I had a little one peeking, while I was adding lysine to the kibble for the outside cats.
The ledge on the outside of that window is not only quite narrow, but at an angle, so that snow and rain would flow away, back when this was an outside window. Only the smallest of the kittens can sit on there without falling off!
I just got some updates from the cat lady. She’s still got some of our littles as they are being treated before going to their forever homes (except Muffin, who is staying with them). She had taken them to the vet today for an exam, and they got treated for ear mites. They were supposed to be checked for ear mites while they were being spayed, but that didn’t happen! The mites were very deep in the ears and difficult to find.
Princess, however, had a surprise for everyone.
The vet pulled out a small piece of metal. About the size of a pellet. The ear drum needed to be sewn together. Apparently, she’s been deaf in that ear, all this time. She can probably hear now – or at least will, then it’s healed up and no longer packed.
She exhibited no signs of pain and had no balance problems. The only reason they looked in her ear at all was because she was there for an exam. With Princess, the vet’s reaction was “where are the ear drums?” !!! The vet thinks it’s been there for months. Princess is the youngest of the kittens the cat lady took in. I’m guessing she was born in June, but we don’t know for sure. Which means she may have had that in her ear for most of her life!
We’re just flabbergasted. For a piece of metal to get into her ear is weird enough, but for it to get so deep into her ear that it damaged her ear drum? The vet wondered if she’d fallen on something metal and a small piece broke off. With yard cats, who knows? There is just so much stuff they can get into, all over the place.
The people that are adopting her have been informed. They will monitor her and take her to their own vet for follow ups.
It does mean we’ll likely have to treat the inside cats for ear mites, too. There isn’t anything we can do about the outside cats. Mineral oil in each ear for 10 days will kill them.
We’ll need to get more mineral oil. 😄
So that is our weird and rather shocking news of the day!
In other things, we were able to get at least some shoveling done, before the snow started to fall again. From the beeping sounds I’m hearing outside, the plows are out, which is good. From what I’ve been hearing from friends online that live in the area, the highways are pretty dangerous right now.
The roofers were expecting to come early today, so I was up earlier than usual to do the morning rounds. One of my daughters was also up early, but my other daughter was up most of the might working on commissions, she she tried to sleep during the day, instead.
It almost worked! 😄
Meanwhile, I made a stew for the crew to have for lunch, along with some corn bread to go with it. 😊
The roofers were expecting to be done today, but I think he was also expecting to have a crew of five. They didn’t show up until almost 10, and there was only three of them. The supervisor had to do a lot of driving around to pick up the other crew members, and they don’t live anywhere near each other!
As they were working out how to set up, one of the things they wanted to do was move the trailer for the old shingles to the other side of the house, close to the sun room. The supervisor was very happy to find out that what he thought was the cover of a septic tank was actually the cover for our well, so he didn’t have to worry about driving over a tank. He’d wanted to have the trailer over the cap, with the wheels on either side, but ended up pulling in where I’d suggested, instead, just to one side. It wasn’t as close to the sun room like they wanted, but it was pretty much under the west side of the main entry’s roof, so it still worked out.
I remembered to talk to them about not being able to drop loads of shingles onto the roof of the sun room, like they did on the other side of the house. Those windows would shatter. They were able to accommodate by carrying up one bundle of shingles at a time, little by little.
Because the day was warmer and there was little wind, once everything was done inside, I headed out to do a burn. Along with our usual burning of paper garbage and the cat litter sawdust, I was finally able to get the nearby pile of wood done as well. When the branch pile was chipped and they left a stack of logs too big for the chipper, I piled them around some burnable garbage that didn’t fit in the burn barrel, so the whole thing could get done at once. Today, I finally got to light it!
Wow, did that bonfire ever throw heat! Even though the top was covered with snow, it burned very well.
When I heard them talking about stopping for a break, the fire had burned low enough that I could leave it to make sure the food was nice and hot. At one point, I noticed one of the guys head to the outer yard and took a look, only to find he’d gone over to the fire to warm up! 😁
After they had lunch and got back to work, I went back to tending the fire. We have a lot of rotten pallets that I’d originally intended to have hauled to the dump, but I’m just going ahead and burning them. Later, when it’s time to clean up the ash piles, I’ll have to make sure we clean out all the nails and other bits of metal in the process!
Eventually, I had a chance to wander around and see how things were progressing on the far side of the house.
The guy in the photo above is working directly over the bedroom upstairs – and my daughter that was drying to sleep has her bed under the slope of that roof. Every now and then, something would drop off a shelf of curios she has on her wall and fall on her head. When she put the shelf up, she did considered that possibility, so that side of the shelf has all softer items, and not her rocks and gemstones collection! 😂
One of the things that didn’t happen was the replacement of the roof cap from the bathroom vent. Typically, they would have removed the old cap, put on a new one, and sealed it in place.
