outside cats

Another sleepless night

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First, some morning kitties!

I counted 23 or 24 this morning.

Last night, I glanced through the bathroom window into the dark sun room, and could see a larger… shadow… moving around. Too big to be a cat and the wrong shape for a skunk.

So I headed out to take a look and, sure enough, it was a big racoon, searching for kibble.

I chased it out, then left the light on in the sun room so we could check it throughout the night.

I don’t know about the rest of the family, but several times, I headed back out to chase out skunks and another – or the same – racoon. That second racoon sighting was funny, as I glanced out the bathroom window, and this racoon head popped up over the seat of my husband’s walker to look back at me!

We’ve getting a couple of very small skunks and one big one going into the sun room. The little ones don’t like to leave, and will sit on the threshold, between the inner and outer doors, rather than go outside. I end up having to push the inner door and kick at it to make noise and chase it out. Chances are, there are cats or other critters just outside the door that are keeping it from going right out, too.

I was trying to get one of the skunks out that way, when it was still light out, when movement out the windows facing the old kitchen garden caught my eye. I had just scared our piebald deer away from the kibble house, too!

So we’ve got the deer, skunks and racoons, along with the blue jays and chickadees, stealing the cats’ food.

No wonder it’s disappearing so fast. Poor babies.

I did manage to sneak a pet on the back of the little black and white cat that looks so much like Pointy Baby. It was all lumps from matted fur. We so need to socialize this cat, so we can take care of that!!

Between the outside critters and the antics of the inside cats, I got very little sleep last night.

Meanwhile…

It’s still really windy out there.

Once again, I found the gate cam fallen over. This time, the solar panel got knocked right off. Thankfully, the connectors were all completely dry – the only parts that aren’t water proof – and I was able to reattach it right away.

I also dragged over a heavy piece of metal I found in the shed with the collapsed roof.

Hopefully, the weight of it will be enough to keep the stand from falling over, until we can find something better.

It was funny checking the files just a little while ago. After it got knocked down, it seems a cat clambered over it and used the wooden stand to keep its feet out of the water. From the fur colours and the matts I could see, it was the little black and white one.

The winds are supposed to keep up all day, but I’m hoping it will calm down at least a little bit, later today. I’m going to need to make a trip into town. I could probably wait until tomorrow, but thinks have a habit of coming up unexpectedly, so I’d rather get it over with today. I’ve heard the highways are clear and dry, so at least I won’t have to worry about icy roads as well as high winds.

Right now, though, I’m so tired, I’m not safe to drive. My daughter isn’t feeling very well, either, so she can’t drive for me. So I think I’ll try for a nap and hopefully head into town later.

And hopefully, we won’t have too many critters out in this wind, stealing the outside cats’ food!

The Re-Farmer

Round kitties, stinky kitties!

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Among last year’s kittens, we didn’t get as many grey tabbies as the year before. So far, all but one of them seem to be male.

This one isn’t.

And she is most definitely starting to look round.

*sigh*

There is another that is more of a muted calico that looks so much like a baby Beep Beep that I call her… well… Baby Beep Beep. She has started to sometimes let me pet her while she is eating and, yes, I can call her a “she”. So far, though, she is not looking to be in the motherly way. The tortie has been hanging out in the sun room a lot, and so far she doesn’t look pregnant, either. With the long haired calico, Brussel, her fur is so long, we wouldn’t be able to tell one way or the other. I don’t usually see Sprout or Phantom very often (I sometimes wonder if they’re the same cat, to be honest), but the last time I did, she was looking pretty svelte so far, too.

Rozencrantz and not-Junk Pile have definitely had their kittens. Somewhere. Whether they have survived or not, or where they might be, is anyone’s guess right now.

Meanwhile, when I went to to feed the outside cats just a little while ago, I found these stinky kitties!

At first, it was just one, rooting around near the bottom of the shelf by the window. Then the second one squeezed its way through the doors. It took me making a lot more noise than usual while tossing the kibble with lysine powder in the old kitchen to persuade them to leave! I have no idea what effect lysine will have on skunks, but I would guess it’s just as beneficial for them as for the cats.

