outside cats

Clothesline up, and hidden kittens

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This evening turned out to be a very pleasant 23C/75F, with a lovely breeze. I was able to stay out longer when doing my evening rounds, and take care of a few little things – with the help of a lot of mosquito repellant! We got enough cardboard from packages in the mail that I was able to lay some around the G-star patty pan squash, with only minor gaps. After topping up the kibble trays, I was able to hold a couple of kitties, including one I’ve never been able to touch before.

It was not happy, but it didn’t quite freak out, either. 😁

I also finally got the clothesline up.

The old line tightener worked just fine, and the new spacers will help a lot, too. We’ve never actually used the clothes line much, but now that we’ve got a nice, clean new line, I think we will use it more often. If nothing else, it’s a back up if we don’t want to use the dryer for some reason.

Like now. I did some laundry yesterday and, after popping it in the drier, the entire entryway and dining room filled with steam, basically. One of my daughters was able to clamber to take a look and discovered the hose was damaged and no longer properly attached. Best guess is, a cat fell off a nearby shelf and landed on it. We really need to build some kind of shelf back there, to keep the cats out! They wrecked the old dryer hose, too, as well as making a huge mess behind both the washer and dryer.

Oh, my other daughter just informed me that her sister managed to get behind the dryer and fixed the hose. Only a few inches of damaged hose needed to be removed. I’m still glad I got the clothes line fixed, though!

When I was a kid, we had three clotheslines set up on these posts. The hooks to hold pulleys are still there, if we ever want to set up one or two more lines. One of them has a pulley hanging off a length of twisted wire. It looks like someone had a line that wasn’t quite long enough, so they added length to the pulley to set it up. I have not seen any other laundry pulleys, though, so if we do want to set up the other two lines, we’d need to get 3 more pulleys, and another 240 or so feet of clothes line.

I doubt we’ll ever need to do that, but at least the option is there!

It was so pleasant out that, after I finished with the clothes line, I sat on the laundry platform bench to enjoy the cool breeze.

I had company.

There is a kitten in the above picture! One of two that were watching me.

The fuzzy one was watching me from behind the lettuce bed, and its darker sibling joined him while I was trying to get pictures.

They do not like the mesh over the beds, and kept going further and further around, trying to find a way through to where their sibling was playing in the path.

Their sibling didn’t stay in the path.

Instead, it came around the beet bed, walking along the logs, so get a better look at the weird human that keeps pointing a strange object at them. 😁

I keep expecting this one to be a good candidate for socializing, since he hangs around the house the most, and tends to stay and watch me when I’m moving about. So far, no go. He simply will not let me come closer. *sigh*

Oh, that reminds me. I heard from the Cat Lady today. We now have an appointment at the vet for spays and vaccinations. The two left among the inside cats are Tissue and Big Rig. She had slots for 2 females and a male, but the only male we’d be able to bring in is Potato Beetle, and he’s not around right now.

The appointment is for Aug 3, and they’ll be coming home with us after. Right now, she’s focusing on spays and neuters more than adoptions. No one is looking to adopt right now. The shelters are all full from so many “pandemic pets” being surrendered. !!!

Once the indoor ladies are done, and the yard mamas have weaned their babies, the next thing to do will be to start trapping yard cats to get them done. I expect that won’t happen until much later in August or even September. As long as it’s before the snow flies. Otherwise, trapping is more dangerous for them, due to potential exposure.

The Cat Lady has been in and out of hospital lately, and told me she’s been really missing Cabbages while she’s away! It’s so funny. Before they took in Cabbages, she didn’t like calicos, and preferred male cats, but Cabbages has completely won her over. 😄

I’m not surprised. Cabbages has a way of worming her way into people’s hearts! 😁

The Re-Farmer

A rare sighting

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While putting the kibble and water out this morning, I found the bitty kitties playing on top of the board pile. I managed to catch a picture of a kitten that usually runs off before I can get a good look at it.

There were six kittens from this litter in the branch pile, but since they’ve been moved to the board pile, I’ve only been seeing 5 at a time, and that includes the calico that is from an older litter.

