What a day!

So much good news today!

While doing my morning rounds, I was very happy to spot all of the bitties. I was worried about the orange caterpillar, as I did not see it at all yesterday, but he was there today!

The little tuxedo came outside to eat, even though there was kibble inside. I found the orange bitty, with one of the white and greys wrapped around him! A few minutes later I came back, and there was the grey and white tabby. That one is a very boisterous kitty!

Last night, I didn’t get much sleep. I had to close up the three kittens from outside in the baby jail we put together for them, as they were just too active during the night, and their presence was keeping Butterscotch and Noserncrantz from coming down to eat or use the litter.

When I woke in the morning, Princess was asleep at the foot of my bed. She is small enough that she was able to squeeze through the larger openings in the top level of the baby jail!

When it was time to head out, I had those three, plus Big Rig. We just managed to fit two hard carriers and two soft carriers all in a row in the back of the van.

Big Rig was most angry about the whole thing. The kittens, however, were pretty chill and were soon curled up and relaxing.

I was just starting to drive out when a truck pulled into the driveway, hauling a trailer. The roofers had arrived!

I was expecting it to be just one guy, checking the place out and maybe dropping off supplies, but nope. They were going to get started!

So that changed my plans a bit.

I stopped along the way to get some gas, and some cat treats for the kitties, then continued on to meet with the cat lady. We were meeting in the parking lot of the smaller, closer Walmart that I sometimes go to. Her husband was driving their SUV, which was a bit scary, since he’d just had that accident (their truck was written off completely). As we transferred the kitties, we talked about my coming out to meet them again on Sunday. That’s as long as she’ll be able to hang on to them after their visit with the vet. On Sunday, she’s going to be picking up litters with 8 kittens in total. They are outdoor cats that an older gentleman is doing his best to take care of, but the RM (Rural Municipality) is going to come shoot them on Sunday if she doesn’t pick them up! So she’s going to be taking the sickest ones for now, which means ours have to come back sooner, to make space.

But not all of them, perhaps.

I’ve just been getting updates from her. Apparently, she has already found a home for Princess!! It will be confirmed tomorrow. She told me that suddenly, she’s had a number of people that have recently lost their older cats to illness or old age, and are interested in adopting. She said she hoped to get more of our cats adopted out between Christmas and New Year’s – and now it looks like she’s already found a home for one of them!

When I meet up with her on Sunday, not only will I be taking back the kitties, but she already sent me a photo of cat food donations she has for us! Four big bags of kibble, plus two cased of large size cans of wet cat food! She wants me to give wet cat food to the bitties, but it would be very difficult to get wet cat food for them, without having the bigger cats come around and eat it all, first. With that much donated cat food, we’ll be able to spread it out among the kibble trays, then put some where the bitties are, and they’ll have a chance to actually get some!

After we were done, my plan had been to go the rest of the way to the city and do the Costco shopping, but in the end, I just went to the Walmart we were already so close to. Since I’ll be back in just a few days, I didn’t want the extra driving.

It doesn’t take much to convince me to NOT go to the city.

I’m glad I changed my mind on that. There were a few things that I couldn’t get, and I skipped going to the Canadian Tire to get pellets for the litter for now, but it meant I got home quite a bit earlier.

The outside cats were all over the tarps they laid out to catch what was being thrown off the roof!

Unfortunately, it turned out one of the guys was very allergic to cats.

When I got there, he asked if we could make some coffee and tea, which we were quite happy to do – it’s not like there’s a coffee shop they can go to for their breaks nearby! Actually, my daughter got that started while I brought the shopping in, then put away the van. She’s still pretty sick, so as soon as I was able to take over, she disappeared back upstairs, so as not to pass her cold on to the guys. It gave me a chance to heat up the chili I’d made yesterday, and I was able to offer them chili and rice as well. There were four guys working on the roof, but only two came in for tea and food during their break. I’m sure they had worked up quite an appetite by then, too!

They had cleared off all the old shingled and checked where we had problems with leaking. They could see where water had got in, but there was NO rot!

Amazingly, they kept at it until the east side of the house was done; the roof over the “new part” of the house, including the main entry, plus the section of roof above the second floor windows. It was fully dark by the time they stopped!

