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Got some snow.

/ Re-Farmer / 7 Comments

I was keeping an eye on the local highway conditions groups last night, and apparently things were pretty bad. We didn’t get a large amount of snow, but the high winds made the biggest difference.

It was all over by this morning, though.

I got this shot as I was coming back inside, and they were all done with breakfast. This bunch is directly under the heat lamp. The mostly black one is friendly, and the orange one allows pets most of the time. The tabby with his head tucked allows pets at feeding time, but that’s it. The other tabby runs off. The tuxedo on the left is at that “hey! I think I actually like this… maybe?” stage of discovering pets.

I love that black strip on his nose.

Once again, it seems the racoons visited during the night. The water bowl in the sun room was dry, even though I’d refilled it during the evening feeding, and I had to clean dirt off the bottom before I could refill it.

After their food and water was done, I started shoveling.

And shoveling.

And shoveling some more!

Fair warning, there is a photo of a wound later on.

I was able to clear the cat shelters and the cat paths to the food bowls under the shrine, and to the corner of the storage house, where they go in and out of the “basement”. The cats get SO excited when their paths are clear! It’s hilarious to watch them running around and playing in the paths. I then made sure to clear the sidewalk to the gate in the chain link fence wide enough for my husband’s walker walker. The snow was still light and fluffy, though, so I kept going and cleared the area I back up into, to unload the truck. The rest of the driving area will wait for the snow blower, though.

Then, because I actually enjoy shoveling snow, I kept going and cleared paths to the burn barrel and electricity meter, before continuing to the garage. The path to the garage needs to be wide enough for my husband’s walker, plus I cleared enough in front of the driveway that we can open the side doors where little Spewie is stored. The snow isn’t deep enough that clearing the driveway and yard is a necessity, but we’re supposed to get more snow later in the week, so it’s more to keep things from accumulating.

It’s stuff like this that’s the problem, though.

That’s a whole lot of ice under the snow!

This is the path to the garage where it crosses the “driveway” to the inner yard. That area is lower and collects water, so when we had our nice, warm days with all the snow melting, the moat around the garage started to form. A couple of days ago, we reached a high of 6C/43F, only to have a high of -11C/12F yesterday. This morning, while I was shoveling, we were at a very mild -7C/19F, which was perfect for shoveling – as long as I was out of the wind. However, I kept hitting patches like this, which can be quite dangerous to find unexpectedly. In the inner yard alone, around the cat shelters, I almost slipped a few times.

I was still shoveling in the inner yard when I suddenly noticed this.

I have no idea where I got this, but by the time I noticed it, enough time had passed that it had stopped bleeding. My cuff kept sliding over it while I was shoveling, which is why it looks so horrible!

I just kept shoveling, though. No point in stopping when it wasn’t bleeding anymore, and didn’t hurt at all. Once I was inside, my daughter was handy, so after I washed the blood off, she got the wound all cleaned up and bandaged for me. The wound was actually a lot bigger than I expected, and it’s a couple of scratches, not just one.

I keep going through what I did before I started shoveling, trying to figure out where or how I could have gotten this, and I’m still drawing a blank!

Ah, well.

The paths to the compost pile, outhouse and the back door of the garage still need to be done, but I stopped for a while and finished my rounds instead. My daughter, sweetheart that she is, made breakfast for me after tending my wound. The more time goes by, the stiffer my body is getting, from the shoveling. 🫤 Time for some more painkillers, I think!

Tomorrow, I’m expecting to do our Costco shopping, so if we’re going to get the rest of the driving area in the inner yard done, it’s going to have to be today. Unless the girls do it while I’m gone tomorrow, but tomorrow is supposed to get much colder again. Current forecast is for a high of -5C/23F today, but a high of -18C/~-1F tomorrow. We’re also expected to be getting some light snow from about 4pm tonight until 4am tomorrow morning.

Oh, wow! I’m just looking at our record highs and lows for today. The record high is 5C/41F in 1999, but the record low for today is -34C/-29F, set back in 1962! The average high for this time of year is a nice and mild -7C/19F.

A few more days and we’re into March. The time feels like it is really flying by, this winter! Maybe it’s because my brain is constantly thinking ahead, to what we need and want to do, once spring arrives.

The next few days are going to be really busy ones, with our stock up shopping and other end of month errands, so I’m going to appreciate having one more quiet day, with no running around involved – and no crowds of people!