I can usually count on seeing this one around the kibble house or laundry platform, often by itself. While I saw its calico sibling with the bitty kitties, I saw one of its other siblings later on. Mama had gone onto the laundry platform, and the darkest kitten of this litter appeared out of nowhere and practically pounced on her, going for the nip, barely giving her a chance to lie down! 😁

Oddly, I didn’t see a lot of adult cats while doing my rounds this morning, but I did see the black and white kitten near the pump shack when I brought kibble that way, then later saw a tabby eating the kibble I leave on the table by the door.

I suspect something other than kitties has been around during the night. When I came outside this morning, I found the diverter for the downspout above the rain barrel on the ground – along with the screen cover for the rain barrel, and the board and bricks that support the diverter and hold the screen over in place. My guess is, something heavier jumped onto the board and knocked it all down. The shelf on the other side of the door has two shelves for the cats to shelter in, while the top shelf is full of various stuff. Something had gone into there and knocked things about, too. Even one of the bricks that are part of the counterweight for the cats’ house was knocked out and onto the ground. My guess is racoons, since none of the cats are heavy enough to knock some of this stuff about, and skunks can’t climb up to some of the other stuff. Even some of the board at the top of the board pile that I’d straightened out, after the groundhogs knocked things askew while pulling down the old tarp that had been covering it, were pulled aside. At least the wood and water trays were still on the pile and not on the ground.

One of the things I got done this morning was use the slow-release granulated fertilizer on the garden. It’s an organic fertilizer made from chicken manure, designed for tomatoes and vegetables. There wasn’t enough to do everything, so I focused on the heavy feeders, and the things that seem to be struggling the most. I ran out before I could do all the squash in the squash patch, but I was able to get everything in the corn and squash patch, the tomatoes and the bell peppers. The fertilizer releases nutrients when it gets wet, but we’re not expected to get rain again for a few days. With how damp the ground it, it’s unlikely anything will need to be watered before then. Ah, well. It might take a while, but it should be interesting to see how the plants that got some of the granules will do, compared to the ones that didn’t.

The Re-Farmer

Morning adorableness, morning finds

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No rain this morning, so the bitty kitties were out and about!

This one looks disheveled because I had just been holding it. 😻 Not only did it let me pick it up and cuddle it, but when I put it down in the food tray, it just started to eat, ignoring me while I continued to pet it.

*melt*

The little calico acts conflicted. It’s curious enough to slink around, watching me closely, sometimes inching closer, but shy enough to not let me anywhere near it.

This one is not conflicted. It will stay and watch me, only if it’s behind something. It will not come any closer, and will leave it I pay too much attention to it, even if it’s holding my phone off to the side to try and get a picture.

It was, however, more than happy to get into the water tray, after I refilled the gallon water bottle that I’ve set up to drain slowly. They seem to like it when I put the frozen water bottle in the tray to help keep the water cool longer, too.

As I continued on, I did a double taken when I realized I was seeing something new. A self-sown poppy had opened.

When we moved there, we found ornamental poppies growing among the lilacs along the side of the house, so seeing poppies show up in other places was no surprise. This one, however, is a completely different flower! The others are more of an orange, and don’t have the ruffled petals. So far, the is the only red poppy like this we’ve seen. A couple of self seeded poppies have sown up in our beet bed. I kind figured they were from the bread see poppies that we have in a nearby bed, but I know my mother had ornamental poppies growing in the old kitchen garden for quite a few years. When I was a kid, she had seed poppies in that garden. It should be interesting to see if these volunteers turn out to be an ornamental poppy, or an edible seed type!

As for the red ornamental poppy that just bloomed, I’ll be sure to allow it to self seed. This area needs more cleaning up, and it would be nice for the stuff we want to get rid of to be crowded out by something we would like to keep! :-)

While continuing my rounds, I had another nice surprise. Our very first golden pattypan squash is forming! It was too small to try and get a picture of, among the foliage. Hopefully, it’ll get well pollinated and not just wither and fall off.

We’ve got a very few other things trying to produce. The sugar snap peas are not doing well, but I did find a single well formed pod.

I ate it. It was tasty!

