After the heat we’ve had for the past while, it actually got remarkably chilly last night.
It was great!
I had some concern about how it got for the kittens, but the basement is pretty good at remaining a constant temperature.
This morning, I took one of the long boxes that held pieces of my new bed frame and lay it out on the floor for the kittens to play in.
They just loved it!
Leyendecker, however, got distracted by something that was apparently much more interesting.
Me.
He climbed me like a tree! All the way up to my head, where he began to tackle my ear and try to eat my hair.
What a silly boy!
The outside cats were eagerly awaiting me when I got outside. Their food bowls had been completely cleaned out. By them, or other animals, I’m not sure.
Butterscotch allowed my daughter to check her out yesterday, and it seems she is pregnant again. Considering how it went when we tried to bring her in before, that is just not something we can do again.
I’m happy to say that, when both Butterscotch and Creamsicle joined me while checking out my mother’s flowers, there was NO fighting, at all.
When checking out the squash beds, I’d found a pleasant little surprise.
Some pumpkins are sprouting!
These two hills had 3 seeds each planted in them. The other one had 5 seeds in the package, but so far, none have sprouted.
Most of the more recently transplanted squash are noticeably growing bigger, though they have also gotten pretty yellow. One of the possible reasons I’ve seen is a lack of iron. Which means we likely should supplement the soil with bloodmeal. I just haven’t been able to find any!
More potatoes are starting to show up through the straw mulch. When mowing last night, I moved out the wooden frames that were around the beds. They are no longer needed, and taking them out makes it easier to mow around the beds. I don’t know if I’ll be able to finish the mowing today; we might be getting showers this afternoon.
This evening, we’re planning to get all wild and crazy. Father’s Day and my daughter’s birthday fall on the same day this year. Knowing how busy things are likely to be on Sunday, we’ve decided to celebrate today. Our favorite Chinese restaurant is open again, so we’re planning on ordering a whole lot of take-out!
The morning rounds, as usual, started with a visit to the kitties.
I fully expected to find a couple at the top of the stairs, as has been the usual thing lately.
Nope. Just Beep Beep.
The other usual thing is to go down the stairs and find the kittens not already on the stairs, coming sleepily out from under the platform bed frame, where they’ve created a nest.
Not this morning!
Beep Beep jumped into the pile faster than I could get my phone out for a picture, but all the kittens had been on the chair, curled up in a furry mass, sleeping!
The outdoor part of my morning rounds went rather quickly, because I was being eaten by mosquitoes! Every time I paused to take a picture, I would be attached by clouds of them!
The first of my mother’s poppies has opened up.
The dwarf lilac by the house is just a riot of flowers!
This other variety of lilac, planted by the chain link fence, doesn’t have a lot of flowers, but the few clusters is does have are starting to open.
When feeding the outside cats, I saw some faces that have not been around as much, lately.
Junk Pile cat has been hanging around, even if I only see him in passing, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen Butterscotch. I was happy to see Rosencrantz show up.
While checking the garden plots and switching memory cards on the trail cams, I got some company.
Creamsicle came to join me and wanted attention. :-)
Butterscotch came along this time, too.
Then this happened!!!
Her boy went into a full-on attack! I couldn’t believe it! He wouldn’t stop, either. I broke them up several times, until I just couldn’t catch up with them. Each time, Butterscotch would run off, and Creamsicle would run right after her and attack as soon as he reached her!
I just couldn’t let a day go buy without kitten pictures, could I?
Well, yes, I could, but I don’t want to. :-)
Our scorcher of a day was finally cooled down by a lovely rainfall – storms will once again go right past us, it looks like – so no chance to make use of the new mower.
*sadness*
;-)
So I decided it was a good time to once again do some practice carving on the spoon blank that came with my carving kit.
Which meant spending lots of time with adorable little furballs with sharp, sharp claws.
They were determined to use me as a bed, after using me as a jungle gym.
Even Beep Beep got in on the action, clambering over her babies, then lying on her back, going from laying with her head in my elbow to licking my nose enthusiastically! :-D
Apparently, I tasted good today, because all the kittens were after my arms and fingers. It might have something to do with the ham I had with lunch before coming downstairs.
It was pretty rough and tumble, with Beep Beep moving around and pushing her own kittens around before giving up and moving on.
Eventually, a daughter was able to come and rescue me.
Big Rig REALLY liked that glove.
Yes, one is missing. Nicco snuggled with Beep Beep on another chair until Beep Beep took off.
Once the kittens were extricated, I went back to trying to carve, only to have them return. Which was okay. I can continue to carve with a couple of kittens on the table in front of me.