Well… we have something different. We don’t have a top piece that comes off. It’s one long piece that goes all the way to the bathroom. To remove it, he would have had to cut a hold in the roof, replaced the whole thing, the patch the hole up again – something that would take at least a couple of extra hours. There was, however, no need to do it. What we have there is perfectly fine and doesn’t need to be replaced. So they’ll just reseal around it when they lay the new shingles down. That is going to be removed from the final bill, too.
I started to wonder, though, what was going on with the chimney, when I saw they were already putting new shingles down in areas. Eventually, I asked the supervisor about it.
He didn’t know it was supposed to come down!
He hadn’t noticed that on the work order, which gets texted to him. He was expecting to be here 2 or 3 weeks ago and, since then, he’s had four or five more work orders sent to him. He was very glad that I’d brought it up!
The East side of the roof is done, but they’ll only have to move two, maybe three, shingles to take off the chimney. They will set the bricks aside for me, rather than throw them away. There are so many bricks around here, and they come in so handy, I am happy to have more!
My brother will be happy that they didn’t take down the TV antennae, and just worked around it, instead.
There was no way they were going to finish today, though. The sun room side of the roof was taking a lot longer, partly because of the different angles coming together, and partly because of having to take off the old satellite dish, and move the Starlink dish. He did as us to shut off the dish while they were working around it, just in case, so we were without internet for several hours.
When they were removing the last of the shingles on the sun room, I asked about the leak there. He asked where it was supposed to be, because there was nothing they could see. I told him where we thought it was, and he said he would make sure to check.
There was no rot!
I’m just really amazed. I feared they would find all kinds of rot, but there was none. That is quite a relief!
They worked as long as they could, but we got hit with another snag. He had a trailer to haul the singles to the dump insured only until today. I local dump isn’t open on Fridays, but I got our card that we are supposed to show the attendant, as proof we live in the area (some landfills charge fees, so people had started going to landfills in other rural municipalities to avoid them). It has the days and times for two other landfills in our RM.
None of them are open on Fridays.
He had to start searching to find a landfill that was open today that they could get to!
They kept working and cleaning until it was almost too dark to see. Tomorrow, they will be back with just his truck, no trailer.
While all that was going on, I got word from the cat lady. The cats all had their spays and are doing well. She also saw her own vet with another cat and showed pictures of Muffin while there, for an off-the-record consultation. He doesn’t think the swelling is an abscess, after all, which is good news. Basically, he said to keep bathing the eye, monitoring and keeping up with the lysine.
Which we were able to start up again, today. I ran out a while back, and a fresh supply arrived today. I’ve set up a monthly subscription for three 300 gram tubs of powdered lysine to be shipped at the beginning of the month. The first shipment arrived, several days earlier than expected. With three tubs a month, we shouldn’t run out before the next shipment arrives.
Meanwhile, Muffin will need some TLC when she comes back to us, and we’ll probably get some antibiotics with her as well. We should be getting just the two cats back. It didn’t come up because we were focused on the care Muffin will need, but Plushy and Princess are looking like they will be going to a family with young children. These two love lots of attention, so that should work out just fine!
Speaking of attention, when one of the crew had come in for lunch, I noticed he seemed a bit distracted by something. It turned out our two, big tuxedo boys had come over to say hello, and he was quite happily petting both of them! Thankfully, he was not allergic to cats, like the other poor guy. We are a terrible place for someone with cat allergies – inside, or out!
Towards the end of the day, when the guys were still cleaning up, my mother called. I updated her and told her they were coming back to finish tomorrow. When I told her they didn’t find any rot on this side of the house, either, she just scoffed, then told me how she’d seen on the news about how some company and done a roof, and then it collapsed. I told her, they’re just putting on new shingles, not a complete new roof! It sounds like she saw a story about a construction company that did shoddy work and, because it involved a roof, projected it onto this roofing company. For all I know, she saw this news story a decade ago, but is just thinking of it now. It’s much the same with how she’d seen a story ages ago, about funeral homes that would sell caskets and then, after the funeral was done, take back the casket, replace it with a cheap one, and resell the fancy one, and now she thinks that’s what was done to my father’s casket. She even convinced herself that the foundation stone his monument is sitting on got stolen. It didn’t. It’s still there. But for some reason she got it in her head that the monument was lower than it should have been, therefore the stone under it was stolen. Never mind that heavy equipment would be needed to do something like that, and it would probably cost more to steal it than the stone was worth!
She also wants someone from the roofing company to visit her. I never quite got to figuring out just who she is talking about. The salesman? The crew? Some manager? Thankfully, one of the crew came in to update me. I had to call her back later, and the topic didn’t come up again. Instead, she started going on about how my brother wasn’t here (heaven forbid, he actually work at his own job!), and hadn’t phoned her. She was wondering about how the payment was going to be done. I told her that, once the work is done, they’ll know how much it actually cost to do it. Once they had the final bill, they’d talk to my brother about it, because he’s their contact person. But that won’t happen until the job is complete. My brother still fears she will try to back out of her promise to pay for it and try to screw the company over. If she does what she’s done to us in the past, she might demand to only pay part of it, not all of it. The last time few times she did that, my brother got stuck paying the rest. I’m really hoping she’ll behave, though.
