I got a call from my mother last night.
Her fridge was empty.
I asked if she wanted me to come over today (Sunday) and she said, I could come over to go to church.
So we arranged that I could come over earlier than usual so that I could help her walk over to church (across the street), then do her grocery shopping afterwards.
When I got there this morning, though, my mother said she wasn’t going anywhere. She wasn’t feeling well enough. So we went over her shopping list, instead, and I did that, instead. She was feeling bad enough to take her T3s after I left – something she flat out refused to do, the first time she got them prescribed to her. She was feeling a bit better when I got back. It was a larger than usual shopping trip for her, as she wanted to take advantage of some sales she saw in the flier, too. Extra is always good!
After the shopping was done and everything was put away, I was showing my mother pictures of her great grandsons at the large animal rescue when there was a knock at the door. It was someone from church coming over to give my mother communion, since they saw she wasn’t in church today. My mother was surprised, as she usually calls when she knows she can’t make it. Today was a very last minute change, so she never called. He assured her that if they see she isn’t there, they will make sure he comes over. He mentioned he had two more people to visit after, with one being in the hospital, so she’s not the only person he goes to do communion for. Clearly, he visits her first, since she is so close to the church itself.
I left soon after he did.
This morning, when going my rounds, switching trail cam memory cards and checking on the garden, I picked a small handful of bush beans. Small enough to tuck into my pocket with my memory cards.
When I got to my computer, however, there was only one memory card in my pocket.
Before going to my mother’s, I went out again to pick an ice cream bucket full of crab apples. The big tree with the smaller apples has lots of ripe apples right now. Once I realized the memory card was missing, I back tracked everywhere I went, after I’d switched out the memory card that was now missing. In some areas, like around the crab apple tree, the grass is really tall, but a memory card in its case is light enough and flat enough that I would expect it to just “float” on top of the grass. I even got a daughter to look in the kitchen, in case it fell out of my pocket
Nothing.
After back tracking a couple of times, I left my daughters know it was missing and were it was most likely to be, so they could check while I was gone, then headed out.
Nothing.
After I came back and had a quick lunch, I went to look again.
Nothing.
I was going around the crab apple tree again when I thought of one other possible place it could be.
I had those beans I’d put in my pocket. Could I have accidentally put it in the fridge with the beans? I messaged my daughters to check.
Yup.
I’d accidentally refrigerated the memory card!
Well, at least I was able to pick some crab apples to bring inside. 😄😄
Will all that walking around, I got to see lots of kitties.
First, we have the sun room kittens.
After breakfast, these four in the first picture were soon snuggling together in the bed in the cat cage. The black and white in the second picture seems to prefer under the counter shelf, though I’ve sometimes seen it in the cat cage cuddle puddle, too.
Then there were the garage kittens.
The first picture and the video were taken during the morning feeding. Yes, I was able to pet them all! The only reason the smokey kitten didn’t run off was because it was more hungry than scared.
The last photo was taken just after I got back from my mother’s. As I drove into the garage, the mama jumped down from the riding mower and ran off. I thought I saw some ear tips, though, so after I parked, I went to take a look, and found both kittens sitting on the comfy seat, watching me.
They wouldn’t let me come close, though. I had to take stuff out the passenger side of the truck, which meant going past them, and they both ran off.
Ah, well. At least some progress was made at feeding time!
Then there were the “missing” kittens, which have started to creep out from under the cat house. I don’t know why they won’t go inside the cat house; there are three big comfy beds in there!
A couple of faces were familiar. The tuxedo and the mostly black kitten.
The tuxedo was peaking out at me this morning, and then that tabby in the second photo came out to eat at the tray under the water bowl shelter. I did see other faces peaking out, but not long enough to get photos.
The other pictures were taken after I got back from my mother’s.
That mostly black kitten is pretty much confirmed to be Adam’s baby. But how many does she have? Two? Four?
Six???
There was a mostly white kitten that came out, plus a white and grey, and I knew there was a tabby with white under there somewhere.
Eyelet came over and tried to play with the mostly black kitten. The black kitten did not like that at all!
I also got some short video clips of them, as they got braver and started to come out, even with me standing about 10 feet away.
Once I was at my desktop, I kept looking at that mostly white kitten. I hadn’t seen it by the house before.
Yet, it looked familiar.
So I went looking through my photos from a few days ago. It is confirmed.
That log I put up against the collapsing log building by the fire pit has done its job.
The four kittens that were in there have now moved under the cat house.
From what I can see, it looks like there are six littles under the cat house in total, from two litters. There’s five from two litters in the sun room. That makes eleven littles that have shown up recently.
Then there are the older kittens; the two in the garage, Eyelet, Grommet, Havarti and Sir Robin in the sun room, plus Sprout’s four in the outer yard, making ten older kittens.
The only other litter that I know is still out there is Frank’s babies, born just a few days ago. If they survived. I’m seeing Frank around quite a bit and, so far, I’m not sure if she’s nursing or not. She has been letting me pet her more often lately, but she’s still more semi-feral than socialized. I thought I might have seen some active nips, but she just wouldn’t stay still long enough for me to be sure.
I’m really hoping the large animal rescue can take more kittens, but cats are not their focus. Poirot’s babies are thriving there, but they were already fully socialized, and have no problem with lots of different people, including children, handling them. Feral and semi-feral kittens are not something they are set up for. A horse or a llama or a bunch of beat up chickens, sure, but not unsocialized kittens.
Well, we will do what we can to socialize the newbies, so they at least have a chance to get adopted out. Currently, the most socialized ones are the older sunroom kittens. Sir Robin has his wonky eye and sounds like he has respiratory issues, Eyelet is deaf and Grommet has leaky eyes. Only Havarti has no such issues, and he doesn’t like to be picked up and carried, though he loves pets. Sir Robin would be ideal; he can’t get enough attention from humans! But the chances of a rescue with even minor health problems being adopted are pretty much nil.
It is what it is, and we do the best we can for them. It’s going to be harder once the Cat Lady officially shuts down her rescue.
We’ll figure it out.
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 