The King Tut purple peas grown from our own seeds are producing pods, but they are green instead of purple. There aren’t very many, but I have been able to pick the odd pod and give them a taste.

They are not tasty. Quite bitter, instead! Which is different from last year. I wonder if they had cross pollinated with the pod peas growing on the other trellis. The peas did so poorly last year, I would not have expected so. The one King Tut volunteer from last year has produced a single purple pod, which I’ve left to dry out and keep for seed. Now I wonder if it’ll stay true to type. It bloomed well before the shelling peas and snap peas did, so it should be fine.

Some of the Chocolate cherry tomatoes needed additional support. Not all of them are blooming yet, and no tomatoes forming yet. Some of them are growing well, but others, not so much. One end of that bed along the chain link fence got drowned, even though the bed itself it raised about 4-5 inches. We’ve lost quite a few of the shallots from sets to the wet, and it looks like none of the shallots from seed have made it, but I was able to give the yellow onions grown from seed a “hair cut”. I now have more green onions dehydrating in the oven, along with a tray of mint.

I was still able to pick some lettuce this morning. They have not yet bolted from the heat, which is nice. The chard I planted not long ago has started to sprout! I should sow more of those soon.

Though we had a decently cool night last night (it was a wonderful 17C/63F at about 7am), it quickly heated right up to our expected high of 27C/81F. We’re not supposed to start cooling down until about 8pm. Hopefully, between the heat and the wind, things will have a chance to dry up. Yesterday’s downpours flooded out quite a few towns. I’d heard the town my mother lives in got 5 inches of rain in 3 hours, however it now seems it wasn’t quite that much. More than enough to flood streets and parking lots, however. The town to the north of us was among those that got hit the worst in our province, and they had flooded streets as well. We certainly don’t have much to complain about, where we are! Still, it does keep us from getting a lot of outside work done. Frustrating, but we’ll live. 😉

The Re-Farmer

Posers

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Rolando Moon likes to keep me company when I’m puttering in the garden. She accepts a few pets, before attacking my hand. Mostly, she just hangs out…

Not always in good places! She moved before I could get a picture, but I caught her sprawled in the middle of the bed. Mostly on the far row that isn’t seeded yet, but she also rolls around, and pushed wood chips over the other row, where the fall chard has been planted.

Laster on, I caught her in another bed, rolling on an onion plant! She prefers to go through the beds to walking on the grass.

I’m glad I was able to get this picture; usually, this mama runs away if I come too close. I think she just didn’t want to move in the heat. 😄 Instead, she posed for the camera, so adorably!

The Re-Farmer

Kitten fix!

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Kitties, kitties and more kitties!

Actually, I’m not seeing very many of them, but there are a few braver ones that come out more often. Like this long haired beauty.

Of the ones I see the most often, he’s one of the shier ones, and runs off very quickly.

This little guy is the one that hangs out around the house the most. This morning, I found him trying to catch the mosquitoes that congregate under the roof of the kibble house.

So. Many. Mosquitoes.

That mama looks so very … tired. 😄

Of the slightly older kittens, the calico seems to prefer spending her time with the younger kittens, though she will make her way to the kibble house every now and then.

The little kitten beside her is one that tends to run off before I can get a good look at it. Shy, but not as shy as three of the six that I pretty much just catch flashes of, as they run away!

I’m not sure about the oldest litter. I think they are in the pump shack, but it might be more of a place they explore than where their “nest” is. Particularly since a skunk seems to be using it, too. This morning, I saw the black and white kitten, watching me through the tall grass as I brought kibble to put in front of the pump shack door, and the table beside it, before running off. I’ve seen only two of that litter, lately.

Those are just the litters we have seen. For sure, Broccoli has had a litter that must be getting quite big, and yet none have followed her to the kibble house. We probably won’t have any idea of just how many kittens there are this year until fall, when I expect they would be large enough to come for the kibble, with or without their mamas.

