!). Ghosty, depending on how things go with the move, would not be coming back, as she’s found a home for her.

Speaking of large numbers of cats, I did a head count outside this morning. Including Shop Towel/Sad Face, I counted 38.

As much as we’d like to reduce that population, we really need to reduce the indoor population first. It’s just not healthy for them, mentally or physically. The Cat Lady, once they move to their new home, will be able to convert a heated shed into a place just for cats. That’s something I wouldn’t mind finding a way to do. Too bad we can’t use the storage house for that! We need more sheds, anyhow. The ones we have are either fallen apart, falling apart, or jammed full of junk. Or, in the case of the warehouse that used to be my late brother’s workshop, filled with my parents’ stuff my mother insists we keep. Not that we’d use that for cats. We need a workshop more!

Ah, well. All in good time.

With the temperatures dropping below freezing consistently over night from now on, I pulled the bed of Red of Florence onions, yesterday.

There was enough to half fill the wheel barrow, plus there were a few too small to bother keeping.

Their necks are still too “fleshy”, so we won’t be able to cure them like we did with the other onions we harvested already. We’d had a night and morning of consistent rain, so these were also pretty damp. We have the hardware cloth “door” we made to keep the cats out of the old basement when we keep the door open in the summer. It does double duty for laying out vegetables. I was able to set it up in the old kitchen and laid the onions out to dry a bit. From there, we will need to process them; some for freezing, some for dehydrating. This is on top of the onions we’ve been able to cure and braid for casual use. We got a very decent haul of onions this year, but only the yellow onions, plus these ones. Oh, and the shallots. We also had the Red Wethersfield onions, but not one of them survived transplanting! I’ve no idea what happened to them, but I want to try that variety again before we conclude that they just won’t grow here.

The high for today, and the next couple of days, is expected to be 3C/37F. After that, the highs will be lower, and reach just above or below freezing. So far, the overnight lows are not expected to drop very far, and remain just a few degrees below freezing, but we will no longer be seeing overnight lows above freezing from here on. It’s still not too bad, though. Nothing severe or extreme. Also, we don’t have the snow that other parts of the country got yesterday, including the city we lived in before moving out here!

There was a thin layer of ice on the outside cats’ water bowls. It’s starting to be time to bring warm water out for them when we feed them. It’s time to put the hoses away and cover the taps, anyhow. The electrical in the cat house needs to be plugged in and tested, so we can plug in the huge heated water bowl in the water bowl shelter, plus the terrarium heat bulb inside, with its timer set to turn it on at dusk. I’ve already set up the smaller water bowl in the sun room and plugged it in.

Still lots to be done, but as long as we get the essentials taken care of, the rest can wait until spring, if necessary.

The Re-Farmer

Good morning!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Breakfast is served.

I counted 37 or 38 this morning. Plus Shop Towel. He came over to the kibble house and seemed okay at first -I was even just starting to be able to touch him – but then one of our friendly males came by and he attacked. I chased him off and he actually stopped to attack another cat that had been startled by the commotion and happened to be running in the same direction.

*sigh*

Also, yes. That tuxedo has a messed up eye. That’s the one that had a badly infected eye, but we could never catch him to clean it up. Not the tuxedo that lost its eye entirely. I haven’t seen that one in a long time.

Today looks like a day where not much is going to get done outside. It looks like it’s been raining for most of the night, judging by how much water is pooling in our driveway, and is still raining now. It’s expected to continue raining until the evening.

Which I’m okay with. It’ll be good for the ground to get a lot of moisture before the snow hits and the ground starts to freeze. That will benefit any young trees, like the apple we planted in the spring, and the Korean Pine in the outer yard, as well as the garlic and saffron crocuses that were planted not long ago. A good, deep watering before winter is a good thing.

Oh, I need to remember to contact Veseys about those purple raspberries. I double checked and yes, I was remembering correctly. They are regular cane raspberries, not primal cane. Primal cane raspberries produce berries on new canes every year, so you can literally mow the whole patch down in the fall, and they will produce new shoots in the spring. With regular cane, berries are produced on second year canes, which then die off, leaving the fresh first year canes to survive the winter and produce the following year. What we should have gotten in our order was first year canes, and we should not have had any berries this year at all. Instead, the canes planted this year would have produced berries next year, while also having new canes come up that would produce berries the year after. There were no new canes that came up. Just the ones we planted, that produced berries, instead. It seems highly unlikely, but we either got second year canes in stead of first year canes, or conditions somehow “tricked” the raspberries into acting as though they’d gone through a winter. This can sometimes happen with biannuals like onions or carrots. For example, the year we had groundhogs eating our carrot greens, quite a few went to seed after their greens started growing back. I can’t think of anything that happened with the raspberries that could have simulated that sort of annual pattern, though.

Anyhow…

Days like today – rainy and overcast – always make me feel really, really sleepy. I’m resisting the urge to crawl back into bed!

The Re-Farmer

Put to bed: garden progress. Also, Butterscotch is “home”!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

We have reached a lovely 16C/61F today, with wonderful sunshine. You know what that means!

Time to get work done outside!

Today, I focused on using the last of the soil in the kiddie pool the melons were grown in and soil from the grow bags, to top up our first trellis bed. The potato bags were already emptied and the soil all in a pile, so that was nice and quick to transfer over. Between that and the soil from the kiddie pool, more than half the trellis bed was covered.

Then I started on the grow bags the bell peppers were in.

I think I discovered why the peppers never thrived in those.

I had two shallow “raised beds” from the dollar store, plus two deeper, higher quality bags. As soon as I started trying to break up the soil with the spade, I found it to be remarkably solid and hard to cut through. That bag in the photo was the last of these fabric grow bags. It flipped inside out as I tried to empty the soil, and was still stuck.

