Before I show you the messy stuff, let me share with you some adorableness!
This morning, while doing my morning ablutions, I noticed Dave on the bath chair, eyeballing the towels. We have a small shelf with folded towels under some hanging towels. The hanging towels cover the top, and the cats like to go behind them to create a little cat cave as they nap on the towels. They do it so often, I now keep an old towel the top, just for them to use as a bed. I figured Dave wanted to get in there, so I moved a hanging towel to let him behind it.
It was already occupied!
I had no idea she was there, the entire time I was in the bathroom! :-D
Such a cutie. :-)
Now, on to the icky stuff.
During the evening cat routine, my daughter headed to the sun room to top up the food and water for the outside cats.
The sun room was a mess, with stuff scattered all over, part of the cat condo was collapsed and the bin holding the cat kibble was open.
Two skunks where in it, eating.
*sigh*
I had hoped it wasn’t them getting into the bin. They are likely why we are not seeing the cats using the sun room as often. When I do my morning rounds lately, the cats almost always come over from elsewhere.
My daughter splashed them with water to get them out. One left, but the other might have still been in there when she brought the bin into the old kitchen.
Since it was so late, the mess was left to be dealt with this morning.
When emptying the big bags into the kibble bin, I use one as a garbage bag for the others. It had been sitting beside the bin. I would also sometimes put a bit of kibble in the cat condo, to encourage the cats to use it. My guess is, the skunks has finished off all the food in the bowls, then dug through everything they could get at, to find stray bits of kibble, including pulling the crunched up bags out of the bag that was being used to hold them.
Spotting this as I picked things up was concerning.
Yeah. That’s frozen blood spatter.
While cleaning up, I heard a plaintive meow, but there was no sign of any cats. I eventually was able to lean far enough to look under the swing bench, where I saw a big orange lump loafed on an old blanket we’ve got under there.
It was Jim Boy.
When he came out, the poor thing seemed desperate for cuddles – and for food! I haven’t seen him in quite a while. He still looks like he’s in pretty rough shape, but better than the last time I saw him.
The more important thing was, no sign of injury. The blood did not come from him.
As I continued my rounds, I saw Creamsicle and Potato Beetle – both also looked fine. Butterscotch came from somewhere behind the house, looking uninjured and still very pregnant. I even saw Rosencrantz who, thankfully, does not look at all pregnant. Even Junk Pile cat showed up. I never saw Beep Beep, though. I also didn’t see Pump Shack cat, though I did see him later in the live feed for the security camera. None looked like they had any injuries, from what I could see.
Butterscotch even started to sort of follow me when I was doing the rest of my rounds. I heard her meowing in the spruce grove, but she never came close. On my way back to the house, I cut through the trees to see if I could convince her to let me at least pet her, but she wouldn’t let me come anywhere near her.
I did, however, find this.
Another old and rotting bench!
I may have seen the board before and thought it was an old, fallen tree, but once the leaves come in, it’s completely hidden and the area impassible. This is the first time I’ve been able to come close enough to see that it was a bench!
You can tell, by the trees growing around it, that it’s been there and fallen over for quite a long time.
As we clear things up, I do want to eventually put benches and seats among the trees. Seeing the remains of so many makeshift benches all over gives me an idea of what NOT to do. I might just go ahead and buy the heavy duty plastic benches or picnic tables that Costco carries every spring. If we do go with wood, we’ll need to take steps to protect it from the elements and the moisture of the ground.
All in good time.
As for the skunks, we’re going to have to stop topping up the food bowls in the sun room overnight. Once the weather finally turns to spring, all the food and water will be kept outside, so we can close the sun room doors again – especially after we’re able to empty it out and give it a thorough cleaning. I’m not actually too bothered about the skunks coming around, but they are greedy guts – cat kibble is bad for them to begin with – and seem to be driving the yard cats out of the very room we’ve taken great care to turn into a safe and warm sanctuary for them.
Yet another reason to finish cleaning up the basement and turning it into a maternity ward for Beep Beep and Butterscotch. I’d hoped to have had it finished by now, but my goodness, it is such a huge job!
Which I need to get back to, today.
Time to get to work!
The Re-Farmer
