We had a really solid rain yesterday – enough to fill the rain barrel by the sun room to overflowing before I got the diverter on. It looks like we got more rain last night, too. The ground was still nice and damp in the garden beds this morning.
I got barely a handful of green and yellow beans this morning, and there aren’t many little ones developing, so those are almost done for the season. I got quite a few Romas, but only a couple of Indigo Blues. I haven’t harvested any Spoon tomatoes for a while, so there were some to grab this morning. We don’t have many plants, so this isn’t too bad.
Depending on what weather app I look at, we’re supposed to reach 26C/79F or 27C/81F today. I’ve got one app saying we’re just going to be cloudy, while another is warning of thunderstorms tonight. When I checked last night, the thunderstorm warning had been for this afternoon. We we’ll see what actually happens.
I chatted with the Cat Lady last night. Decimus is more than ready to stop nursing (though she’s on the bed nursing, as I write this!), and The Phantom has been really friendly again, so I let her know. She’s going to call the lady that wants the 4 females, 2 at a time, and then call a vet to arrange spays. I will be bringing the cats in, then she’ll take it from there.
Of course, The Phantom was nowhere to be seen, this morning. The next time we see her, we’re going to have to either find a way to keep her in the sun room, or bring her indoors until it’s time to take them in for spay and adoption.
I also sent new photos of the kittens for her to send out among her contacts for adoption. Hopefully, that will result in some new homes for the babies soon.
Today is looking like it’s going to be a fairly quiet day. I’m expecting a call from someone that’s selling some small scaffolding today, but I don’t have to drive anywhere to do errands or anything like that. Of course, now that I know I’m home, the heat is back. At least it’s supposed to cool down again tomorrow. From the looks of the long range forecast, there rest of August, and all through September, looks really good. We have lots of work to do outside, and I just haven’t been able to get to it. I’m also going to be down a body soon. My younger daughter is going to be house sitting for my brother while they are away for their anniversary trip. She’s going to be so spoiled, having a cat free house all to herself, and be both on an acreage, and have a fairly large town and easy bike ride away. Heck, if her hips start giving her grief again, they even have a scooter for when my mother visits that she can drive, instead!
We actually got rain some time this morning! Not a lot, but enough to raised the level in the rain barrel, and for the ground to still be moist when I was doing my rounds.
This morning’s harvest was pretty good.
There are some green and yellow beans on the bottom. The bush beans aren’t producing a lot anymore, but there’s still enough for a meal coming off of them, every couple of days. The tomatoes are mostly Romas, of course, but there is an actual ripe Black Beauty in thee! Plus a green one that broke off when I was looking through the vines. The others are Indigo Blues. There’s just a couple of patty pans, with more ripening, including some yellow patty pans I hand pollinated. With rain collecting in the cups of the flowers, no insects were going to do it, that’s for sure!
Finally, there is a Sweet Chocolate pepper. It looks pretty green in the photo, but it’s just one little patch; the rest is deep, milk chocolate brown.
On a completely different note…
TTT got her last doses of medication last night. That’s going to make feeding the cats in my room so much easier! No more wrestling kittens to keep them away from the bowl of wet cat food while it’s being medicated, or keeping TTT from eating the kitten distraction wet cat food and becoming too full to eat her medicated food.
I’m happy to say that, so far at least, TTT has not left me a big, wet gift at my pillow since yesterday morning. I was awakened during the night by odd noises that I thought might have been her finding somewhere else not-a-litter-box to use, but the kittens were active, so I couldn’t tell what the noise was. I couldn’t see TTT anywhere for quite some time, but eventually she crawled her way out of my closet. I have some boxes stacked in there and the cats sometimes use the top as a very hidden away bed. I now think the noise that woke me was her scrambling up to this prime napping cave.
The puppy pad I put on the new litter box was wet, but I still couldn’t say it was TTT, or a bunch of kittens using it. I thought it might be safe to remove it, though, and expose the litter pellets below.
Eventually, I was able to get back to bed, though it was past 5am by then. When I got up for the day, sure enough, there was a “gift” under my desk for me – on a puppy pad right next to the litter box.