Things got really crazy after they’d laid down the plastic, and were starting to bring up the packages of shingles. They were dropping really hard – each package weighs about 80 pounds – and the whole house would shake! One particularly hard drop resulted in the plastic cover over the kitchen light to fall off, and it broke when it hit the floor. It’s a very old light fixture and has been needing to be replaced for a long time, so I’m not concerned about the breakage, but I did go out to let them know what had happened. There’s really nothing they can do about it, without risking injury. Still, we had a few things vibrating off shelves on our walls. Nothing else that broke, at least!

They will be back again to do the west side of the house tomorrow. Now that they know how to get here (they got lost, this morning! Someone gave them bad directions), I expect they were get here around 7:30 or 8 in the morning. They’ll be bringing another guy on the crew, which should make it 5 in total.

I will have to remember to tell them they can’t drop packages of shingles like that on the run room roof. It’ll shatter the windows. They’re going to have to find some way to drop them off higher up on the roof, or on the other side of the old kitchen.

Tomorrow, I was supposed to go to my mother’s to help her with errands. She’d told me my sister was also going to be visiting with her, so I called to confirm that. If my sister could drive my mother around, I could stay home while the roofers are here.

Well, it turned out my sister cancelled on coming out. I told my mother about the roofers being here, and that they were expecting to finish tomorrow.

*sigh*

The first thing she wanted to know is if my brother were here. She wanted him to be here while the roofers were here, and apparently he’d promised to do so. Which I don’t think he did. He can’t just not show up for work like that. I told her that, and said that’s part of why I wanted to be here, rather than at her place. I could keep an eye on things. Since she was already working herself up, being angry at my brother, I thought I’d tell her the good news about there not being any rot to repair, so far. Well, that made her angry, too, as she sarcastically commented “oh, sure… as if they’d know.” Which blew me away. Yes, once the old shingles were off, they would be able to see if there was any actual rot. Then she started ranting about making sure there was “insurance” (she meant warranty). I said yes, there are warranties. At least two of them; a materials warranty, and a workmanship warranty. She wants it written down. Yes, Mom, it’s part of the contract. It’s all spelled out. Oh, sure, she says; they’ll give us a receipt, but she wanted the warranty in writing.

My brother and I have both been trying to explain to her that this is a professional company that deals with contracts and warranties and roofing is all they do. I even commented on how she was used to just hiring some neighbour, and one that drink so the job, too. But he did a good job, she insisted! My response was “did he?” Apparently, she’d hired him to do the roof of the storage house. Where the eavestroughs were never put back on again, and are just hovering, several inches away from the eaves. That roof is also a simple roof compared to the house. One thing is for sure. There would have been no contract, no warranty, and maybe – maybe! – just an invoice. But she would have had no problem with doing that again, instead of hiring a professional roofing company!

I had to change the subject back to tomorrow. My mother has simply decided that the roofers are going to go a bad job, they are going to over charge, and they are going to try and cheat her, because she’s an old lady, and companies always cheat old ladies. Never mind that they’re dealing with my brother, not her. She is determined to be angry about all of it!

She was still upset when I finally finished the call but, in the end, I will not be going over there tomorrow. I will call in the evening and see about coming out the day after, though it will be with my van, since her car isn’t booked with the garage until next week.

That was the only sour note of the day. Well. That and the amazing crashing on the roof when they dropped those packages of shingles!

It’s not even 7pm as I write this, but I feel ready to go to bed already! Hopefully, get some actual sleep, too. But first, I think I’ll make some stew for the crew for tomorrow. And we’ll be sure to have a pot of coffee, and a kettle going for tea, too! It’s supposed to be a lot warmer. The forecasted high is now -4C/24F tomorrow. If it’s a calm day, it would be a good day to do a burn, too.

We shall see!

The Re-Farmer

A couple of updates and kitty status

First of all, I wanted to update on the cat lady’s husband. They’re awaiting the results of neurological tests but, so far, he seems to be all right. It turns out that, while he stopped for a traffic light, a tow truck, towing a vehicle and driving 80kph, didn’t notice that vehicles had stopped. It hit her husband’s truck, pushing him into the vehicle in front of him. If he had been driving a smaller car instead of a large truck, he would have been killed!

