When I put kibble out for the yard cats, I make a point of putting some in a lot of different places, so that more cats have a chance to eat. It gets pretty crowded in the kibble house, and some of the smaller, shier ones end up not getting as much food. Since I want them to get used to the idea of using the cat’s house in the winter, I’ve been putting food just inside the entry, and on the block I have in front.
I spotted one of the pump shack kittens, eating from the block. It is so small, it could barely reach! Of course, I had to try for a picture.
It was just at that moment, that one of the older kittens decided to jump down from the roof and photo bombed the shot!
While going to the pump shack to leave some kibble at the tray by the door, I heard a plaintive little meowing. It was one of Rosencrantz’s white and grey babies, out by the junk pile.
This one.
Not only did it let me pet it, but allowed me to carry it to the kibble house!
Unlike the fuzzy beauty behind it. The girls have been able to lure it close enough to touch, but so far, I haven’t had any luck at all.
What a difference between them. The tabby is from the oldest litter of the year, and the white and grey is from one of the youngest litters. I’d estimate there’s about 4 months between them.
I laid the tarp I found in the barn out, to get a better look at it.
It turns out, it’s not a tarp. It’s the roof of the carport I found most of the frame pieces for, in the hayloft of the barn.
The kittens could not get enough of it!
You can see where there are channels that the curved roof supports would run through. All along the left, there is a series of matching, rectangular tears, one of which got duct taped.
I don’t think we can use this to cover that hole in the roof of the shed by the barn. I think we’re going to have to actually buy a large tarp.
When I checked the weather this morning, at about 6:30am, we were at -6C/21F – colder than was predicted. It’s going to warm up again, but this was definitely a precursor of what’s to come, about a week from now.
The kitties seemed to be okay with it, though.
It had warmed up to about 0C/32F by the time I was taking this picture. It’ll be time to hook up electricity to the cat house soon. There was frost on the inside of the windows!
There was also no water left in their bowls at all this morning. Even the big plastic heated bowl that stopped working last winter had nothing but shards of ice stuck to the sides. It makes me wonder if we’ve got something large, like a deer, coming around and drinking the water.
The kitties were very happy when I refilled the bowls with warm water. 😊
When I first open the sun room door, it’s not unusual for cats to explode out of the shelf shelter next to the door. I’ve had to reinforce the rigid insulation, even at the very bottom, because they hit the sides on the way out and break it.
This morning, I saw a whole bunch of very small white and grey kittens bursting out of the shelf shelter. These would be the pump shack kittens! They’ve found a warm and cozy place to spend the night, near the house, which makes me feel much better. There are still a couple of other little kittens – I think they are Caramel’s hidden litter – that go shooting across the yard when I come out. Hopefully, as things get colder, they will learn that beside the house is a warmer, safer place to be, and the giant food givers mean them no harm.
I tried to do a head count this morning. It’s hard, because they move so much. Especially with all the mostly white ones. I think I counted 25, though. Almost all kittens and cattens. Among the adults, I see Rosencrantz and Caramel regularly. I think I see Junk Pile, but one of the cattens looks so much like her, and is about the same size as her, I’m not sure. Rolando Moon, at least, is very easy to spot, and she comes and goes frequently. She is the last of the orange cats! I did not see her this morning. I’m not sure about all the ‘iccuses, all of which are grey tabbies. The adult males – all of them – have pretty much disappeared. The mamas were never particularly large, so I’m not sure if I’m seeing almost grown grey tabby cattens or adult cats!
Even Sad Face (aka Shop Towel), father to all those white and grey kittens, is rarely seen these days. I haven’t seen The Distinguished Guest in quite a while, and even then, only briefly. Potato Beetle hasn’t been seen in quite some time. One of the cattens looks a LOT like Potato Beetle.
We’ll need to take advantage of the few days of warm weather we’ll be having and get work done outside. This morning, I took the wheel barrow to the barn and went searching. There are two last pieces of high density mats that will go into the cat’s house to help insulate the floor – and can survive being scratched at. I also found one last large tarp of some kind. It needs to be cleaned up and patched up, but it should be big enough to put over the hole in the roof of the shed by the barn. My brother was able to put salvaged pieces of metal roofing on the other side, but we don’t have a safe way to do that on this side.
Too bad the scaffolding that used to be here disappeared before we moved in. That would have allowed us to patch up a few shed roofs. 😕
On top of that, I’ve got more to work on in the old kitchen garden to make it more functional, and there’s more clean up and weeding to prepare the beds for next year. Of course, we need to finish painting the water bowl shelter, but it’s been too cold for that, the last couple of days. We should be able to get it finished before things start getting – and staying – cold again.
