It’s a bit of a habit of mine to look through the bathroom into the sun room, checking on the cats, during the night. Usually, as things have been getting chillier, there’s a huge pile of kittens in the big cat bed in front of the cat cage. Yesterday, I’d put some scrap pieces of rigid insulation on top of the cage – they had been over the smaller window last winter, but are too scratched up to use again this year, so I just set them aside. The cats love that insulation (and not just to scratch at!), and I was soon seeing several at a time, sitting in the sun spot on top of the cage. I’ll also see cats in the window, or at the food and water bowls, etc.
Last night, however, I wasn’t seeing any cats. Even this morning, as I was about to go out to feed them, the sun room was empty. They didn’t start coming in until they heard the old kitchen door, and the sound of kibble being pored into the little bin.
Even after they were fed and watered, they were staying out of the sun room! I saw most of them running around the yard, but I also saw this…
There are five of the older kittens in the window! The fifth one is a black cat in the bottom left corner of the window. As I was taking the photo, I could see yellow eyes watching me, but it moved as I took the picture, so it’s basically just disappeared in the photo.
Nice to see them using the cat house so much more, as the temperatures drop.
As I was finishing up and heading in, I went into the sun room and looked around for cats. I saw none, but just as I reached the old kitchen door, I started to hear purring! There turned out to be one of the adult males tucked into the cat cage. I took a donated cat bed the inside cats don’t like for some reason, and tucked it into one of the bottom “rooms” of the cage. The cats won’t lie on most of it – the filling somehow bunched up in the middle, and I have not been able to get it spread out. Instead, they lie on one of the edges, right up against the back wall. That’s where he was, barely visible. When we tried to keep Toni in there after her leg was amputated and discovered she could squeeze through the 2″ square openings, we lined most of the outer walls with cardboard. We’ve left the cardboard there, since it helps keep things cozier, and the cats seem to like it. It does make it harder to see who’s inside, though! 😄
We’re supposed to have a mild day today. It’s been lightly snowing, and our high is supposed to be 0C/32F or so, depending on which app I check. We don’t need to go anywhere today, unless it’s to the garage. I’ll be phoning our mechanic in a bit to talk to him about the codes coming up on the truck. Tomorrow, I’ve decided to go to the big city rather than the small one. We don’t need to go to the international grocery store this month, so I was considering going to the smaller city, but for the stores I do need to go to, the big city locations are better. I’ll take advantage of it and check out a Fresh Co. I keep hearing their prices are really excellent, but we usually don’t have time to check out new places during our city trips.
First, I have heard about how the adopted ladies are doing. They are recovering well at the Cat Lady’s home for now. The Phantom is being an absolute, loving joy. The kitten is also being really sweet.
Decimus is hissing and spitting and not a happy camper, but doing well, health wise! They have several catios, though, so they were able to let her go “outside” to get some fresh air.
My daughter and I went outside with the flashlight last night. Still no sign of Marlee or Butterscotch. We did spot a cat in the driveway that turned out to be Nosencrantz. Once my daughter started walking towards her, though, she ran off into the old hay yard.
If we’ve seen her, chances are pretty good the other two are okay, too.
Right?
As for the remaining cats in the isolation ward, the kittens are doing just fine, though getting very active and destructive! TTT spends most of her time in her napping cave in my closet, but she sure knows when the food is coming out!
She has also continued to make a mess on the puppy pads next to the litter box under my desk.
*sigh*
At least it’s on a puppy pad, and not my bed or the carpet.
She is also remarkably regular. She always goes in the same place, and even goes at almost the same time! I was awakened by the rustling of the puppy pad being dug into this morning. I found it was very wet and changed it, then went back to bed. Maybe an hour later, I was again awakened by that familiar rustling sound, and she’d dropped a load this time. Again, thankfully, on the puppy pad and an easy clean up, but I find it interesting that she has such a consistent habit of time and location!
Now, if she would just use that litter box, instead. The kittens are sure liking it. 😕
This morning, as I started getting the kibble ready for the outside cats, I spotted the stranger cat, inside the sun room!
For a stranger cat, it’s acting right at home.
S/He was even sharing a food bowl with Beep Boop and the friendly black and white kitten.
I feel I should know this cat. The face looks familiar. In fact, the face makes me think of Potato Beetle. The markings on the sides, though, are not at all familiar.
Could this be a yard kitten from last year that took off before we became familiar with it, only to come back now? It’s possible, but I don’t remember seeing a kitten with markings like that last year. Mind you, it might also be a slightly older cat, too. I still can’t come close to it, though.
After finishing my rounds, I noticed the bitty kitties around with Octomom (whose name is actually Slick, but I kept forgetting that). They were watching me, so I got out the lure – just some jute twine tied to a stake.