As for the errands I was not able to help my mother with, she managed to do some of them herself. It was a very nice day today, so she took her walker out to the grocery store, did a stock up shopping trip, and the grocery store delivered it to her, later. The only thing she didn’t do was go to the pharmacy, which is quite a bit further. My sister, however, is now supposed to be there on Tuesday, which is when I’m taking my mother’s care to the garage, so she should be able to help my mother with getting her prescription refills. She still has quite a bit left, so there is no urgency.
Tomorrow is supposed to be even nicer. The temperatures are supposed to slowly keep climbing all night, rather than getting cooler, and things are supposed to stay mild for quite some time. I’m quite good with that!
I’m also quite good with the idea of taking some pain killers and going to bed very early today. It may have been a nice day, and the fire I was tending was very warm, but now I’m paying for standing around outside for so long (must remember to bring a chair!), and the pain levels are really starting to kick in!
Plus, I want to get up early to do my round again, then start on something for the crew for lunch. I’m thinking a meat loaf would be nice this time. 😊😊
While doing my morning rounds, I was very happy to spot all of the bitties. I was worried about the orange caterpillar, as I did not see it at all yesterday, but he was there today!
The little tuxedo came outside to eat, even though there was kibble inside. I found the orange bitty, with one of the white and greys wrapped around him! A few minutes later I came back, and there was the grey and white tabby. That one is a very boisterous kitty!
Last night, I didn’t get much sleep. I had to close up the three kittens from outside in the baby jail we put together for them, as they were just too active during the night, and their presence was keeping Butterscotch and Noserncrantz from coming down to eat or use the litter.
When I woke in the morning, Princess was asleep at the foot of my bed. She is small enough that she was able to squeeze through the larger openings in the top level of the baby jail!
When it was time to head out, I had those three, plus Big Rig. We just managed to fit two hard carriers and two soft carriers all in a row in the back of the van.
Big Rig was most angry about the whole thing. The kittens, however, were pretty chill and were soon curled up and relaxing.
I was just starting to drive out when a truck pulled into the driveway, hauling a trailer. The roofers had arrived!
I was expecting it to be just one guy, checking the place out and maybe dropping off supplies, but nope. They were going to get started!
So that changed my plans a bit.
I stopped along the way to get some gas, and some cat treats for the kitties, then continued on to meet with the cat lady. We were meeting in the parking lot of the smaller, closer Walmart that I sometimes go to. Her husband was driving their SUV, which was a bit scary, since he’d just had that accident (their truck was written off completely). As we transferred the kitties, we talked about my coming out to meet them again on Sunday. That’s as long as she’ll be able to hang on to them after their visit with the vet. On Sunday, she’s going to be picking up litters with 8 kittens in total. They are outdoor cats that an older gentleman is doing his best to take care of, but the RM (Rural Municipality) is going to come shoot them on Sunday if she doesn’t pick them up! So she’s going to be taking the sickest ones for now, which means ours have to come back sooner, to make space.
But not all of them, perhaps.
I’ve just been getting updates from her. Apparently, she has already found a home for Princess!! It will be confirmed tomorrow. She told me that suddenly, she’s had a number of people that have recently lost their older cats to illness or old age, and are interested in adopting. She said she hoped to get more of our cats adopted out between Christmas and New Year’s – and now it looks like she’s already found a home for one of them!
When I meet up with her on Sunday, not only will I be taking back the kitties, but she already sent me a photo of cat food donations she has for us! Four big bags of kibble, plus two cased of large size cans of wet cat food! She wants me to give wet cat food to the bitties, but it would be very difficult to get wet cat food for them, without having the bigger cats come around and eat it all, first. With that much donated cat food, we’ll be able to spread it out among the kibble trays, then put some where the bitties are, and they’ll have a chance to actually get some!
After we were done, my plan had been to go the rest of the way to the city and do the Costco shopping, but in the end, I just went to the Walmart we were already so close to. Since I’ll be back in just a few days, I didn’t want the extra driving.
It doesn’t take much to convince me to NOT go to the city.
I’m glad I changed my mind on that. There were a few things that I couldn’t get, and I skipped going to the Canadian Tire to get pellets for the litter for now, but it meant I got home quite a bit earlier.
The outside cats were all over the tarps they laid out to catch what was being thrown off the roof!
Unfortunately, it turned out one of the guys was very allergic to cats.