The Re-Farmer

A day of rest, and possible adoption news

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I try to keep Sundays as my day of rest, but that doesn’t always work out. Today, I finally did, though not from much choice! 😄

I was awakened early by hungry cats, so I went ahead and did my morning rounds early, too.

The outside cats get rather confused when I come out that early! The sun was barely up. I got a head count of 28 or 29, though.

Also, I can tell when the racoons have gotten in. Now only is the garbage can typically knocked over, but they leave the water bowl absolutely filthy! Ew.

As I was heading back in, these four posed beautifully for me. When I moved to pet them, after taking this picture, the tuxedo with his back to me took off. Syndol, of course, wanted aaaaalllll the pets and pushed the orange and white away to get them. 😄 I tried to pet the tuxedo with more white on its chest. He wouldn’t let me, but he didn’t run away, either. As I pet Syndol, he sniffed my hand – then started giving me kisses!! It was so sweet!

Once back inside, I uploaded and went through the trail cam files. No computer troubles! Yay! I did have a surprise, though. The gate cam is set to take one still image, then a 10 second video. I was going through the stills when I saw a great big racoon near the gate, but the next image… what the heck was that? Something looked to be jumping through the bottom bars of the gate, but I could not tell what it was.

Then I checked the video.

It was a fox!

We know we have foxes around, but very rarely see them. I think we saw a fox crossing the outer yard once, our first summer here? I only vaguely remember.

So… now I’m wondering if we’re feeding foxes in the kibble house, too!

One of these days, I’d love to set up a critter cam facing into the cat shelter area, just to see what visitors we get! Any camera there would have its motion sensor constantly triggered, so I’d be looking for something NOT on batteries.

Maybe some day.

Anyhow.

After going through the files, I tried to get other stuff done on the computer, but was falling asleep at my keyboard, so I finally gave up and tried for a nap. After fighting the cats for space on my bed, they converged on me as soon as I was lying down. Potato Beetle was really cuddly! He kept shoving his face into my hands, and ended up sleeping curled up around the top of my head, with his face snuggled up against my forehead. It was so sweet!

I’m happy to say that, at some point, PBC joined the pile and napped with me, too! She’s getting quite socialized. She still gets a bit standoffish, but likes pets, purrs lots, and cuddles with the other cats.

Speaking of cats.

I heard from the Cat Lady last night. She has someone that’s looking to adopt. It’s an older person who is healthy and living on her own, but is lonely. So she’s looking for a calm and affectionate cat. Given her age, her family has already said that they will take care of the cat when she passes, but that’s unlikely to happen soon. The Cat Lady told her about Ginger, but asked if we had others that might fit the bill. So we sent her pictures and told her about several others, including Cheddar and Potato Beetle. Ginger would still be top of the list. She asked about PBC, but while she’d be great to adopt out, I don’t think she’d be appropriate for someone that’s elderly.

So that information has been passed on. It would be good for Ginger to be away from so many cats, and to have his very own human. Things like his needing help to clean his ears, since he can’t do the ear on the side of his missing leg – something Toni manages to not have a problem with! – have been mentioned. If he gets picked, he will first stay with the Cat Lady as he gets vet checked and shots, etc. first. With our history with cats, that makes me nervous. The vets always seem to find some hidden but major health problem! Okay, so it hasn’t been all of them, but enough to be rather alarming. Not that Ginger has shown any signs of health problems, but then, neither did some others that got adopted out.

Gosh, I feel teary just thinking about giving up Ginger! He’s so sweet. It’s better for him, though.

I just have to keep telling myself that.

So we’ll see how that goes. For all I know, the Cat Lady might have other cats that would be a better fit with this potential adoptee. Whatever happens, happens!

The Re-Farmer

Good grief!

/ Re-Farmer / 6 Comments

I had a much interrupted night, so I asked the girls to feed the outside cats.  I’m supposed to be trying to get sleep right now, but the interruptions continue! 

While a daughter was outside, feeding cats, I checked the weather.  Good grief!

Twenty below zero, with a windchill of -27C!!!

And my daughter hadn’t bothered to put on a coat!

She informed me that she was able to pet the super fluffy little tabby.

Today, our high is supposed to be -10C.  Tomorrow, we’re supposed to reach 5C! 

The critters outside must be so confused.

Speaking of critters, the raccoons are showing up in the sun room at night, more often.  I chased at least 4 out last night!

Anyhow.

I don’t think I’ll be getting that sleep I need.  The interruptions just aren’t slowing down!  I’m going to be a useless wreck, today. 🙁

The Re-Farmer

More computer stuff

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

But first, the… cuteness?