*sigh*
No sign of puddles, though. Anywhere. So maybe she’s at least peeing in a litter box now?
Tomorrow, she goes in to have her staples removed. I’ll see if I can get some advice at the clinic while I’m there. She’s not seeing the vet; just a technician, but I’m sure there will be someone I can talk to.
Meanwhile, I’m wondering what else I can leave on my bed to dissuade any possible puddles!
I’m currently waiting for my daughter in a Walmart parking lot, so I figured I may as well post an update!
We were able to catch Not Junk Pile, now named Two Toed Tony (my daughter panicked a bit, coming up with a new name) this morning. We got her to the vet, but I had to leave before she was sedated and taken to x-ray and bring the car to the garage. I got there early and, thankfully, they were able to take it in immediately.
My daughter messaged me updates. TTT had a badly broken femur. The less expensive surgery was amputation. As I write this, she is out of surgery, she did well, and will be ready for pickup at 3.
Thankfully, my older daughter will be able to cover it, but it will be a few days before funds are transferred. Until then, between my younger daughter and I, we can just cover the bill.
TTT has 6 babies that are not weaned. We will need to set up the cat cage in my room in the sun room. Her kittens will be able to get in and out through the wall sections with wider openings, while she can recovery inside. There are other mothers that will nurse them, but I don’t want to risk mastitis.
Meanwhile, we need to catch a couple of females for placement, then a couple more in about 2 weeks.
While the power was out, my husband was able to get a weak data signal from the living room on his tablet, so he was able to report our outage to the electric company and check the status of things. The power went out at about 8:30am, and we were expected to get it back around 11:30am.
With no electricity for that length of time, we considered firing up the BBQ or getting the fire pit going to make breakfast. After checking the budget, however, we decided to be lazy. We had a couple of water jugs that needed refilling (we have 4 of these 18.9L jugs, and try to make sure they get refilled when 2 are empty and dry), which meant a trip into town. If they had power, of course. We decided we could afford to get some take out, rather than opening the fridge with no power and losing the cold.
One of my daughters came along with me, with their own shopping list. I knew we had lost power during the night, which must have been a problem for my older daughter! She would have been working on commissions on her computer. The power only flickered, however. Enough to have the garage cam reset itself and be resting in its default position – which is how I knew the power had gone out during the night – but not enough to shut down her computer. My husband didn’t mention having problems with his CPAP, either, so that was good.
As we were leaving and stopped on the driveway while my daughter closed the gate behind us, one of our neighbours was driving by and stopped to talk. He told us the power outage was quite extensive, ranging from the town my mother lives in, to the next large town to the north of us. He had heard the power was expected to return by 11am, though, which was a bit sooner than what my husband had found.
While driving to town, my daughter and I considered our options, should they be without power, too. Happily, they were completely unaffected. Which makes sense. The transformer system runs north and south along the main highways, not east and west, so what affected us would be a different branch of the system than any towns to the east of us.
We hit the grocery store first and I did our refills while my daughter did her shopping. Since we were there, I picked up a couple other things, too – like more paper towels! Leyendecker may not be eating, but clearly he’s drinking, and still doesn’t seem to have much bladder control. We’re going through a lot of paper towels cleaning up, then sanitizing, after him. Yes, we should be using rags, but somehow, they’ve all disappeared! We didn’t have a lot, anyhow.
We then decided to go to a Greek place for take out. My husband and I went there once, shortly after we moved here and he was still more mobile. They have gyros, which none of us have had in years. Personally, I’d love to have a good Donair, but the best place we’ve ever had them was in Victoria, BC, before we had children, and I don’t even know if the place exists anymore. Still, the gyros here are quite good.
Since we had stuff for the refrigerator in the car, my daughter stayed in it with the engine running and the AC going, as it was so hot and muggy already. While waiting for the gyros to be made, I realized they also had deep fried pickles – something else we haven’t had in years! So I got an order of those, too. 😊
While I was there, my daughter got a message from my husband that the power was back. It was out for only 2 hours! That’s the longest we’ve been without power since moving out here, but I’m not complaining at all. That was a very fast return.
So we had a treat for the day. Except my older daughter, who’s in bed for the day. It’ll be “breakfast” for her, when she gets up for the night.