On a semi-related note, I’ve recently heard from the cat lady. We’re talking about the next cats to have spayed or neutered. Unfortunately, she’s been in and out of the hospital quite a lot, lately. So we are in no hurry. Her health take priority! Cabbages, meanwhile, is doing great, though dealing with a mosquito bitten nose! She prefers to be outside in the catio with the mosquitoes, than in the house! :-D

At some point, I’d love to build a catio, too, but I’m not quite sure where would be a good place to put one. No hurry on that, either. Other projects are much higher on the priority list!

The Re-Farmer

Still together, and weather alerts

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I am happy to say that all the kittens that were in the branch pile, are now in the board pile (formerly a junk pile) near the house. I managed to get this photo this morning.

One older kitty and one bitty kitty. :-) I could movement in the undergrowth from others, and another of the itty bitties came up for a snack.

I brought over another tray for water, including a frozen bottle of water to help keep things cool.

Most of the older kittens are still coming to the kibble house, and I got this picture of bliss, yesterday evening.

I just love the face on the kitten snoozing on the bench!

In other things, we are still getting heat warnings, and some areas are getting severe thunderstorm warnings. As I write this, we are at 32C/90F, with the humidex at 34C/93F Mind you, the same app that’s telling me that is also telling me we’re having light rain right now, when we’ve actually got a cloudless sky.

I did some weeding and pruning of tomatoes this morning, but the ground was still moist, so I didn’t need to water. We’ll see if that’s still true by this evening. I was able to get another load of cardboard today. Originally, I was going to use it to fill in the spaces around the silver buffalo berry, but other areas need it more. The squash patch in particular. Yes, we put straw down as a mulch, but that’s pretty much it. With most of the squash struggling so much, but weeding is almost impossible in that area. Laying down some cardboard will help. While I was out, I was also able to stop at the hardware store and pick up some slow release, granular tomato and vegetable fertilizer. Last year, we used water soluble fertilizer, but they only had versions suitable for flowers or shrubs, not vegetables or tomatoes.

While I was at it, I picked up 150 ft of clothes line, so we can finally get ours fixed. This time, they had in stock a much stronger version, but at more than double the price. Hopefully, what I got will last. With a line as long as ours, that’s a lot of potential weight it will need to hold. The spacers I got will help with that, though.

Once I got home, I backed the van up near the garden then prepped the cardboard, removing any tape, staples and stickers, as I unloaded. Thank goodness I was parked in the shade! I was still roasting. I used the garden hose to dampen my hat and shirt to help keep cool. The water in the hose was scalding hot, so I had to be careful! It did work, though.

We’re supposed to get rain tonight, so I want to get the cardboard down before then. Unfortunately, we’re not expected to start cooling down for another three hours!

After parking the van, I made sure to refresh the water bowls for the cats. Several of the mamas, and one of the kittens, were sprawled in the shade of the kibble house. It’s so hot out, the cats are actually panting! Not good. For the kittens in the board pile, I grabbed a 1 gallon water bottle and pokes some strategic holes in it, then put it on the water tray, where it can slowly drain. Unfortunately, in keeping the trays on to of the pile, so the skunks won’t get at it, it means the metal trays are in the sun. I’m trying to think of what I can use to create some shade that won’t blow away in the wind. Hmm.

For now, though, I’ll be staying inside until things start to cool down, then finish up with the cardboard. I don’t think there’s enough to cover the entire squash patch, but I should be able to get it around the smallest of the plants that need the most help!

The Re-Farmer

Morning finds

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Actually, this first photo is an evening find. While doing my evening rounds, I walked past the feeding station, and found a family of skunks at the bird seed!

I left them be, since I’d rather they were eating the sunflower seeds than the kibble. On the way back, I startled a couple of little ones. This one went up against the house and just froze, watching as I went by.

Such a cute little baby!

On uploading the photo, I saw the strange dot on its head. Now that I’ve “upgraded” by trading phones with my husband, I have a camera with much better zoom quality, so I was able to get a closer look.

It’s a wood tick. A big, blood filled tick.

😥

Poor baby! Mind you, it probably doesn’t even notice it’s there.