While doing my morning rounds, I got this rather serendipitous shot of Shop Towel.

That piece of kibble looks like it’s stuck to the tip of his tongue. 😁

I know the girls named him Shop Towel, since he’s clearly Tissue’s dad. I still think of him as Sad Face. Just look at that poor beat up face and sad, sad eyes! Even his body language, as he moves around the sun room, looks heavy and sad.

Having said that, he seems to be integrating into the colony rather well. Since Judgement got fixed, there has been a dramatic drop in cat fights. They do still happen, but seem more due to being startled, than active “I’m going to kill you” cat fights. He now spends much of his time, curled up on the platform set up in the sun room, sleeping. When I bring the kibble out, I put some right on the cat bed or warming mat he’s always on, so he doesn’t have to jump down and battle it out with the swirling mass at my feet. Given how he looks, I imaging getting up and down may be uncomfortable for him.

Any time I’m in the bathroom, I always look out the window to check on the cats. Often, I’ll see a big pile of cats on the platform, above the heat lamp, and Sad Face curled up and asleep on his own, on the other half of the platform. In the last few days, however, I’ve started to see other cats curled up with him! I wasn’t able to get a picture, but just day ago, I saw Patience with his chin draped over Sad Face’s back. Last night, it looked like there were two or three of the smaller cats, curled up around him.

Five years, he’s been showing up at our place and causing trouble. I managed to sneak up behind him while he was eating and pet him once last summer, and it’s like he’s a whole new cat. We’re now able to pet him regularly, though he still has his nervous times. We need to get him comfortable enough to be able to get him into the big carrier. That’s kept in the sun room right now, with the door open, so they can all be used to going in and out of it. I usually find Judgement sitting on top of it when I go into the sun room!

Yesterday, my husband let me know he had a package in, so after I did my rounds, I headed to the post office. It turns out he got more RAM for my new computer!

Which brings me to my odd computer issues.

I was having insane problems using Windows Explorer. It kept locking up on me. I couldn’t even browse through the folders to get where I needed to go without it locking up. With some things, like uploading trail cam files, I was at least able to right click on the Explorer icon in my task bar and select the trail cam folder from the “recently used” choices. That allowed me to at least be able to make a new folder for the files I needed to upload, but it would lock up and I’d have to end task and start over. When I opened it again, the new folder would be there, at least. When it came time to renaming the folder, it would lock up again, half way through typing the new name, I’d have to end task it, and start over. Then I’d have to do the same thing, over and over, to access the trail cam files through the card reader.

Last night I downloaded and installed the Advanced System Care recommended to me, along with their Driver Booster. I did scans, updated drivers, etc. This system came with only 8g of RAM and we thought that might be the problem, but the ASC actually has a little widget that continuously shows how much RAM is being at any given moment.

By last night, I concluded, it’s not the RAM. I don’t have problems with anything else. The one almost exception was when I tried to test out my video making software. When it came to importing the files – which is basically through Explorer – it would lock up. It was so impossible to work with, I had to give up until we solve this problem. I haven’t even installed my photo editing software yet because, what’s the point?

So there is something wrong with our Windows 11 Explorer.

When the new RAM came in, though, we gave it a try. There was one 8G card, and he says RAM cards should always be paired, so he took out the original one and installed the pair of cards he got. I now have 16g of RAM and I still have 2 slots left. If we get another 8g card and use the original card, we could potentially double my RAM again.

I don’t think that’ll be necessary for the things I do with my computer.

Unfortunately, it made no difference with Windows Explorer. I went to upload the trial cam files, and started having the same problems.

Now, one possible issue is that I’ve been trying to upload these to the new external hard drive that computer repair place backed up my data to. One of the changes in Windows 11 is that the “pictures” folder is now in One Drive, and stored in the cloud. I really don’t want that, but navigating through USB on anything is always going to be slower. So I tried navigating through my local disk and got to the “saved pictures” folder under users. It did fail on me once, but I was eventually able to create a new trail cam folder and upload the files. It seems to me that the photos are now being stored both in my computer, and in the cloud, at the same time. As I went through the files and deleted what I didn’t need to keep, I got a pop up warning me that if I deleted the files, they would no longer be accessible by other devices through the cloud. Which I’m just fine with.

What I also found was that, as I added or deleted things while going through the files and it seemed to lock up again, if I left it alone long enough, it would start working again. So, if I made a new sub folder and it would not appear, I ignored it and did stuff on my phone, until suddenly the folder would appear. I’d then rename the folder, nothing would seem to happen, so I’d work on my phone again, and eventually it would appear. So while Explorer still locks up on me completely, it also seems to just be incredibly, ridiculously slow in responding.