One the way home, I remembered to stop to get the mail, and picked up these.
The couplings are in! We can finally try and fix that water pipe to the garden tap. I really hope this works, because I’d hate to have to dig up the entire line.
It’s going to be a challenge just to dig around where the crack is, there are so many roots around the pipe. From what I can tell, the roots are small enough I should be able to cut through them with a spade or loppers.
My other thought is, what to use to cut the pipe itself. All our cutting tools are designed to cut wood, not PVC pipe. I’m sure I’ve got something I can use, though. The main thing is digging enough space around it to have room for a cutting tool to work without biting into the soil. We do have a pipe cutter, but it’s for cutting much smaller copper pipe, not something like this.
Yesterday, my daughter juiced the cherries we picked, and the pulp has been hanging to drain in the cat free zone overnight. We’ve got a total of 5 cups of juice. A basic jelly recipe is for 3 1/2 cups. The remaining juice isn’t worth doing a second batch, so I’ll make a syrup with that. We plan to actually water bath can the jelly, so it will be shelf stable. With cooking the jelly, preparing the jars, then using the water bath canner, plus making the syrup, we’re looking at a lot of time over a hot stove, on a hot and muggy day. My daughter and I decided to wait until things start to cool down.
All the more reason to have an outdoor kitchen!
Hot and muggy though it may be, I think I’ll go out and see if I can fix the water pipe! I’m really eager to see if it’ll work. I’m already thinking ahead to fixing the support post the tap it attached to, which is rotting at its base, and bringing over the double laundry sink we found in the shed, to set up a vegetable washing station.
I never thought I’d ever get so excited about fixing a pipe. 😄
I will, however, have to pry Question off my shoulder. She’s been napping on me since I sat down at the computer!
I phoned the vet clinic today and asked about the kitten we brought over last week because of it’s messed up eye, that promptly got adopted. He is doing fine! His eye was removed just a couple of days ago. While talking to the receptionist, she told me her daughter was playing with, as we were speaking.
That was really wonderful to hear!
I wonder if he will end up becoming a clinic cat? They had one before they moved to the new location, but I haven’t seen it since the move.
Next the concerning news.
I phoned the vet clinic today.
For the past while, we’ve been having issues with cats spraying around the house, but lately there have been massive problems with finding huge puddles of pee all over the place. Some regular spots included in front of the fridge, in front of the washing machine, in front of the main door, in front of the toilet, and under my older daughter’s bed.
It turns out to be Leyendecker. He’s not just spraying anymore. He seems to be losing bladder control, and he’s not happy about it!
We have an appointment for him on Saturday.
The last time he was there, it was because he was blocked and couldn’t pee at all. Now, he can’t stop peeing!
Poor bugger.
On a completely different note…
While going through the gardens beds this morning, I was thinking it’s time to pull the peas.
They’re about done their season, but mostly it’s because their tops are gone, and so are most of the developing pods. They never got very tall, but are now even shorter. My guess is a deer has simply been walking along the chain link fence, munching away. On both sides! There are still some pods developing, but I’ve been harvesting maybe 3 of 4 pods, at most, in the mornings and just snacking on them while I do my rounds.
When it comes to pulling the plants, though, they won’t actually be pulled, but cut. Peas are nitrogen fixers, but to take advantage of that while planting something else, it turns out the roots should be left in the ground.
One more reason I’m happy to have discovered the Gardening in Canada channel! I did not know that until recently.
Once those are clear, however, that leaves a long bed with room for something else.
In the second half of July.
We only have about 50 days before first frost.
Maybe. For the past couple of years, we didn’t get a first frost until much, much later. Based on those years, we may actually have another 4-4 1/2 months of growing season left.
Or we can get frost in July or August. It happens. That’s the problem when working with averages. The real world doesn’t know what those are! 😄
There are actually quite a few options available.
Among the usual recommendations are some we just won’t bother with. Arugula, for example, is something we just don’t eat, so we don’t even have the seeds. Radishes are another one, and we do have seeds, but they are something I want to grow for the pods to try, so they need a full season. None of us are actually keen on eating radish bulbs.