Road conditions have been slippery on the highways, and it got brutally cold last night. At about 7am this morning, I checked the weather and we were at -32C/-26F, with a wind chill of -36C/-33F

My husband got this picture through the bathroom window, this morning. We left the doors to the sun room propped open just enough for the cats to get through. The spare ceramic heat bulb is set up, and sometimes we’ll see cats under it, or on top of it, but mostly they just pile together on the swing bench. When I headed out this morning, the thermometer in the sun room was at -20C/-4F. Better than outside, but still nasty!

The big tuxedo and its black and white sibling were covered in frost! I’m not sure why those two were the only ones that were so frosty.

Meanwhile, I’ve managed to bring in three kitties that are now in baby jail.

Cheddar was most curious about the strange ladies!

The other cats were not at all happy to see them. Nosencrantz sat there next to the cage, staring at them and growling.

They aren’t sure about being in the cage, but when I was petting Plushy and Princess through a wall with larger squares, they were both purring enthusiastically. Unfortunately, Plushy started trying to shove her face through and actually getting pretty far, so I’ve had to cover about 3/4s of the top with towels. As I write this, Plushy is settled on the red blanket above the litter, Princess is crunching away at the food bowl, and Muffin (the muted calico) has settled onto a towel next to the food bowl and just sitting like a loaf. They are doing okay, but I’m glad I put together the baby jail, because they’d be quite freaked out if they were loose in the room. Butterscotch and Nosencrantz are not pleased to see them. Only Cheddar seems good with them, but Cheddar is good with any cats!

Later on, we’ll keep going outside to pick up any white and greys that will let us, and figure out which one is female. If any. Strange that it seems to be almost exclusively males that are becoming more socialized, but almost none of the females.

Then, tomorrow morning, we’ll load them into carriers (either with another female from outside, or one of the remaining indoor females that still needs to be fixed), and head out to meet the cat lady with them. She’ll take them to the vet the day after, and then we’ll figure out when they’ll be coming back here to finish recovery.

We are supposed to be warming up from now on, though we’re still at -28C/-18F right now, with a wind chill of -39C/-38F. At these temperatures, it takes almost no wind at all for those wind chill numbers to drop substantially. The forecasts have changed again, of course. Today, we’re supposed to reach a high of -20C/-4F, then -12C/10F tomorrow. We no longer have predictions to go above freezing anymore, but in a couple of days, we’re supposed to reach -1C/30F and stay close to that for almost a week.

Tomorrow morning, we should get a visit from one of the guys on the roofing crew. I may be out delivering cats when he’s here, though, so I’m hoping my husband will be able to go out and talk to him, and find out what kind of schedule they’re looking at. Depending on how things go with dropping the cats off tomorrow, I might continue to the city and do the Costco shopping, since I’m booked to help my mother with errands the day after, and I really don’t want to do the Costco shopping on a weekend!

I’ve been driving around more in the last couple of weeks than I have for the past several months!

Oh, that reminds me. I need to call the garage and book my mother’s car for an oil change. I’d better do that now, before I forget again!

The Re-Farmer

How many? (updated)

As I write this, we are at -22C/-8F, with a wind chill of -28C/-18F. We’ve been leaving the sun room doors propped open, so the cats can have an extra place to shelter in. I also set up the extra ceramic heat bulb in the mini-greenhouse frame. It will only provide warmth for a small area, but enough for a cat or two to curl up below it. I’ve got the bulb pretty high up, which reduces its effectiveness, but ensures no cat can accidentally touch it and get burned.

Peeking through the bathroom window, it seems the cats are finding the bench, and their own body heat, to be far better for keeping warm! There’s also a cat bed under the bench, and there’s usually one of two under there, too.

This morning, however, there were NO cats in the sun room at all. We left the doors propped open all night, making sure to take the kibble bin into the old kitchen. I know some were using it during the night, but there is no food or liquid water in there (just a bowl of ice!) right now. Cats didn’t come in until they could hear me getting food out of the bin in the old kitchen.

When I came outside, there was a stream of kittens that came out of the shelf shelter by the door, and a few more that just stayed at the openings, waiting for me to put handfuls of kibble inside for them.

There is actually five kittens in this photo! Possibly six.

Hold on. Yeah. I saw three little heads squeezed together, after I moved aside the one cat to look. The cat looking at the camera is Colin, who lets us pet him. The other one doesn’t allow pets.

Altogether, I counted “only” 23 cats this morning. I could see two of the bitties wrestling through one of the windows, but didn’t see any outside, so I’m assuming all three were in the cat house.