I look forward to when we can start keeping the sun room doors closed again, cleaning up the messes that cats made and being able to move our seedlings in!

The Re-Farmer

Snow or no snow?

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My daughters were sweethearts and took care of the outside cats for me again this morning. Which was nice, because I was trapped in my bed by about half a dozen of them at the time!

When I headed out to switch the trail cam memory cards, only Rolando Moon was willing to follow me around!

She would not let me remove the burr she has stuck in her tail, though.

The driveway cam really takes a beating in this location! I need to find something to weigh down the base of the stand.

The camera was fine. Only the solar panel was touching the water. It and the camera are waterproof.

We had some heavy snowfall at times, but we’re also staying mostly above freezing temperatures. Even overnight, we’re just a degree or two below freezing. We’re getting snowfall warnings of up to 20cm/8in by the end of tomorrow, but from the looks of the weather radar, our strange little climate bubble is very much there. The snow is moving through our region but, directly above our area, the clouds part and go around! The southern part of our province is getting hit harder, and a neighbouring province has gotten 30cm/12 in places already. We’re doing just fine where we are. With how warm it is, the paved roads are staying clear. Not that I have any desire to go anywhere! 😄

We have about 3 or 4 more days of temperatures hovering above freezing, and then we start warming up again. About a week from now, the overnight temperatures are supposed to stay consistently above freezing, too. We’ll see how it actually works out!

Meanwhile, I’ve got some herbs to get started in the Jiffy pellets I started hydrating yesterday. 😊

The Re-Farmer

Feels wasted

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Today is Sunday and I normally try to keep it as my day of rest, but today just feels… wasted.

I woke up to a bad pain day. Enough that I asked my daughters to take care of feeding the outside cats, then went back to sleep for a couple more hours. It’s not even the worst pain I’ve been in, but it’s like all my joints just don’t want to work properly.

(As I type, retype and retype again, these few sentences repeatedly, because my fingers don’t want to work right!)

Still, I wanted to make sure I got outside for a while, do the rest of my morning rounds and get some fresh air and sunshine. It’s a really gorgeous day out there, and I didn’t want to miss too much of it!

Judgement is judging the state of my boots. 😄

Judgement and Gooby both followed me around all over. With more snow melting away, and plenty of wind, I found and picked up a lot more of those plastic strips from the new shingles being blown around.

One of the areas I can now get into is parts of the spruce grove. Usually it’s either too wet from the snow melt, or too overgrown, to get into. The snowmelt is being absorbed by the ground this spring and nothing is growing yet, so I was able to get through most of the area. There are so many dead trees in there. Some on the ground and rotting, some stuck on other trees and may actually be useable, and others that will need to be cut down. I was also spotting the poplars I want to thin out to use for the trellis tunnels we will be building. Poplar has been taking over the spruce grove. We will be keeping them to a certain extent, as they have been a very useful material, but as we cut down and clean out the dead trees, I want to plant more spruces in the spruce grove!

Feeling the way I do today, though, looking at all the work that needs to be done had me feeling my aching bones even more.

I was also scoping out locations. If things work out to plan, we’re going to have a shed delivered to us at some point, and we need to decide where to put it. It will likely be used as a chicken coop, once it gets the repairs it needs, until we can build the mobile chicken coop I have in mind. We will need some sort of base to support it, so it’s not directly on the ground. Yesterday, I was able to get into the barn and see the state of things. In the lean to side, there are a whole lot of old tires (why are there so many old tires all over the place???), some with rims, some without. It occurred to me that we can use the tires with rims to support the shed. Or just the rims. We don’t have as many rims without tires around, but we can take the tires off.