When I got there, he asked if we could make some coffee and tea, which we were quite happy to do – it’s not like there’s a coffee shop they can go to for their breaks nearby! Actually, my daughter got that started while I brought the shopping in, then put away the van. She’s still pretty sick, so as soon as I was able to take over, she disappeared back upstairs, so as not to pass her cold on to the guys. It gave me a chance to heat up the chili I’d made yesterday, and I was able to offer them chili and rice as well. There were four guys working on the roof, but only two came in for tea and food during their break. I’m sure they had worked up quite an appetite by then, too!
They had cleared off all the old shingled and checked where we had problems with leaking. They could see where water had got in, but there was NO rot!
Amazingly, they kept at it until the east side of the house was done; the roof over the “new part” of the house, including the main entry, plus the section of roof above the second floor windows. It was fully dark by the time they stopped!
Things got really crazy after they’d laid down the plastic, and were starting to bring up the packages of shingles. They were dropping really hard – each package weighs about 80 pounds – and the whole house would shake! One particularly hard drop resulted in the plastic cover over the kitchen light to fall off, and it broke when it hit the floor. It’s a very old light fixture and has been needing to be replaced for a long time, so I’m not concerned about the breakage, but I did go out to let them know what had happened. There’s really nothing they can do about it, without risking injury. Still, we had a few things vibrating off shelves on our walls. Nothing else that broke, at least!
They will be back again to do the west side of the house tomorrow. Now that they know how to get here (they got lost, this morning! Someone gave them bad directions), I expect they were get here around 7:30 or 8 in the morning. They’ll be bringing another guy on the crew, which should make it 5 in total.
I will have to remember to tell them they can’t drop packages of shingles like that on the run room roof. It’ll shatter the windows. They’re going to have to find some way to drop them off higher up on the roof, or on the other side of the old kitchen.
Tomorrow, I was supposed to go to my mother’s to help her with errands. She’d told me my sister was also going to be visiting with her, so I called to confirm that. If my sister could drive my mother around, I could stay home while the roofers are here.
Well, it turned out my sister cancelled on coming out. I told my mother about the roofers being here, and that they were expecting to finish tomorrow.
*sigh*
The first thing she wanted to know is if my brother were here. She wanted him to be here while the roofers were here, and apparently he’d promised to do so. Which I don’t think he did. He can’t just not show up for work like that. I told her that, and said that’s part of why I wanted to be here, rather than at her place. I could keep an eye on things. Since she was already working herself up, being angry at my brother, I thought I’d tell her the good news about there not being any rot to repair, so far. Well, that made her angry, too, as she sarcastically commented “oh, sure… as if they’d know.” Which blew me away. Yes, once the old shingles were off, they would be able to see if there was any actual rot. Then she started ranting about making sure there was “insurance” (she meant warranty). I said yes, there are warranties. At least two of them; a materials warranty, and a workmanship warranty. She wants it written down. Yes, Mom, it’s part of the contract. It’s all spelled out. Oh, sure, she says; they’ll give us a receipt, but she wanted the warranty in writing.
My brother and I have both been trying to explain to her that this is a professional company that deals with contracts and warranties and roofing is all they do. I even commented on how she was used to just hiring some neighbour, and one that drink so the job, too. But he did a good job, she insisted! My response was “did he?” Apparently, she’d hired him to do the roof of the storage house. Where the eavestroughs were never put back on again, and are just hovering, several inches away from the eaves. That roof is also a simple roof compared to the house. One thing is for sure. There would have been no contract, no warranty, and maybe – maybe! – just an invoice. But she would have had no problem with doing that again, instead of hiring a professional roofing company!
I had to change the subject back to tomorrow. My mother has simply decided that the roofers are going to go a bad job, they are going to over charge, and they are going to try and cheat her, because she’s an old lady, and companies always cheat old ladies. Never mind that they’re dealing with my brother, not her. She is determined to be angry about all of it!
She was still upset when I finally finished the call but, in the end, I will not be going over there tomorrow. I will call in the evening and see about coming out the day after, though it will be with my van, since her car isn’t booked with the garage until next week.
That was the only sour note of the day. Well. That and the amazing crashing on the roof when they dropped those packages of shingles!
It’s not even 7pm as I write this, but I feel ready to go to bed already! Hopefully, get some actual sleep, too. But first, I think I’ll make some stew for the crew for tomorrow. And we’ll be sure to have a pot of coffee, and a kettle going for tea, too! It’s supposed to be a lot warmer. The forecasted high is now -4C/24F tomorrow. If it’s a calm day, it would be a good day to do a burn, too.
First of all, I wanted to update on the cat lady’s husband. They’re awaiting the results of neurological tests but, so far, he seems to be all right. It turns out that, while he stopped for a traffic light, a tow truck, towing a vehicle and driving 80kph, didn’t notice that vehicles had stopped. It hit her husband’s truck, pushing him into the vehicle in front of him. If he had been driving a smaller car instead of a large truck, he would have been killed!