Today is the 6th. On the 9th, we have four females booked to be fixed. On the 8th, we are delivering them to the cat lady. Which means that tomorrow, we need to close up the four females inside the sun room, with food, water and a litter box, for the night, so we can easily find and get them into carriers the next day. Or maybe bring them into the cat cage I put together in my office. Lord knows, Plushy sure has been wanting to get inside!!

We still have not figured out which will be the fourth outdoor female, as all the other ones we can pet are male. If we can’t collect a fourth outdoor female, we will include one of the two remaining indoor females that needs to be fixed. It absolutely has to be four, though; the cat late was informed that if we don’t follow through with bringing the cats in, the clinic will never book the rescue for cats again. !! These cheap spay/neuter days happen only twice a year – once for males, once for females – and the spots fill up fast. For the cat lady to be able to arrange four slots is a really big deal. I don’t know how many spays they can do in one day, but it can’t be that many!

We’ll work it out, though.

The Re-Farmer

Update: I have been in touch with the cat lady about the arrangements. She says she will message me later, when she’s done at the doctor’s. Her husband was involved in a multi-car accident this morning! He should be okay but, obviously, I’m not as concerned about the cats as I am for them to all be well!

Also update: I also got a call from my brother. He has been in touch with the roofers. Because of the cold we are getting right now, they’re not coming out right away, but the day after tomorrow, one of the guys is coming out to scope the roof and see what they will be dealing with. The day after that, things will start warming up, and we’re even getting forecasts of at least one day that is supposed to go above freezing! So after the current cold spell is done, we should have at least a week of mild temperatures. Hopefully, the roof will get done then.

Fuzzy grub

I was a bit startled while putting the kibble out for the cats this morning. I did not expect to see a tiny, fuzzy orange grub, under the water shelter!

It ran under the cat house, but when I came back after the kibble was all set out, I found it again.

There is something about its fuzziness that make it look like some kind of caterpillar when it moves!

After I got this photo, I was able to reach out and pick it up for the first time. I was careful to just hold it close and give it ear skritches and gentle pets, so it would associate human contact with warmth and pleasant feelings. Then I put it onto the kibble tray inside the entry to the cat house, rather than back in the snow. Yes, I could have brought it inside, but this was the first time it was held, and I didn’t want to traumatize it by taking it away from its mother and siblings so suddenly. I’d rather go slowly, while that’s still an option.

The cold has set in today; as I write this, we’re at -23C/-9F. The weather app says we have a wind chill of -33C/-27F, but we seem to be sheltered from that. It was nice and sunny, with no wind, so I was able to do some shoveling around the cat shelters and the south side of the house. Amazingly, in less than a week, the forecast now says we are supposed to have a couple days at 0C/32F!! Talk about temperature whiplash!

Right now, I need to talk myself into going to town. We have a couple of our water jugs waiting to be refilled. I just don’t want to go anywhere.

Bah.

The Re-Farmer

It’s been that kind of day

There were so many things I was supposed to get done today, including a trip into town.

Instead, we’ve all been like this.

Yup. Even the cats are feeling it. One of my daughters is still pretty sick, and I have yet to see her today at all. The other is working on commissions, but is also finding herself dragging through the day. My husband normally struggles to stay up during the day, between his pain levels and the medications, and he finally gave up the fight and has gone to bed. It’s all I can do not to curl up with the cats on my bed and snoozing.

Like these guys.

The outside cats are even feeling it! I hate having to close them out of the sun room for the night, after luring them out with their second feeding of the day. Some of them ended up overturning a garbage can and were making a mess. At least I know they can’t get into the bin with the kibble, but if racoons get in, they can literally tear the bin apart, as they’ve already done with the old bin we had to replace because of them.

I really look forward to when we’re past winter solstice, and the days start getting longer again.

The Re-Farmer

Just in case

I was supposed to work on the Christmas ornaments yesterday, but I ended up working on something else entirely, and it took a lot longer than expected.

I made a baby jail.

Leyendecker likes it.