I had considered putting the shed near the barn, where we would have access to electricity if we wanted, but we have other plans for the outer yard, including permanent raised garden beds and the outdoor kitchen, so I’m thinking it might get to be too much. My daughter is also looking to build a shelter for a forge in the outer yard, though in a different area. The space is going to be filled up quite a bit, and we still need to make sure that there are lanes to drive through with large vehicles. There are also pipes from the well and septic tank running through towards the barn, with the septic pipe running off to the outflow pipe and water pipes running to an old cattle fountain and the barn. The area over them needs to be kept clear, in case they ever need to be excavated. Some day, I would like to be able to turn that water on again, but not until we’ve been able to replace our well pump and upgrade to a larger pressure tank. The shut off valve for fountains and barn is in our basement. There are two cattle fountains are designed to refill automatically, and they keep the water from freezing in the winter. One fountain, we can see from the house. The other is behind the barn, set up to be accessible both inside and outside of a pen. I’d like to have both of them checked out and repaired as necessary. We’re not planning to have cattle, but if we end up having goats or something, or even have it available for the deer or the renter’s cows, that would be good. That is years in the future, though. As for the tap in the barn, it’s been bashed into at some point and needs repair, too.

In the end, I decided the best place to set up the shed would be near the garage. There’s an open space there that no longer has a branch pile in it. We would have to line it up with the front of the garage, which should keep it from shading out the asparagus and sunchoke beds along the chain link fence. With the chain link fence and the garage, we would have to fence off only two sides to create a run for any chickens. It would be a small run for just a few chickens, but enough to start with. The shed would need to be far enough from the garage to access the wall and roof. Now that the branch pile is gone, we can finally clean out the eaves on that side of the garage!

That branch pile was never meant to be there for several years!!

Having it by the garage gives easy access to electricity, plus better storage for feed and bedding, and still be fairly close to the house, where we’d be getting water from.

To prepare for the shed here, the ground will need a small amount of leveling, and the tires/rims can be brought over. I don’t know the dimensions of the shed yet, so I’d just want to have them nearby until I know where to put them. We even have a chain link gate in the storage house, sitting on the remaining section of stairs to the basement, that could be used to access the chicken run after we fence it off. The shed itself needs its floor replaced. It has a flat roof that leaks, which is why the floor got damaged, so I want to put an angle roof over the existing one, with an overhang on all sides.

Little by little, it’ll get done.

The next area I wanted to scope out was the maple grove behind the house. The two branch piles there are now gone, so it’s nice and open again. The old garden shed is slowly rotting away. My late brother got it second hand from who knows where, and it was basically shoved in between some trees, on top of rocks. I don’t know if any attempt had been made to level it when it was first brought in, but it’s certainly not level now. The trees are holding it up, though!

Since the outdoor bathroom we were planning to build as a cordwood practise building will have to wait until we’ve cut down and removed about a dozen dead spruce trees, I want to make a garden shed as a cordwood practise building. My original thought was to place it next to where there is a path through the maple grove to the main garden area, with the door facing the path.

The bare ground the branch piles had been on will be planted with a lawn replacement mix of seeds, but as I walked around, I considered using one of those patches as a better location for the shed I have in mind. It’s not going to be very big; the interior is planned to be 6’x8′, plus the width of the cordwood walls, so we have some options. One thing to keep in mind, though, is the water. There is a tap near the old garden area. It used to be right at the path along one side of the garden, but the garden grew smaller over the years, as my parents planted more trees closer to the house, instead of along the north fence line. There are now trees on the other side of the old path, where garden used to be. A lot of trees have been cut down since it was installed, and there’s even a stump right at the tap that still keeps sending out shoots. Other trees have gotten much bigger since it was installed, too. The water source is a tap at the back of the house, and there is a hose buried in the ground. I’ve tried hooking up the hose end, only to have water spraying up from the ground, at the edge of one of the branch piles that was there. One of the goals of this year is to dig up the old hose and replace it. My thought is to get some heavy duty hose and run it through a PVC pipe from tap to tap. That way, if we ever need to replace it again, it would be relatively easy to pull it out and put a new one in, without having to dig a new trench.

