When I was done with my morning rounds, I paused to say hello to the kitties (I counted 29 this morning – never saw Rosencrantz).
The four in the foreground, plus Princess (who had climbed me while I was trying to take pictures), were absolutely all over me, fighting for attention! Those five – Plushy, Pointy Baby, Judgement, Gooby and Princess – are the friendliest of them all.
Caramel, in the background, isn’t. 😄 I’ve managed to touch her while she was eating kibble on the roof, but only by sneaking up behind her to do it, and she was hungry enough to not run away immediately.
The outside cats are such good cats.
Then, there’s the inside cats.
With being sick for the last while, I haven’t been working on this year’s Christmas ornaments, so everything has been tucked away on my work station.
Not well enough.
This morning, not only did I have to pick up the knocked over bin of Christmas decorations, but also gather up some of my mini yarn.
*sigh*
Clearly, the little bucket they were under was not enough to keep them safe!
Ugh. All that cat hair.
I didn’t even realize the tassel was in there until after I’d started untangling the colours. Only the metallic purple mini skein was still okay.
Bad kitties! I don’t even know which ones did the damage. Could have been several. They wait until we’re in be
I’ve got to finish those ornaments, so the stuff can be put away, out of harm’s reach!
This morning, when I did my morning rounds, I did a head count and reached 29 cats. They get really hard to walk through, first thing in the morning, when they’re all crowded at the sun room food, eager for kibble!
I was feeling well enough to do a shop today, including stocking up a bit on kibble. Of course, I had to feed them when everything was unloaded, if only to get them away from the van so I could drive it to the garage!
Before I moved the van, I did another head count. There were thirty of them!
Then, as I was closing the garage door, I spotted Rosencrantz running over from the direction of the barn, so I counted again when I got to the house.
Thirty one.
Which means that more of the adult cats are coming back, hopefully for the winter. Considering I can’t tell which ones are the adults, that tells me some of the ‘iccuses are back. We never could tell all of them apart very well, and there are just enough grey tabby cattens to not not be able to tell which is an adult, and which is a teenager!
Nutmeg had come back for that one day, but I haven’t seen him since. Considering how healthy and well fed he looked, I’m hoping that means he has found himself another home at a neighbouring farm.
Hopefully, more of the adults will return for the winter. Granted, the last thing we need is to be feeding more cats, but it would make me feel better to know they are okay, and have access to shelter, food and water when it starts getting really cold!
While doing my morning rounds today, I found myself having to fight off Plushy quite a few times. She was determined to have my full attention!
One of the things I decided to do was a modification to our outhouse, in the off chance it needs to be used in the winter. That seat is shockingly cold at the best of times. I’d see a video of someone building and outhouse in the woods, and what interested me was that their “seat” was actually a sheet of rigid foam insulation with a hole cut in it, that covered the entire seat box top.
That might actually be worth doing, but for now, I decided to just cut some insulation to fit the seat that’s there, and see how that would work.
Which was difficult, because Plushy would NOT leave me alone! She even climbed me and got up on the shelf.
She didn’t want me to take her picture, though!
I ended up fighting off a whole crowd of kittens, so I rushed through getting the piece cut, so I could close the lid before a cat fell in. Then I came back later with a tall piece to put against the wall, where the seat hits it when opened.
Even as I was taking the picture, Plushy jumped up and yes, she was about to jump in, but I managed to snag her in time!
What a silly kitty!
On a more pleasant note, while I was doing my rounds, I found myself being followed by this beautiful boy.
I tried to reach out to him and let him sniff my fingers, but Plushy kept bashing her way in between! I did, however, manage to get a few pets in.
Well, that was it for him! After some decent scritches, he went from being stand-off-ish, to running in front of my feet while I was walking, demanding more! I was even able to pick him up and carry him for a bit.
He is such a soft, thicksome boy! He and Plushy are siblings, but he is quite noticeably larger than she is. In fact, I think she’s the smallest of the litter. Especially considering she’s mostly fluff!
Yesterday, the entire family spent as much time as possible in bed, getting plenty of rest and fluids to get over our colds. I’m happy to say we’re all improved quite a bit today. Yesterday, I had to get the girls to do the morning cat feeding, but today, I was able to do it myself again.
Look what I found!
So smol!!!
This is one of the kittens from what had been the youngest litter until the bitties showed up. We’ve had some progress socializing them, though it’s hard to tell at times. There are so many white and grey kittens from two litters – eight, altogether – and they run around so much, it’s hard to keep track of them. I think this is one that has allowed me to pick it up before, but I’m not sure!
This morning, I did a head count and reached 27. Then I counted again and counted 28. I get a different number, every time I try to count heads! 😄
Yesterday, we were predicted to hit 4C/40F, but ended up reaching at least 5C/41F. Today, we’re supposed to reach a high of 3C/37F. My husband’s disability payments come in on the last business day of the month (private insurance) and third last business day of the month (CPP Disability). However, then those days fall on a Monday, as the CPP Disability has this month, it actually shows up in our account on Saturday. So we got his payment today. Normally, I would take advantage of that, and the warm temperatures, and head into the city to do our first big stock up shop for the month. However, when I was cleaning out the ground floor litter boxes this morning (we were behind on that, with everyone being sick!), I actually broke into a sweat. So while I’m feeling a lot better today, I’m still weak as a kitten (a smol kitten!), and definitely not well enough to drive to the city. We’ll see how things are over the next couple of days. I hope I can make the trip tomorrow, because the forecast for the day after says to expect snow showers. I’d really prefer not to be driving on that. More because I don’t trust other drivers! 😁
So today is going to be another quiet day of focusing on recovery.