This adorable ball of fluff took the bait and started trying to catch the end of the twine. I was actually able to get hold of it and pick it up. It did not like that, though! I pet it for a bit, but as I was trying to put it back down again, it chomped on my fingers and left me bleeding.
It was worth it.
I didn’t intend to harvest anything this morning, though I did end up picking some Red Swan beans and a couple of yellow patty pans. Mostly, I was making sure everything was doing well.
I picked a different one to hand pollinate the single female flower. One of the bees flew off, but the other stayed, even as I moved around the male flower stamen, then broke it off and left it in the flower, so the bee could do the rest.
This next slide show is the first time I’ve been able to upload a slide show and have every single photo work! After this, I had to do one photo at a time, because every group upload was thoroughly corrupted.
I really, really hope we have a long mild fall, because we suddenly have SO many new melons forming, along with the two big ones. The vines are so mixed up, there’s no way to tell which variety is which right now. There are many more female flowers and tiny melons that forming. If the weather holds, we might have a bumper crop!
Even the winter squash is seeing an increase. For example…
This is one of two Boston Marrow vines. Both had a single squash starting to form, but the one on this plant suddenly started to rot away. You can even see it in the photo. I broke it off but left it to break down where it was.
Now there are three female flowers blooming – and not a single male flower to be seen! At least not another Boston Marrow male flower. I ended up hand pollinating them with a nearby North Georgia Candy Roaster. With that combination, if we actually get something to harvest, I’d want to save the seeds. That sounds like it would make an interesting hybrid!
The pink bananas are also doing very well. Not only are there a lot of huge squash like this, but lots of smaller ones, plus they are still blooming and producing both male and female flowers!
I noticed that one of the Honeyboat Delicata squash that hadn’t even bloomed all year, suddenly has both male and female flowers budding. Even the Winter Sweet plant that had nothing going on – the other one has a single developing squash – suddenly had a female flower blooming! I had to use another type of winter squash to hand pollinate it, though.
We’re at the end of August, though. Average first frost date is September 10. Long range forecast says we should have a high of 23C/73F that day, with a low of 13C/55F. In fact, if the monthly long range forecast is right, we won’t see frost until near the end of October. If that holds true (thanks to El Nino!), that will another 50 days or so to our growing season! That would make a huge, positive difference for the garden.
As for today, there’s a limited amount of work I can do outside right now. We’ve got high winds today. We’ve had predictions for everything from a thunderstorm this afternoon, to rain this morning (we didn’t get any), so rain overnight, to no rain at all.
This morning, when I saw the predictions for a storm, I checked the radar. I would see the system coming our way but, sure enough, by the time it reached our area it dissipated and split up around our weird “climate bubble”.
Which works out. We’ve decided to do my husband’s birthday dinner today, and he asked for take out pizza from a specific restaurant in town. He didn’t get his prescriptions delivered yesterday, as they were missing something, but it’ll be ready today, so I’ll be picking those up first, plus hitting the grocery store for a few things, before picking up the pizzas – which my daughter is kindly paying for as her birthday gift! My husband’s main disability payment came in today and normally I’d be going into the city for another stock up shopping trip, but I’ll do that tomorrow, I think.
Meanwhile, I’m going to be watching the trees outside our windows closely, in case another one comes down in the wind!
It was this wild combination of fog and bright sunshine. Just beautiful!
We were supposed to reach a low of around 11C/52F last night, but when I checked my phone at about 7am, one app was telling me it was 7C/45F. Another was saying we were at 10C/50F, but I think the 7C was the more accurate one.
With that sort of chill, I was not expecting to harvest anything this morning. Certainly, no tomatoes ripened overnight! Yet, I did find this!
There were quite a few larger Gold Ball turnips (they are being thinned by harvesting), and a single radish was ready to pick. In that bed, there are almost no beets coming up, and I’m not really seeing any spinach, either. I think the slugs got to them. But the radishes are coming up, at least. The others are still looking small, long and skinny. There was just this one that was ready to pick.
It was barely moving in the colder temperatures. It’ll be warmed by the sun, soon enough. According to my computer’s weather app (I really should get a thermometer for outside my window!), it’s 13C/55F, and we’re expecting a high of 21C/70F.
While checking the purple corn (which we are leaving to dry on the stalks, to collect seed), I could see the Red Swan beans we’d planted among the corn are getting bigger, with lots of flowers. I also finally spotted these!
These were planted late, specifically for their nitrogen fixing properties. I was not expecting to actually get a harvest from them, yet here they are! We should be able to start harvesting beans in a few days! I hope they taste good, because we ended up with a lot of these.
While checking on the old kitchen garden, one of the things I regularly do is look up into the lilac bush that the luffa is climbing, and try to see the little bitty luffa that are developing. There’s one that’s resting on a lilac twig, and it looks like it’s been damaged by the wind rubbing them together.
As I was trying to see among the leaves, I realized there was a much larger gourd developing, high up. I went around the other side of the wattle weave bed to try and see it better, only to discover this one.
