You know, the outside cats make going outside quite entertaining! Check out Beep Beep!
Earlier, when I was walking around the yard, she followed me, insisting on attention, until I finally picked her up and carried her the rest of the way.
Later, as I brought the van into the yard, cats and kits scattered all over the place. Beep Beep went up the tree. When I came near, she started rolling around so much, she almost fell off!
Seeing our furry visitors, it reminded me that, when I was out in the yard earlier in the day, I had noticed the cat kibble was almost gone. So I decided to top it up for the night.
We keep the kibble in the Old Kitchen now, so those were the doors I went through. The kittens were on the swing bench – 6 of them! They seemed to know I had food with me, which made their responses to me rather funny. There’s Doom Guy, who comes right up to me. The cautious ones, like Jim and Bob, sortof hang around, but are still not comfortable with me coming close, even with a bowl of food. Then there are the super shy ones, who are clearly torn between wanting the food they can see I have, and wanting to run away from me, at the same time!
As I went for the outer doors, however, they all dashed ahead of me and started for the bowls outside.
Just to be cautious, I looked around, and sure enough, there was our Pepe Le Pew, hanging out by the steps of the clothes line platform. Making himself look big at me!
So I put the food out for the cats, then got some video.
Just so you know, I am NOT really that close to him. This is zoomed in a bit.
Getting back through the sun room took a little more time than usual. ;-)
The Re-Farmer
While working in my office this morning, our Mama cat started getting all agitated, and going up to the window. That’s when I realized I was hearing a low growling noise from outside.
This is what we saw.
It’s a dad-cat standoff!
No wonder our Mama wasn’t happy!
I’ve never seen this cat before, though I think the girls have.
This is the one that showed up in the sun room, one day. :-D
It should be interesting to see how things pan out with these two, over the winter!
The Re-Farmer
The plan was; head out in the late morning to get the tires torqued, then keep on going for a quick trip to the city.
Seven hours later, we finally get home!
But before I get into that, here’s what we got to come home to.
I try to do a walk around the yard every evening, while there’s still light enough to see, and just check on things. The inside cats tend to different windows as I do. The mama cat likes to sit in windows and meow at me, while DahBoy likes to sit quietly and just look at the other cats.
Last night, I got to see this. :-D
Doom Guy, checking out DahBoy. He hung out there and played at the bottom of the door for a while, but wouldn’t let me do much more than touch him, while I was sitting on the concrete and he went under my legs.
Tonight, I was away for much of the day, meeting with my older brother and his wife in the town where my mom is in the hospital, driving to the airport to see our relative off as he returns to Poland, then going to see my mom at the hospital. She was asleep, so we let her be. She is healing well and, if they can get home care worked out, we expect her to be going home on Monday.
So it was pretty late before I got home. After supper, I took a walk around the yard again. Butterscotch came out and started following me, trying to rub against my legs as I walked, so of course she got kicked in the head a couple of times. :-/
It looks like the kittens have been sheltering in where the old wood pile used to be, and where Butterscotch took her kittens for a while. As I came around the house, I could see some kittens by the old dog house there. Doom Guy, the tuxedo, was barely visible in the half light. Much to my delight, he came right up to me, and not only accepted pets, but seemed to want to be picked up. So I did, and he started to purr and enjoy being petted. He was even okay with me continuing to walk with him in my arms!
I was so thrilled!
Eventually, I let him down near the food bowls, then sat in the chair by the sun room. The other kittens had come out and were running around, climbing the arm rail by my mother’s white rose bush, and generally being very entertaining. I took lots of photos, but the light was just too low for any of them to turn out. I hoped some of the other cats would maybe come by, so I just stayed in the chair with my phone handy. Only the tuxedo would come up to me, but not for pets. He tried to climb up my leg a couple of times, and another, jumped up can clawed my butt through the back of the chair! I’m glad he’s more comfortable around me, but I didn’t expect it to be so painful! :-D
Then I heard a noise and looked over to see…
… that’s…
… not a cat.