Those are tree roots.

It turns out those horrible elms from the self seeded row of trees my mother allowed to grow not only release millions of seeds every spring, their roots will actually grow up into the grow bags and smother whatever else is growing there! The only bags where this was not a problem were the potatoes. Those had a thick layer of straw on their bottoms. I did see a few roots here and there, but nothing in the soil layer like this. These fabric grow bags had some grass clippings added to their bottoms. Those were completely decomposed. I didn’t do the feed bags the hot peppers were in until later. Those had straw on their bottoms, too, but not as deep a layer as the potatoes.

So most of my time ended up being spent trying to break up the soil enough that I could finally shake it from the roots, before it could be dumped into the trellis bed. The four bags the bell peppers were in were just enough to finish topping up the trellis bed.

That left five feed bags; four that had the hot peppers and onions in them, and one that had just onions. I left those and shifted to the high raised bed. The grass clipping mulch was moved and the bed was weeded – leaving two little onions to keep growing.

It’s really amazing, how deep dandelion tap roots can grow!

I found what looked like a couple of mouse tunnels in two of the corners. Grass clippings were used to fill in gaps in the corners, and all along the edges, as well as to chink some gaps on the logs that I found. I also debarked it a fair bit. That’s to keep insects and moisture from the logs, so they’ll last longer.

Once that was all cleaned up, I leveled the soil, pushing some of it up against the grass clippings around the edges. Once that was done, I went back to the remaining grow bags and de-rooted them. All five ended up in the high raised bed.

Last of all, the soil was topped with a light sprinkling of grass clippings before both beds got a thorough soaking. I want the water to soak through all the layers, but don’t want to compact the soil layer, and the grass clippings will help with that at least a little bit.

The beds have now been put to bed for the winter!

When adding soil to the trellis bed, I could see it bouncing! I did stomp on them, but the layers of grass clippings, leaves, kitchen compostables, straw, wood chips and bark, all still have quite a bit of space in them. By spring, I expect the whole thing to have sunk and settled at least 4 inches. The main thing, though, is that it is ready for planting in the spring, even if it takes longer to build the trellis part of the trellis beds!

Now for my happy Butterscotch news!

She’s back indoors!

I’d gone out to feed the cats a bit early, yesterday evening. Butterscotch came around and I got to pet her and cuddle her. She still wouldn’t go near the other cats, and if they came close, she would leave, even from the food I’d put near the storage house for her. Shop Towel in particular was interested in that.

After trying – and failing – to bring her to the kibble house to eat, I tried a different tactic. I’d seen a kitten running around around the front of the house, so I left a pile of kibble on the concrete steps for it. Butterscotch let me pick her up again, and I walked around the back of the house, avoiding all the cats, to bring her to the lone pile of kibble.

I almost got there, too.

It just happened that the girls decided to come outside, and as soon as the doors started rattling, Butterscotch got spooked, and I couldn’t hang onto her anymore. Once the girls realized what happened, they worked with me to encourage Butterscotch to come to them at the steps, and got her eating.

My younger daughter stayed with her while her sister and I played interference with the other cats. Several of them suddenly decided they needed to check out what she was doing at the steps!

Including Shop Towel.

Shop Towel has become an enigma. He’s been hanging around and eating with the other cats, and they are mostly okay with that. Driver and Judgement have not been targeted by him, nor have any of the other males. Mind you, he’s clearly the father of most of the adult males, but I don’t know how much of a difference that would make.

The problem starts when he seed Butterscotch and Nosencrantz.

He hasn’t really targeted Nozencrantz, but he has in the past, and she’s clearly nervous around him. When he goes for the food, she leaves. At least she’s not running up a tree anymore, but it means she doesn’t eat. This morning, I left kibble on the red bench for her, just so she could have something!

Butterscotch, however, has his attention, and he wants to chase her.

Between him, and her not wanting to go near any of the other cats, this was a problem. If only we could get her inside, but she wouldn’t let us take her close to the house!

Well, we found a way.

It started with my younger daughter going over to Shop Towel as he was milling around the storage house. She squatted down (oh, to have functional knees like hers!), held her hand out – and he came right over! She was able to pet him as he purred and rubbed against her legs! We were all pretty stunned by this.

That gave us an opportunity.

The cat carrier was in the sun room, in hopes we’d be able to catch one of the adult females for spaying and adoption. While my younger daughter kept Shop Towel distracted, I got the carrier and her sister and I managed to get Butterscotch in.

She was not happy about that.

The carrier also allowed me to get her past all the indoor cats and bring her into my room.

She was not happy with the kittens. She snarls at them, and spent the night hiding under my printer table. She still came out for pets and cuddled, though, and she was very happy to have wet cat food!

The kittens are curious, but we let the big ones in and out, so she’s not overwhelmed by them. The three tiny ones are still too small to let out.

After I finished up in the garden, had a shower and came into my room, I was able to persuade her to come out for pets, and even go up onto my bed for cuddles. The kittens still in the room were all asleep, so there was no snarling involved.

As I write this, she is still on my bed, curled up and having a nap!

I feel much better having her inside. She probably would have been fine outside, but that whole thing with her not being able to get food because she wouldn’t come closer to the house or other cats was a concern. Plus, she’s one of the originals that my late father cared for. Grandma deserves a warm and comfortable retirement!

I really hope this works out for her.

Once we get some of those kittens to the clinic for spays then adoption next month, I’m hoping we can convince Nosencrantz to come back in, too. I miss her nightly cuddles!

The Re-Farmer