It’s huge! Easily a foot long. It is completely hidden by greenery on the other side.
With a gourd this big, we might actually have a fully mature and tried out luffa to harvest by the end of the growing season! As long as the frost holds off.
As I was finishing up around the sun room before going inside, I saw a few of Octomom’s babies emerging from under the cat house. I also saw the black and white garage kitty, way off at the bowl under the grape vines. Nice to see that one coming to the house, finally!
I was in the sun room, just about to go inside, when another cat came up, wanting attention.
It was The Phantom! She’s back!!!
It took a bit of convincing, but when I opened the doors, she came into the house. I let her explore for a bit – and get sniffed at by other cats – when my daughter was able to pick her up and we put her in my bedroom.
The “isolation ward” is getting very crowded.
She’s settling in, though, and loving attention. As I write this, she is behind me on my office chair, keeping my butt warm!
The new kitten we brought in has no problem with her. They would remember each other. I think Decimus still recognized her, too. I’m not sure about Ghosty; they would have met before we brought Ghosty in, but she was so sick, and it was long ago enough that I’m sure she doesn’t remember Phantom anymore, even if her scent might still be familiar.
A couple of Decimus’ kittens were making themselves big, and Tin Whistle even hissed at her, but they now seem used to her and are ignoring her.
Snarly Marlee has been practically living on the window shelf. She is not happy with so many cats in the room.
I’ve no idea how TTT is; they would know each other, too, but TTT is in her favourite sleeping spot in my closet.
Speaking of TTT.
I am not happy with her.
I slept on the couch again last night. I had my mattress uncovered, with “Pet Fresh” carpet powder on the damp spots. I hoped it would be left alone, but when I came in this morning, there was a huge new pee spot, right in the middle of the mattress. There was also a “gift” next to the litter box under my desk, with a puppy pad all bunched up around it.
I ended up taking the box fan out of the window and found a way to set it up directly on my mattress. If nothing else, the breeze it’s creating is making most of my mattress an unpleasant place to be! There is one corner that’s got their bed blanket on it, and they’re not even using that, all that much. The kittens are playing around the fan, though, but they’re more interested in the cave it creates in my wall shelf behind it. A spot they are allowed to play in.
I chatted with the Cat Lady this morning, very happy to pass on the news about Phantom. I also told her about what TTT is doing. She told me that this is apparently common with cats that lose a front leg. They can’t dig in the litter, so they go just anywhere. We didn’t have that problem at all with Ginger. After he had his removed and came indoors, he used a litter box right away, even though he’d never seen one before. As for TTT, considering how much she digs at the puppy pads to bury her poop, clearly, that is not the issue with her.
Butterscotch, meanwhile, is happy the box fan it out of my window. She’s contentedly laying on the window ledge, looking outside. I expected it to be Nosencrantz, considering how much she’s been trying to get behind the fan, but Butterscotch is more Alpha that Nosencrantz. 😄 Nosencrantz is in her favourite spot in the shelf beside the window.
Well, I hope things work out over the next while. Just a little while longer. Then Decimus, the no-name outside kitten and Phantom will all get spayed, then taken to their new home.
It was supposed to start getting cooler today. I guess a high of 28C/82F is “cooler” than a high of 30C/86F, but it sure doesn’t feel that way. As I write this, it’s 26C/79F and I’ve been driven inside by the heat.
My daughters headed out much earlier in the day. They took care of feeding the outside cats before clearing the area we will be planting the saffron crocuses when they come in, and pruning away some of the dead, overhanging branches. They also fought with that last carport support for me. They couldn’t get it completely together, but it’s close enough that it’ll work. For all the trouble it is to put it together, it’s almost as difficult to take it apart, too.
Thanks to them, I was able to actually sleep in a bit. At least as much as the kittens would let me! 😁 I even had breakfast before going outside for a change! In the slow cooker last night, I put in a whole bunch of our own garden vegetables – both green and yellow patty pan squash, a yellow zucchini, green and yellow bush beans, two massive cloves of garlic – that largest bulb we had that had to be used because it was starting to split apart was made up of only 4 cloves! – along with a family size package of ground beef, browned, and two cans of crushed tomatoes, plus salt and pepper for seasoning. It was set to low for 8 hours. My husband and I both had it for breakfast, and it was quite good. What we don’t eat today will be frozen in individual portions for heat and eat meals.
Here are some things from the garden from this morning.
The mystery squash are starting to show patterning. They almost look like those cross pollinated zucchini we were given last year, but the plant is a vine type, not a bush type.
The mesh covered bed was something I did last night, while doing my evening rounds. I had noticed the grass mulch in between the rows were getting spread out to the point of covering the seedlings and starting to kill them. Last night, I saw the culprits in action. Robins! They’re just digging around in the garden bed and spreading the grass clippings. So I dug one of the rolls of mosquito netting out of the garden shed to lay over the bed.
