outside cats

Glad to be home

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

First, the cuteness!

The cats are quite enjoying the box I found to better stabilize the platform I rigged up for them as a way to store the wire mesh door we made to keep cats out of the old basement in the summer. The one that reminds me of Nosencrantz so much especially likes to just be a loaf in it! I’m constantly seeing cats milling around under there, though, and they do like that rigid insulation!

Also… I’m not 100% sure I recognize the cat on the left. It’s getting so hard to tell some of them apart!

I counted “only” 34 outside cats this morning.

As for the inside cats, Tiny, aka: The Beast, is now big enough that it’s safe to let her out of isolation. With the loss of Snorri, we no longer have to keep the door to my bedroom/office closed, even overnight. Tiny has been thrilled with her new freedom to explore the rest of the house.

The rest of the cats are thrilled to be able to go into my room again. As I write this, there are currently 8 of them asleep on my bed, with all but one of them in a single, huge pile of fur!

Gotta get more adoptions done!!!

Anyhow…

The plan for today was to help my mother with errands so, while doing my rounds, I took the time to open the doors to where her car is parked and give it a quick check.

I almost immediately noticed the back tire on the driver’s side looked awfully low. The tire that had gone flat before was the front driver’s side tire, so this was not expected at all.

The car barely fits in this addition to the garage, so I backed it out, then checked the tire pressure.

It was only 10psi!!

So I pumped it up, but saw no sign of a leak anywhere. I checked the front driver’s side tire, and it was really low, too, though not enough to be noticeably flat.

Of course, I checked the other two, and they were slightly on the slow side, too.

The bizarre thing is, when I took the car in to get that tire checked, the employee that worked on it thought it was the passenger side tire that was leaking and was done checking it when I returned to the garage. I told him it was the driver’s side tire, so he took that one off. He could not find a leak in either of them. All the tires, however, were topped up with air, just in case. I was there to see it done.

So why would all four tires be low, with one practically flat? We even used the car a few days ago, when we had to pick the truck up from getting its new battery.

I’m so glad I took the time to check on her car, so far in advance of needing it! With all the driving around I did with my mother, the tires have held their psi. No evidence of leaks, anywhere.

Very strange.

If it weren’t for the fact that we have snow on the ground that would have given evidence, I would be concerned that a certain “someone” made their way into the garage and let the air out. As it is, the only foot prints in the snow have been our own.

Another reason I am glad I checked the tires.

Road conditions sucked.

But only the gravel roads, and only those sections shaded by trees. They were sheer ice! Even though I was driving slowly and cautiously, ever now and then, the car would suddenly start fishtailing. Not much, thankfully, and not for long, but enough to be a concern. The last thing I’d want is to hit either ditch on the sides of these roads. They are very deep and very steep! The chances of being able to drive out, even with 4 wheel drive, are very low.

We got a light and fluffy snowfall overnight, which didn’t help matters.

Even on the highway, for the first while, I was not confident driving at the speed limit for quite some time.

Oh, how I wished to be driving the truck, instead!!!

Thankfully, today turned out to be warmer than forecast – again – and the paved roads melted clear by the time I was heading home.

Except the gravel roads, where were even slipperier!

As I was reaching the intersection by our place, though, I saw the grader coming through. Our section of the road had just been done. He had to move aside for me to be able to turn in, so at least the last 200 ft or so was good!

This should have been done long ago. People are really upset with our current municipal counsel. For some reason, they didn’t go with the usual company for road maintenance – a local company that has all the equipment and storage facilities on hand, and had done an excellent job of keeping our roads cleared and safe as quickly as possible, every year we’ve been here. Instead, they’ve decided to lease a grader, rent someone’s space to store it, for a ludicrous monthly fee – and a 125 hour limit. Oh, and they’d have to hire a driver each time, too. They only got the grader today, which means for the past while, roads like ours have been just left as they were. It got so bad in areas that the school division would not allow buses to drive on them, for safety reasons.

Which means parents on these dangerous roads had to drive their kids, however many miles, to meet the bus at the highway, instead.

Hopefully, it will no longer be an issue for the rest of the winter.

Anyhow.

Since I was there with the car, my mother wanted to do as many errands as she could, so we stopped at quite a few places. For all that my mother is 92, uses a walker, frequently complains about how bad her knees are (but won’t wear her brace), and is clearly struggling at times, once she gets going, she is really hard to keep up with! At the grocery store, we’ve switched from her using the shopping cart as a walker, to her using her walker and me pushing the cart, so that she has the option of sitting down if she needs to. Once she gets going, though, she just races off! Unfortunately, she’s one of those people who doesn’t really watch out for others or, if she does see them, all but barrels right through them. Yikes!!

We got it all done, though, and she was quite glad to get home and finally rest!

For me, it was just a stop at the gas station, then home, and I was sure glad to be home, too!

I thought I could look forward to taking it easy for the next while, but…

There was an answering machine message when I got home. A reminded for my eye appointment on Monday. I was very glad to get it! I have my phone set to send me a reminder 1 day in advance, so I wouldn’t have forgotten or missed the appointment. However, my eyes will be dilated for a field of vision test, which means I have to get my daughter to drive me home.

Other than parking in the garage, she has yet to drive the truck.

So tomorrow, we’ll be heading out for her to do some practise driving. Pretty much everything is in different places from any other vehicle we’ve driven. It’s also just a few inches wider and longer than the van – just enough to really affect getting in and out of parking spaces, or taking turns. It won’t take long for her to get used to it, but better to do that in advance, then when I need her to drive me home because I’ll essentially be blinded.

I just checked my calendar and see I have a reminder to get my bloodwork done on the same day my husband’s CPP Disability comes in, before Christmas instead of after. That, at least, is not an appointment. I just need to show up at the clinic and ask for the requisition for that should be on file, then step across the hall to the lab to do the tests. Since I will likely be doing our first January stock up shopping that day, and don’t usually have breakfast until I’ve reached the city, I can swing by on the way and get the bloodwork done while still technically fasting.