Among the greens we could plant, and have seeds for, spinach is something we enjoy. We haven’t done well with lettuces, as I found they got bitter even before they bolted. We also still have Swiss Chard seeds if we want a different green.
Bok Choy is a recommended crop, but the only seeds I had were the tiny ones that got smothered by the Chinese elm seeds. The few surviving ones are going to seed and pods are developing, so I’m hoping to save seed and try them again next year. Somewhere else!
Some varieties of carrots can be started now, as they handle frost well and can be left in the soil in the winter, if covered well enough. We already have 2 types of carrots, and I don’t want to start more now.
Summer squash is supposed to be something that can still be sown now, since they get harvested while small. I’ve already reseeded summer squash three times with poor success, so that’s out. They would be too big for the space, anyhow.
It’s the same issue with planting bush beans. We could use more beans, but we’ve got the onions planted where the Czech lettuce and tiny bok choy were choked out. Bush beans would cover them completely.
We could try more turnips and/or beets. The beets we planted earlier are really struggling. Perhaps they would do better in this bed. The Gold Ball turnips are growing, but I do have some leftover seed from varieties we tried last year, too.
We could actually plant the Dalvay peas again. We certainly have enough seeds, but I’m not interested in feeding the deer even more, as much as I would love to have a real pea crop to harvest!
Hhhmm. I think it will come down to either beets or spinach. Considering the length of the bed, and how the chain link fence posts conveniently divide it into three equal sections, we could do smaller rows of three different things, and still get decent potential quantities.
Whatever we decide on, we’ll be making sure to work in the early morning hours over the next week or more. We’re looking at temperatures at, or over, 30C/86F to deal with, and the hottest part of the day it typically around 4 or 5pm, and it stays hot until 8 or 9pm. As I write this, it’s almost 6:30pm, and we’ve been at our high of 27C/81F for a couple of hours already. It’s not going to drop to comfortable temperatures until almost midnight. Looking at the long range forecast, we’ll be getting temperatures just below 30C/86F for the rest of the month.
Which makes it weird to think about what cool weather/frost hardy crops we can plant right now!
First, the important stuff: the status on that litter of 8 kittens we tried to move into the safety and comfort of the sun room.
Well, we tried.
The kittens are fine.
They had spent the day contentedly sleeping in the nest we made for them. I saw the mom come over to eat when I put kibble out for the evening. We tried to stay away from the sun room as much as possible, so as not to spook her away from her kittens, so the chances of seeing her in there with them were low, but she didn’t seem to be engorged with milk. Hard to tell from a distance, though.
The last night, we started hearing the kittens crying.
And crying.
And crying!
Also, trying to scrabble out of the box nest.
They were so loud, all the other cats and kittens left the run room and were milling about outside.
Except the mother.
We went out through another door with the flashlight, and found her where she’d been hanging out lately; near the outhouse, which is where the rotten barrel she had the kittens in is beside.
I tried going around the far side of her, but she would not go towards the house. She did go through the back door of the garage, which we keep open for air circulation.
So we decided to move the entire box nest of kittens to the garage. There is an open shelf near the ground that it fit into. I even put a handful of kibble into a corner of the box nest to treat the mother.
This morning, I brought over a container with kibble to leave near the box nest and checked the babies.
The kibble was all gone, and there was just one kitten left. I had hoped she wouldn’t move them, but I did expect it. I figured at least they weren’t in that rotting barrel anymore.
As I did my morning rounds, I walked past the front of the garage, which has one door open, and spotted the mom. She had come for the last baby.
Then, while checking the garden beds in the area, I heard kittens.
*sigh*
Yup. She actually brought them back into the barrel!
We’re just going to have to leave them there and keep an eye on them.
At least our attempt to move them didn’t result in her rejecting them.
I wonder if she would allow us to move those fallen boards out and put a cat blanket on the bottom? I’d actually replace the fallen boards with a longer, less rotten one, that would make it easier for her to climb out, and have a perch above the babies – but not so long that the kittens could climb out while they’re still too small!
I just hope that, with her jumping in and out all the time, the barrel itself won’t finally disintegrate.