Yeah, my arm is a mess! When Beep Beep was shifting around, she pushed Big Rig off my arm. She grabbed my arm as she fell and was dangling there for a while before she was able to scramble up.
Yes, it is all cleaned up and treated with antibiotic cream.
Saffron is just adorable! Turmeric was content on my lap for a while.
It didn’t last, of course.
They certainly do make things interesting!!
I did, at least, get some progress on that spoon! :-D
Unfortunately, there was other damage.
From the other cats.
At one point, I had two kittens in my arms and three on my head and shoulders, when we heard a loud crash above us. The three kittens exploded off my shoulders to the ground. The two in my arms, thankfully, didn’t panic like that.
Which reminds me. I need to get my husband to check my shoulders for wounds.
Later, as my daughters were on their way from the second floor to rescue me, they found the cause.
One of the cats had knocked over a plant pot with a substantial jade tree in it.
I am not impressed.
After seeing how the jade tree recovered after our move, however, I would not be surprised to see now branches and leaves growing out of that stem.
Assuming the cats don’t destroy it completely, before then. :-(
For the first time since we cleaned and refilled this barometer, it has overflowed!
As I write this, it’s already 28C/82F and we’ve got weather alerts for heat and thunderstorms. Looking at the weather radar, it looks like we might actually get some rain. That would be nice!
At least the winds have died down for now.
My morning rounds, meanwhile, have been full of smiles.
Well, okay. I wasn’t exactly smiling when I was trying to wrestle kittens back into the basement, but once that was done, it got fun. :-D
Unfortunately, Keith and Fenrir in particular do not like the kittens, and they’re a bit too small to defend themselves if they get nasty. Big Rig ran right up to Susan and booped noses with her, leaving Susan looking astonished and confused! :-D
Temperatures were still on the pleasant side of hot while I did my rounds outside. The dwarf lilac is starting to explode.
The scent in our yard is amazing!
The carrot and beet beds seem to be doing all right.
We’re doing a fairly limited amount of weeding right now, as we don’t want to be pulling up too many seedlings. Whatever cat that decided to use a carrot bed as a litter box has done quite enough of that already.
The kohl rabi, on the other hand, may be a write off. Some things, I can tell are weeds, but others, I’m not so sure. A surprising amount of clover is showing up.
We’ll see how it works out over time!
My favourite pollinators!
The white roses were filled with a constant drone of insects buzzing around, but it’s the bumbles that have a special place in my heart. What beautiful creatures!
Also, I had very affectionate company. He just loved it when I carried him around like a baby! LOL
Once inside, I checked the trail cam files. I love it when doing that leaves me smiling. :-)
I got to see this deer from two angles! :-)
I notice there is a time difference on the cameras. I’ll have to figure out which one is off and fix that.
As for the new camera location, I really would rather it be a bit further back and higher, but it will have to do for now.
This morning’s tending to the kitties was truly an adventure!
It started when I opened the door and found Leyendecker and Saffron lying on the top step. Just chillin’! They didn’t even try to run upstairs right away. Unfortunately, in my attempts to step over them, Beep Beep and the other kittens had time to run over. It took a couple of minutes to get everything under control so I could close the door, with Two Face and David also in the basement.
Note to self. Do not visit kittens while wearing shorts.
Both my legs ended up rather bloody, by the time I escaped. Then one of my daughters slathered me with antibacterial cream, after I washed all the blood off.
I tried, and failed, to get a photo of Nicco in a sun spot, up on his back legs, trying to catch dust motes. Two Face was her usual aggressive groomer. The kittens also love climbing that piece of maple tree! :-D Big Rig going after David was just hilarious.
Then, I made a mistake.
I sat down.
It started with Leyendecker and Saffron. They climbed up on me and played for a while, then settled down for a nap.
Then Beep Beep jumped on top of them, pushing them around while settling. Saffron squirmed her way out from under Mom, found a nip and sleep nursed. Leyendecker passed out, until Big Rig jumped up and joined the fray. Leyendecker ended up pushing Saffron aside to find his own nip to sleep nurse on.
At some point, I felt a kitten clamber up my leg and settle on my lap. That left some damage!! It turned out to be Nicco.
By this time, I’d been trapped by them for about an hour, before I was finally able to alert a daughter for assistance. Which is when Two Face joined the party. Turmeric had earlier climbed onto the work table and played with Leyendecker over my shoulder for a while, but didn’t have any interest in joining the pile in my arms. You can just see her in the background of one of the photos, under the platform bed frame.
It took quite a while to extricate all the cats, but we managed to do it without shredding my clothes too badly, nor adding any new scratches.