Digging that old hose out is not going to be easy. There are going to be a lot of roots in the way!

The main goal being to have that tap at the main garden area working again. It would be a better place to hook up a hose for watering the garden, and I want to make a vegetable washing station. Having the new garden shed near the tap would also be convenient.

The more I walked around the area, the more I realized the best place to build the garden shed would actually be on the other side of where the hose is buried, closer to where the current shed is, and closer to the tap. There are fewer tree stumps to work around, among other things! There would also be more open space in what would be the front of the shed.

In planning the cordwood walls for this, we intend to place longer logs in parts of the wall to support a bench on the outside at one end, which would be closer to the tap. We could even include some longer logs higher up to support a small table or shelf, too. The other end will be facing south, and we plan to have a window and bottle bricks on that side for natural light. With the new location I’m considering, there won’t be as much light, since there are more large maples there. At least one of them is dead and needs to be cut down and untangled from the live tree that’s holding it up. Others are leaning so far over, I plan to cut them to where the trunks are still straight, which will encourage new growth at a lower height. That will be better for the trees, but will eventually block out more light from the planned shed. I don’t mind that too much, though. As long as we have a good, strong garden shed!

So…

Lots of plans. Lots of work to do this summer.

I guess today wasn’t that much of a wasted day, after all.

The Re-Farmer

The status of things

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Today may be cooler, but we’re still staying above freezing, and the kitties are just loving it!

I only counted about 16, this morning. As things melt clear and my morning rounds are extending further out, I’m seeing the cats all over the place. The long haired tuxedo followed me all over the place, much like Pointy Baby did – just without actively trying to get me to pick him up and carry him!

I miss Pointy Baby.

The berry bushes we planted last year are almost completely uncovered. That old saw horse with the sticks is over the highbush cranberry the deer kept eating. I checked the other one and can almost, sorta, see leaf buds starting to form!

The main garden area is still mostly covered with snow. If all goes to plan, the area in front of where I’m standing will have at least a couple of trellis tunnels built.

The garlic bed isn’t quite clear, yet!

The standing water has receded more, so I was able to get to the storage warehouse (which I would really love to reclaim as a work shop again!!) and look around. With not being able to get to the dump as often in the winter, we’ve been storing our garbage bags in the old kitchen, where it could freeze. It’s getting too warm for that, now. We need to build a garbage bin outside that is cat and racoon proof to store the bags until we can make our dump runs. There are pieces of plywood and other random boards in the warehouse. With all my parents’ stuff jammed into there, none of it is accessible. Some of the stacks of boxes need to be moved around, anyhow, as they are starting to collapse and tip. That’s as good an excuse as any to move things around. Some of the plywood sheets, however, are behind a couch, and there are all sorts of boxes and bins that predate us on and in front of it. No matter. We’ll figure out how to get to them. I’d love to get rid of all the bags of clothes in there. They’re not even suitable for donating after all this time, but my mother still insists we don’t throw anything out! *sigh* She’s still all worried that someone might come in and steal her old underwear or something. 🤨

While in the shed, I noticed an old broiler pan that will work as a kibble tray. I don’t know why we’ve been finding broiler pans all over the place – no one ever used them for what they were made for – but they make great kibble trays, so I grabbed it. With a bit of readjusting of things, I was able to reclaim two of the baking sheets I got for carrying transplants around that were being used as kibble trays over the winter. There is still one more, just inside the cat house entry, but I will leave that for now. With the two trays I reclaimed, I’ll be able to pot up the Indigo Blue Chocolate tomatoes now.

After I was done my rounds, I made a quick trip to the post office to see if a parcel had arrived. With so much snow gone, once I was back, I actually went to close the gate! I’m seeing our vandal walking by with his dog on the trail cam more often, so I wanted to have it at least closed. This makes it the first time that gate has been closed since the snow got too deep to keep clear, several months ago.

Well, now.