Then there’s the extra city trip that my daughters will need next week.

Good grief. I try to keep the winter months as close to home as possible, but this year it looks like our December is going to be filled with outings!

I just want to stay home and hybernate!

The Re-Farmer

Stock up shopping at Costco: this is $956

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What a change a day makes! Yesterday, we had a high of -9C/16F, and an overnight low of -14C/7F (that I saw; it might have gone lower). That doesn’t count the windchill, and we had high winds yesterday. Today, we’ve reached a high of 2C/36F and our overnight low is expected to be only -3C/27F

[Edit: while I was still working on this post, we reached a high of 3C/37F, which is higher than was forecast for the day, by as much as 3°, depending on which app I got by.]

Which will make life much easier on the kitties.

I did a head count this morning, and again when I fed them after unloading the truck, so I could safely drive it out of the yard to park it. I counted 33, each time. Which means, taking into account the one I know we’ve lost, we’re “missing” three cats. Just as I couldn’t tell which ones were “new”, I can’t tell which ones are missing. There are some cats that are distinctive and we see regularly, but others look so much alike, and won’t let us near them, we just can’t keep track.

I did get a good action shot this morning, though!

I so want to be able to get Brussel and the other calicos socialized!!! They just won’t let it happen, though.

Today was my day for the Costco stock up shopping. This is what $956.06 looks like.

I did not get everything on my list. Some just wasn’t there. No sugar, for example, except for things like super expensive raw cane sugar or fake sugar. Rogers is on strike right now, so I wasn’t expecting to see that brand, but I was sure Costco also carried other brands. Ah, well. Our next stock up trip will include a Walmart, and they carry Redpath sugar, and they’re not on strike.

I asked to have all the cat food on a separate bill. When they were doing the rest, the cashier motioned to the flat cart, which still had the other heavy stuff on it the other staff member was scanning. I couldn’t make out what he said, but was able to figure out that he was asking about the separate bill, so I repeated that I wanted all the cat food on a separate bill.

Apparently, canned cat food is not cat food, because he included that in the main bill with the groceries! 😄😄

I usually get the 9kg Kirkland brand of kibble, which is cheaper per kg, but there was none. Not even an empty space where they would have been. So instead of a dozen 9kg bags, I got ten 11.6kg bags of Whiskas. They were $37.99 each and, after taxes, came to $425.49

Ouch.

As for the rest, first the non-food items:

Canned cat food: $38.99
LED light bulbs, 8pk: $19.99
AAA batteries: $25.99 plus 80¢ eco fee
Laundry detergent: $18.79
Dish detergent: $9.99
Toilet paper, Kirkland brand: $22.49

Finally, some actual food! 😄

pork blade roast: regular $20.44, -$5 at the till
pork chops: $24.05
chicken 3pk: $28.59
bacon, 5pk: $23.99
rotisserie chickens, two at $7.99 each
double cream Brie: regular $10.99, -$2.50 at the till
cream cheese, 4pk: $9.49
goat cheese, 2pk: $10.99
Old Cheddar: $14.99
mozzarella: $14.99
butter, 5 at $5.45 each: $27.25
whipping cream, two 1L at $4.79 each
10kg bag of flour: $9.99
pasta, 9pk: $13.99
flat of ramen noodles: $13.99
raspberry jam: $8.99
Kirkland brand mayo, 2 at $8.99 each (usually we get Hellman’s, but I couldn’t find any)
avocado oil: $16.99
Kirkland brand EVOO: $23.99
lemon juice, 2pk: 4.99
5 dozen pack eggs: $16.49
rye bread, two 2 pks: $5.99 each
tortilla wraps, 4 packs at $9.99 each for $39.96, – $8 at the till

Subtotal: $512.21
taxes: $18.39
Total: $530.57

Some of the things on my list were more paper products, like facial tissues and paper towels, but the packages are so big, I would have run out of room on my flat cart. As it is, the packages of bread and wraps kept vibrating off as I tried to maneuver the flat cart. 🤨

Also, it blows me away how many people don’t think twice about cutting off a loaded flat cart. Do they really think I can stop on a dime?? Then there are the people that stop to look at products, parking their carts right where there’s a pillar or something, leaving no room for anyone to get through. I get the need to park your cart. Heck, with my flat cart, I often have to park it and walk over to various displays to get something, simply because it’s not worth the effort to wrestle the flat cart through the aisles. Especially for cold rooms, like the dairy and eggs room, or where the soft fruits, salad kits and mushrooms are kept. However, I also make sure people can still get around the cart when I do!

Costco has changed brands of butter since I was last there, but the price is still under $6, making it the best price for butter I’ve seen, still. The whipping cream, at under $5 for 1L is also the best price I’ve seen. Since a 1L carton can make about a pound of butter, it’s the only place where it would be economical to make our own butter. Everywhere else I’ve seen, a 1L carton of whipping cream costs more than the house brand butters. Not that we’ll use the cream for that. If that were the plan, I’d buy a lot more than 2 cartons!

For this trip, adding the canned cat food to the kibble bill (about $43.66 after taxes), we spent about $469.15 on just cat food.

Taking the canned cat food off the rest of the bill, we spent $473.22 on stuff for us. Of that, we spent $375.17 on food. The rest was non-food items and taxes.

We are literally spending more money to feed the cats, than to feed ourselves.

Yes, we still have other stock up shopping trip to do, which will include more food items for ourselves, but those 10 bags of kibble won’t last the month. Last month, we bought 12 bags of Kirkland 9kg kibble, or 108kg. I’ve lost track, but we ended up buying another 7 or 8 bags, ranging in size from 7kg to 11kg, depending on what was in stock. If we use an average range of 9kg for 7 bags, that brings it up to 171kg. Right now, we have 116kg on hand, which means we might need to buy another 55kg in kibble before the end of the month.

And this is why we have to seriously consider starting to euthanize some of the yard cats. We just can’t keep this up. Not when we now have a car payment, even with the girls helping out when they can.