We don’t have the funds to buy a kennel, but with the newest set of wire storage cubes I got, we had enough altogether to make this cat cage, including a second level inside. The squares come with openings in two sizes, intended to be used as sides or backs for the storage cubes. I put the whole thing together to figure it out, then took it apart and put it back together with a plan. The kittens would be able to go right through the larger openings, so the bottom half is is all the squares with the smaller openings. Because the corners could easily be pushed out of their clips, I tied them together with twine as I went along. This thing is NOT going to fall apart! It is completely enclosed except for one square that is not in any clips at all, but tied in place to make a door, which can be clipped closed at the top.

Of course, the bitties could probably climb the bottom squares and still squeeze through the larger openings of top squares, but we could figure something out to prevent that.

It needs more towels and blankets, etc. plus a small litter box and bowls for food and water. Ideally, we would be able to get the bitties and Broccoli, altogether, keeping them safe in here with their mama.

Assuming we can catch them.

While feeding them this morning, I could see the bitties running around inside, but the best I could do for a picture was shove my phone through the strips of carpet over the entry, where I’d seen the orange bitty eating, and hope for the best!

Not a very good shot, but my goodness, what a cutie! I just love those little white patches under his eyes! When he moves around, he looks like a giant, wooly caterpillar.

I got a head count of about 27 or 28 this morning, NOT counting the bitties. In this picture, you can see three little heads poking out from under the cat shelter. What the two white and greys are blocking are two more kittens under the shelter. I think the smallest cats feel a lot safer and more secure under there.

We have to figure out which of the grey and whites that allow us to pet them is a female. We’ve got four booked to be spayed in less than a week. We’ll be delivering them to the cat lady the day before they’re booked for surgery, so I want to have the chosen ones tucked into the sun room the night before that. It’d be great if we could get Rosencrantz or any of the older females done, but they’re just not social enough. We’ll have to work on that!

The Re-Farmer

Looking ahead

Wow. WordPress now has prompt questions when the editor is opened, and I find them rather weird. When I opened the editor to start on this post, the question was “what do you think about eating meat?”

I’m here to talk about cats, thanks.

And weather.

I took this screencap of my desktop’s weather app, just a little while ago.

Would you look at those fluctuations?!! We’re going to be getting temperature whiplash over the next while. Today, we’re looking at a high of -15C/5F, tomorrow, it’s saying -4C/24F, then it’s going to dive down to highs of close to -20C/-4F, though it’s those overnight lows dropping to -30C/-22F that are going to be the main concern. Then suddenly we’re supposed to zoom up to -2C/28F, before dropping back down to a high of -18C/0F.

I don’t know when the roofers will actually show up – no one arrived with the supplies yesterday, but we’re keeping the gate open for them – but I’m hoping they hold off until after that cold spell coming up!

Of course, we’re keeping an eye on the kitties through all this.

I didn’t do a head count, but there seemed to be fewer of them running around in the cold while I was putting the kibble out. The heated water bowls had frost across their tops, but at least there was still water. The metal water bowls were, of course, frozen solid.

Though the kibble house has a sheet of insulation under the floor boards, as well as the one on the ground, I added scrap pieces under the kibble trays, too. I put out extra food, too, adding more in the tray just inside the cat house entry, and just plain more kibble in their favourite eating spots. I wasn’t able to get a photo, but I could see the little ones running around inside. I was happy to NOT see them going outside this time, which is another reason I wanted to leave extra kibble in the entry. I don’t want to do that in the evening, as overnight would be when any skunks or racoons show up, if they show up at all.

I also left the sun room doors propped open. I won’t leave them open overnight, again because racoons might show up and trash it, but at least during the day, the cats will be able to squeeze in and out. We will be setting the other heat bulb up, along with food, water and a litter, for when it’s time to collect the cats that will be getting fixed next, and for their recovery period, after. They will stay for only a short time with the cat lady before coming back.

Speaking of which, I had a chance to chat with her last night. She is dealing with a lot of cats, and her rescue is still small and new, so she doesn’t have a lot of resources, etc. Mostly, it’s just her doing everything, with the help of her family. She tried contacting her rural municipality for help with the colonies and strays. The only help they’re willing to offer it to send someone out to shoot them. We’re not even talking about feral cats, either. But since the property owners/tenants are willing to care for the cats (like we are), they won’t do anything else. In other words, if we were neglecting the cats, rather than feeding and sheltering them, only then would they be willing to provide resources, but because we’re actually taking on providing some level of care, they’re only willing to “help” by killing the cats. How does that even make sense? Mind you, we don’t live in the same RM that she does. I think ours offers the loan of traps.