Road conditions have been slippery on the highways, and it got brutally cold last night. At about 7am this morning, I checked the weather and we were at -32C/-26F, with a wind chill of -36C/-33F
My husband got this picture through the bathroom window, this morning. We left the doors to the sun room propped open just enough for the cats to get through. The spare ceramic heat bulb is set up, and sometimes we’ll see cats under it, or on top of it, but mostly they just pile together on the swing bench. When I headed out this morning, the thermometer in the sun room was at -20C/-4F. Better than outside, but still nasty!
The big tuxedo and its black and white sibling were covered in frost! I’m not sure why those two were the only ones that were so frosty.
Meanwhile, I’ve managed to bring in three kitties that are now in baby jail.
Cheddar was most curious about the strange ladies!
The other cats were not at all happy to see them. Nosencrantz sat there next to the cage, staring at them and growling.
They aren’t sure about being in the cage, but when I was petting Plushy and Princess through a wall with larger squares, they were both purring enthusiastically. Unfortunately, Plushy started trying to shove her face through and actually getting pretty far, so I’ve had to cover about 3/4s of the top with towels. As I write this, Plushy is settled on the red blanket above the litter, Princess is crunching away at the food bowl, and Muffin (the muted calico) has settled onto a towel next to the food bowl and just sitting like a loaf. They are doing okay, but I’m glad I put together the baby jail, because they’d be quite freaked out if they were loose in the room. Butterscotch and Nosencrantz are not pleased to see them. Only Cheddar seems good with them, but Cheddar is good with any cats!
Later on, we’ll keep going outside to pick up any white and greys that will let us, and figure out which one is female. If any. Strange that it seems to be almost exclusively males that are becoming more socialized, but almost none of the females.
Then, tomorrow morning, we’ll load them into carriers (either with another female from outside, or one of the remaining indoor females that still needs to be fixed), and head out to meet the cat lady with them. She’ll take them to the vet the day after, and then we’ll figure out when they’ll be coming back here to finish recovery.
We are supposed to be warming up from now on, though we’re still at -28C/-18F right now, with a wind chill of -39C/-38F. At these temperatures, it takes almost no wind at all for those wind chill numbers to drop substantially. The forecasts have changed again, of course. Today, we’re supposed to reach a high of -20C/-4F, then -12C/10F tomorrow. We no longer have predictions to go above freezing anymore, but in a couple of days, we’re supposed to reach -1C/30F and stay close to that for almost a week.
Tomorrow morning, we should get a visit from one of the guys on the roofing crew. I may be out delivering cats when he’s here, though, so I’m hoping my husband will be able to go out and talk to him, and find out what kind of schedule they’re looking at. Depending on how things go with dropping the cats off tomorrow, I might continue to the city and do the Costco shopping, since I’m booked to help my mother with errands the day after, and I really don’t want to do the Costco shopping on a weekend!
I’ve been driving around more in the last couple of weeks than I have for the past several months!
Oh, that reminds me. I need to call the garage and book my mother’s car for an oil change. I’d better do that now, before I forget again!
Today, I was able to make the trip to the nearest Walmart, primarily to pick up some kibble for the outside cats. There was a pet store nearby, where I was able to pick this up.
What they didn’t have in stock was cat milk or kitten formula mix. I did my shopping at Walmart, then took a different route home to swing by our vet. They had only 2 little cans of kitten formula left, so I got one of them – expensive stuff!!! – and headed home.
Once everything was brought inside, I quickly set up a nest for them in a bin in my office, then went looking for the babies.
They were gone.
The cat house was completely empty.
On the one hand, this is good news. The bitties were not abandoned, for all that we never saw them with a mama. She tried to bring them somewhere safe, but there is just too much activity near the house. The mother is doing her best to take care of her teeny babies.
On the other hand, their chances of survival just dropped significantly. Not just from the elements, but the farther they are from the house, the greater the risk that a predator will find them. Once the mamas start bringing them back to the house for kibble, the kittens tend to stay of their own volition. That’s why we have a yard full of kittens right now, but hardly any mamas. Rosencrantz is really the only one that hangs around, and she’s the oldest of the mamas still outside, now that Butterscotch and Beep Beep are inside.
I’ve just been in contact with the cat lady. Unfortunately, she had not had a chance to look at the emails I’d sent her. There’s a reason she prefers texting! She is currently caring for a 3 week old kitten found to the north of us; the mama had been killed by a coyote, and the rest of the litter died of exposure, so there’s just one lonely baby left. She has been dealing with her own health issues, and just got the go-ahead for major surgery, so things are going to be pretty wild for her for the next while! If we do find any abandoned kitties, though, she told me to let her know right away, and she’ll come get them.
Meanwhile, we now have the nursing kit and formula on hand, just in case.
I really hope things work out well for the bitties!!
He’s in the V shaped bed they had him in to do an ultrasound at the vet. It took two of us to hold him while the vet did the ultrasound! Once it was done and he rolled himself over, he happily stayed in it, apparently quite comfortable!