At least the inside kittens will go up for adoption again, once the Cat Lady’s housing situation settles, so the number of indoor cats will drop. We are also hoping to adopt out Toni and Ginger. We adore Ginger, but some of the other cats are starting to really bully him, and he deserves a better home situation than ours. But who would be willing to adopt three legged cats? Even if they don’t have other health issues?

I suppose this is a good time to point out the donation button at the top right, but I know things are tight for everyone right now.

*sigh*

Oh, I almost forgot. There was also the cost of gas and meals, spent today.

On the way out, I stopped to put $30 of regular gas into the truck, at 150.9¢/L I filled the tank once I reached Costco. The price for regular gas there was 135.9¢/L It cost me $66.41 to fill the tank. So, in total, it cost $96.41 to fill the tank from just below half. I also bought breakfast and lunch, for maybe another $20-$25 in total.

Also, the truck has a trip counter that I reset before heading home from Costco. With a short side trip to pick up the mail, it read just over 108km, so about double that for the entire trip.

I must say, I’m going to be very happy in January, when we get our quarter beef order in! With the hung weight being the highest we’ve had yet, I’ve doubled the last two monthly payments, which means in January, we’ll have only about $40 left to cover the balance. I don’t know that we’ll be able to do this again, though. It’s been great to be able to make monthly payments towards a quarter beef at the end of the year (or, in this case, beginning of the year), but with having truck payments now, we need to put some wiggle room back into our budget.

Well, it is what it is. We’ll deal. Somehow, we always manage to make it through.

The Re-Farmer

Again? Plus, a dilemma we need to face

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So, I ended up having to make a trip into town this morning.

This bugger is part of the reason why.

If she would only let us near her, Brussel could be adopted out right away! She’s such a beauty, too, even if she does look ready to bite off my face. 😂

It’s interesting how the different cats have their preferred eating spaces. I try to spread things out, both inside the sun room and outside. I started putting kibble on the well cap, and the calicos – especially Brussel, here – prefer to eat there over the kibble house or the cat house roof. They almost never go into the sun room, or even the cat house. I don’t know where they hide out during the day, but I think it’s somewhere in the outer yard. Brussel will at least come to the well cap and closer to the house, regularly. Her sister, Sprout, barely even does that, and prefers to eat under the shrine – and even then, only after I am well away!

It’s chillier out, so the yard cats need more food than in the summer, which means we were running out of kibble again. Even with giving them lighter feedings, the bin would have been emptied this evening. I could have taken from the bin for the inside cats, but that one was getting low, and I didn’t want to empty it, too. The problem is, my husband’s CPP Disability payment doesn’t come in until tomorrow, which is when I will be doing our Costco shopping trip. His SunLife payment comes in on the last business day of the month, so that’s when I’ll go into the city again to do the other stock up shopping. I could have juggled some numbers; when I worked out the budget for the month, I always round up, so that there is wiggle room. Unfortunately. At least there would be, if there weren’t some odd purchases coming out. For example, for the second month in a row now, we got two Audible payments processed. One appears to be from a Canadian account, and one from a US account. My husband has an Audible subscription, but only one, so why are we being billed twice, with one clearly being converted from US dollars? I’ll have to call the bank about that and see what’s going on.

Anyhow.

My daughter was a sweetheart and was able to send an e-transfer that was enough to get some more kibble. We also just switched out one of our 18.9L/5 gallon drinking water jugs, so we had two empties that I refilled as well.

After I was done at the grocery store, I started the truck and the check engine line was on again. So I turned it off and set up the OBDII scanner. I didn’t do a full scan, though. The one we have now allows other options, including scanning just the check engine light. It took maybe a minute or two, and I got the same codes as before, that I already talked to our mechanic about. This is a “too rich fuel” reading that turns itself on and off. When it was on before and I got him to check it, he said it should clear itself. Which it did, after I filled the tank. Then it turned on again after another top up, only to be off the next time I used the truck. It’s been off ever since, until today. This time, when I cleared the codes, it turned off and it stayed off.

While doing a scan, the engine is off, but the key is in the half way position, where you can use the electrical system and see the displays on the console. Which is why I got a surprise warning on the onboard computer.

“Battery is low. Please start the engine.”

!!!???

Again????

Of course, this battery is brand new and was fully charged when it was installed. I started the engine, and the battery gauge showed me it was charging just fine. The alternator is not the problem.

Since it was just across the road, I drove over to the garage to talk to our mechanic – leaving the engine running while I went in!

He is perplexed. He’s gone over the truck a few times, now, and he can’t think of anything that would be draining the battery. I know we didn’t have any lights left on or anything like that. It’s not the first vehicle he’s encountered that would have these warnings come up, for no reason he could find. The last one he had it happen on was an Escalade. After talking to him for a while, it basically came down to, watch and see, and if it happens again, call him.

As we were talking, he remembered a gadget he now carries that he thinks we might want to pick up. A portable booster. We have booster cables, but they’re not much good if you don’t have another vehicle to connect with. Especially living in the boonies like we do. The one he showed me was a power pack with booster cables as well as other things, like the ability to charge devices with USB. Something like that would definitely be good to have in our vehicle emergency kit! I’ve since had a chance to look some of these up, and found a larger portable device that included an air compressor as well. The price was good, too, though it’s not something we can get any time soon with our current budget.

The truck seemed just fine in all other respects. For all I know, it could be a sensor issue.

While there, I remembered to ask about my seatbelt problem. He remembered I’d asked him about it in a text, but wasn’t sure what I was talking about. I described to him how the driver’s side seatbelt just doesn’t want to click into place. I keep having to push and wiggle and push again until the buckle finally latches – though I’ve had it come undone a couple of times, even then. Never while driving, though, but immediately after it latched and I was adjusting the seatbelt tension around my body.

This is not something he normally fixes at all. He did have a suggestion I didn’t even think of. Use a flashlight and see if something had fallen into where the latch is. Yeah, that could cause the problem! Then, if we didn’t find anything obvious, try a bit of WD40. Something to do tomorrow, before I head into the city.