When my brother and I put the repaired gate back up, the two sides were even. That sliding bar holds the two sides closed, and I could put a pin through the pair of holes at the corner, which made sure the wind or whatever didn’t vibrate the bar off the end of the gate. Before winter, it was noticeably shifted, but we could still lift one side of the gate while pushing down on the bar and get the pin through. Now, it’s just too far off! We’ll have to come out with a level and see which gate post has shifted the most. I was thinking the north post was tipping away, but my daughters think the south post is tipping inwards. It could well be both. The gate posts were installed in such a way that they can be adjusted by adding washers to the bolts at the base. My brother had done that when he installed the new hinges that replaced the ones our vandal broke. I’d hoped it would be a few years longer before it had to be done again. It’s been about 3 1/2 years since these were repaired and replaced, so I guess that’s not too bad.

The main thing is, the gate is now closed! Without being able to put the pin in the sliding bar, the chain is extra necessary to make sure they don’t swing open on their own. We’ll also have to touch up the paint a bit. I think I still have a spray can of it around. I’ll have to think about what I can put around where the chain and bar is damaging the paint so quickly.

Things are going to stay colder over the next 10 days or so, with daytime highs just above freezing and overnight lows dipping several degrees below freezing. We’re also getting smatterings of rain. I’d say it’s a good thing we didn’t plant those carrots, even if we did have the plastic to cover them until they germinated. I don’t mind, though. It means things will continue to melt and be absorbed by the ground slowly. I rather like not having to wade through giant muddy puddles to get to the garage. It will give us time to work on other preparations.

I’m just thrilled to be able to get outside and get working again, even if it’s just a tiny bit at a time!

The Re-Farmer

We have access!

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Not quite to everything, but pretty close.

But first, check out this adorableness.

Collin is a hungry boy!

Also, I caught a tongue blehp in the background!

As I write this, we are currently at our expected high of 8C/46F. Things will cool down more over the next while, and we might start getting rain today and tomorrow.

We have standing water in all the usual places, like this low spot by the trail cam stand. I really want to dig a trench along that fence line to collect the water more, so it doesn’t spread out like this. All in good time.

The areas around the garage do still have standing water, but it has receded even as the snow melts, which means the ground is actually absorbing it.

After doing my rounds, I headed into town to refill our water jugs for drinking water and pick up a few fresh groceries. I filled the gas tank on my mom’s car, too. When I was last in the city, gas prices were around 160.9 cents per liter. The Esso station in town I had been going to was at 159.9 0 but the Husky station next to the grocery store was at 148.9! Ever since they reopened after getting some work done, they’ve somehow managed to keep their prices a lot lower than everywhere else.

When I got home, I was actually able to drive into the yard and back the car up to the house to unload! First time this year. Much better than trying to drag a wagon filled with heavy water bottles through mud and water.

We can’t quite get to everything yet, though. The outer yard in front of the barn is all snow, still, except for a “river” opened up by water draining from the moat near the garage. The storage warehouse has a lake in front of it, but I could access the pump shack and the old chicken coop. I was even able go get through some less water filled areas and check on the Korean pine.

It’s still too early to tell if they actually survived their first winter. With two of them, their protective cages were smushed to one side, but the saplings themselves were still protected, and I was able to straighten out the wire. One sapling was still completely covered with snow, but I could see its green needles through the snow.

With things cooling down for the next while, we decided to hold off on planting the carrots we made seed tape with. The plastic covering the bed they will go into is still on place – since it’s just held with duct tape, and the yard cats have a habit of jumping onto our garden protection, there is always some doubt! We will leave it to keep acting as a little greenhouse over that bed as we continue to prepare others over the next while. In particular, I want to get the bed along the chain link fence ready to do our first sowing of peas. The high raised bed in the main garden area no longer has snow on it, but the ground around it is still covered in snow, including the bed the garlic is planted in, so there’s nothing we can do there quite yet. We do need to start gathering the materials to make the permanent trellis tunnels and portable trellises, though, so once the ground is ready, we can get those started right away.