Also, Leyendecker has an almost completely clean bill of health!
The vet actually brought over a little printout of the results from his blood tests. All but one result was back to normal, and the one was not a concern and likely due to stress. Even his kidneys show no sign of damage. It was his potassium levels that were the real surprise. They were perfectly normal. Last time, it was off the charts. The vet once again called him a miracle cat. Those potassium levels should have killed him.
During the ultrasound, she said that she could still see there was junk in his bladder, but just a little. The urinary cat food should help with that. He was also weighed, and is down half a kilogram (about a pound).
The medical exam and tests were well within my daughter’s budget, so I was able to get more wet and dry cat food for him. We’re trying a different brand this time, as he didn’t really like the other one. At least not compared to regular kibble and wet cat food. A 6 pound/2.72kg bag of kibble is almost $45, while one 156g/5.5oz tin of wet cat food is $2.47 each.
Ouch.
The vet did remember to ask about Keith; the last time I spoke to her on the phone, I had mentioned we had another sick cat. I told her that he passed away peacefully in his sleep soon after our call.
So this is about as good the news can get about Leyendecker! Her recommendation to help reduce his stress is the same: try and adopt him out to a home with less cats! Mind you, being able to adopt out more cats in general would have much the same affect.
I remember when we brought in our first outdoor cat, Fenrir. At the time, I swore we would not bring in any more cats. Three was enough.
Then we brought in cats that were sick or injured.
Then we brought females in so they wouldn’t get pregnant before we could get them fixed.
Always with the plan to socialize and adopt out cats, which hasn’t worked out all that well.
But it’s not like there’s much of an alternative. We’ve had people tell us we should just shoot them, but we’re not going to do that. We will just keep taking care of them, and hopefully adopt them out.
When I checked the weather this morning, at about 6:30am, we were at -6C/21F – colder than was predicted. It’s going to warm up again, but this was definitely a precursor of what’s to come, about a week from now.
The kitties seemed to be okay with it, though.
It had warmed up to about 0C/32F by the time I was taking this picture. It’ll be time to hook up electricity to the cat house soon. There was frost on the inside of the windows!
There was also no water left in their bowls at all this morning. Even the big plastic heated bowl that stopped working last winter had nothing but shards of ice stuck to the sides. It makes me wonder if we’ve got something large, like a deer, coming around and drinking the water.
The kitties were very happy when I refilled the bowls with warm water. 😊
When I first open the sun room door, it’s not unusual for cats to explode out of the shelf shelter next to the door. I’ve had to reinforce the rigid insulation, even at the very bottom, because they hit the sides on the way out and break it.
This morning, I saw a whole bunch of very small white and grey kittens bursting out of the shelf shelter. These would be the pump shack kittens! They’ve found a warm and cozy place to spend the night, near the house, which makes me feel much better. There are still a couple of other little kittens – I think they are Caramel’s hidden litter – that go shooting across the yard when I come out. Hopefully, as things get colder, they will learn that beside the house is a warmer, safer place to be, and the giant food givers mean them no harm.
I tried to do a head count this morning. It’s hard, because they move so much. Especially with all the mostly white ones. I think I counted 25, though. Almost all kittens and cattens. Among the adults, I see Rosencrantz and Caramel regularly. I think I see Junk Pile, but one of the cattens looks so much like her, and is about the same size as her, I’m not sure. Rolando Moon, at least, is very easy to spot, and she comes and goes frequently. She is the last of the orange cats! I did not see her this morning. I’m not sure about all the ‘iccuses, all of which are grey tabbies. The adult males – all of them – have pretty much disappeared. The mamas were never particularly large, so I’m not sure if I’m seeing almost grown grey tabby cattens or adult cats!
Even Sad Face (aka Shop Towel), father to all those white and grey kittens, is rarely seen these days. I haven’t seen The Distinguished Guest in quite a while, and even then, only briefly. Potato Beetle hasn’t been seen in quite some time. One of the cattens looks a LOT like Potato Beetle.
We’ll need to take advantage of the few days of warm weather we’ll be having and get work done outside. This morning, I took the wheel barrow to the barn and went searching. There are two last pieces of high density mats that will go into the cat’s house to help insulate the floor – and can survive being scratched at. I also found one last large tarp of some kind. It needs to be cleaned up and patched up, but it should be big enough to put over the hole in the roof of the shed by the barn. My brother was able to put salvaged pieces of metal roofing on the other side, but we don’t have a safe way to do that on this side.
Too bad the scaffolding that used to be here disappeared before we moved in. That would have allowed us to patch up a few shed roofs. 😕
On top of that, I’ve got more to work on in the old kitchen garden to make it more functional, and there’s more clean up and weeding to prepare the beds for next year. Of course, we need to finish painting the water bowl shelter, but it’s been too cold for that, the last couple of days. We should be able to get it finished before things start getting – and staying – cold again.