Meanwhile, once I got home and things were brought inside, I was able to give the cats another light feeding, so I could safely drive the truck out of the yard and park it in the garage!

We need to do something about these cats. I counted 34 or 35 this morning. We’re spending more on cat food now than we are on truck payments. It may even be more than we are spending on actual food for ourselves. Our trips to the grocery store usually includes non-food items, like household products, persona hygiene products and the like. With how much food prices are going up, we haven’t been able to get the extra stock up items of the pantry the way we used to. I’ve even tried looking up Canadian wholesale pet food suppliers, and the few places I found that had online sales, the prices were no better than retail prices in the stores, so there’s no point. Even Amazon prices are higher than what I can get at Costco. I suppose I could go to that livestock feed store again and get the 16kg bags they carry that’s cheap, but the quality is so low, even the outside cats didn’t like to eat it. It’s much the same with the economy bags of kibble at Walmart. Sure, it’s cheaper per kg, but that doesn’t mean much if the quality sucks so much, the cats don’t want to eat it unless they’re practically starving. Which means it’s also likely to be quite unhealthy for them, too.

But what can we do? This year, we actually have people wanting to adopt some of our outdoor female cats as mousers on their own property, and they’ve have a better living situation than we can give them, but we have been unsuccessful in socializing them – and no one wants male yard cats, who are more likely to roam, no matter how friendly they are, it seems. It’s gotten to the point where we are going to have to seriously consider looking at how to humanely euthanize them. We could contact the municipality, and they’d send someone over with a rifle. Which can be humane, but only if they are a really good shot! Even then, no matter how good a shot they are, these are small, moving targets.

I can’t believe I’m even considering this, but the situation is getting untenable. It’s not just a matter of the cost of feeding them. It’s not healthy for them, either. The more there are, the more sick cats there will be – and we’ve lost so many more this year, than any year before! Without those losses – the ones we know of! – we’d probably have more like 50 yard cats right now.

*sigh*

I hope to be able to talk to the Cat Lady about it before any decisions are made. They’re moving to a new home seems to be falling through. They got financing for the new house, but have not been able to sell the old one. They’ve had many offers, and every one has fallen through. People just have not been able to get financing. They have until the end of the month. If they don’t get a buyer before then, they have to give up the new place and stay where they are. Meanwhile, they are still paying to board almost all their own cats, too!

Which reminds me. One of the sick kittens they took from us, got vet care for, then adopted out, came back. This is the white and grey one. While it was recovered, it was going to have a lifetime of relapses, which would have required antibiotics probably a couple of times a year. Which turned out to be too much for the woman who adopted him. So, the Cat Lady said she’d take him back. !!! Their dog is very happy about this, it seems. They had really bonded, and he was clearly missing him. This was a kitten that they fell in love with and really struggled to say good bye to. This does however, make the 5th cat from us, if I remember correctly, that they are keeping permanently! I’m afraid to tell her about any other cats or kittens we have to adopt out! By the time they get the cats fixed and get vet care, too many of them are turning out to have invisible health problems, and no one wants to adopt them. They also have pair of bonded kittens from us that they tried to adopt out together, but one of them turned out to have heart problems, so they’re keeping both.

*sigh*

Once their situation settles down, I’ll talk to the Cat Lady again about borrowing a trap and trying to get some of the female yard cats. This has been a mild enough winter, we could risk it. We could even rig up shelter around the trap somehow, but we really need to try and get them caught and spayed before they go into heat again.

It’s either that, or we start looking into more permanent actions, and I really don’t want to go that route.

The Re-Farmer

The breakfast crowd, and technology frustrations

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Today is supposed to be a chillier day. We’ve already reached our expected high of -9C/16F Which wouldn’t be too bad – especially with how bright and sunny it is – but the wind chill brings it down to -19C/-2F The wind is just whipping around the house, too, so areas that would typically be more sheltered, aren’t.

We got a light snowfall overnight. Just enough to cover the ground. Tomorrow, we’re supposed to have a high of -10C/14F, then reach 0C/32F and 1C/34F over the next two days! So much of it will probably be gone before we dip below freezing again.

No surprise, that the cats were preferring the sun room to have breakfast in, rather than the cat house roof, or the kibble house!

This is 10 cats eating out of 2 bowls! There was another 5 eating behind me as I took this photo. All total, I counted 33 or 35 cats this morning.

When I was about to head in after finishing my rounds, I spotted a whole crowd of heads in the cat bed, watching me. A couple ran out as I stopped to get a picture, but I did manage to catch the runners in the shot.

I cropped out the second one that ran off. I don’t think anyone really wants to see that particular side of his anatomy. 😂 That calico in the back won’t let us come near her, but my goodness, she is not at all shy about telling us it’s feeding time! She is an unusually talkative cat. Especially for a yard cat.

We can sometimes pet that orange and white cat. There was a second orange and white kitten, but it disappeared a couple of months ago. The fluffy black kitten with the white blaze on its face is also getting better at letting us pet him, and even pick him up.

Barely visible behind the orange and white’s head is the little tortie. She won’t let us just pet her, but if we manage to pick her up, she will allow us to cuddle her. Being one of the only females we can actually touch, we have plans to bring her indoors as soon as we can. The calico is a priority, though, as she’s old enough to go into heat. Something that might actually happen earlier in the season, with our milder temperatures. That one, we just can’t get close to at all. Not even while they are all eating. With some of the other stand offish cats, I’ve managed to pet a few backs while they are eating before they run off. All seem to be males, of course. It’s hard to tell at times, because they move around to fast, but the older ones are a bit easier to spot.

You can see the little one with the cloudy eye. The pupil seems to be dilating the same as the good eye. There’s just that cloudy patch across it.

With the racoons being such an issue, I asked my daughter to give the cats their evening feeding earlier in the day, after we loaded the truck so I could make a garbage run. Sunset these days is around 4:30, so this not only got the cats away from the truck so I could leave, it meant they could finish eating while it was still light out. At night, I “arm” the motion sensor recording on the critter cam. When I checked the files this morning, I did see a couple of racoons go in, but there was no food left, so they didn’t stay long.