All the kittens have most definitely been moved out of the branch pile. I found one of the mamas on the wood pile (formerly a junk pile), so I brought a tray over and put it at the top for some kibble. In the past, we’ve got kibble trays on the ground near the pile, but with the skunks eating the kibble, and a ground hog still living under the pile, I figured it would be better for the kittens at the top. Not long after, I came by and saw three kittens at the tray. Two ran off immediately, but I managed to zoom in and get a picture of the little calico.

Oh, and that shredded orange tarp on there? It used to cover the entire top of this wood pile. It has been torn to shreds by the groundhogs, who have been taking the strands back to their dens to line their nests.

I suspect we’ll start seeing baby grogs in the not so distant future!

I’ve got some heavy duty tarps I found at Costco. They’re only 8′ x 10′, but that should be enough to cover the top of this pile. The layers of wood at the top had all rotted from years of exposure, but I’ve finally reached wood that looks useable, and I want to protect it. Hopefully, the grogs will leave non-torn tarps alone! If I do that now, though, I suspect the mama will move the kittens again. :-/

The fourth kitten – the little tabby trying to get under Mom to nurse – was already at the laundry platform when I first came out with the morning kibble. The other two are the ones I saw running away from the kibble tray on the wood pile.

Unfortunately, there is no sign of the 6 bitty kitties. I don’t know where the mom took them.

This is another surprise find. The Wonderberries are starting to bloom again! The berries they had when they were transplanted have all ripened and fallen away (those that we didn’t eat), but there are new green berries forming, and new flower buds, too!

Next is a surprise find that shows just how wet the ground still is in places.

As our spring kept dragging on, we had a melt followed by a large snowfall. When our angel with the front end loader cleared our driveway for us, the snow was so deep, he couldn’t see where the driveway ended and the grass on the sides began. There was water under the snow, and when he went off the gravel with one side of the front end loader, the tires sank, leaving a trench several inches deep. I’ve yet to be able to mow that area as much as we normally would, because that side is still so much wetter. As I headed out this morning, I spotted these, growing in the sunken tire track.

Do you see those sprays of broad, flat leaves coming out of a central point in the mud? They are coming up along the entire length of the muddy tire track. Nowhere else along the driveway.

Those are bullrushes. AKA cattails. These normally grow in ponds. I’ve never seen bullrushes growing here before. The nearest bullrushes in the area are in a series of small ponds in the ditch along the road, a couple hundred yards away. Even the low area in the old hay yard, which actually became a bit of a pond this spring, does not have bullrushes in it.

I’m going to leave these be. Bullrushes are something I want to encourage, even if it is in an odd place. We’re not in a position to make use of them now, but we have plans to in the future. The more of them that starts growing now, the more they will spread and increase. That way, by the time we are ready to use them, there should be enough to harvest, without over harvesting. When we finally get to turning that low spot in the old hay yard into a pond that should hold water all year, I want to make sure bullrushes start growing in there, too.

Every year since we’ve moved here has been very dry. With this year actually having adequate amounts of rain, it’s been interesting to see what things are now growing where we didn’t expect.

The Re-Farmer

Morning kitties, new tech, tech repairs and estimates

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A few months ago, my husband got me a new OBDII reader for the van. The one I had worked, but didn’t give a lot of information. This one was supposed to be much more detailed in its reports. The problem was, I was never able to get it working. I had the app on my phone, but the Bluetooth connection just didn’t exist, as far as my phone was concerned. My husband tested it out, and it worked fine on his phone, and his tablet. After a bit of research, it turned out the problem was with my particular phone model. It was notorious for Bluetooth problems.

In the end, my husband offered to trade phones. His is a newer version of mine and does not have the issues mine was known for. Last night, he did the necessary back up, switched SIM cards and external memory cards, then did a data switch for the rest. We both then spent much of yesterday evening, getting our “new” phones working again, switching accounts and logging in to various apps.

It’s going to take some getting used to. Aside from the various difference in basic functions, what is now my phone is physically larger than the other one. Which resulting in an unexpected problem.

Lady pockets.

It is large enough that it can’t fit all the way in my pants pocket, and a corner of it sticks out. I’m going to have to be careful mucking about outside, or the darn thing is going to fall right out!

One huge benefit to the newer phone is improved camera quality.