I don’t know what to make of it. Everything else is working fine. Not that I’ve done transferred or installed much from my old computer’s back up data to the new machine, mostly because of this problem.

I wonder if I dare install my photo editing software now? All I’ve got is a very old version of Paint Shop Pro that I’m happy with and, for my uses of it, have no need to upgrade.

Hmm. My husband just came over and suggested I get a different file manager to try, and see if it works any better.

I think I’ll do that, next.

The Re-Farmer

A productive morning

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The only thing I had planned for today that was time dependent was a trip to the dump, which opened at 9am today. Everything else was flexible. I figured I may as well head out as soon as I finished my morning rounds. I managed to get this adorable picture of Syndol in the process.

I caught him in mid stretch!

Gosh, he is such a beauty!!!

I also managed to zoom in to get a picture of this next cat. He (she?) is one of the more feral cats. I’m pretty sure he is one of Brussel’s kittens. She had hers well away from the house, and while we eventually saw them running around the shed with the collapsed roof and the garage, they did not come to the house for a very long time. One of them is the orange and white that now accepts pets, but this tuxedo plays strange, still. Hypotenose is also Brussel’s, if I remember correctly. They both have distinctive nose patterns.

There’s also something weird going on with this one’s eye.

I zoomed in, then cropped, to get this picture and finally get a good look at it. Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do about it. We’d have to trap him to get him to a vet, and with so many yard cats, it would be hard to trap any one particular cat.

We did have another cat with an eye that was basically gone. He disappeared some months ago, so I’m guessing the coyotes or bobcats got him. I’d rather think that some local farm family was able to catch him and take him in. At least with this cat, he does seem to still be able to see out of the damaged eye, so that increases his chances of survival. I might still send this photo to the Cat Lady, just to see if she has some information she can share with me.

Speaking of which…

Since my husband asked me to pick up some more distilled water for his CPAP humidifier, plus we had a couple of our big water jugs to refill, after going to the dump, I messaged the Cat Lady, to see if we could meet up at at the nearer Walmart parking lot again. Getting the donated cat food makes it well worth the gas for the trip, and I could run my errands there, as well as locally. Both the distilled water at Walmart and the water jug refills at Canadian Tire are much cheaper there, too. She was available to meet me at our usual spot in the parking lot behind the Dollarama, before her kids came home from school for lunch. I had just enough time to make the drive from the dump and meet her, which worked out perfectly.

We had a chance to chat for a bit – and she got a chance to vent for a bit, too! I can understand why she recommended against us becoming a rescue. People can really suck. All the money to the rescue has been going to spays and neuters. They’ve been paying vet bills out of pocket, both for the rescues and for their own cats (all 27 permanent cats!). I feel bad that they found themselves with so many of our cats, permanently, because they turned out to have so many health problems, they couldn’t get adopted! They did adopt out more than they kept, but still… yikes! I could just feel her frustration with some of the people she’s been having to deal with through the rescue. So we got to commiserate, and I got to give her a great big hug!

She, meanwhile, gave me these.

When she told me about getting a good deal on kibble at Amazon that she ordered for us, she sent me a screen cap. She’d ordered four 7kg bags.

These are 9.1kg bags!! And yes, there are four bags. One is completely hidden by the bag on top of it.

Then she brought out the box of cat treats, catnip, canned cat food and an open bag of cat food for senior cats. Apparently, the cat these were intended for, didn’t like them. Our cats will be more than happy to have it! We are so incredibly grateful for any donations. It helps us out a lot, and many times it means the cats get better quality stuff than we can usually afford.

After we parted ways, I ran my errands at Walmart, then headed to the Canadian Tire to refill our water jugs. The Walmart has a water refill station, but Canadian Tire has three, plus a sanitation station.

Today turned out to be a great day to drive around with errands. Bright and sunny! As I write this, we’re at -3C/27F, and are still expected to reach our high of -2C/28F, but the way things were melting by the time I got home, it feels like it’s warmer. While loading the garbage into the truck this morning, the sun room thermometer was already reading 10C/50! The yard cats are very happy cats these days. 😊

After I got home and everything was unloaded and put away, the inside cats got their first wet cat food feeding of the day. With Butterscotch acting the way she is, we’ve been making sure to close the door to my room before putting food out, so she has a chance to eat, drink and use the litter without being bothered. Since the donated cat food is in smaller tins, I’ve started using those in my room, so she gets an extra treat of fancier food, along with whichever cats are in the room with her. Our elderly Freya is one we can allow to stay, along with Potato Beetle, who has no interest in wet cat food for some reason, and just loafs on my bed.