Meanwhile…

Yes!! I finally made it to the dump! It was even still open. I got so busy working on something else, I lost track of time. Thankfully, on Saturdays, they are open for 8 hours instead of 4.

After I tossed all the household garbage into the pit (they have bins for recycling, and various sheds and storage areas for electronic waste, paint, batteries, oil, etc., as well as separate areas for tires, large appliances, construction waste and other large stuff like that) and was closing things up, the woods on the other side of the pit suddenly started screaming. There had to be at least a dozen, probably more, coyotes back there! Coyotes have such a piercing howl, and some of them really did sound like they were screaming. Then there’s that yipping noise they make. Yikes! I’d hate to have a farm with livestock in this area. We do have coyotes here, of course, but I’ve never heard that many, all at once!

On a completely different note, yesterday evening I got to get some more progress on my garden analysis series of posts. I’ve got them planned out and organized into drafts, but each posts takes a lot of time to work on, as I go over my old posts and photos in the process. This year, I also have a number of videos to go over, as well. With my WordPress storage so close to maxing out, some things only got covered in video, or images are on my Instagram page, instead.

I think WordPress was having issues last night, Thankfully, it seems to not be happening today, as it hasn’t happened while I’m working on this post. As I was writing in my drafts last night, every now and then, it would simply disappear. Everything in my browser window would suddenly go white. The rest of the browser was still visible and uneffected; my tool bar was still there, the URL was unchanged, my tabs were still up. Just the contents of my WordPress editor would disappear. I’d have to reload the page to get it back.

Thankfully, WP automatically saves draft quite frequently, so I didn’t lose more than a sentence, but when it started happening more and more often, I had to stop for the night. I’m hoping to get more progress done on the drafts tonight. I’ve got the first completely post scheduled to post on Tuesday, and if all goes well, there will be a new one posted every morning for 10 days, altogether.

Which means I need to get my butt in gear. These analysis posts can take hours to write!

It does, however, help me get my thoughts together and make plans for next year, so it’s worth it.

The Re-Farmer

A closer look, and my daughters are funny

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As I was finishing up my morning rounds today, I spotted that kitten with the strange looking eye. I still can’t get close to it, but it was at some food, so it didn’t run away when I stopped to take a picture. I still had to zoom in on my desktop to see. This cropped image is the best I was able to get.

It’s still hard to see, but it looks almost like it has a cataract. Most likely, this eye got infected with the unusually bad strain of herpes that hit so many cats in our province this year. Whatever the cause, it was over with by the time this litter started showing up at the house.

I counted 36 cats this morning.

That critter cam we have set up in the sun room kept me busy last night. Those racoons are very persistent! They no longer really pay attention to my using the microphone to shoo them away.

Racoons make the strangest, snarling, piggy noises.

One of the first times I went into the old kitchen, I was surprised to find several cats in it! The outside door to the old kitchen from the sun room has a screen window. It’s old and torn and needs to be replaced. There is a window that slides down over it, but the slide locks have broken off, so the only way to move the window is to jam something like a screwdriver or a knife into the space, slide the latch and try and hold it in place while adjusting the window, so we just keep it all the way open.

Well, with the racoons making them rather nervous, the cats tore a hole in the corner of the screen in the door. The inner door was mostly closed, just to keep the cold out a bit, so they had no problem getting through.

Once the racoons were out, the cats left the old kitchen, but once they knew they could get through that screen, they kept at it! We tried closing the inner door completely, but that just meant cats got stuck between the doors. I opened it to chase racoons out again, and there were three cats between the doors! So we left the screen door open and closed the inner door. The last thing we needed was for the racoons to discover they could get through the screen and tear into the garbage bags stored in the old kitchen until we can finally get to the dump.

Which is open again today. With the battery replaced in the truck, we can finally get the garbage and recycling out!

We are going to have to do something about those racoons. Several times, it wasn’t enough to just chase them out of the sun room. I went outside and chased them out of the kibble house – then chased away the other three that were eating kibble under the shrine! From the noise, some were running under the storage house, so they weren’t going far. The time I chased away the ones by the shrine, I’d counted 8 of them altogether.

*sigh*

Ah, well.

One a completely different topic, my daughters are funny.

This is how they mark off the days on our calendar.

Every month, it’s something different. Sometimes, it’s geometric patterns. Sometimes, it will be a theme based on the month. Flowers in the spring, vegetables at the end of summer, that sort of thing. This was started off as marine life, then went with a food theme, and even some kelp!

I love the axolotl at the top. And the coelacanth! Two of my favourite sea creatures!

The Re-Farmer

Not the day that was planned

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First of all, Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends in the US! I hope you have a wonderful day filled with family, friends and food!

As for our day…

Oooh, boy.

Things went pretty normal this morning, plus I had some errands to run this afternoon. The pain I was feeling yesterday has subsided, so I was able to do my morning rounds, as usual. As always, they start with bringing out kibble and warm water for the outside cats.

I did a couple of head counts and reached 34 and 35. Including this battered beast.

Sad Face was looking sadder, with a fresh wound on his nose. He may be much less aggressive with the other cats these days, but at least one of our own males is not happy with him around and regularly growls at him. I suspect that cat is responsible, but there’s really no way of knowing. Ironically, perhaps, it’s one of the white and greys from last year’s kittens, which means Sad Face here is almost certainly his daddy!

There’s a fluffy smaller kitten that looks a lot like Pom Pom I’ve been trying to get a better look at. There’s something weird about one eye, but every time I come near, the kitten runs off. Today it was in the kibble house while I was refilling the big heated water bowl right next to it, and I got the best look at its face so far. That one eye appears to be clouded. I don’t think it’s blind in that eye, but I do think it’s partially blind.

Unfortunately, so many of the cats just will not let us socialize them. Unlike this handsome boy.

Syndol quite enjoys being held and cuddled.

Hypotenose in the background is not quite there, yet. He did let me place a hand on his back, as I was petting Syndol, but only for a moment, before he moved away.