Wow. Things have lurched from great to not-great pretty severely, today!
But first, kitten updates!
All six of the inside kittens have figure out how to get out of baby jail. When I was up and about this morning, they got all excited and started wailing, so I put them on my bed with a bunch of toys, and they were happy!
The new kitten, Question (who, it turns out, is female) is definitely more lethargic than the other kittens. I had to wash her eyes out this morning, and throughout the day, we were more likely to find her sleeping somewhere by herself, rather than running around and playing with the other kittens.
They can get out of baby jail, but then they want to get back in and seem to have more difficulty, so I moved the little scratching post over. They can now climb up it and access the top of the “door” to get back in.
We have to keep the door closed and severely watch our feet, now!
When I went to feed the outside cats, I found several kittens curled up together and sleeping on the cat bed we brought in with the trio of kittens I found yesterday. I did not see the trio and hoped the mama had come by and got them, but as I was finishing my rounds, I spotted the two orange ones. Looks like they were just hiding under the counter shelf. The problem is, there’s still been no sign of Caramel. At least Gooby did show up last night. I was concerned about him. When I told the girls about not seeing him, they told me he’s been up on the roof, looking plaintively into their window, and batting at the screen to get in!
One important thing is that I was finally able to catch the kitten with one eye that’s been stuck shut for days. It took the longest time to gently moisten the gunk. It was completely dry and rock hard. The entire eye area was quite swollen. When it got to the point that I could finally, ever so gently, pull apart the lids a bit, all I could see was red tissue. I feared the eye may have been lost, but when I saw the kitten later, the eye was still open, and I could actually see the eyeball. So maybe I got to it in time. I sure hope so.
It’s been hot today, so all the cats and kittens outside are mostly lying around in the shade, sleeping! We were getting severe thunderstorm warnings today, too, but all we’ve got outside here is high winds. I’ll be dong my evening rounds pretty soon, so I’ll be sure to check on the eyes as best I can.
I have a birthday this month, and one of the books my husband ordered for me as gifts arrived today.
Click on the contents image to see the whole thing. The other two books are being shipped together, and are on the same general topic.
My husband knows what I like! 💖💖💖
Oh, I just checked the tracking, and apparently the other two books came in today! I may have gone to the post office before they had a chance to finish processing the parcels. I’ll have to go back tomorrow to pick them up. 😊
The girls, meanwhile, treated us to take out. Normally, the birthday person gets to choose what restaurant we get food from, but this time I told the girls to use the money to get their driver’s licenses for my birthday – or at least get appointments made. The last time my younger daughter was able to book a road test to get her full licence, the nearest appointment was 3 months ahead. She has to book 2 hours with a driving instructor before she can book a road test, though. That got delayed by the lockdowns, and just hasn’t happened, since. Who knows how backed up things might still be. Her sister needs to do the written test to get her learners licence.
The girls still wanted to treat the family, though, so my younger daughter drove me into town. We got a bucket of fried chicken, then hit the grocery store for a few other things, including the cheesecake I chose for a birthday cake. It was very delicious! Last month, the girls picked up the entire Columbo series on DVD, so we enjoyed the food while watching Columbo.
Anyone else remember when TV shows were actually good? It’s been so long…
There was one major downside of the day, though.
I got word on the van.
That noise I was hearing from the back?
It was the brakes. They all need replacing.
Which… considering how long it’s been since we had the brakes done, is pretty fair. However, it’ll cost almost $730 to do them. The power steering pressure hose that needs replacing will be almost $270. So we’re looking at just under a thousand dollars in repairs.
We don’t have that, even if we dip into savings, which is supposed to be going towards a down payment for a replacement vehicle.
The van isn’t even worth that much.
