Cabin Crafted

Tag: cats

  • Rough week on the farm

    This week has been marked with disruption and illness. There was no school midweek for a teacher workday then a 2 hour delay that turned into a closed day because of a light snowfall and strong wind on Friday. We have been experiencing cold nights and damp cold days and Romeo, our Buff Orpington rooster, a calm gentle fellow had a serious case of comb and waddles frostbite. He may not be such a handsome fellow by the end of winter.

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    This was taken before his frostbite. He is a good guardian to his hens and gentle to them in his ardor. As the days are lengthening, we are beginning to get more eggs, up to half a dozen one day. These are welcomed, with 5 of us in the household now, we use many more than I did before.
    Yellow Cat, a rescued barn cat, obtained as a sickly kitten lived out his life this week. We had been told he would likely only live a couple of years as he had feline Aids and it finally took its toll on his fragile immune system. I found him on his bed on the porch yesterday with no life left.

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    RIP Yellow Cat.
    For a couple of weeks, we have noticed our German Shepherd licking herself more than routine cleaning would require. A vet trip to have her checked out and to get her nails clipped as it takes two people to hold her down while one clips, revealed that she had malformed lady parts that have become inflamed, likely infected so she is receiving antibiotics once a day and pain meds twice. This sounds like an easy process, but she doesn’t take pills, even flavored chewables and you risk your digits to try to force them. She can remove a pill from cheese, peanut butter, meatballs, any trick in the book. Daughter who used to be a vet nurse was going to be the pill giver, but the Vet gave us a can of prescriptive canned food and suggested putting the pill in a small meatball of it and magic, she gobbles the pills right down. A solution to a three year old problem, yay.
    I was to leave on a bus today to Northern Virginia to babysit Grandson #1 tomorrow and return home with my car on Tuesday. Last evening, Son#1 sent a text and suggested that I try to change my reservation for the bus as they had a stomach virus spreading through their region and he had come down with it. Not wanting to catch it myself nor bring it back to our household, my car will have to stay for another bit. I hope they don’t all catch and suffer the virus.
    Another week on our farm, I can’t believe it is February and in two short weeks, Mountaingdad and I will celebrate 37 years of marriage and in three weeks, our baby will turn 28. It can’t be so.

  • Olio – November 13, 2014

    Olio: a miscellanous collection of things.

    My blogging goes through spits and spurts, sometimes my creativity is just not there, or focused on other issues.  As the winter sets in, I am more content to sit and read or knit, sometimes both at the same time, if my book is on my tablet and my knitting is mindless.  I have been going through books at a record rate lately, some of them not worthy of mention, but several quite noteworthy.  The Orphan Train, Christina Baker Kline fascinated me.  The period of time related to my Dad’s young life and I recommended it to him and my stepmom.  They both loved it too and set out on some research to see if her grandfather was one of the orphans.  He was an immigrant orphan, adopted in that part of the US.  They are still trying to prize out information for her, and her mother’s maiden name happens to be Baker.  The Glassblowers, Petra Durst-Benning, a translation from German totally enthralled me. A loose historical fiction of the glassblowing village of Lauscha in Germany and three young women as they struggle to survive and break the gender barrier to create some of the earliest blown glass Christmas ornaments.  Another good one was The Light Between Ocean’s, M. L. Stedman, a tale of love, loss, and deception, set at a lighthouse off Western Australia.

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    This is Yellow Cat, a sickly intact male barn kitty that rarely goes to the barn, spending much of his day on our front porch.  He is a rescue that was born with Feline Aids and can’t be neutered because every time we try to take him to the vet, he has a rhinovirus attack.  He is pitiful, wheezes like Darth Vader, but is loving, friendly with the dogs, and keeps most of the mice out of the house by his presence.  He was enjoying the 5 minutes of morning sunshine we had on this brisk cloudy day.  We certainly aren’t suffering the cold and snow of parts of the country, but the temperature is 20 degrees below normal for this time of the year and we are having snow flurries and very cold in the teens nights.
    On my way to my spinning group today, riding shotgun for hubby, I finished knitting granddaughter #1’s sweater. The ends are woven in, it has been washed and is blocking on the downstairs bed. I can’t decide whether to use plain buttons the color of the sweater or go looking for something cute and three year old appropriate. I guess I’ll decide that tomorrow. I still have two kid sweaters to get done by Christmas, then I will get back to my own sweater.
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    I did get some spinning done today. My arthritic right thumb has been noncooperative lately and so I have only played a bit with the Turkish drop spindle, but today I spun on my wheel. Though I’m not a fan of pink and am not sure why I bought fiber that color, the darker purples and grays are making an interesting single.
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    Loving life on our mountain farm.