One of the goals of the day was to make a dump run. The landfill is open only 3 days a week. I’d gone there on Tuesday, only to find it was closed. That’s when I realized I was looking at the Thursday winter hours, not the Tuesday winter hours. On Tuesdays, they are open from late morning to early afternoon. With winter hours, they closed at 1pm. I thought they opened at 2pm, which is when they open in the winter on Thursdays, so I got there an hour after they’d closed. *sigh*

One down side of having a box cover on the truck instead of a cab. We couldn’t leave the garbage in the back, because the racoons could easily tear through the cover to get at it. So, back into the Old Kitchen the bags went.

Today is Thursday, so I was planning to do the dump run, then head to Walmart for a couple things, including more cat kibble. *sigh* I can’t even blame the racoons for that one. I didn’t realize how low we were on kibble for the inside cats, when I made the last Walmart run, on Monday. If we refilled the inside cat bin from the outside cat bin, there wouldn’t be enough left to last the rest of the month for the outside cats.

With the dump opening at 2, I headed out shortly after 1 to back the truck up to the house and load the garbage bags. Then I headed inside for a bit before it was time to head out. My younger daughter was going to come along, as she needed to go to the Walmart as well. Sweetheart that she is, she also went ahead to unlock the gate. With the warm weather we had recently, the driveway is mostly ice. Especially under the gate, where water tends to pool! She had to be so careful just walking to the gate, never mind opening it.

Meanwhile, I went to start the truck and…

Nothing happened.

Crud.

It started without any problem when I took it out of the garage! I even considered leaving the engine running while loading the back but decided against it, since I wasn’t sure how long I would be inside before we headed out.

Now, we’ve been talking to the garage about that battery. When we were first looking to buy that truck, he thought he’d replaced the battery, but when he checked his files, it said the previous owner had changed the battery. When we realized there was a problem with it, he looked it up and the battery was from 2019, so past warranty. The other thing that has been odd is the tire monitoring system, which keeps telling me my tires are low when they’re fine. That is most likely the battery dying in the module. I told him we probably wouldn’t be able to get them fixed until December, and may only be able to do one, not both, depending on the cost. He told me that, if I could only do one, he recommended I put a priority on the battery. He got prices for me; a new battery would be $200, while the tire monitoring system module would be only $60, though replacing that requires removing a tire, so there’d be more labour costs on top of that one, compared to just switching out a battery.

Anyhow.

When the truck wouldn’t start, I went and got our battery charger and waved my daughter over. She got an extension cord ready for the charger while I set it up, and we got that going.

While the charger was doing its job, I remembered to look for the plug for the block heater. I found the cord, which was neatly wound and secured around the engine compartment, and followed it along. The plug end turned out to be neatly tucked into an opening in the frame, right at the front. I pulled it out and found…

Oh, dear.

Clearly, no one thought to look at the block heater cord, even during the safety inspection. Why would they?

I was able to text the above photo to our mechanic to let him know it’s something else we’re going to have to eventually fix! Thankfully, there is no hurry on that. In fact, if the forecasts for this El Niño winter are at all accurate, we may not need to use it at all this winter. I’ll get an price on what it’ll cost to get it fixed, then take care of it when the budget allows.

Unfortunately, we’ve discovered that the outside cats are incredibly curious about the truck – and the higher clearance on this truck means more places they can get into, under it! We saw them climbing onto the tires and up into the undercarriage, as well as just loafing under it. I ended up having to put a bit of kibble out, just to get them away from the truck while we tried to start it.

We got it clear of cats and I went to start the truck.

Nothing happened.

We waited a while longer.

The charger stopped charging, and an error message popped up.

I checked the connections and one seemed to have slipped off. I reset them, plugged the charger back in and it started charging.

After a while, we tried to start the truck again.

Nothing. It just clicked.

We left the charger going for longer. I decided it was time to call the garage.

As I was talking to our mechanic, he asked for readings on the charger, so I went back outside. Unfortunately, the writing on the charger is so small, I can barely read it, but I did spot the button to change the display from current to voltage.

7.4

I read that to him and got a “That’s not good!”

I switched it to battery percentage, and it only said “Lo”

Not only that but, as I was talking to him, the voltage went from 7.4 to 7.3

It wasn’t charging.

So, we talked options. He suggested we take the battery out and bring it to him, using my mother’s car, and he’d sell us a new one. Unfortunately, while I know it’s a simple thing to do, I’ve never taken a battery out of a vehicle before, nor have I even seen it done. Plus, we still had our errands to run, though going to the dump was no longer an option.

I told him I wouldn’t be able to do it today, but would call him ahead when I do.

As we were putting things away, there were a couple of odd things. The hazard lights were on. I couldn’t even remember where the button for that was on this vehicle. It was behind the steering wheel, at the top of the column – not a place where it could have been turned on by accident, unless my daughter somehow hit it while she tried starting the truck. She may have tried looking through the computer display which, unfortunately, does not include a display for the battery.

As I was putting the charger back in the garage, my daughter went to close the hood, but it wouldn’t close for her. Unlike very other vehicle we’ve owned, this hood holds itself up, without a metal bar to support it, so closing it should have been just a matter of pulling it down. For some reason, she wasn’t able to get it.

Which is when she heard the ticking sound.

As I returned from the garage, she told me about it, and it was coming out of the fuse box. I tried to open the cover, which had an arrow indicating an “unlock” position… but we couldn’t get it off. I’m sure there’s something simple we’re missing, but we just weren’t in a position to fiddle with it.

This time, when my daughter went to close the hood, it closed just fine. Because of course it would work when I was there to see! 😄

We could still hear the ticking noise.

The next thing we had to do was get my mother’s car out of the garage.

Well, that couldn’t be an easy thing to do, now could it?

Of course not.

One of the things we’ve been doing is collecting aluminum separately from the regular recycling. Before we moved out here, we kept all our pop cans and bottles to take to the bottle depot and get our enviro fees back. This province doesn’t have that, so all that just goes into general recycling at the dump. Only glass gets a separate bin. However, aluminum can get a good price at the scrap yards, so we’ve been keeping that. My brother collected aluminum to help raise funds to build a local church. We don’t typically have a lot of canned food, but we do drink canned drinks, and then we started buying canned cat food, regularly.