Then I put it back and got a different roll that was long enough to cover the bed. 😄
This should protect the seedlings from the grasshoppers, too.
I was seeing lots of pollinators today. The one in the photo actually seemed to be stuck in the flower, so I moved off a leaf that was pressing into it, and it eventually crawled out, then stopped for a rest! Though there were lots of pollinators, I still hand pollinated the open female squash blossoms I found, just to be on the safe side. I’m so happy to be seeing so many of them!
I got a picture this morning, of some modifications I did to the melon bed last night. I added more cross pieces closer to the top, then strung twine around it for the vines to grow. The metal pieces I used were longer, so I decided to take advantage of that and strung twine to the ends as well. We’ve been regularly trying to train the vines to keep climbing upwards, so things are more open below, for more air circulation, light, pollinator access. The melons are all blooming like crazy right now, and I’m finding lots of female flowers! Because this bed it so densely plants, I’m leaving it to the insects to pollinate. 😁
Last of all, we have our very first harvest of ripe Spoon tomatoes!
After checking out all the garden beds, I started to work on the carport thingy. I moved the whole thing to where it’s going to be set up, then tried to stand it up. My thought was that, if I could get at least the first supports set up on the rebar stakes hammered into the ground, setting up the rest of them will get easier and easier.
Which probably would have been true, if I could set up that first set of supports at all!
I got one end over a piece of rebar (you can see some of them in the grass; they’re a sort of aquamarine colour), but the other end twisted in another direction, and simply would not twice back again. I brought the other ones closer and, of course, one of the side pieces popped off the middle piece. I was able to push the canopy up to access it and put it together, but it’s a looser join and it won’t take much for it to come apart again. Moving more pieces around, I’m pretty sure another side piece popped off.
Clearly, this wasn’t going to be a single person job. When both girls are available at the same time, we’ll work on it together.
With that job having to be set aside, I checked out where the crocus are going to be planted, then decided to take down part of a dead tree. As much as I could, using the battery operated pruner/mini chainsaw. There’s one fairly large tree that has finally died, but the main trunk will need a full chainsaw to cut it down.
I also pruned off a large branch from on of the ornamental crabapple trees in the old kitchen garden. I got as far as cutting the branch into smaller chunks, but that was as far as I could handle. It wasn’t quite full sun where I was working, but enough to make me really feel the heat! So those branches will be cleared away later in the day.
Short range forecast shows temperatures will continue to cool down slightly. I look forward to being able to stay outside longer and actually finish the jobs I start!
This was the first time she nursed the babies in the comfort of my bed. She is so tiny!
And filthy. Especially her belly. Those kittens get her very dirty! She has gotten to the point where she actually enjoys being held and cuddled, so chances are pretty good we should at least be able to take a damp washcloth to her.
I spotted the two kittens in the junk pile, without mom around, playing. When it saw me, the black one went and hid, but the other one stayed and watched me while I took photos. The black one has a single small patch of white on its chest that I could see.
The third photo is of a kitten I’ve never seen before. I saw it again this morning, with two other kittens of similar size that I didn’t recognize. I have no idea which mother they came with. There are several of the more feral mamas that had kittens quite early in the spring, and I was wondering when their babies would start showing up.
Beside the main garden, there is an area we’ve allowed to grow wild that is now tall with what I thought was a type of alfalfa but, when I tried to look it up, I couldn’t find any images with white flowers like them.
Whatever it is, it was just buzzing with bees last night, and I managed to get a decent picture.
I also got a picture of our first fresh garlic – after cleaning it off with the hose!
The squash is our first Honeyboat Delicata. The one I hand pollinated from a different type of squash, as there were no Delicata male flowers blooming. There still aren’t. So far, it looks like the cross pollination took. Hopefully, we’ll have at least one Delicata to try and see if we like them, and if the Honeyboat variety really does store well. If so, we will plant them again – with purchased seeds, though, since the seeds from any we grow this year will likely all be cross pollinated.
And finally, a handful of Royalty raspberries I picked this morning! Most of those were from one plant, with a few from a second. The third is the smallest, and its berries are still unripe.
I’m still amazed we got any at all in their transplant year!
I forgot to get a picture, but one of the African Drum gourd female flowers was blooming this morning, so I made sure to pollinate it with one of the male flowers from another African Drum gourd. If it works out, it should be interesting to see just how fast the gourds develop, and if we have a mild enough fall for them to reach full maturity.