As I was writing this, I got a call from my brother, wondering if the roofers made it out yesterday. Apparently, his contact with the company was texting back and forth with the driver who was picking up a load of shingles. It sounds like it will take several trips just to get all the supplies here. We shall see.

With the way the temperatures are today, I think it’s a good day to finally finish off my ornaments for this year – before the cats finish destroying more of my yarn!

The Re-Farmer

Mothering confirmed

I was able to get this photo not long ago.

It is confirmed.

Broccoli is the mama!

It’s hard to see through the reflections, but Broccoli is nursing all three bitty babies.

The orange and tuxedo bitties both have been seen outside. The grey and white tabby probably goes out, too, but we just haven’t been there to see it.

I am encouraged. The urgency to get them inside is lower now. On top of that, I was even able to pet Broccoli while she was eating on the cat house roof this morning, and while she gave me somewhat alarmed looks, she didn’t run away. Which means there is socialization of a mama happening.

This would be her second litter of the year. *sigh*

It would be awesome if we could bring her and the bitties inside. Maybe we could go half way, and get her and the bitties in the sun room. It’s not set up as a maternity ward right now, though, and the cat shelter if probably warmer, though the thermometer has been knocked right off it’s holder, so I can’t see it to check.

Right now, I’m just happy to have the mothering confirmed!

The Re-Farmer

Three! And a surprise mom?

I ended up spending a longer time with my mother than expected, partly because it took an hour for her new prescription to be filled. She was looking very good today, and even was getting in and out of the van much more easily than the last time I drove her in it.

I was still able to head for home in time to pick up a parcel at the post office before it closed (more on that in my next posts). I also remembered to message my daughters to ask them to bring the new bitty into the house.

I checked my phone before leaving the post office, and there was a message informing me they had not brought in the bitty.

Any of them.

There were three!

When I got home it was starting to get dark, but I still tried to see inside while feeding the outside cats.

I found this little one, looking back!

I couldn’t see any others. My daughters both saw the orange bitty. One could see this one, while the other saw a dark, tuxedo looking kitten.

It also seems that the mother is Brussel.

This long haired calico is Brussel (the short haired one is Sprout). They are Broccoli’s kittens.

They were born just this spring! Yes, they were one of the earliest litters, but I would have thought they were way too young to go into heat early enough to have kittens in the same year!

It’s possible the girls are wrong, but from their observations, she seemed to be the mama. The little bitties are definitely not abandoned.

My goodness. We’re still going to have to bring them in before things get too cold, but… well, I turned out to be right. The orange bitty was just the first of a litter being brought to warmth and safety in the cat house. It just took longer than I expected.

Which means there’s a possibility that more might still appear.

All we can do is continue monitoring!

The Re-Farmer

Still there!

I was hoping it could wait until tomorrow, when the wind is supposed to die down, but I had to go out and secure the shed roof tarp as best I could. Just on the door side, which is where the wind is hitting the hardest today. The tarp at one corner was starting to tear to the point the line securing it was barely keeping that corner from blowing away completely. We’ll have to go out again to see how we can better secure the other side on a calmer day. At least the far side is secured all the way across the bottom, so a tear at the corner can only do so much.

The kittens were absolutely fascinated by the whole thing and a bunch of them even managed to climb onto the roof. When I had to go back to the house for another tool, I spotted one had even gone under the tarp, where the wind had blown it free of the roof edge, creating a billowing shelter! Thankfully, they all followed me back to the house and when I left the sun room door open, took full advantage of being able to go in instead of following me back.

When I was done, I topped up their kibble, which also got them out of the sun room. This time of day, the sun shines right into the smallest window of the cat shelter, lighting up the whole room inside. So while all the bigger cats and kittens were busily going after the kibble, I had a clear view.

The orange bitty was parked next to the largest window, just sitting there, watching the commotion outside!

There is just the one kitten. It doesn’t seem to be in any kind of distress, that I can see. From the photo, it looks like its eyes are no longer blue, so it’s at least 6 weeks old, if not a bit older.

Of course, with all the other cats outside and eating, there is nothing at all to tell me who the mama is. There are no new adults hanging around that I can tell, either. Clearly, there’s a mama tending to this bitty. It’s just a mystery, who it is!

We will continue to monitor the situation and see how things go!

The Re-Farmer