In other things, my daughter and I did a dump run yesterday, then ran some errands. One of them was to visit my MILs grave to see if it needs to be cleaned up and add some silk flowers I got for it.
We never found it.
My daughter was so sick the day of the funeral, she could not remember where it was, other than vaguely in the middle somewhere. Maybe. The cemetery is quite large, but we went through the whole thing. We were starting to go through it a second time when my daughter spotted a notice on a storage shed. It turns out that some of the monuments had been damaged during this spring’s flooding, and were being slowly removed and repaired.
That explains what looked like unmarked graves I was finding! I guess my MIL’s grave stone was among those that had to be removed for repair.
We had another errand to run, but since we were still in town, I added one more. I kept forgetting to book an appointment for follow up bloodwork for Leyendecker. The vet clinic has just reopened in a new location, so we went there and I went in to book it. They are still most definitely still in move-in mode! It’s a much larger location, though, which I think was much needed. It took a while for the receptionist to find Leyendecker in the system (she ended up having to do a refresh and reload, and suddenly it all popped up!), but she was able to get us in.
For today!
I did not expect it to be that quick!
So I will be heading into town again this afternoon with Leyendecker. It’s just for blood work, and he didn’t need to fast or anything like that.
Hard to believe that, only a week or so ago, we seriously thought we might have to have him put down. He now seems completely back to normal! The only thing that’s changed is that now Nosencrantz and Butterscotch are okay with him being in my office/bedroom with them, though Nosencrantz will still growl at him sometimes. Hopefully, the blood work will reflect his improved condition.
The one last errand needed was to pick up some cash to pay the septic guy. We’ll get that done as soon as we can, and then we can cover the tank for the winter. We’ll have to use the insulated tarp again. I don’t think we’ll be getting another round straw bale before winter. We shall see. I would rather have straw, as it’s easier to move than a tarp frozen to the ground, if we need access to the tank again!
It’s always such a push to get things done before winter!
Yesterday afternoon, I picked up the new muscle relaxants we will be trying on Leyendecker. Last night, we gave him his first dose about 15 minutes before he got the rest of his meds.
I was VERY happy to discover there are no needles on those syringes. When I first saw them, I thought they were injections – and wondered just how it was to be administered into the cheek pouch!
Happily, we just need to squirt it into the side of his mouth.
Which he seriously did not like.
In fact, he’s fighting us off a lot more when it’s time to give him his meds. He’s a big boy, and that size is mostly muscle!
I made sure to check, and there is no change in his other medications. After he gets those, he soon passes out for hours.
This new stuff says it “may cause sedation or hyperactivity”.
Last night, we got hyperactivity.
That boy went nuts!
It made him much harder to dose with the rest of his medications, that’s for sure! He’s caught on to what we’re about to do and tries to fight us off. I don’t blame him for having trust issues right now!
He even clambered his way to the top of my metal shelf! He didn’t stay there long. Mostly, he tried to claw his way out of the room. He also hunted down and tackled Nosencrantz, completely ignoring all my efforts to stop him.
I ran out of the special wet cat food that came with him from the vet. He doesn’t really like it, either. I split a can between the three cats, and the other two don’t like it all that much, either. They don’t particularly care for the special dry cat food, either. I’ve been able to feed the ladies separately from Leyendecker, which means I can give them regular kibble. Today, I split up a can of wet cat food, and wow! did Leyenecker tuck into it! He emptied his bowl, but turned his nose up at my refilling it with dry cat food!
As for how he’s doing, so far, the problem has not been solved. He seems to be doing well in all respects, but he still is barely able to pee. He keeps going in and out of the litter box, leaving little spots of wet, and yowling.
Today, he got his second dose of the new meds. This time, we gave it to him after the rest of the meds were done, and letting him stop to eat or try to use the litter a few times in between pills.
Changing the order seems to have made the difference. He didn’t go hyper this time, and is now curled up on my bed and ignoring the other cats.
The grey and white and orange and white kittens were hungry enough to come over and eat, while I was still there. I paid attention to Rosencrantz, who basically just sniffs my outreached hand, maybe gives it a head pump, then tries to bight my fingers.
When the grey and white clambered into the food dish and ignored me, I was able to pet it. It eventually noticed, looked at me, but didn’t leave. It was similar with the orange and white. The tortie eventually came over and climbed into the bowl, too. I was able to pet it a bit before it realized what was happening, and started to run off.
The other two were apparently not as hungry. One stayed on the other side of the chain link fence, snoozing. The other sat in the grass nearby and watched me, but that’s it.
Being able to touch any of them is huge progress, though!
On another, less cheerful note…
Leyendecker is not getting better.
I don’t think he’s getting worse, but that’s not good, either.
He keeps trying to pee and has the littlest dribbles, but that’s it. He has been yowling and complaining. He’s also getting ticked off at being give his meds twice a day and becoming less cooperative. He is also not eating much. Of course, once the meds kick in, he basically just sleeps, but it would be good if the muscle relaxants would give him a chance to pee, first!