In other things, we’re concerned about Leyendecker. He’s getting his medications, but he’s still refusing to eat. We even mixed the new food with the food he’s used to, and he won’t eat either! He also spends most of his days just lying around, but that could be from the medications. This morning, while staying with him in the bathroom, trying to convince him to eat, he just sprawled tragically at the closed door. I took the opportunity to palpate his abdomen. He not only tolerated it, but shifted so I could reach better as I was pushing around where his bladder is. He had just gotten his medications, so it would have been too soon for the pain killers to kick in. If he were having blocking issues, my poking around would have been very uncomfortable for him, and I would have been able to feel an over full bladder. Neither was an issue. So we’re not sure what’s going on with him right now. 😟 We will continue to monitor him.
For now, I’m going to go help my daughter with juicing those cherries we picked. By request, we will be making jelly with them!
I had a highly interrupted night last night, getting to bed late and repeatedly awakened by kittens and cats, and woke up with a splitting headache from lack of sleep. I’ll be so happy when I can start opening my door again, but not with the kittens so small and so active.
My daughters took care of feeding the outside cats, then collected the kittens from the rotting barrel, moving them to the nest I made for them in the sun room.
There did turn out to be eight kittens. The biggest litter we’ve seen yet!
I got this picture when I finally headed outside to check the garden. It took me a few times looking at the photo before I figured out where the 8th one was. All you can see is its nose!
There are two black tabbies on there – the stripes are barely visible – plus one almost all black tabby. The colours on these kittens are amazing!
They seemed content as we checked on them, but I’m concerned about the mother. She has always been the more feral of the yard cats. When my daughters saw her around after moving the litter, one of them took a kitten to show the mama. She started to follow towards the house for a bit, then went away. Later on, I saw her coming out of the barrel, then heading to the house for food. She has been in the sun room before – pretty much all that cats have, at some point – but she has never been one to stay close to the house. I’m hoping she at least comes in to tend to her babies. Even if she ends up moving them somewhere else, it won’t be back to that barrel, which would be an improvement.
Still, we have to keep a careful eye on the babies, and make sure not to scare the mama away.
There was at least one more racoon that ran off before I could shine a light into the kibble house.
The one trying to claw its way under the roof looks very unhappy!
Speaking of unhappy, while walking around in the outer yard last night, my older daughter twisted her ankle in a dip on the ground, hidden by grass. I keep dropping a lawn mower tire in it, or tripping over it myself, so I went and got a wheelbarrow of soil. While I was doing that, my daughters kicked around in the grass and found three more sunken areas. Once we saw the spacing, we realized what they were from. When we first moved here, there was a truck that was parked there. It belonged to my brother that lives in the quarter section across the road, so he moved it away our first summer here. The low spots are from the tires sinking during the years it sat there! The one tire made a deeper hole, because it was sitting where more spring meltwater would accumulate.
My daughter twisted her ankle bad enough that she’s still limping today. 😢
This morning, as I was checking the garden beds along the chain link fence, I started hearing kitten noises. I knew one of the mamas likely had a litter there, but had yet to hear or see anything until today. It took going all the way around to the back of the pile before I saw two kittens in the grass.
The mama was near by and watching me closely, so I just quickly stuck my phone over the opening, snapped a couple of pictures and left.
Yesterday evening, I finally dragged away the broken tree top that fell near where the low raised beds and compost pile are. One of the branches snagged on a squash vine hanging out of the compost ring, so I make sure to check if it was okay this morning. Looks like the damage was very minor, because our mystery squash are doing very well!
There are even female flowers developing! The one vine is quite large, but there are at least 3 more smaller ones in there. It should be interesting to see what they turn out to be!
Though we had rain off and on all day yesterday, it was never more than enough to dampen the grass, so I got the sprinkler going over the squash patch this morning. It also waters the purple corn, so I could probably move that new soaker hose to another bed. While that was running, I took my time checking other things, and ended up pulling crab grass in the bed we grew potatoes and melons in last year – or should I say, tried to! – that still has the old straw mulch over it. After clearing away a bunch of crab grass, I found…
… a remarkably large potato plant was hidden in the grass! This would be an All Blue potato. In the other bed, where the straw was cleared in preparation for building the trellis beds, I uncovered a single potato plant (also pictured above), but it is much, much smaller. The smaller one would be the Briget variety.
Next I checked the high raised bed, where I noticed one of the clips holding the netting at the top was broken and floating in the netting above the beans.
I found some of the ground staples pulled up, too.
Something actually managed to eat more of our bush bean leaves!!!
It couldn’t possibly be a deer that did it. From what I saw while putting the netting and ground staples back, I got the impression that something got in, then panicked a bit while tearing itself out. But what? It’s not like a rabbit could climb up there. We haven’t seen any ground hogs, and I don’t know that they are climbers – plus, I think a ground hog would have done a lot more damage!
Whatever it was, it ate some leaves and left. The plants are still showing flower buds, so it looks like they will survive just fine, and we should be getting at least a few beans this year.