I saw the message letting me know the cost just before the garage closed, so I don’t expect to hear from him again until tomorrow, but I was honest and said as much regarding the repairs. He knows our situation, so I’m sure he was expecting something like that. Then I asked if he thought it was too soon to apply for financing on that Caravan his still has for sale! For all I know, the price on that has dropped again. I haven’t looked at it since I brought my mother’s car in to get it looked at because the check engine light had turned on. There wasn’t anything serious and he cleared the codes but, yesterday, it turned back on again. *sigh*
Talking about it with my husband, he brought up the possibility of asking if we could pay as much as we can for the brakes now – they would be the higher priority – and pay the rest off next month, then do the power steering pressure hose another month. As he pointed out, the van may not be worth much when it comes to dollar value, but it’s a vehicle that runs, and a vehicle that runs is worth a lot more than one that doesn’t! That’s something I can talk about with our mechanic tomorrow. The thing is, we plan to try and replace the van before winter. If we spread out the cost of repairs over several months, we’d be done at about the same time I’d be applying for a replacement vehicle anyhow – but we’d have nothing for a down payment except the “trade in” value of the van. Which would be going for scrap. So all that money we’d be paying would basically be throw away. When we did apply for financing before, it was with no trade in and no down payment, so maybe we can do that again, too. Either way, I’ll talk to the garage about it tomorrow.
Oh, I just thought of something. If we don’t fix the van and sell it for scrap, we’d be cancelling the insurance on it – and that will free up some budget that can go towards a replacement vehicle… Hmmm…
Well, what will be will be.
Time for me to head outside and check on the kitties!
Well, here it is! The longest day of the year, and the first official day of summer. It’s going to be another hot one, though not as hot as yesterday, thank God. We’ve had thunderstorms blowing past us through the night. Here, we did get a decent amount of rain. The rain barrel by the sun room is now about 3/4 full, which is roughly double what was already in there.
While feeding the outside cats, I spotted a wound on one of the mamas.
I thought it might be the cause of all the blood I found in the kibble house a few days ago but, to be honest, it doesn’t look bad enough for that. Though I suppose if it was from more than one wounded cat, it’s possible. We can’t get near her, so we can only monitor from a distance.
The bitties under the cat house are now gone. I’m actually surprised it took Caramel so long to move them. It’s a very high traffic area, and where she had them was where many other critters would squeeze under, so she probably had to face down other cats, kittens and the odd skunk while there. She was waiting for me with the other cats when I came out with kibble in the morning. I hope that means here babies are close by. I’m seeing far fewer cats at the same time these days – typical for this time of year. This morning, I counted only 14 in total.
The rainfall seems to have been enough to make the garden beds very happy. I posted a few photos on Instagram (I keep forgetting that exists!).
The flowers on the Irish Cobbler potatoes are starting to open, and I’m starting to see flower buds on the Red Thumb potatoes. More of the Sweet Chocolate peppers are starting to bloom, and the one that bloomed a while ago has the tiniest of peppers forming. The zucca melon continues to bloom, and now one of the Caveman’s Club gourds has started to bloom. Still male flowers only. The peas have started to bloom as well! In the main garden area, I spotted more Roma VF tomatoes developing, while the Black Beauty and Indigo Blue Chocolate tomatoes are still just blooming; no developing tomatoes yet.
In the old kitchen garden, I found a surprise. Quite a number of things come up around the side of the garden, where the tiny raised bed and step stones are, some of which I have been keeping, like the dill and the poppies. There were a couple of tiny plants next to some old asparagus ferns, very similar looking to dill, that suddenly shot up flower stalks. I swear, they weren’t there last night, when I weeded the shallot bed! One has pink flowers, the other purple. I’ve never seen them before. I guess with weeding everything else, they finally had a chance to grow and bloom!
Temperatures are supposed to stay pretty high over the next while – slightly above average for this time of year. As uncomfortable as I find it, it’s great for the garden – as long as we keep getting a decent amount of rain! So far, so good, at least.
I’m looking forward to when the tax assessor comes and goes, tomorrow morning. We delayed the joint Father’s Day, birthday pizza night my older daughter planned out, so that’s going to be done tomorrow, too. Then it’s time to get back to work.
Of course, my mother phoned this morning. Even though she told me my sister was able to get groceries for her recently, she suddenly wants me to go over and help her with groceries. BUT she says she doesn’t want me to be in a hurry. In other words, she wants me to stay with her for a long time. I’d just told her we were going to be busy for a while, and had plans, including celebrating my daughter’s birthday (which was already postponed) but she told me we should postpone it to Sunday, so I could spend time with her, instead.