With the ground in the spruce grove now mostly free of snow, this would be a good time to start cutting down some of the dead trees, too, along with the ones I’ve singled out for the permanent trellis tunnel. I should probably get our electric chain saw checked over for service and maintenance first, though.

The to-do list is long! The challenge is prioritizing what needs to be done first, rather than what’s easiest or fastest to start.

Little by little, it’ll get done!

The Re-Farmer

Morning finds

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What a gorgeous, gorgeous morning! I can’t believe how much of the snow is gone! Better yet, the ground seems to actually be absorbing a fair amount of it, and the “moat” around the garage has actually receded a bit. We didn’t even reach freezing temperatures overnight. There’s a section of snow built up by our neighbour plowing that got washed away like a river by the accumulating water, draining into the outer yard towards the barn, and there is hardly any water in the exposed grass. Water has accumulated along the fence line from the garage to the gate, where it is lower and drains into the ditch, and the snow around the gate cam’s post – even the gate itself, on that side – is completely clear of snow. The other side of the driveway at the gate is shaded by a huge spruce tree, but even there, I could probably access and close the other half of the gate.

This beautiful boy followed me around the entire time I was doing my rounds. He even let me get a burr out of his fur under his neck. He still won’t let me get the ones on his tail, though, and there are quite a few of them. I’ve never seen burrs being this much of a problem before. Even Rolando Moon showed up with burrs stuck on her tail and back. She wouldn’t let me pull them out, either. At least with her short fur, she has a better chance of getting them out herself.

Snow around the house is disappearing quickly. Yesterday evening, I went around picking up the long plastic strips from the shingle adhesive that got missed in the snow. This morning, however, this was uncovered.

This was not there last fall, before the snow fell. It’s not far from where groundhogs had dug a tunnel behind the mock orange tree, next to the steps to the dining room door that I kept trying to fill in. The groundhogs weren’t as much of a problem last year as the year before – I think too many of their dens got flooded out – and I eventually stopped trying to fill in the hole when it looked like it was no longer being dug out and used. It’s still there, but partially filled, hidden behind the mock orange. There are no fresh signs of digging there. This hole, meanwhile, has the ground around it undisturbed. Which suggests to me that it was dug out from the inside, perhaps as a “back door” to the den below.

Talking to my brother and his wife yesterday, they mentioned that their sump pump is going off more often. When I was doing my evening rounds yesterday (that is something I can start doing more thoroughly now!), I made sure to check, and the hose from ours is now clear of snow, but so far, it has not gone off. The reservoir has been slowly accumulating water, but as of last night, the concrete is still dry. I even checked the floor drain on the other side. If there was water being diverted by the weeping tile under the new basement to the septic tank, I would see it there. There is no new water there (though the thinnest of roots are growing under drain cover!). So for all the snowmelt and accumulated water I am seeing outside, we are still actually quite dry!

Something else I checked while doing my rounds.

Last night, I noticed the three low raised beds near the compost pile were mostly uncovered. This morning, two of them were completely clear of snow, while the third still has only a small amount. I checked on of the open ones, and found I could dig my fingers into the soil. I’m even seeing some weeds starting to grow, and could pull up the ones with shallower roots.

This means that I could actually plant in these beds.

I have a few things that can be direct sown “as soon as the ground can be worked”. It doesn’t matter if the ground it still frozen and inch or so below, and they can even handle a bit of snowfall. This includes things like peas, carrots and beets. From what I’ve read, I could even transplant our onions and shallots out in these conditions!

Which I’m not going to do. At least not quite yet. I want to break up the soil a bit more and pull up and weeds and roots in the low raised beds. Later today, I will check the new beds I finished last fall in the old kitchen garden and see what condition they are in. There are two more beds in there I want to raise a bit higher, too, but I’ll need the ground to thaw a bit more, first.

Then I have to consider what I want to actually sow first, and where. The high raised bed in the main garden area is almost clear, but the snow around it and on the low raised beds is still too deep.

I can’t believe I’m actually thinking about sowing and transplanting outside, and we’re just reaching the middle of April!