First of all, Happy Thanksgiving to my friends in the US! I hope you have a wonderful day today. 😊
My goodness, this group really loves it when I put kibble on the cat house roof!
It’s mostly the older kittens and adult cats. I even got to pet Broccoli! But only because she didn’t want to leave the food. The kibble I leave up there gets inhaled pretty quickly!
The younger kittens mostly prefer more ground level food. The kittens under the cat house take “ground level” to the extreme. 😄
Altogether, I counted 29 heads this morning – and I never had a chance to peek into the entry of the cats’ house. Usually, there’s at least one more in there, eating at the tray just inside, but not always.
Meanwhile, the self-sequestered cats in my office are very obviously happier, now that Bitty is gone. Amazing how such a little fuzz ball could stress the other cats out so much. Butterscotch, I can sort of understand. By the time we got her fixed and discovered her uterus was “tattery and falling apart”, kittens must have meant nothing but pain to her. But Nosencrantz? Why was Nosencrantz so freaked out? But then, everything seems to freak Nosencrantz out, hence her alternative name, Anxiety Bear.
We need to find her a home with no other cats. She likes people. Oddly, most of the other cats don’t like her, either. When even David will suddenly up and attack her – David!!!! – while she’s just up on her favourite perch by the ceiling, minding her own business, there is something odd.
We’ve got some very nice weather happening for the next while. Today, we’re supposed to reach a high of 1C/34F. Tomorrow, we’re supposed to reach 4C/39F! Then 3C/37F the day after.
My brother heard back from the roofing company. Because the weather is so good, there’s still a chance they’ll be able to get a crew up here. Fingers crossed!
In other things, I’m feeling somewhat better today. Some pain killers and lying down for a couple of hours yesterday helped. I even went to bed “early” and got almost 7 hours of sleep. Which is about 3 hours more than I usually get. 😄
Still, I’m going to be taking it easy today. When visiting my mother to do errands, we talked so much, my throat was sore by the time I left. I’m not used to talking much, so that didn’t take long. 😄 Now, that sore throat is worse, and I’m starting to feel like I’m coming down with a cold. A good day to stay inside, and drink lots of hot drinks with lemon and honey, while getting crafty! I found most of what I needed at the dollar store to make our annual Christmas decorations, but I’m not willing to drive to the city for the stuff I couldn’t find, so I’ll make do with what I’ve got on hand.
These are my first experiments. They’re called “berlingots”, which is the name of a hard candy of a similar shape, or sometimes Dragon Boats. These were made on a cardboard form that started off as a rectangle of 2″ x 6″, but I’ll be making ones for the tree probably from a 3″ x 9″ strip. I don’t think I want to get any larger than that. Or I’ll make both sizes, with the smaller ones for the top of the tree, and larger for the bottom. We have a pretty small tree. It is currently hanging flat against the dining room door, several feet above ground, to get the cats used to it being there. I was able to bring the tree up from storage in the basement, but I had to get the girls to haul the bins of decorations up. I can’t carry those up the stairs; my knees aren’t stable enough anymore. I think I’ll be leaving most of the decorating to the girls, since pretty much all of it will involve climbing up and down the little step ladder to hang things out of cat reach! 😂
Anyhow; for the decorations, I’ll be using more seasonal yard to wrap on them, and I want to find things I can pin to the points, such as beads, or maybe I’ll make some tassels. Each one will be different.
So that will be my project for today, if all goes to plan.
For now, though, I think it’s time to get the kettle on again, and make some more hot lemonade!
The cat lady contacted me last night. After finding homes for the two bitty babies we found in the field, she now has someone who wants to adopt the last surviving bitty!!
Which meant, of course, that we had to bring him inside as quickly as we could. I wasn’t able to do that last night, as it was too dark to see, so we left it until this morning.
When I first topped up the kibble and water bowls, I couldn’t see him anywhere, but I’ve often seen him out after I’ve finished my rounds, so did those. Making my way back around to the kibble house, I was greeted by an orange tabby.
It wasn’t Rolando Moon.
Nutmeg is back!!
At least I assume it’s Nutmeg. I suppose it could be Toesencrantz, but I was able to pet him, and Toezencrantz was never socialized.
The kibble was already mostly gone in most of the trays, so I topped a couple of them to make sure Nutmeg got a good meal. He wasn’t too friendly with the other cats, but food was a higher priority for him! He looks really healthy, though. Usually, when the wayward males come back for the winter, they look like pretty starved.
Then, I spotted the bitty baby! He had finally emerged from the cat house, so I snagged him.
He’s now in my office/bedroom with me, and has had his first meal of wet cat food. As I write this, he is exploring the room, climbing things – especially the little cat tree we have in here – and checking things out.
Cheddar and Leyendecker were immediately curious about him and followed him around, sniffing. Bitty sniffed right back and there was lots of purring.
Butterscotch and Nosencrantz are not too sure of things. Butterscotch is perched in the window sill, and I’ve heard her growling at him. Nosencrantz is on her top shelf by the ceiling, watching him from above, looking shocked, but has not tried to come down.
And I just had to pause typing the above because he climbed up onto my desk. Now he’s climbing the shelf to Nosencrantz, but he’s too small to get very far.
I think I’m going to be very busy supervising a baby today!
The Re-Farmer 