Nope. It was a skunk, ambling towards me as if I wasn’t even there!
Doom Guy started hissing at it, and the skunk stopped and lifted its tail. There I sat, trying to take pictures (they didn’t really turn out), thinking, “I’m about to get sprayed…” over and over!
The skunk, of course, won the battle of wills, the kittens all ran off, and the skunk continued to amble over to the food bowls.
As soon as it started eating, it was a confirmation for me. Many a night, I’d hear a strange crunching sound outside my office window. It was not the same noise the cats make when they eat, but any time I looked, I could see nothing. I thought it might be a skunk, and now I know for sure.
It’s so cute!
Which means that those shallow holes I’m finding in the yard, that I thought might be a skunk digging for grubs, were probably made by this little guy.
I’ve read that skunks can be very friendly, make good pets, and are very cat like. We’re not about to make a pet out of this one, but I certainly don’t mind it being around.
As long as the cats don’t bother it and cause it to spray! :-D
The Re-Farmer
High winds last night. Lost the internet a few times. A bit of a storm, later on.
Several times, I took a quick walk around the yard to check on things and picked up downed branches (one of the apple trees in the west yard lost a big one).
I paused to take a short video, during which my heart was in my throat.
Can you see those power lines?
Can you see those branches, whipping about at the power lines?
When we can finally get those cleared, it’s going to be so much better for my blood pressure.
The Re-Farmer
Today, I give you a story, in pictures and video.
I like cows. Cows are wonderful creatures.
They are also not exactly intelligent creatures, though I know some breeds are smarter than others.
I was sitting in my office when I started to hear the sound of cows, mooing nearby. I realize the renter has cycled his cows back to our quarter section, and they are nearby. Happily, I go outside to see them.
The cows are spread out around the barn, including some in the old hay yard.
The hay yard is now cluttered with a number of abandoned vehicles and equipment. Including several old snowmobiles, I’m told are being kept for their parts.
Hearing an odd sound, I look in between various items.
Can you see the cow’s nose in there?
It took me a few moments to see that the noise I was hearing was of that cow, trying to eat the snowmobile.
To be more specific, the remains of the seat on the snowmobile.
I ended up going through the barn to the hay yard, to get them away from the snowmobiles. Which turned out to be a good thing, since I found the door to the lean to was open. There is a tree growing near it that blocks us from seeing it from the house, so who knows how long it was open!
This is what the cow was chewing on and licking. In the second video, you could see the cow going for something on the far side of the seat, too. That would likely be the foam from the seat that it was trying to get at.
Afterwards, I went out the back door of the barn. Some cows were around where an old shed had collapsed, and I could hear them getting into the metal roofing material that’s in there, so I wanted to check on things.
This is what greeted me out the back door.
Most of the cows and their calves avoided me, but these two were curious enough to stick around.
I then made my way over to the junk pile, starting to pick up and move over sheets of metal that had been blown over by the winds we’ve been having in the last while. As I get around the back side of the collapsed shed, I see…
Yeah. That black cow with its butt facing me is right on the junk. There is no grass or weeds there, so I have no idea what she’s after.
I really look forward to when we can get rid of this pile of junk!!
I continue around, which convinces the one cow to get off the junk. Some move away from me, while others come closer to check me out. I pick up and re-stack some of the sheets of metal siding, finding things to put on top of the pile to hopefully keep it from blowing over again, and make my way around between the pile and the shed.
One of the cows is braver than the others, and starts coming closer to me, watching what I’m doing.
I quickly realized that she was not chewing on grass, nor her cud.
She was chewing on a foreign object.
You might need to turn your volume up to hear this…
Now, this is concerning, because as far as I can tell, based on what’s lying around, she might be chewing on either wood or metal.
I tried to come closer to her, little by little, hoping to be able to see what she’s chewing on.