We now have about 6 years of aluminum stored in bags the garage, in the space in front of my mother’s car.

We meant to take it in this summer, but we lost use of the van, and then got rid of the van itself. Now that we have the truck, I was going to find out from my brother where he’d gone with the aluminum, but we’ve had other stuff that needed doing, first.

Well, just a little while ago, I came into the garage to find the entire area in front, and under, my mother’s car, filled with cans. Critters – could be cats, could be racoons – had knocked several bags down from the stack and torn them apart, and we hadn’t had a chance to clean it up, yet.

I filled three bags of loose cans. And that was just the ones immediately around my mother’s car, so it could be accessed.

After we were sure the tires were clear, my daughter backed the car out, and I could reach the cans that were under it.

Once that was done, we could FINALLY start heading out.

Of course, this is my mother’s car, and I’m always trepidatious about driving it. I found out today that my daughters have been referring to it as the Car of Damocles. Which is so appropriate, given the troubles it’s had since my mother bought it, never mind just in the years we’ve been keeping it insured for her!

The drive itself went well, though our driveway was not the only area that was sheer ice. The highways may be beautifully clear, but the gravel roads near our place are shaded by trees, so the snow never fully melted away when we had those wonderfully warm days. Instead, they turned into skating rinks.

Yeah. We took it slow! Especially on the way home. Even on the highway. It was past 5pm and fully dark by the time we were heading home, and there are a lot of deer in the area! I was glad to have my daughter as an extra pair of eyes to watch the ditches for me.

As for the truck, after we unloaded, I gave it a listen, and the ticking sound had stopped.

I’ve decided that I will use our CAA and have the truck towed. The ticking from the fuse box is likely caused by the defective battery; the circuits aren’t getting the charge they need. Just to be on the safe side, though, I’d like to have those checked out, too – BEFORE we start trying to drive it after replacing the battery.

So I will arrange, probably tonight, to have a tow truck come by tomorrow. I just hope there’s enough room in front of the truck for the tow truck to access it properly!

Plus, we’ll have to really make sure there are no cats up under there!

Hopefully, once the truck is no longer a “new” thing for them, they will stop being so curious about it.

So… That’s how are day ended up. Not at all as planned!

Ah, well. Such is life!

The Re-Farmer

A sluggish morning

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Well, it took a few days, but I’m starting to feel the effects of my fall from a couple of days ago. I woke up this morning to pain in pretty much all my joints, plus soft tissue pain along my left side. My knee that I landed on still has minimal swelling, and only hurts if I press on the area. I made the mistake of putting weight on it while getting into bed. Even though it was on a soft mattress, it hurt like blazes.

So the most I got done this morning was cat feeding.

I was able to do a head count again, and kept getting 37, so it looks like that’s going to be our number for the winter. Our usual wanderers, like Rolando Moon and Judgement, are sticking close to home. Sad Face is now a permanent fixture and seems to have stopped being aggressive to the other cats completely.

Once the cat feeding and watering was done, I skipped the rest of my morning rounds, took some pain killers and tried going back to bed. Sleep was a lost cause. The bigger kittens are now allowed out of the room which, unfortunately, means I’m dealing with scratching at my door much more often, as they keep wanting in and out. The littles are a different story. Soot Sprite keeps managing to dash out, and he’s still too small to be let out; at least at night. Snorri has also started to make runs for it, and he’s the tiniest of the bunch! The Beast (who is still Tiny, but not quite as tiny anymore) isn’t as interested in leaving the room. She and Soot Sprite, however, are balls of energy and frequently wrestling rambunctiously. Snorri is has not recovered enough to join them, and is often content to curl up on my leg or hip, or the back of my neck, and nap. He’s such a featherweight, I have to be incredibly careful before rolling over, because I can’t always tell he’s there!

I’ve given up on trying to lie down, and will work on a couple other blog posts instead.

After I take a couple more painkillers.

The Re-Farmer

Snowcats!

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The arrival of some expected snow kept being pushed earlier and earlier. It hit us last night, so we woke to a winter wonderland of soft, fluffy snow. We were at 0C/32F while I was outside, so it could just as easily have been rain. That was supposed to be the high of the day, but by the time I was settled back inside, we’d warmed up to 1C/34F and the system had passed us by. As I write this, the system is still hitting the southern part of our province, and crossing into the next, as well as hitting the Canada/US border. From what I’m hearing, the city is getting more snow than we got, and some of the highways are getting packed snow. Enough that I’ve decided to not bother with a dump run today. It can wait until next week.

We’re supposed to hit 3C/37F over the next couple of days, and then warm up a bit more, before we’re supposed to start getting highs below freezing next week. All I care is that the roads and weather are good for Saturday, when we’re heading to the city so my husband can finally visit his family!

The deep snow did make it a bit harder for the cats to eat on the roof of the cat house – but they insist on eating there!

It wasn’t until I uploaded this photo to my desktop that I realized I’d caught, not one, but two tongue blehps!

I didn’t even try to do an overall head count, but…

… at one point, I could see eight cats crowded together in the big cat bed at this window! Then the tabby in front came by – there was no room in the cat bed for him! – plus I saw some other movement in the background.

They do love the cat house, this time of year!

While I was out, I took advantage of the snow still being light and fluffy and shoveled around the cat shelters, paths around the yard, including to the compost ring, the back of the garage and our emergency bathroom – the outhouse! 😄 I also made sure there was a path from the house to the front of the garage, wide enough for my husband’s walker, and cleared enough snow that we can open the doors on the sides, to access my mother’s car, of where the little snow blower is stored. No point in using the snow blower at all, though. The snow may have been light and fluffy, but it was also very sticky. Nothing like trying to toss a shovel full of snow and nothing happens, because the entire load is stuck!