Tending to the babies may be adorable, but my goodness, it can be painful, too! :-D
We’ve got ourselves a lovely – and windy! – day today. It made doing the morning rounds quite pleasant.
The routine started, of course, with babies. :-)
One of the down sides of not being able to do stairs very well is, even with my daughter at the top of the stairs to help keep the other cats away from the door, kittens manage to run across the length of the basement and up the stairs before I can get far enough down to close to door behind me.
Having a door that opens over the stairs doesn’t help, either.
Of course, while kittens are being wrangled, other cats try to take advantage of the confusion. David got into the basement, which we’re okay with, since he’s very good with the babies. I think Two Face got in, as well, but I’m honestly not sure if I remember that correctly. My daughter was dealing with the adult cats after we got the escaped babies back down.
Eventually, all the adult cats were herded upstairs, and the kittens got to have some wet cat food.
These guys have very hearty appetites!
After a while, we let Beep Beep down again, so she could have some, too. If she’s around when the wet cat food is first set out, she’ll push her own kittens away to get at it, no matter how much we spread it out!
Among the things I look out for when doing my rounds is fallen branches. Thankfully, between what we’ve been able to clean up ourselves, plus what the arborists were able to take down, there are far few of those than there was when we first moved here.
Usually, we’re just picking things up like the willow branch you can see in the photo. Willows are always dropping branches, but after having the power lines cleared, there are a lot less of those in the south yard. Recent winds did bring down one of the larger dead branches we can’t get at to clear. Even as I stood to take this picture, I could hear the winds knocking branches together, above my head.
Dead branches sound distinctively different from live ones.
Speaking of which…
The crab apple trees are not the only ones that are struggling. This plum tree seems to be mostly dead. There is one section that leans off to the right that is still alive, but it looks like the other two are completely dead. What few leaves there were, just weeks ago, have shriveled and died. It looks like another of the plums, behind it, is also dead or dying.
Other trees and bushes are doing just fine, though.
The pollinators were having a hard at my mother’s white roses, in the wind! I believe these are called Cherokee roses, and they have just exploded with flowers! Between these, the honeysuckle that is still if full bloom, and the double lilac that is nearing the end of its blooming period, this little garden is just a riot of flowers!
While the more common varieties of lilacs are finishing their blooming period, the dwarf lilac will soon be a mass of flowers!
I had cleaned up in this bush, taking out a maple that had been allowed to grow in the middle of it, cutting away dead wood and pruning things back. Now, even the new growth shooting up from below is showing masses of flower buds!
There is one more variety of lilac that blooms later, but I notice it is struggling, too. There is another maple that had seeded itself and was allowed to grow, near it. I think that maple is what’s killing the lilac. It’s keeping the lilac in shade for most of the day. I don’t think it gets any direct sunlight at all, really.
I’m going to have to choose: keep the healthy maple while the lilac slowly dies off, or take down the maple and hopefully save an unusual variety of lilac, that we have only one of.
The decision would be a lot easier, if I could only be sure that taking out the maple would save the lilac.
Meanwhile, while checking the sunflowers, I found we are down a couple more. I really wish I knew what is doing this. Then we could know how to stop it!
When I got back to the house at the end of my rounds, I had a lovely surprise.
Rolando Moon came back for a visit! I haven’t seen her in ages. The last time couple of times she came here, Creamsicle and Potato Beetle chased her up into a tree. My daughters could see her, but I never did spot her. The boys were away, though, so I got to say hello to Rolando. :-) She, Beep Beep and Butterscotch are the only yard cats remaining, that were here when my father was still alive. I have some photos from when we made the trip out to visit him, back in 2015. He did love the yard cats – and they loved him right back! Me, not so much. :-D After we moved here, it took a while to socialize them, to varying degrees. Most just sort of disappeared. Especially the males. Rolanda Moon has always been an ornery cat, aggressive with the others, but she seemed very happy for the attention, today! It was very good to see her. :-)
Today, being Sunday, is my day of rest. No unnecessary work. So the most I’m doing outside, really, is setting up the sprinkler to water the squash and potatoes. We’ve had some rain, off and on, but not very much, and these winds are really drying things out!
Time to go shift the sprinkler off the squash and give the potatoes a good drenching. :-)
The kittens were too active to get good photos this morning.
Plants, on the other hand, are much more co-operative.
The first potato leaves have made their way through the mulch!
Yay!
Sadly, we are also down another sunflower. We found another one with just a stem, the leaflets gone. Total count is one less than yesterday.
We’ll still have a decent “wall” of sunflowers, but it will definitely have large gaps. If we do this again next year, we’ll know to get at least twice the number of seeds to start, and maybe even start them indoors, first. The sunflowers that have developed their true leaves seem to be left alone.