She brushed past the whole “birthday” part as if it wasn’t there. She’s never cared about any of her grandchildren, other than expectations for them to be always sending her cards or phoning her or visiting her. And when they don’t, because she treats them like crap, she starts talking about how, “oh, if they only knew that if they would come to visit me, I’d give them money.”
Okay. I have to admit. I’m still irritated by her phone call. When I called her on it, she started making “joking” comments about how she only thinks about herself, and that she’s my biggest “baby”. I simply said, yes. She has zero respect for other people’s time or priorities. While it has gotten worse as she’s gotten older, this is not a new thing, by any means. It’s one thing when she does it to me. It’s quite another when she does it to my kids or my husband.
Bah.
Anyhow.
When she found out I’d gotten my eyes tests, she asked me to make an appointment for her, but things have been busy and I kept forgetting. So when she brought it up, I told her I’d call the clinic, make the appointment, then call her back.
Well, it went to machine, and now I’m sitting here, waiting for a call back, when I should be doing other things. At least it’s giving me a chance to write this post.
I think, however, I will call them again, in case they simply haven’t checked their messages.
We had an almost quiet night with Decimus and the babies. At one point, I was awakened by scratching that I thought for sure was Nosencrantz at the window again… but Nosencrantz was curled up next to my head!
It turned out to be Decimus. She had gone up onto the bed above where her kittens are (the cat cage has four “rooms” on two levels along one side) and was scratching at the cardboard on the roof. The carboard is under some towels, as cats like to sit on top of the cage, but their feet were pushing the towels through the open squares.
When she heard me moving around, Decimus stopped clawing at her “ceiling”. Soon after, though, I heard more useful scratching – in her litter box! So she has most definitely figured out what to do with that.
Babies having breakfast!
Motherhood suits her. She’s absolutely blissful and content, and enjoying when we reach in to pet her. A complete switch from the cat that would run away any time we came close, unless we managed to start scritching her neck and ears while she was busy eating and didn’t notice us coming close.
Her entire back is one huge mat of fur. Like armour plating.
Last night, I briefly took the kittens out and lay them together on my bed. Decimus stayed in the cage and rolled around to let me pet her belly. I managed to get her out and put her on the bed with her babies, but she got nervous and tried to go back into the cage! She was a bit confused on how to get in, though, as the “door” is on the second level, and she didn’t realize she needed to jump it. I picked her up and put her in, and she immediately settled down.
Also, she is really, really enjoying wet cat food. While the other, fussier cats turned their noses up at the food bowls when I did the evening feeding, she not only finished off her own share, but when I switched bowls and gave her what other cats ignored, she ate that, too. In the end, she had almost an entire can, all to herself. Usually, they get split 3 or 4 ways, depending on how many cats I have in the room at the time.
In doing my morning rounds, I counted only 14 adult cats. One of them was The Distinguished Guest. Then I saw Sad Face coming across the outer yard. So there’s a recipe for cat fights starting. 🙁 The mama with her two kittens are still in the cat house, which is good.
Of course, I checked all the garden beds. The transplants seem to be doing all right. The raspberries we planted this spring are starting to bloom! We might actually get raspberries off of them. I would not have expected that until next year. The raspberries that predate us, growing around the old compost pile and among flowers near the main garden area, are also blooming. Looks like we’ll have quite a bit, this year. I even found one of the Sweet Chocolate peppers has started to bloom!
We have a bit of a mystery between the Sweet Chocolate peppers, and those last tiny shallots I stuck into the end of the bed. A squash has sprouted! I have no idea what kind it is, or where it came from. The soil topping up this bed was from the pile of garden soil we bought. I’m curious as to what it might turn out to be. I’ll probably transplant it, though, because a squash in that spot would end up covering the shallots and probably the peppers and nearby thyme, as well.
The down side is those horrible Chinese Elm seeds are starting to sprout. There are so many of them, I think they choked out the bok choy and lettuce we planted next to the peas. There’s just no way to brush or scoop away so many seeds. We’ll be pulling seedlings out of the garden beds all over the place for the next while.