The Re-Farmer

Morning kitties

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The wee hours of the morning!

As usual, I had a whole lot of cats crowding me during the night. Cheddar likes to lay where I usually do, and does NOT like to move, no matter how much I disturb him. Still, it was a surprise even for him to not move when Nosencrantz came over for pets, and lay right on top of Cheddar!

When I had to get up to let out a cat scratching at the door, I discovered this had been beside me.

This is HUGE progress! Cheddar is so chill, he’ll cuddle with any other cat. Nosencrantz, however, is a bundle of stress and anxiety around other cats. At best, she will lay down next to Butterscotch, or share the shelf table with her. For her to be curled right up against Cheddar like this is a massive step forward.

I didn’t get a head count while doing my rounds, as the cats were running around too much. It’s been so warm, they aren’t spending as much time in the sun room, and with so much snow melting all over, they aren’t running out of water in their bowls. Kibble, on the other hand, has been disappearing. I don’t think there are a lot of hunting opportunities right now, but we’ve got the cats, deer and skunks all cleaning the trays out! The cats, at least, eat most of it right away, so the other critters that we really don’t want to be feeding just clean up what’s left. My only concern is that if there is a cat that comes around later, such as one of the visiting strays or a mama that couldn’t leave her litter right away, they won’t have much food left for them.

Spotting this was a funny surprise.

Some of the cats are enjoying the new roof! I think this is Sprout, but it might be Phantom. She was stalking something at the peak of the roof!

Also, it has been so great to not have any leaking as the snow melts! The sun room is nice and dry, and the girls haven’t had to deal with leaking at one of the windows next to their computer desk. I’m so glad my brother was able to get my mother to finally follow through on her promise to get this done! That has taken a huge weight off our backs.

The dump is open today, so I started the van to see how it is. It’s making a noise I don’t like; I think it might be from a belt, but I can’t tell for sure. To be on the safe side, we used my mother’s car, instead. We have a mat in the back of the van to protect the floor from any leaking garbage, so I moved that over to the back of my mother’s car. Her car is narrower, but I don’t mind the mat going up the sides at the wheel wells a bit.

The down side was having to go through the “moat” with a wagon load of garbage bags. It’s a lot wider and deeper, now. Enough snow has melted that I was able to go around on one side through the snow, but the wagon can’t get through that.

My boots are set aside to dry now. 😄

Since I didn’t want to slog through water any more than I had to, I made sure have what I needed to head out right away – though I did have to turn around and come back when I realized I’d forgotten our pass card for the dump in the van. After going to the dump, I went to the post office. It’s been more than a week since we’ve been able to get to it while it was open. I got there too early, though! Just a little while ago, my husband let me know that a package had arrived. It would have been there while I was getting the mail, but it hadn’t been processed yet. Ah, well. It’s just more Lysine for the outside cats, and we still have plenty unopened containers waiting.

I did get something else in the mail, but that will be in my next post! 😊

The Re-Farmer

Life goes on

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

I just got back in from feeding the outside cats for the evening. I counted 26 or 27 – I wasn’t sure if I’d already counted one of the tabbies. It’s a higher than usual count, with several of the “old timers” around. Rolando Moon was there, as well as Junk Pile and the other tabby that looks so much like her.

The Distinguished Guest made an appearance, but there were so many cats around – plus one skunk! – that he backed off to wait his turn. Rosencranzt was there and she kept chasing cats away from different food trays in between scarfing down kibble and running from tray to tray. I think she has had her kittens. Possibly even the ones I think I heard from the pump shack.

Broccoli was there, too, and she is starting to look pregnant, too. Maybe. Of the three kittens she had last year, they are all female – Brussel and Sprout, we just assume female because they are calicos – and a grey tabby we can’t get close to, but has short fur, so I did get a chance to see and confirm female. She seems to be the only female tabby among last year’s kittens. All the others are male. So far, I can’t tell that the new females are pregnant, but the oldest of them are still not even a year old, so I hope not.