I hadn’t heard from the cat lady in a while. I know she’s been in and out of the hospital, so I didn’t want to bother her. I did send a message to her today – and she has a blocked cat, too! He’s in the hospital now. Her bill has already been more than twice what ours was. When her cat’s catheter was removed, he immediately blocked again, so he’s been transferred has been put under for a larger catheter. As in, it’s being done right now, as I’m writing this! 😟 Poor baby!
As for our situation, I’ve called the clinic and the doctor will call me back today. The vet that worked on Leyendecker has the second shift, so she came in later. The problem is, the bill has already pretty much wiped out my daughter’s savings. If he ends up needing another catheter and overnight stays, we just can’t do it. The alternative it to have him put down, and that is a very real possibility. It’s not just about immediate costs, but that he would likely end up having permanent kidney damage and being on meds and a special diet for the rest of his life. It’s hard enough to pay for our own meds, never mind for a cat, too. And how could we keep him on a special diet, separate from the other cats? Having him isolated in my room now is only adding to his stress. He wants out, and the more uncomfortable he is physically, the more he wants out. Add to that, he’s started going after both Nosencrantz and Butterscotch. I’ve already had to break up a couple of fights.
It’s not a good situation.
Well. We’ll see how the call with the vet goes.
Poor Leyendecker.
The Re-Farmer
Update: I just got off the phone with the vet.
I told her what was going on with Leyendecker and we talked about his meds. Sometimes, they just don’t respond to them. She didn’t even suggest bringing him back in. With no crystals in his urine, and how well he voided once the catheter was in, that’s not the issue. The block is muscle spasms at the tip of the urethra. The muscle relaxants should be doing the job, but they’re not, and they can’t just keep putting in catheters.
There is a surgical option. I’d read about it while doing research, so I was already aware of it. It is to open the urethra higher up, essentially making him anatomically female. However, it’s a bloody surgery, and is not without risk. It can result in both urinary and fecal incontinence (she’s actually had that happen after one of her surgeries). He would be at increased risk of UTIs, and there would be lifelong problems. Even if we could afford it, I wouldn’t want to do that to him, and she didn’t sound like it was an option she favoured, either.
However, there isn’t much else that can be done. There is another muscle relaxant that is administered by syringe. It can’t be used for long, due to risk of liver damage, but for the length is can be safely used, it might work. So we will try that. It should be ready to pick up this afternoon.
If that doesn’t work, there is nothing else that can be done. At that point, we would have to put him down.
The handsome boy has not cooperated with getting his picture taken, so you’ll just have to do with these two!
Is that adorable or what? 💖
We got a call from the vet fairly early in the day, and we were told we could come get him any time. They had kept him overnight again because they had seen a very small amount of blood in his urine bag before removing the catheter, but during the night, without the catheter, he’d had a large and normal pee, so he was good to go home.
He is now on three medications, including a pain killer and a smooth muscle relaxant. The general consensus is that he’s basically stressed out with so many cats in the house. We talked about focusing on adopting him out after he’s done his meds, etc. He will be on one of those meds, in decreasing amounts, for 30 days in total. They started him on it at the clinic, so this evening’s dose was his third day on it. We also got a bag of special diet dry cat food and several cans of wet cat food. If he is on it long term, we can switch to a cheaper branch, but can’t mix brands – so no dry cat food in one brand, and wet cat food in another. For now, he stays on the special food while he is on his medications. One of the things the vet noted is what with fixed males, they tend to get blocked more often in the spring and in the fall, so those are times when we will have to keep an extra eye on him.
The staff apparently all fell in love wit him. He was extremely chill and friendly, and did not act at all like he was sick. “He doesn’t know he’s blocked” was how the vet put it. Which does make it more challenging to keep an eye on him! They want him back in a couple of weeks for new bloodwork to check on his kidneys, because of his off-the-charts high potassium levels they found when they first tested him.
So we need to keep a close eye on him, and that means keeping him in my bedroom/office, and he is not at all happy about that. There is no way we can keep him on different food without isolating him, either. However, since he wants out, keeping him isolated is adding to his stress, which isn’t going to help his recovery any!
Nosencrantz and Butterscotch, meanwhile, are not happy with him being here, either, so that’s not going to help their stress levels any. He, on the other hand, it content to ignore them.
He used the litter box shortly after we got home, which was a good sign. After we gave him his evening meds, though, he went to the litter box, used it a bit, then went to the closet and tried to pee there, then went over by the water bowl and tried to pee there! He started yowling again, too. Hopefully, once the muscle relaxants and pain killer kick in, he’ll be able to use the litter box again without trouble. It will be a while before the discomfort ends.
As I write this, he is on my bed, chilling.
Hopefully, it will be a quiet night tonight. We shall see.
The Re-Farmer 