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A couple of updates and kitty status

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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)

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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

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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

Just in case

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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

Mothering confirmed

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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

Changes in plans, and a little bit of everything

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Yesterday, we got our quarter beef in!

We had to juggle a bit to be able to close the freezer lid. No, it’s not completely full of beef – there’s other stuff underneath – but I’d say over half the freezer is now packages of beef.

After I took the picture, I dug out a couple of packages of T-bone steaks to thaw out for today! It’s been soooo long since we’ve had a good steak!

I love how big the stew packages are this time. They’re not visible, but there’s also about two dozen 2 pound packages of ground beef in there.

Today’s plans, however, had already changed before I went to bed!

I got a call from my brother. He’d just talked to my mother, and he was asking if I could take her to the hospital today. !!! My mother thinks she’s got a UTI again (she is likely right), but she told my brother more than she told me, and it’s more of a problem than I knew. My guess is, she was hoping my brother would drop everything, drive all the way to her place, then take her to the hospital and sit with her, like he had done the last time this happened. She’s been suffering for more than a week, but had only just tried calling the community health number yesterday. She can’t handle the automated phone systems, so she just hit 0 and left a message. Twice. No response.

So today, my plan was to call our doctor’s clinic, which is in a town about 40-45 minutes drive from my place, as soon as it opened (after doing my rounds; head count of 27 this morning, and I couldn’t see the new bitty). I wanted to see if I could make arrangements with them, or see if I should take her to the hospital (our doctor’s clinic shares a building with the hospital).

Then I got a call from the home care worker that last assessed my mother. They got her messages from yesterday, and followed up. The person who normally answered the phone doesn’t work on Wednesdays. *sigh* My mother seemed confused about things, so he wanted to clear things up with me, but she had already told him about going to her doctor today.

One of the things my mother has been pushing to do is change doctors again. There aren’t full time doctors locally, which is why we now to go another town. Plus, the local doctor, who came in from the city once a week, was female, and my mother doesn’t like female doctors. Apparently, there is now a new doctor, though. He might even be there full time now, instead of coming in from the city. I’m not sure. Our doctor in the other town isn’t white, and my mother doesn’t like that about as much as she doesn’t like female doctors. Having a closer doctor would be better for her (but he’s Greek; not sure if that’s white enough for her), however there have been issues in the past with getting good care locally. The hospital just doesn’t have the resources. Whether she switches doctors or not, she won’t be happy. She’s convinced she has cancer or something, but the doctors are keeping it a secret from her.

Anyhow.

I called the clinic right after it opened, but the line was already busy, so I called my mom and told her what I was working on. She was already getting ready to leave! When I got through to the clinic, however, it turned out her doctor had an opening, so I was able to make an appointment for her this afternoon.

So I called my mother back and we worked out a plan. I’ll be heading over to her place early enough to have lunch (she requested Chinese food this time! 😁), and we wouldn’t be in any hurry about leaving. I will be using our van, as it’s better for winter road conditions, so we’ll have to remember to bring her little stool to help her get in and out.

Which means I’m going to be out for most of today.

Ah, well. At least it’s supposed to be a relatively mild day today. Things are supposed to get colder again tomorrow, and I’d rather not be driving my 91 yr old mother around in the cold! We still need to do at least one trip to the city for our monthly stocking up, but thanks to the trip I did manage to make – and the beef delivery! – plus our current state of supplies, there is no urgency on that.

I really like being well stocked. It takes a lot of pressure off. It wouldn’t be as big a deal if we were still living in the city, but it makes a huge difference living in the boonies, and winter is coming on!

In other things, I talked to the cat lady yesterday evening. She showed my pictures of the new bitty to a vet already. Given the size, they agree that it is younger than the other bitties. Once we are sure there are no siblings, she wants to take it in. Like the other cats, it probably already has upper respiratory issues, and being so young, they don’t expect it would survive the winter, either, even in the relative warmth and comfort of the heated cat shelter. The new bitty will join the other bitty. Things have changed there, too. He is not going to the lady that took the other two. Instead, he will be going to the cat lady’s cousin! He’ll be going to his new home after Christmas. Maybe, he’ll have a little orange buddy going with him? Wouldn’t that be cool! Also, she has managed to find homes for 6 cats she was fostering! She will have room for more, soon.

So we will continue to monitor and, if things go as I expect, we will have an orange bitty in the house tonight.

We shall see! It’s not like anything seems to be going to plan, today! 😄😄

The Re-Farmer

Good kitties, bad kitties!

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When I was done with my morning rounds, I paused to say hello to the kitties (I counted 29 this morning – never saw Rosencrantz).

The four in the foreground, plus Princess (who had climbed me while I was trying to take pictures), were absolutely all over me, fighting for attention! Those five – Plushy, Pointy Baby, Judgement, Gooby and Princess – are the friendliest of them all.

Caramel, in the background, isn’t. 😄 I’ve managed to touch her while she was eating kibble on the roof, but only by sneaking up behind her to do it, and she was hungry enough to not run away immediately.

The outside cats are such good cats.

Then, there’s the inside cats.

With being sick for the last while, I haven’t been working on this year’s Christmas ornaments, so everything has been tucked away on my work station.

Not well enough.

This morning, not only did I have to pick up the knocked over bin of Christmas decorations, but also gather up some of my mini yarn.

*sigh*

Clearly, the little bucket they were under was not enough to keep them safe!

Ugh. All that cat hair.

I didn’t even realize the tassel was in there until after I’d started untangling the colours. Only the metallic purple mini skein was still okay.

Bad kitties! I don’t even know which ones did the damage. Could have been several. They wait until we’re in be

I’ve got to finish those ornaments, so the stuff can be put away, out of harm’s reach!

The Re-Farmer