My first test picture, taken while starting my morning rounds.

On a completely different note: Rosencrantz no longer looks pregnant, so there’s a new litter hidden away somewhere. The Distinguished Guest made an appearance this morning. Unfortunately, the patch of missing for on his shoulder is looking newly injured, and larger. I can’t get close enough to see more than a flash of red injured flesh as he runs away from me. :-(

I am zoomed in for this picture of Caramel and Broccoli on the cats’ house. Wow! With my old phone, this would have been a horrible blurry mess!

A definite step up in the photo department.

Yesterday, while checking out the trail cam files, I saw someone pull into our driveway, slip through the gate, then slip back again some time later and leave. This happened while I happened to be out, but clearly whoever it was did not knock at the door, because everyone else was home.

I suspected it was the tree removal company checking things out, so I called them again. Sure enough, it turned out to be the owner.

I’m glad I marked those trees with marking paint!

I had marked 22 dead treed. He commented on how we have SO many of them; he counted about 30 in there. I told him it was the ones closest to the house, and the one by the garage, that was my main concern. I also mentioned wanting to keep the wood to use to build garden beds. Normally, they’d take the trees down in chunks shorter than was I’m wanting. We brought it down to about 10 trees, including the one by the garage. He told me that, for a job like this, he would be sending a 4 man crew, at $400 an hour, and estimated it would take about 10 hours to do the trees closest to the house.

He didn’t hesitate at all when I starting talking about fewer trees! That’s a LOT of money. We brought it down to 5 trees closest to the house, plus the one by the garage. For that, I got an estimate of $2500.

Yeah…. we have a bit set aside, but not that much! It’s actually a very reasonable price. Four man crew, with their specialized equipment to get up into the trees, their massive chipper to take care of the branches, they’d stack the logs (or trunks, in this case) neatly aside and do a clean up at the end. Yes, it’s higher than when we got work done before, but the increased cost of fuel alone would kick their prices up.

So I asked about chipping the big pile in the outer yard – adding that there was no hurry on that, because there are kittens living in it right now. He said he would have to take a better look at the pile, and said he would swing by the next time he’s in the area.

For that job, at least, we’ll have more time to set funds aside. Because of little guys like this.

This branch pile kitten is one that I’ve been able to pick up, several times now. This morning, I was able to pick it up and pet it for a while, and when I put it down next to the food, it actually stayed and started eating, rather than running away. There is a second one I’ve been able to pick up more than one. It is less tolerant of being picked up and still hissed and spit at me, but not as much as the last time I was able to pick it up.

Along with the food I’m leaving near the branch pile, I’ve also brought an extra old baking tray over for water. It’s heavy enough to not get blown away, and shallow enough I don’t have to worry about a kitten falling in and drowning. I’ve seen the kittens drinking out of it several times, since. 😊

Hopefully, I’ll be able to grab and cuddle some of the other kittens, too, and get them at least a little big socialized!

We had some other crazy tech problems going on yesterday. It started with my not being able to get through to my mother on the phone. I don’t know it that problem was at all related, but we started to have issues with our land line gain. My brother had tried to phone me several times, and just got crackling noises. I was actually on the phone with the phone company to arrange having someone come out to fix it, when our prescription delivery arrived. He’d tried to call, too, and didn’t get through. On my new prescription, was a note to call the pharmacist about the dosages; she had tried to call me, but couldn’t get through.

The guy I was on the phone with was doing his computer stuff but had not put me on hold as he did it, so when my husband and I talked about the delivery driver’s call not getting through, and the pharmacist not being able to get ahold of me, he could hear it all.

This morning, while walking in the outer yard, about to head back inside, there was a shout from the gate.

The guy from the phone company was already here!

It took a while, but the problem was traced to corroded wires at the phone jack in my husband’s room. He had to replace wires and the jack itself. He ended up having to go back and forth into the basement a few times, but he got it working.

I’m really happy about how quickly they had someone come out. Having a working land line is really important to have out here, where cell phones and internet connections are far more likely to have issues. That and the tech guy was really nice, too. 😊

The Re-Farmer