In other things, I finally got a call about my mother’s glasses, so tomorrow I will be picking her up and taking her to pick them up. I hope she’s happy with them. Since I’m going to her town anyhow, that will give me a chance to stop at different hardware store and see if they have the right size coupling in stock. It will be great to repair that pipe and be able to hook the hose up to the garden tap, instead of the house! If it works out and no new cracks appear, I want to see if I can drag a double laundry sink we found in of one of the sheds, and make a vegetable washing station under the garden tap, too. That would be very handy!
Just before I went into the sun room this morning, I saw this through the door.
What as funny was watching that one kitten lift its head, then slowly let it flop backwards like that!
I saw the orange babies as well. The first time, I saw one of them nursing on Baby Beep Beep along with a white and grey kitten from another litter. Some time later, I saw this through the door.
The three siblings, all nursing on Baby Beep Beep.
I was sure these were Caramel’s babies. I even saw Caramel yesterday evening. But it’s Baby Beep Beep that I’ve been seeing nursing them.
Well, the main thing it, they’re still safe in the sun room and being mothered!
It took me longer just to get outside this morning. Twice, as soon as I went into the sun room, I spotted a kitten that needed eye washing and was able to catch them. When I was finally able to go all the way through the outer doors, I found a tuxedo on the hand rail by the rose bush. It had one eye mostly closed and just gross with… ick. I was able to catch him, but he was not happy about that and managed to get away. I now have a few new scratches on my hand to show for it!
The indoor kittens are getting incredibly active, and a couple of them have even started going to the door and “asking” to be let out.
Not going to happen!
It’s funny to see them using the regular litter pan instead of the one in baby jail. They are so tiny, if it weren’t for the lower front of the pan, we wouldn’t be able to see them in there at all!
We really need to watch our step around them now. They have a thing for running over to our feet unexpectedly.
Snarly Marley does NOT like the kittens. At all.
I’ve been keeping in touch with the Cat Lady. It looks like her cat that was blocked is now stable after surgery and is coming home with a catheter. She is so amazing. She’s got so much going on and going wrong right now, but she still managed to take advantage of a deal, picked up bags of dry cat food for us and hopes to swing by with them, tomorrow.
I had a pretty surprise while doing my morning rounds. A couple of the newly opened poppies are very red, instead of mostly white, like all the others!
This is what they are supposed to look like. At least, this is how the Baker Creek website shows them.
Poppy colours were not my only surprise today!
Today has been a day of kittens.
First, when we brought Ghosty’s brother in to wash his eyes, we didn’t put him back outside. Instead, he went into baby jail with Ghosty and Decimus’ four. I ended up giving them wet cat food, as even the littles are starting to eat solid food. When Decimus came in, she sniffed at the stranger, but was far more interested in the wet cat food!
I’ve been sending updates to the Cat Lady, but thinks are still in the air at their place. The cat that got hand, foot and mouth disease while they were away, is now blocked! The vet is trying to save him. So coming out here might take a bit longer!
Later on, my husband told me he was hearing what sounded like a kitten in distress outside his window, so I went to check.
It took some digging, but I did find where it was coming from. A kitten had pushed itself right into the corner of the house. There are a whole bunch of things stored there, but I was able to get it out.
After snuggling it for a while – it’s a young one with very blue eyes – I spotted a mama in the kibble house, so I set it down beside her.
She was not his mama, though, so she soon left, but he stayed there, huddled among the kibble trays.
While I was getting him unstuck, I’d heard meowing from somewhere else nearby, so I went looking to see where it came from. Which is when I spotted Caramel and an orange face peeking at me! I’d put a strong plastic bin against the wall in such a way as to create a shelter. Originally, I even had a box with an old pillow in it, but it wasn’t being used, so I moved it to the cat house, but left the bin. Now I know where Caramel moved her babies to! She only moved them less than 20 ft! Assuming that’s where they’ve been, all this time.
I went inside but kept checking on the baby, who stayed huddled in the kibble house, alone. So I picked it up and cuddled it some more, before putting it on the cat bed in the water bowl shelter, so it would at least have someplace more comfortable to be!
Again, I kept going out to check on the baby, and decided to use my phone’s camera to see the kittens in the bin.
They weren’t there.
But I did hear mewing.
Behind me was the stack of flattened corrugated plastic boxes. They’d fallen over in high winds, but I left them like that, since they formed a sort of shelter. I lifted them up and found two kittens! One orange, one orange and white.
I snuggled them for a bit, then put them all together in the water bowl shelter, since they are clearly all from the same litter.
Then I went into the sun room and found three black and white/tuxedo kittens cuddled in a heap, napping. It’s a hot day today, and there are cats sleeping all over the place! I just had to take a picture, and could see the eye issues. One tuxedo has one eye that’s been gummed shut for days, but we haven’t been able to catch him to clean it. The black and white one had both eyes gummed mostly shut, so I was able to pick it up. I snuggled it for a while and it seemed really calm, so I went ahead and cleaned its eyes. It took quite a while, but the kitten was amazingly patient the entire time! Then, when it could finally open its eyes, it stayed in my arms for a while, just looking around.