My daughters and I headed out towards the barn last night, and noticed the dogwood growing at the shed with the roof my brother and I patched is now blooming very enthusiastically!
It is such a strong, healthy bush! I’m hoping I can get away with leaving it alone, even though it’s growing right up against the shed. Unlike the maples growing along the side, I don’t think dogwood will grow in a way that will actively damage the shed.
While doing my rounds this morning, I noticed the Saskatoon bushes by the south fence have once again become infested. :-(
This is some sort of insect damage, and almost all the Saskatoon bushes along this area show some signs of it. Last year, there were very few Saskatoon berries, partly because the bushes were just not very healthy, and I believe this infestation is the reason. It doesn’t seem to be on any other type of tree around there, so whatever insect is doing this, they seem to have a preference for Saskatoons.
For the first time since noticing that something has been killing off sunflower seedlings, I found one where the leaves were still there. All the others, there was just a stub of a stem sticking out, and the leaflets were completely gone.
With a few other areas, I don’t expect any seedlings to break ground. The spots they were planted in appear to have been dug into by some critter. It may even have been skunks digging in the only soft soil in the area, looking for grubs, though the holes don’t look like the divots they usually leave in the yard.
My mother’s white lilacs, meanwhile, are at the peak of their blooming period!
Meanwhile, we had covered the squashes and cantaloupes last night, as the temperatures were expected to drop close to freezing. There was no frost warning, but it would still have been cold enough to hurt the squash and cantaloupes. They all looked just fine, when I uncovered them this morning. I’m glad we covered them. It got cold enough last night, that the furnace actually turned on!
After this, we aren’t expected to have temperatures that low again as far as the long range forecasts go. Hopefully, that will be the end of that!
While doing my rounds this morning, I had some company.
Butterscotch looks downright malevolent! :-D
While checking things during my rounds, I found we have fewer sunflowers today, compared to yesterday. It’s possible I missed a couple, but it seems that something has been eating them. One or two at a time.
I visited the kittens again, after my rounds.
They really love that box of wood bits!
…
So, my morning posting got interrupted today. I am not continuing this almost 12 hours later!
My daughter happened to ask me about a bed frame I was looking to get. When we were prepping to move out here, one of the things we discovered was that the two twin sized box springs under our king size mattress were broken. No idea when that happened. We figured we could get new ones after the move.
Well, the move being the fiasco that it was, that didn’t happen. Instead, my husband and I had the mattress directly on the floor.
Which is not good for someone with a back injury. It was, however, the best of our mattresses. Also, the other mattresses were all twin sized.
When my husband ended up needing a hospital bed, we had to set the king size mattress aside and I used the spare twin. The king size ended up stuck behind the couch in the living room. It was just too big to put anywhere else. The cats, of course, discovered they could climb it and take naps up by the ceiling.
Which would have been fine, until they started using it as a scratching post.
Nothing we did would stop them. Of course, when we were asleep, we weren’t there to stop them. They were slowly destroying it. The only way to stop the destruction was to start using the mattress.
On the one hand, that was great. The twin mattress was a cheapy, and painful to sleep on, so the better quality mattress was much better on my body. On the other hand, my knees, feet and hips are pretty shot. Getting up and down from so low to the ground was taking its toll.
Eventually, we found the frame I wanted at Ikea; one that did not need box springs, and with 6 drawers underneath. We just had to save up for it.
Of course, other things kept popping up that was priority on the budget. Like repairing vehicles. This year, however, we finally got some decent tax returns, and were able to set some aside.
Just in time for Ikea to have a sale on the bed frame I wanted.
Which was out of stock.
Also, Ikea was closed because of the pandemic, and only doing online purchases. We would have an arranged time to pick up. So after a few days, when I tried again and saw 1 frame in stock, I tried to buy it.
Before I could finish going through the checkout process, it was gone.
So I signed up to be notified by email when it was in stock again.
Today was the last day of the sale, and when my daughter asked about it, I told her I hadn’t received an email saying they restocked. I decided, however, to check again. Just in case.
There was 2 in stock! They never contacted me.
I tried to buy it online, so we could pick it up later.
The website was having technical difficulties. When I tried to check out, it told me it was out of stock, but when I looked at the item directly, it still said there were two.
Their customer service web chat wasn’t working and when I tried phoning, there was no answer. Not even an automated one.
I did notice, however, that the store is now open to customers.
I decided to go for it. One of my daughters and I headed out within minutes. We couldn’t be sure there were any in stock – with a 2 hour drive to get to the location, at the far end of the city, even if they were in stock, that didn’t mean they still would be when we got there. We figured it was still worth it, and we could use the trip to go elsewhere, while we were at it.