I’m happy to say that Butterscotch seems to be relaxing a bit. She’s actually come out of her hiding place in the wall shelf, and is now sleeping on the window shelf I built for them, instead.

We think the cat that set Butterscotch off must be Susan, and possibly Leyendecker as well. When Butterscotch sees Susan, she immediately starts growling, even if Susan is not even close to her, and completely ignoring her. She sometimes growls like that at Leyendecker. At least now, she’s growling from her bed on the window shelf, instead of while hidden in the wall shelf. Any progress is good progress!

All in all, it’s been a very productive morning, and I’m glad I was able to make the trip out to meet the Cat Lady! I’m always happy to see her. She is such an awesome person!

Now, it’s time to see how productive the rest of my afternoon can be. 😊

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 garden: herbs and peppers

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Today, I did some seed organizing.

After marking out the weeks backwards from our June 2nd last frost date on our calendar, I then went through my bin of seeds and organized them by when they need to be started indoors. Then I picked out the ones I could get started now.

We won’t be starting everything that we have seeds for.

Starting from the 3-4 weeks list:

I still haven’t decided if we’re going to plant any gourds at all this year. There are several I really want to grow, but we just don’t have the space. With the winter squash, we have the new packet of mixed winter squash seeds to try, plus one type for pies my daughter asked for. With the mixed seeds pack, we will of course want to plant the entire package, and see what we’ve got! I would still like to try the Honeyboat Delicata squash again; the few we got didn’t get a chance to fully mature, but they were great in the pie my daughter made! We also really liked the Pink Banana and Georgia Candy Roaster. There are other varieties that didn’t do well that I want to try again, just so we can decide if we like them or not, but that will depend on how much space we have. The problem is, there are a LOT of things that need to be started in that 3-4 week time span. I’m still not sure if we’ll do cucumbers this year. I’d rather use the space for the melons and winter squash. We’ll be skipping the hulless seed pumpkins this year, but I really want to try the Crespo squash again. Last I saw, Baker Creek didn’t carry the seeds anymore, so I want to successfully grow at least one to collect seeds from!

As for the tomatoes in the 6-8 week list, we’ll not be planting all that we have seeds for. We’ll do the San Marzano paste tomatoes for preserving and the Black Cherry for fresh eating. The free seeds we got are tempting me greatly, and I always want to grow more Spoon tomatoes! They’re just fun. I want to start quite a lot of the San Marzano, but not as many of the cherry tomatoes. I don’t want a situation like last year, where we ran out of space and had to give away so many transplants!

From the 8-10 week list: the Butterfly Flower is a type of milkweed, so I definitely want to get those going. We have three varieties of “early” peppers that I waited to start last year. They have such a short growing season, technically we could direct sow them. It didn’t work out. They didn’t get to produce, though with most of them I now know that the grow bags they were planted in were invaded from below by roots from the nearby Chinese elm. So we’ll definitely need to keep that in mind, when deciding where to transplant them this year. I will be starting fewer seeds, shooting for at least 2 plants per variety in the garden, but between the 6 varieties I’ll be starting this year, we’ll still have plenty for our needs. Hopefully, my family will have peppers of each kind to try, so we can decide which varieties we like enough to keep growing, year after year.

You’ll notice there are no summer squash on my list. Those got moved to the direct sowing bin. I’m not going to have the space to start them indoors. As long as I can keep the slugs away from them, they should be okay to start outdoors.

There were four things I could start today. Since I was after fewer plants per variety, I decided to go with the Red Solo cups to start them in, rather than the larger trays with smaller grow cells.

With the herbs, I’m just doing the oregano and German Winter Thyme again. The chamomile we planted last year should have self seeded, and we’ll see if the spearmint survived the winter in their pot. We ended up not using the lemongrass at all, so I’m not trying them again this year. We’ll plan out our herbs more, as time goes by. The herb seeds are so incredibly fine – especially the oregano! They got surface seeded over the pre-moistened seed starter mix, then covered with a light dusting of dry starter mix to just barely cover them, followed by a spritz to moisten the tops. Vermiculite would have been better, but I don’t have any. The herbs went into two cups each. With such tiny seeds, there’s no way to know how many I managed to sprinkle onto them. I still had seed left over, too, so if they don’t take, I can try again. The oregano really struggled last year, and I ended up with only one surviving seedling to transplant. That one plant did well, at least! They were started in the little Jiffy pellets last year, so I hope they do better in the larger cups and a different growing medium.