In other things, my daughter and I did a dump run yesterday, then ran some errands. One of them was to visit my MILs grave to see if it needs to be cleaned up and add some silk flowers I got for it.
We never found it.
My daughter was so sick the day of the funeral, she could not remember where it was, other than vaguely in the middle somewhere. Maybe. The cemetery is quite large, but we went through the whole thing. We were starting to go through it a second time when my daughter spotted a notice on a storage shed. It turns out that some of the monuments had been damaged during this spring’s flooding, and were being slowly removed and repaired.
That explains what looked like unmarked graves I was finding! I guess my MIL’s grave stone was among those that had to be removed for repair.
We had another errand to run, but since we were still in town, I added one more. I kept forgetting to book an appointment for follow up bloodwork for Leyendecker. The vet clinic has just reopened in a new location, so we went there and I went in to book it. They are still most definitely still in move-in mode! It’s a much larger location, though, which I think was much needed. It took a while for the receptionist to find Leyendecker in the system (she ended up having to do a refresh and reload, and suddenly it all popped up!), but she was able to get us in.
For today!
I did not expect it to be that quick!
So I will be heading into town again this afternoon with Leyendecker. It’s just for blood work, and he didn’t need to fast or anything like that.
Hard to believe that, only a week or so ago, we seriously thought we might have to have him put down. He now seems completely back to normal! The only thing that’s changed is that now Nosencrantz and Butterscotch are okay with him being in my office/bedroom with them, though Nosencrantz will still growl at him sometimes. Hopefully, the blood work will reflect his improved condition.
The one last errand needed was to pick up some cash to pay the septic guy. We’ll get that done as soon as we can, and then we can cover the tank for the winter. We’ll have to use the insulated tarp again. I don’t think we’ll be getting another round straw bale before winter. We shall see. I would rather have straw, as it’s easier to move than a tarp frozen to the ground, if we need access to the tank again!
It’s always such a push to get things done before winter!
He’s a playful one. While he was on the kibble house roof, I was able to get him to try and catch my wiggling fingers. He was willing to come right up to me and, if I was sneaky about it, I was able rest my other hand on his back. Not quite petting him, but getting him used to being touched by a human. He’d back off at soon as he realized I was touching him, but would come right back to trying to catch my fingers.
I believe this is one of two? of Caramel’s litter. Mostly a guess on m part. I’ve only caught glimpses of them, and there was no adult cat around when I got this picture.
I’m just happy the youngest kittens are starting to come to the kibble house for food. Hopefully, they will soon discover the inside of the cats’ house (they already go under it!) as a safe and warm place to be.
We had another morning of very dense fog today. The photos do not do it justice!
The camera automatically cleaned up the images, but it was dense enough to shroud things I was standing next to – and it got thicker as I did my morning rounds!
What was interesting is that I was also surrounded by what sounded like the pitter patter of rain coming through the fog. It wasn’t rain, of course.
It was leaves. Falling leaves, hitting other leaves on the way down. Which I couldn’t see, because of the fog, until I was basically under a tree and had leaves falling around me!
The first thing I do when I head out in the morning it put kibble out in all the trays, which are full of cats and kittens by the time I get back in the yard after switching out the gate cam memory card. This sometimes gives me the opportunity to get close to, and maybe even pet, a less socialized kitty.
Or, in the case of one of Rosencrantz’s litter, pick it up!
While I was cuddling it, I got climbed like a tree by the two friendliest kitties.
The black and white one with the black splotch by its nose likes to just perch on my neck and shoulders. The grey and white tabby immediately starts licking my nose. The new kitty I was cuddling actually seemed to get more relaxed when the other two joined.
Getting my phone out of my pocket while juggling kittens to take this picture was rather challenging.
While I was cuddling, more of the white and grey kittens came out, as well as the one with the orange head (whose eye is getting better) and the tortie.
It took a moment for me to realize there was an extra white and grey kitten. One of the pump shack kittens had joined the bunch! It became easy to tell which one was the pump shack kitten when it slipped easily through the chain link fence to get to the kibble bowl under the shrine. Another white and grey did manage to squeeze though, but the others went around to where they can fit under the fence. 😄
I may not be able to touch them all, but at least they are more willing to come to the kibble bowl while I am standing nearby!
The Re-Farmer 