I had the item number so when we finally got there, we made our way straight to the pick up area, but there was no aisle number. After asking around, we ended up at an information kiosk. The woman looked it up for me and…
Yes, there was indeed two left in stock.
We would never have found it in the pick up area, though. It turned out that the king size version of this bed frame was only available through their loading/pick up area. She called it in, gave me a print out with the bar code and order number so I could pay for it, and instructions on where to go to have it brought to us.
It was a bit confusing and frustrating, but it finally got done. Not only did I finally get a bed frame, but I was able to get it while it was still on sale.
Yay!
We took advantage of being in the city and made a couple more stops, then when we got home, the girls spent the next couple of hours assembling it.
I helped.
A little.
:-D
Once it was done, of course we all splayed out on it.
I love having a king size!
Then, I did something amazing.
I got up.
Then I sat down.
Then I got up and sat down and got up again.
Because I can do that now! Effortlessly!
The unplanned trip blew away any plans we had for today, but it was so worth it!!
This is going to be so much better on my knees!!!
I’m so excited! :-D
Yes, it’s the little things that make me happy. :-D
Heading down to visit the kitties was certainly a wild and crazy ride, this morning!
The kittens were waiting for me.
First, I had to shoo away the cats from the door in the entryway. Then, when I opened it, Beep Beep was ready to rush through, which would have been fine, except Leyendecker dashed through, too. Turmeric was at the top of the stairs, too. She was just a bit more hesitant about actually going through, so I was able to keep her at bay.
Leyendecker managed to get through the door three times before I could finally close it. Meanwhile, Beep Beep had run back down, with David and Two Face making a dash for it, too. By this time, all of the kittens were on the stairs, and with the door closed, they decided my feet and legs were fair game.
They continued to attack my feet, jump up my legs, and try and eat my shoelaces, as I very, VERY carefully made my way around.
Once I started taking care of the food and water, they started to get distracted by other things, thankfully.
Not one stayed still long enough to get a decent picture! :-D
I was eventually able to get all the adult cats upstairs, which meant I could give the kittens some wet cat food, and they’d actually get some!
By the time I was done, I was more than ready for the relative calm of doing my rounds outside.
I just had to deal with hordes of mosquitoes. Which was an improvement. !!
Checking the garden plots, it looks like more cat damage to the one plot of carrots. We won’t be getting a lot of rainbow carrots this time around. :-(
The grape vine I accidentally clipped is starting to look at bit droopy, higher up, but the lower leaves still seem quite strong and healthy. Fingers crossed that it will survive.
While walking around the spruce grove, switching out the memory cards on the trail cams, has been interesting. I didn’t do a lot of clean up here, yet. Mostly, I just focused on clearing the fence itself.
The improved like has resulted in all kinds of things popping up.
These are Saskatoon berries, and there are SO MANY little tiny bushes growing, all over the place.
I will be keeping an eye on these new ones. When I was cleaning up, a lot of the larger ones were not looking very healthy. The drought certainly didn’t help. We do plan to buy Saskatoon bushes at some point, and plan out where to put them, but if these are strong and healthy, we might end up also transplanting some of these to better locations.
I had cut back the wild roses along with all the other undergrowth, quite a bit as we cleaned things up. I know they will grow back, so I’m not too worried about them. After we’ve cleaned things out, the wild roses and the dogwood are the two things I want to encourage as undergrowth in some areas.
Even with what little clearing we’ve done so far, we’re already getting more wildflowers.
There are a few of these Lily of the Valley, scattered about, in between another one with sprays of white, star-like blossoms. My attempt at getting a photo failed, though.
The goal for the spruce grove is to open it up, get rid of the dead trees, plant some new spruces to replace some of them, have paths we can walk through, with grass or moss, areas of wild roses and dogwood, and lots of wildflowers. Here and there, I’m planning to put various types of seating around. Not boards nailed to logs, like I’ve been finding all over! Those don’t do well, over time.
But first, it needs to be cleaned out, and that’s going to involve a lot of hard physical labour!
And chainsaws. Definitely chainsaws. There are some pretty big trees that need to be cleared out of there.
I probably won’t be back at that today, though. It’s cooler, if not any less humid, and still insane with mosquitoes, but my husband is encouraging me to take a day off, and give my wrist more time to recover. The problem is, it feels pretty good. Right up until I start using it. I shouldn’t need two hands to pick up a glass to take a drink. :-/ His concern is that I’ll just keep re-injuring it. He has a point. We are both notorious for that sort of thing. I just hate wasting the time. :-(