I decided to go ahead and plant the last of our Purple Beauty seeds, which are two year old seeds. The first time we planted them was a year of drought and heat waves, and they did very poorly. Last year, what was planted in that bed also struggled, so I think it’s more a problem with the soil in that bed. I split the last 7 seeds of Purple Beauty between two cups.

The Sweet Chocolate peppers were the one pepper that we were actually able to harvest mature peppers from last year, and they were also the only ones I started quite early. We saved seed from them, too, but there was still plenty in the packet, so I used those. There was enough to plant three seeds into each of three cups, with plenty of seed left over. I had intended to do just two cups, like the others, but the bin they’re in for bottom watering holds 9, and I just had to fill in that last space! Yeah, it’s a bit OCD, but I have an excuse. If there are gaps in the bins, the cups tend to fall over more easily when the bins get moved around.

So these are now in the big aquarium, on the warming mat.

The next seeds don’t need to be started until the second half of March, at the earliest.

Must… resist… starting too early!!!

😂

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 garden: 100%

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I have just enough time for a quick post, before heading to my mother’s.

Check it out…

I had actually forgotten that I had a whole 9 seeds left from last year’s package of Cheyenne peppers until I saw this, this morning. The last two cells in the tray have two seeds each, and all four are now germinating. What makes for a 100% germination rate on seeds from last year. Which is awesome!

Unfortunately, the Red Wethersfield onions are not doing as well. Since putting them in the big aquarium greenhouse, there have been more sprouts and they are definitely getting bigger and greener, but there aren’t all that many of them. The conditions in that little aquarium greenhouse may have killed off some of the seeds. That tank isn’t as warm as the big one – even without using the heat mat, one of the light fixtures adds a bit of warmth – but onions like cooler temperatures, so that’s not likely the problem. I’d say it’s the light on that tank. It’s definitely dimmer, even from when we used it last year, and the light is more blue than red.

So for now, at least, we’ve got just one usable aquarium greenhouse for seed starting.

I’m really thrilled at how well everything else is doing, though!

The Re-Farmer

What a start to the day!

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First, the cuteness!

Look at these three handsome boys, posing so nicely for me!

We still haven’t named the orange and white one. He’s mostly friendly, but not too keen on attention. Syndol, on the left, can’t get enough. Patience, in the middle, is becoming more tolerant and accepts pets – on his own terms!

I didn’t get a head count among the outside cats this morning, but there didn’t seem to be as many. I didn’t see Rolando Moon, but Judgement is hanging out more. Which I like because Shop Towel is also hanging out more, but they don’t seem to be fighting anymore. It was usually those two that would go at each other the most. It seems having just one of the boys nipped has made a difference.

The cats indoors have been more of a pain. Ginger is still being bullied, particularly by the tuxedo boys.

When the kittens were small and kept isolated in my room, it was pretty hard on the girls. Especially my younger daughter. Many of the cats would gravitate to her bed – with her in it. There’s not a lot of room, so she would basically be stuck under the weight of all these cats on her covers, with a couple that would worm their way under the covers. They would also cause a lot of destruction in the studio half of their upstairs “apartment”. As you can imagine, it made sleep a difficult thing! Once we could start leaving my door open, that made life a bit easier for them. The cats would instead take over my king size bed! I even have blankets and cat beds in one corner for them, though it’s not unusual for my entire bed to be covered with piles of cats, all mashed together. Even little Peanut Butter Cup now hangs out on my bed, sometimes even in one of the cuddle piles! She’s adapted really well to being indoors, and even lets us see her naked belly and her well healing surgical wound. It’s been harder to check Tiny Beast and Tissue!

With having the door open again, we hoped Butterscotch would finally start leaving the room – and she did start to! We’d be putting food out in the dining room feeding area, before filling the bowls in my room, and I’d find her at the two steps between the old and new parts of the house, very interested in those food bowls! She’d immediately run back into my room, but at least she was starting to check things out.

Well, some altercation must have happened that we missed, because suddenly that stopped. Not only did she stop leaving my room, she even started to isolated herself in my room. Since coming indoors, she’s been in full retirement mode, and spends much of her time in one of the cat caves or – her favorite spot – in the wall shelf that my bed is against, sleeping on my clothes – but she used to also sleep on one of my pillows, with the other cats around. We’d even see her cuddled up with another cat or two, and sometimes engaging in mutual grooming.