We’ve already found an early litter of five that succumbed to the cold, and now Pointy is gone. That’s a high rate of loss for the year already. Wherever those little ones I think I heard are, I hope they are safe and warm.

I imagine we’ll be seeing more skunks, soon, too!

The Re-Farmer

Poor Baby!

/ Re-Farmer / 11 Comments

Oh, my poor Pointy Baby!

While doing the evening cat feeding, I heard a strange meow in the distance. I went to the outer yard to investigate, but could see nothing, and the meowing stopped.

I heard it again when I topped up the water bowls. It was such a strange meow, I went looking again. This time, I slogged through the snow to the pump shack, thinking one of the mamas had her kittens there. There was no mama, though I did hear tiny kitten meows. Oddly, they sounded like they were coming from just outside the wall. The only thing there is an old, collapsing mini she’d with no roof, and some old junk appliances. I stomped through the snow, anyhow, but could no longer hear kitten meows.

I did hear the strange meow again, though. From another direction.

Looking over, I could see one of the white and grey cats in the “basement ” window of the storage house that keeps falling off. When I heard the meow again, it seemed closer. So I headed towards the chain link fence.

That’s when I could finally see him.

There is a spot along that fence where the yard cats (and skunks) squeeze under to get through the fence. Even in winter, they wear the snow down to access the space.

Pointy Baby was there, but something was wrong.

It wasn’t until I slogged through more snow to reach him, that I could see his head was stuck through the chain link fence.

As soon as I saw him, I realized he had to have been stuck there at least all day. When I did the morning feeding, he wasn’t there, which was a first. How much longer he was stuck there, I can’t guess. The poor thing had been struggling for some time. He had worn out an area around him in the snow, and his lower body was all wet with mud.

I lifted him slightly to look, but could see there was no way I could get him out. I ran to the house to call the girls for help, saying we would have to cut the fence. My younger daughter remembered the bolt cutters, so whle she got shoes on, I ran to the garage to get them.

Between the two of us, we were able to cut him free without adding injury. While I cradled him to warm him up, my daughter did a quick check. One eye was dilated, and she could see where skin was rubbed raw under his chin, but no open wounds.

We headed to the house, where my other daughter brought a towel to wrap him in.

Pointy Baby, meanwhile, snuggled into my arms.

We brought him to my room, where we can keep him isolated. The girls started cleaning him up, checking him over and tending to him, while I called the vet.

It’s Easter, so they were closed, but the message included a number for a vet for emergencies. I called it and spoke to the vet, describing what happened, and how he looked.

She advised to to keep him warm, offer him soft food, and monitor him for an hour. If he got worse, to call her back.

During that time, my daughters kept cleaning his lower body with warm water, and looking him over. His mouth looks like he was somehow managing to bite the chain link. The corners are red and swollen.

We was completely placid the hole time. Even when my daughter started trying to brush out mats for fur.

Aside from the redness from the fence wire, there was a spot I saw before that was getting red because of his fur starting to mat so much. We started cutting the mats out, too.

He purred, even as multiple people worked on him at the same time.

He has shown no interest in food and water yet. In fact, he fell asleep while my daughter and I carefully sheered the huge mat that started under one ear and wrapped around the front of his neck.

It’s entirely possible that mat prevented worse damage to his neck.

Other mats we cut out still had burrsstuck in them.

After a while, he seemed to loose patience a bit. We got the worst out and cleaned up.

We have the baby jail set up for him, which means closing it to keep Marlee out.

For now, though, he is sleeping in my arms.

He’s wrapped in a towel, but I wanted to use my own body heat to keep him warm. I am using my phone to make this post, because I can’t use my desktop right now.

He seems to be sleeping peacefully right now. He would be recovering from shock. My only concern at the moment is that his dilated eye won’t close all the way. Every now and then, I have been gently holding the lids closed, so his eye won’t dry out.

Poor, sweet baby boy!

I will feel much better when I see him eating and drinking.

The Re-Farmer