We’re supposed to fluctuate around the freezing mark all day today, but as we reach our high tomorrow, all those paths should melt away first and make things easier, later on.

It’s a good day to say inside and work on the Christmas decorations I am crocheting for this year’s ornament.

We have a cat free zone in the living room now. We can actually put up a proper tree, rather than hang one against the door in the dining room. The problem with that is, we’ve been using the room as a catch-all for everything we need to keep safe from the cats, so it’s just jammed full of stuff!

Wanting to set up the Christmas tree is a good excuse to finally go through everything and reorganize.

The Re-Farmer

What else could we do?

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First, my apologies for the terrible picture, but it was the best of the lot.

Meet our new baby.

This is the kitten, sibling to Soot Sprite, Tiny and Pom Pom, that I’ve had to bring inside every now and then, to wash its eyes. It’s the only kitten right now with such messed up eyes.

When I got back from town, I unloaded the truck by the door, then my daughter started taking things inside while I parked in the garage.

It’s rather difficult to haul things through a pair of doors while one cat inside – Big Rig – is trying to get out, and another cat outside – Rolando Moon – is trying to get in. So she got her father to do door duty while she went back for the 5 gallon water jugs. This time it was the one orange tabby kitten of the year that was trying to get in.

As she came out again, this little black puff ball came over. Purring.

It tried to get in, too.

So my daughter ended up picking it up, and it was so very happy. This was the first time she had handled it!

As I came around, she asked me what I thought about bringing it in. It’s eyes were getting messy again, and it’s basically skin and bone. I’ve been debating keeping it inside, every time I brought it in to wash its eyes, and after finding 2 dead kittens we didn’t even know were particularly sick… well…

What else are we supposed to do?

So my daughter took it to the isolation ward – my bedroom – while I did the evening cat feeding. While I was doing that, the girls did the evening cat feeding in my room, too – both were being done hours early – including wet cat food.

The kitten was purring non-stop already, but once there was wet cat food to be had, it was in heaven!

Also, they were able to take a peek, and it seems we have a little girl on our hands! Which is awesome, because we’ve had such bad luck when it comes to socializing the females, so we can get them fixed and help with population control.

As I write this, the feeding frenzy is over, and she’s on my bed, loafed next to the tiny cat bed that has Soot Sprite and Pom Pom in it. So she’s getting reacquainted with her long-lost siblings!

My daughter was able to wipe her eyes while they were setting up for feeding, but we’ll give her a bit more time to settle before we try to wash her eyes again. My husband and I did her eyes this morning.

Aside from a couple of surprised moments that brought out quiet growls, there was been zero issue between her and the other kittens. Even the adult cats in the room were barely even curious.

It looks like the only thing we’ll have to deal with is making sure she figures out the litter boxes.

I’ve already sent this picture to the cat lady and told her why we brought her in. I don’t expect a response for a while, since they’ve got so much going on right now. Nothing is going to happen until after their house is sold and they are settled in their new house, so some time in December, at the earliest.

Which will give us plenty of time for us to get her healthy, and get some meat on those bones!

She is tiny, long haired, black with some white on her chest, and tiny patches of white in other areas. I think she will find a forever home very quickly, once she’s ready for adoption!

The Re-Farmer

Well, that worked out

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Of course, we must have the cuteness, first!

I missed getting a picture of Judgement curled up around the kitten. He moved when I stop to get a picture.

Every once in a while, that kitten lets me pet it, and even pick it up.

Today was not one of those times.

It’s been really nice outside today. According to the weather apps, we hit 6C/43F instead of the predicted high of 4C/39F. We hit 6C yesterday, too. The forecast is for 4C tomorrow, then 7C/45F! All the paths we shovelled are melted and green, and there is water pooling in parts of the driveway, visible in the tire tracks.

A perfect day to walk around!

The guy that was interested in the old vehicles has come and gone. He came with his wife, his son, and two of his son’s friends. Really nice people! We started off looking at vehicles in the old hay yard, then made our way to the car graveyard, then back into the outer yard to where there are some vehicles by the storage shed, and even the ones by the old threshing machine. The son and his friends were really excited when we went past the old Farmhand tractor. Turns out one of them has one, that runs. They were so thrilled to see that it still had the original hand crank! 😄 In fact, they were geeking out all over the place. The wife, meanwhile, was just following along with her coffee, slightly bemused. Cars are definitely not her thing. 😁

In the end, they identified three vehicles they want to make offers on, and the son and his friends asked to include the tractor, too. That actually made me happy. I’ve already talked to my brother about having someone take it. I was thinking one of my nephews, perhaps. This is something that has historical value, and can still be restored. The longer it sits out there, though, the worse its condition will become.

They will talk it over, then he’ll call me with an offer to pass on to my brother.

I know my brother asked me not to let them in, but I hope he can trust me enough to understand why I did, anyhow. We’re already talking about selling this stuff for scrap, and we won’t get much money for them. Not the cars, anyhow. The old farm equipment would get more, since they don’t have things like vinyl dashboards and padded seats that need to be removed. If there is someone willing to buy individual vehicles for parts and restoration, I see that as a better option. We’d get a better price per vehicle that way, too, even it’s not by much.

We shall see how it turns out! I was very happy to meet them all and we had a great time walking around and chatting. They were excited like kids in a candy store at times! There were even a couple of vehicles they’d never heard of before, and would be all giddy about things like window shapes on an Epic, and the fins on the back of one old car from the 50’s.

The only downside I can think of, is that I don’t think my brother knows just how bad a shape most of these vehicles are. He thinks anything can be fixed, which may well be true, but who is going to fix them? Not us, and he sure doesn’t have the time to do it. He’s already got way too much to deal with! I even feel bad that he took so much time to come out here to climb up on the roof, then into that tunnel, and finally to replace the light fixture. He was here for 4 hours, plus another 2-3 hours driving time, plus time at the hardware sore, plus the amount of money he spent on the supplies. He really went above and beyond! He always does.

He is protective of his baby sister, too. Perhaps a bit over protective! 🧡😁

The Re-Farmer