Then it climbed up on my shoulders, where I couldn’t reach it anymore! I ended up having to go to the shelf just outside the door and lean over, so it would jump to the top. Then I was able to gently pick it up and put it on the ground. It didn’t even try to run off!
Pinky happened to be there and started showing me just how long he can stretch!
Which actually called to mind something that had me concerned.
I haven’t seen Gooby at all, today.
The last I saw him was yesterday evening, out by the squash patch. He and Pinky started to fight, and my daughter had to break them up.
The last time a cat that I normally see every day suddenly wasn’t around was Pointy Baby. I found him with his head stuck in the chain link fence, and he died that night from his injuries. So now I’m concerned that Gooby is injured or stuck somewhere. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for him!
The three littlest kittens, meanwhile, were staying together in the water bowl shelter!
Meanwhile, the new indoor kitten seems to have already been absorbed into the creche! He was more nervous of the little kittens than they were of him. I have no idea if he and Ghosty remember each other, but they are getting along just fine. Decimus came in and settled to nurse, but only a couple of kittens were interested. The two bigger ones ate their fill of solid food, then wanted out of the cage. They can get out pretty easily, but the littles are figuring it out, too. It just takes them a bit more scrabbling! I ended up with the two older kittens and two younger ones running around. I definitely have to watch the wheels on my office chair when getting up from the computer!
Oh, my goodness! I was wondering why it was so quiet, so I went to check. Decimus is now lying on the floor, outside the cat cage, nursing those four kittens – including the new addition! – while the other two are still in baby jail, playing!
What a good little mama!
So… yeah. This has definitely been a day of kittens!
On a completely different note, I got word back from the garage. It needs a new power steering pressure hose, and will cost just under $270. Which is under budget, but there’s still that noise in the back. I asked him about it and he asked some questions, then said he would check the van again and get back to me. So I hope to hear from him tomorrow. It could be the brake drums, but we haven’t driven the van in months, before I drove it to the garage, and the noise wasn’t there before.
The question is, if there is something that needs major repair, is it worth fixing? The mechanic thought that, at best, he might be able to get $400 for it at the scrap metal dealer, though scrap metal prices have gone up since then. If the repairs end up costing more than $400, we will have to decide if it’s even worth fixing. We really need a second vehicle; my mother’s car is great to have, but we need that van.
Well, we shall see what he tells us, and go from there.
Meanwhile, I think I’ll got check on some kittens and do my evening rounds!
About a week ago, we found this bright blue caterpillar on one of the grape leaves.
Absolutely stunning colour!
We’d never seen one before and had no idea if it was a “good” or “bad” caterpillar, but we left it alone. After a rainstorm, I was surprised to find it still there, and then it just disappeared.
This morning, I found a different coloured one!
I almost brushed it off because at first I thought it was a dead leaf hanging, and then it moved and curled up like this!
It took some searching, but we finally found out what it was. It’s the caterpillar for an Abbott’s Sphinx moth, or Sphecodina abbottii. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen the adult moths around, but had never seen the caterpillar. Turns out, they can have quite a few different colours and patterns on them, but that blue is my favorite, hands down! The caterpillars do actually eat the grape leaves, though I haven’t seen any damage, so they don’t eat much, it seems! The adults eat nectar from lilacs and honeysuckle, both of which are done blooming in our area.
That false “eye”, by the way, is over its butt. It has claspers at its hind end and, when startled, curls up and hides its head.
I think they’re gorgeous!
Anyhow.
We had another cold night last night. The predicted low was 9C/48F, which isn’t too bad. I didn’t sleep last night, so I was awake to see when it had dropped to 6C/43F – with a “RealFeel” of only 4C/39F! An hour later, we dropped even further to 5C/41F, but at least the “RealFeel” didn’t get any colder. I do wish I’d had some idea that it would get that cold, because we really should have done things to help protect our tomatoes!
When I checked them this morning, however, they seemed to be okay.
I was scheduled to help my mother with grocery shopping today. She wanted to go shopping at a different store after picking up her new glasses, so she kept postponing the trip, even though I reminded her they would come in, in 7-10 business days. When we arranged this, it was Saturday, and I offered to help her on Sunday (which was yesterday), but she acted all surprised and said, not on Sunday. Which is odd, because between my siblings and I, we’ve taken her shopping on Sundays pretty often. My brother visited her yesterday morning and, when he saw how empty her fridge was, offered to take her shopping, but she said no. I was going to be coming over today. He did go out to at least get her some milk and butter, but the grocery store wasn’t open yet, and he ended up going to a gas station. They didn’t have butter, so he got her some cream cheese, just so she’d have something to spread on her morning toast. An 8oz package of cream cheese and a 2L of milk cost him $16!