That’s one heck of a side-eye she’s giving me!
I kept trying to move around and get closer, without chasing her away, still trying to look into her mouth and see what she’s chewing on.
After a while, I start getting really concerned, because she’s got foam around her mouth from the chewing, and every now and then looked to be in some discomfort.
Then the object fell out of her mouth.
That, my dear friends, is a bone.
A beef bone.
I can’t say I was all that surprised. This is not the first time I’ve seen a cow chewing on a beef bone. When I was a kid, I remember walking past one of our cows and seeing her chewing with her head extended weirdly. She was familiar enough with me that I could walk up to her and reach into her mouth, where I pulled out one of the dogs’ beef bones. It was not as thoroughly chewed up as this one, though!
I have no idea where she found it, but I wouldn’t let her pick it up again.
She was displeased with that.
Ooh, this girl had attitude!
I proceed to kick the piece of bone away until I got it to the junk pile.
Once I was away, she started looking for it.
She wanted that bone back! She just kept snuffling and snuffling the area.
At this point, I decided it was time to head out and went back around the junk pile to go to the barn. Where I found…
This was not here, the last time I tried to clean up around the pile. In fact, I don’t remember seeing it just a few minutes before, when I went past here to go around the pile and found the cow standing right on the junk.
It is, I believe, from one of the snowmobiles.
I took it into the barn when I went in and closed up the doors again.
As I come out the front doors of the barn, I look back and see…
Can you believe it? That cow, with company, actually found where I’d kicked the piece of bone!
I’m hoping she wasn’t able to get it out, but she seems quite determined!
I know it’s a running joke that goats will eat anything.
So will cows.
Including the remains of other cows.
Herbivore fail!
The Re-Farmer
(Circle of Life warning)
Of all the outside cats, Beep Beep is notably the smallest, in every way. Yet, now that she’s got kittens to feed, she is proving to be a Mighty and Prolific Huntress.
Case in point.
Earlier today, I was hearing an odd meowing outside my office window. A very unusual sort of meow. So I went outside to look at see what was up.
It was Beep Beep. Doing this.
The odd sound I was hearing was her meowing with a mouth full of dead chipmunk. Usually, I see her with a vole, sometimes with a bird. This is a first I’ve seen any of the cats with a chipmunk.
Then, this afternoon, my older daughter noticed some odd meowing and went out to see.
Yes, it was Beep Beep again. This time, with a bird.
Both bird and chipmunk remain beside the bowls of cat kibble.
As the kittens have starting coming around the house to the food bowls, I am no longer going to be putting food out for them by the garden shed. Which means, kitties have a meaty lunch waiting for them when they come around.
The Re-Farmer
Butterscotch seems to have moved her kittens again, and from seeing her yesterday evening while I was clearing the bush, I am afraid she may have moved them off our property entirely, and to the neighbour’s across the road (no one lives there, as far as I can tell).
This evening, I brought food and refilled the water for Beep Beep and her kittens, by the garden shed. There was no sign of them, and I went on my way around the yard. As I made my way back, I found Butterscotch and all her kittens!
I had to zoom in with my phone camera quite a bit, as they did not seem comfortable with me coming closer.
Eventually, I came around again and saw Beep Beep at the food.
Except it wasn’t Beep Beep! It was her grey tabby!
I sat at the picnic table and, before I knew it, I had all 6 kittens around! Butterscotch was still around, some of the time, too.
Here is some video I got while I was there.
Just before I was ready to leave, I did finally see Beep Beep. She was carrying a bird in her mouth that was almost as big as her head! She didn’t come close, though. Her tuxedo saw her and ran after her, wanting that bird, but she continued carrying it through the garden.
It looks like she may have moved her kittens across the road, too. :-( This concerns me. While we are pretty isolated, that road is a main artery West from the highway, and is quite busy for a gravel road.
At least they know to come back here for assured food and water!
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 