Well, that suddenly stopped. She now spends almost all her time in the wall shelf. She stopped coming out to eat or drink, unless there were almost no other cats around. She also started growling at other cats, even when they weren’t anywhere near her. Once we saw she would go to a litter box, see a cat, then run back into her hidey hole, we knew something had to have happened.

When it’s feeding time, the majority of the food bowls are all in the dining room now; we stopped feeding them in the basement months ago, because Ginger was struggling with the stairs. Once those food bowls were filled, we’d go to my room and add food to the few bowls that are there. Unfortunately, for some reason, some of the cats will abandon the food in the dining room and all but attack the food in the bowls in my room, as if they were starving. Somehow, they prefer eating in my room, and I don’t know why!

We used to be able to set a bowl aside on my craft table, or their window seat that’s on my craft table, for Butterscotch so she would get some food while the vultures circled around the other food bowls. However, she will no longer come out for food if they are around. So now, as we go into my room with the food, we close the door so none of the other cats can rush in. There are some we do allow in that Butterscotch seems to be okay with, like our elderly Freya. Then we leave the door closed long enough for Butterscotch to be able to get, drink and use one of the litter boxes before opening the door again.

Well, this morning was a problem.

First, a problem for me, getting any sleep! Aside from waking up because I had so many cats lying on my legs, it was getting painful, I found myself losing about 2/3 of my bed space. It’s a good thing I have such a huge bed! Getting up to go to the bathroom requires a wrestling match with cats that don’t seem to care one bit if I start moving around and pulling back the covers. They don’t move unless I move them!

Then I’d come back and find the only space left for me is the top half of the bed.

I don’t mind sleeping across the bed, though. It’s just more awkward to get in and out.

Which is how I found myself sleeping across the top of my bed, with my head near the shelf Butterscotch hangs out in. She even came out for pets, which was encouraging.

Not for long.

I had finally fallen asleep again when I became instantly awake because my elbow was suddenly feeling very, very warm. I opened my eyes to see Butterscotch next to my pillow, hunched over. I immediately chased her off, then scrambled out of bed, searching for the wet spot. Turning on a light, I spotted Butterscotch, who was not at all happy. I managed to grab her, and put in the most accessible litter box.

The other cats, of course, were milling around. It was getting close to feeding time, after all. At least, in their minds!

Butterscotch ran off.

I managed to grab her again, and this time I tucked her into the big covered litter box. She started to run away, but I guess she just had to go too badly, because I could soon hear her actually using it.

On checking my bed, I finally found a small wet spot on an excess part of a pillow case – I’ve got king size pillow cases, but no king size pillows, so there’s quite a lot of extra pillow case. Thankfully, that’s all I had to change.

Then I went to check on Butterscotch and found David standing in front of the litter box she’d been using, while she was frantically climbing a chair to get away and back to her hiding place.

I could hear that the girls were up, so I got them to help me feed the cats early. While they made noise filling the other bowls, I snuck off with some food for the bowls in my room and made sure to close the door behind me. We left it closed until after I finished doing my morning rounds, to give Butterscotch a good long time to get food, water and use the litter again, if she needed to.

Once the door was opened again, the rush of cats into my room was insane. They converged on the food bowls, as if they hadn’t eaten in a week, scaring poor Butterscotch back into her shelf.

I wish I knew what happened to set her back like this. You’d think a cat that spent most of her life surviving the outdoors would not be intimidated by a bunch of house cats. You’d think she would be more like Toni or PBC; when the usual bullies tried to hiss and growl at them, they would just ignore them completely. Expect PBC. She’ll sometimes hiss back, if they get too annoying.

I know that, in time, she’ll eventually get over it. It just seems to take longer, since she already preferred to spend her retirement curled up and sleeping.

So we continue to try and make life easier for her and keep the other cats away, so she can get a break from them.

We are such sucks for the cats.

The Re-Farmer

One extreme to the other!

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

After the early start and running around, yesterday, I asked my daughters to take care of the outside stuff for me so I could sleep in. 

I’m extra happy to not go out there this morning!

After many very mild days, yesterday saw a steep drop in our daytime high, then temperatures were supposed to slowly climb back up again.

I did NOT expect to see temperatures like this, this morning!

-25C at 8am?  With a wind chill of -32C???

Then we are supposed to warm up to -11C this afternoon?

The temperatures are just lurching back and forth all over the place!

I’m quite appreciating not having to go anywhere right now!