He had intended to go to church with her, and then take her for lunch, but she turned out to be having one of her bad days and got really nasty with him. So bad, he actually left, which takes an awful lot for him to do that! So I was a bit concerned about how she would be today.
Turns out, she was having one of her better days, and things went pretty well.
She’s been making a big deal in telling me not to pick up lunch before visiting her. The last time I got take out, including the food she’d been asking for previously, she gave me a hard time about it, so the next time I was set to come over and she told me to not bring anything, but if I did, to bring her onion rings, I made sure to eat first and didn’t bring anything. She was all surprised I didn’t bring her onion rings, when I didn’t even go to that particular restaurant. I told her; she said not to bring anything, so I didn’t bring anything! Then she had to make herself something to eat. This time, I simply picked up some fridge chicken and potato wedges (from the gas station; only place that was open at the time) and didn’t tell her. I just came in with the food. This time, she didn’t complain! She didn’t even complain that I bought a couple of fruit smoothies to drink, even though she’d never tasted them before. So we at least had a decent lunch! She did start to make comments about how we shouldn’t be eating so much “goody goody”, until I asked her, just how often do we do this? Now I wonder if she thinks we should only have food that tastes bad or something. She keeps seeing on TV or whatever, about how this food or that food is “bad” for you, to the point that she’s stopped even buying perfectly healthy food at the grocery store, but replacing them with stuff that isn’t any better, and sometimes worse.
It had been so long since she’d gone to the grocery store, she really needed to stock up. I think her good behavior likely had more to do with how tired she was. Tired enough that she got me to run in to get a couple of things for her from the pharmacy store, rather than go in herself. I got her the 2 things she needed and was done, but if she’d gone herself, she would have walked through the whole store and probably found other things to get!
But, she is well stocked now, and she was more than ready for a rest after I’d put everything away for her. She didn’t even try to guilt trip me into staying longer!
Before I headed home, though, I went back to the grocery store, as my daughter had asked me to pick some things up while I was out. Then I went to the hardware store and talked to someone about that water pipe to the garden tap that’s got a hole in it.
The pictures I took came in handy. After showing them to a staff member, she showed me some options. The problem is, I don’t know what the exact diameter of the pipe is. However, once I know that, I have a plant to fix it, without having to dig up the entire pipe! I can simply cut out the damaged part, and insert the cut ends into a flexible PVC coupling with stainless steel clamps. Once I know for sure what size I need, it can be a very quick and easy fix – and won’t have to dig out the entire length of pipe and replace it!
Though I am curious as to how it switches from the pipe I uncovered, to the hose end that connects to the tap.
She was very very helpful and likely saved me a lot of unnecessary work!
While there, I also picked up some water soluble fertilizer for the garden, which was planned, but also got a 50′ soaker hose, which was not planned, but the price was too good to pass up. I’d been looking at those in the city, and they were typically about twice the price or more – and the one I got wasn’t even on sale! I want to set it up in the bed with the purple corn.
While I was out and about, I got messages from my family. The first was to let me know there was a nice downpour happening – that started just minutes after I left! The next was to let me know it was hailing! Once it was clear, they checked the garden. One of the garden stakes supporting a tomato plant had fallen, but that was all – and the tomato plant was not damaged.
By the time I got back, the storm system had blown over, but the winds are still very high. We’ve reached 18C/64F, which is lower than the predicted high, and temperatures are supposed to start dropping now. Our overnight low is supposed to be 9C/48F, but that’s what it was supposed to be last night, too! Still, we are supposed to creep up to above 20C/68F for the next week or so, so the garden should be okay.
It would be nice if the winds would die down a bit, though. Driving home, I could feel the wind trying to push the car off the road! Oh, that reminds me; in one of the messages my daughter sent me, they had actually watched the top of a dead spruce tree break off. I’m going to have to make sure to check on that when I do my evening rounds.
Oh, there is one more happy bit of news. Last night, we reset things in baby jail, after taking out and washing all the bedding, including the cat cave. This cat cave is like a big bag that is drawn closed at the top with a rope. My daughter managed to wrestle the sides down to fold it in half, so the kittens couldn’t climb up it anymore, and risk them accessing the parts of the cage with wider openings in it.
They also now have a shallow litter pan, and I’ve actually seen a kitten using it! The whole set up is more open, though we can no longer casually reach in to pet the kittens in the cat cave. I look forward to seeing the pet cage the Cat Lady said she picked up for us to use!
The babies are really active and want to explore, so we have to be careful. We’ve changed things up enough that they shouldn’t be able to reach sections of wall where the wire is further apart, but they’re determined little buggers. I don’t want to get up in the night and discover kittens have gotten underfoot! They seem happy and playful, though, so that’s good!
The Cat Lady will be coming for Ghosty and her sibling soon, but I do hope she’ll be able to find homes for the younger ones, and Decimus, after they are weaned, too.
The Re-Farmer 