I really look forward to when we can take down all those Chinese elms. I think I’ll start with the smaller ones on the north side of the main garden area. I’m okay with leaving the maples in there for now, but those elms have got to go!
There was quite a crowd when I came out this morning. I think I actually counted 26 cats, though it’s possible I double counted one of the white and greys.
It was while I was by the cat house that I heard it.
The tiniest of squeaky noises.
It took a moment of standing completely still to listen, but the noise was definitely there, and definitely repeating itself.
After going around the other side of the cat house with the kibble, I was able to peek into the small window facing south. The window is half covered with frost, but there was enough visibility that I could see across the inside of the cat house, were we put a box with an old pillow inside for the cats.
Yes. There it most definitely was.
Movement.
Our first litter of kittens of the year have been born.
I was pretty sure it would be soon, as when I saw the pregnant mama yesterday, she looked rather damp in the back. She is actually in the photo above; the tabby at the very top of the picture.
Alas, she apparently did not have her kittens in the cat house. At least not to start. We have the shelf shelter up against the shelf shelter, and the bottom two shelves have rigid insulation inside, and in front, along with extras like a cardboard box and cat beds inside. I always put a handful of kibble into the openings of each. The bottom one isn’t as open anymore, as the cats have slowly broken the insulation forming the front “walls”, making the opening larger and larger, and the top one has been used as a scratching post in one corner so much, the insulation is torn away with only the cardboard box inside keeping the weather out from the hole!
Going past the shelf shelter later on, I saw one of the white and greys in the bottom shelf, batting at something and looking very startled and confused.
It turned out to be a dead, newborn kitten.
It must have been further back in the shelf when I put the kibble in, because I couldn’t see it at all at the time. Other cats came around to check it out, also looking rather confused over the poor thing.
As the ground is too frozen to bury it, I wrapped it in some paper towel, and we were cremate it later. Poor baby.
I can say for sure there is at least one surviving kitten that I could hear and see moving, and one that didn’t make it. If there are any other survivors, I have no way of knowing. We’re not going to pop open the roof of the cat house to see, because the last thing I want is for the mama to get spooked and move them away. For a litter born this early in the year, their chances of survival are very low, but their best chance of survival is right where they are now. It’s unfortunate the mama is one of the more feral cats, or we’d find a way to bring her and the babies inside.
I suppose I ought to let the cat lady know about it, but she’s recovering from surgery right now and has enough on her plate. There’s nothing more we can do about them right now, anyhow.
One a completely different note, I found this interesting, while doing my rounds.
When we had that wind storm blowing snow two days ago, there was no new snow. Just what the winds picked up off the ground. Yesterday we actually reached 0C/32F, so things started to melt a bit. Now, you can really see that, along with snow, the winds picked up all sorts of dirt, too. Since most of the fields are still covered with snow, that would consist mostly of sand picked up from the roads. The blown in snow is incredibly hard packed, too. Part of my path to the sign cam was filled in, and the blown in snow is so hard packed, it actually holds my weight when I walk on it, just like the packed snow on the bottom of path!
We’re expecting more winds today, from the northeast instead of south/southeast, as it was during the wind storm. Nothing as severe as before, thankfully. We’ll still be taking the van instead of my mother’s car to my daughters eye exam this afternoon, though, just to be on the safe side!
The Re-Farmer
Update: Well, my daughter and I are back from her eye exam (and saying hello to some goats while picking up more eggs on the way home). As I was walking up to the house, I saw Rolando Moon start to go into the bottom of the shelf shelter, then back off strangely. I went to check but couldn’t really see anything, but I was able to reach in and pull out a cat bed we have in there. Sure enough, there was another dead kitten in there. Crud. I wrapped it up with its sibling for later cremation. Poor baby.
I topped up the kibble for the evening and tried to see through the small window of the cat house again, but no luck. The window is just too dirty on the inside. Wherever the surviving kitten is in there (however many there may be), it was no longer anywhere I could see. I was not about to keep mucking about, though. I saw the mama in there, then she went into the sun room to eat. The last thing I want to do is spook her into moving her surviving babies away.
More yard cats is the last thing we need, but we adore them anyway, and it’s always sad when the little ones don’t make it.
The Re-Farmer 