The Re-Farmer

Shifting plans

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

This morning, my husband had if first eye appointment in many years.

He also took an appointment time just 15 minutes after they opened. I normally book for the afternoons, because of travel time and… well… I’m just not a morning person!

We left early, in case road conditions were still slippery. They were not, so we got there half an hour before they opened. Which neither of us minded. It was a painful drive for my husband, so sitting in comfortable seat while it wasn’t moving was a good thing for him! He also decided to leave the walker at home, since he only intended to walk from truck to door and back again. We were planning to swing by a grocery store afterwards, but he was intending to stay in the truck while I picked things up.

He ended up getting the dilation test as well, which meant spending some time in the waiting area while the drops did their work, then back to finish the testing. By the time he had everything done, and they processed the direct billing on his insurance, with our provincial health care covering any diabetic testing 100%, the final bill was a whole $5! Which was less than my first tests! They also said he could come back in a year, instead of 6 months, with me. It seems I have more damage to my eyes to monitor than he does.

He did not get glasses, though.

He talked to the eye doctor about various options, including contact lenses, which he’s interested in trying again. Personally, I’m not a fan of using something you have to buy over and over, anywhere from every few weeks to every 6 months. Not when a pair of glasses can last many years. To get glasses, though, is going to be a large initial outlay. Aside from needing things like prisms, he needs some of the more extreme concave prescription lenses. The super thick ones would be cheaper, but heavier. They can do thinner ones, but that jumps the cost significantly. The woman helping us (she also helped my mother, and was fabulous with her) has extreme lenses in the opposite direction – hers are convex rather than concave. She also gets the thinnest possible lenses to reduce the weight, plus photo-sensitivity and so on. Her lenses alone cost her $1100. When lenses are that extreme, the types of frames that will hold them becomes more limited, and at that level, start at around $200-$300.

Which we don’t have.

Since he needs to talk to them some more about his options, we’ll come back another time to talk about contact lens options. They can then order some testers for him, and he can see how that goes.

When we were done, he wanted to grab something to eat, but nothing was open yet. We ended up driving to my mother’s town, but the place we wanted to go to, there, wasn’t open yet, either! It was finally past 11am, though, so there was one fried chicken place I knew for sure was open.

It wasn’t until we were driving to the highway to do that, when my husband remembered we were supposed to hit the grocery store. I wasn’t about to turn around, though. Instead, I decided that, after we ate, I’d drop my husband off at home, then go to the town nearest us. One of the things on my list was a pharmacy item, anyhow, and if I was going to the pharmacy there, I could get prescription refills, too.

Once settled in the restaurant, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to order. I have given up sugar and simply carbs again for Lent, and the meals all included carb heavy sides. I asked and found that I could order just chicken or just shrimp, with no sides. They still had a bread crumb coating, but for the amount on them, it was not really an issue. So I ordered a some fried shrimp while my husband got fries and chicken – it was the fries he was really craving!

During all this time, of course, his eyes were quite uncomfortable, and he was wearing his sunglasses over his regular glasses – we have several pairs of sunglasses designed to fit over regular glasses! When he asked me to check his eyes, I just had to take a picture, so he could see for himself!

This is about an hour after getting the drops! 😂 He was quite happy to put the sunglasses back on while he ate!

Also, my husband has the most gorgeous eyes. *melt*

That done, we headed home, I dropped him off then left immediately for town. After getting a few groceries – a bit more than intended, as there were some really good sales on – I went to the pharmacy. We actually had his bubble packs delivered yesterday, but he forgot to call them back to add on his insulin. While getting that done, I asked what the status of his Ozempic was, more because they have had such a hard time getting it in the dose he needs, since it became so popular as a weight loss drug. I’m glad I asked about it, as it turned out his prescription renewal had run out. So the pharmacy sent a fax to his new doctor and, once they get the new prescription, they’ll have his refill delivered next week. Then there was my one prescription. I still have almost half a month at home, but since I was there, I figured I’d take care of it, too. I was able to refill it, but that was the last of my refills on file, so they sent a fax to my interim doctor, who is also now my mother’s new doctor. So in the end, it’s a good thing we forgot to go to the grocery store after the eye appointment!

By the time all the running around was done, it was far later than I expected to be home! In fact, in a few minutes, I’ll get heading out to feed the yard cats so they can finish eating before it gets dark and the raccoons come out.

I am really appreciating the longer days, that’s for sure.

I’ve made sure to tell my husband, though; the next time he makes an appointment, book it for the afternoon, if at all possible! 😂🤣

The Re-Farmer