From the back porch - May 22, 2020

I had hoped to work in the vegetable garden today, but it's raining.

Instead, I am digitizing embroidery designs, testing them, and uploading them to Etsy.  The embroidery machine is humming away as we speak, sewing an A-frame camper design that I did weeks ago.  This design was requested by one of my customers while I was too busy to test it.  My customer tested it and said that it sewed just fine.  I am sewing it so that I will have a picture to upload with the listing.  When it finishes, I will test a crowing rooster design that I have created to go with some other farm animal designs already uploaded to Etsy.

The cat-catching operation is still in limbo.  She's going into the trap to eat, but not all the way yet.  It's hard to get the food/bait all the way to the back of the trap without spilling it.  I am going to have to switch my baiting tactics over the weekend.  If I can trap her before she births the kittens, she's going to the animal shelter.  I'm tired of the struggle.

Last night after dark, I heard the pellet rifle go off and went out to the porch to see what was up.  The Husband said, "The coon is back."  The Husband shot above its head and it ran back to the woods, but we knew he'd be back the minute we went inside.  He's a gnarly old thing (the coon, not The Husband).  I suggested that The Husband should actually pop a pellet in the coon's ass to discourage him, but he won't do it.  He said he doesn't want to just wound it.  I get it, I do.  But a little pain might at least make him think twice about raiding the cat food.  The Husband suggested that a BB might get the point across without actually wounding the animal.  There were three loaded BB guns (belonging to the grandchildren) on a high shelf on the porch.  I grabbed one and cocked it and peered out into the darkness, but didn't see the coon.  After a few minutes, I gave up and went to bed.

But tonight, I'm going to have a margarita on the back porch, and then I might do a little coon huntin'.

The cat saga continues - May 21, 2020

The plan:  feed the cat in the trap every day, twice a day, with the trap not set, putting the food farther and farther into the trap each time, until she'll go far enough into the trap to spring it.  Then set the trap and catch her.

Last night at the cat's suppertime (she comes to the door when she smells supper cooking), the cat was not to be found.  About 9:30 last night, she showed up, meowing, while I was doing some computer work on the back porch.  I got up, put some food in the trap, and went back to the computer. 

In a minute, the cat gave a terrible, vampiric hiss.  I jumped up to see what was out there, but saw nothing, not even the cat.  I went back to the computer.  A minute or two later, I heard a growl, more like a dog growl than a cat growl.  I jumped up again, opened the screen door, and looked out.  There was a huge raccoon eating the cat food in the trap.  I screamed, "GET OUT OF HERE!" but it just looked at me and kept eating.

I went inside and told The Husband.  He went out to the back porch and grabbed the pellet rifle that we've been keeping propped by the back door ever since we were armadillo hunting last fall.  It's almost as loud as a rifle.  The Husband thought the sound would scare the coon away, but it didn't; it stood up on its hind legs and looked at us, like, "What?" and returned to its meal.  The Husband re-loaded the pellet gun, and shot at a galvanized tin wash tub that was right behind the coon, thinking that the PING would scare the coon away.  It did.  For a minute.

I said, "Shoot it if it comes back!" 

He said, "The pellet gun won't kill it, and it might put its eye out." 

And I was, like, WTF?  WHO CARES?

The Husband went back inside, and I went back to my computer work, and the growling continued, ferocious and insistent.  I heard scampering noises from two different directions, and I'm pretty sure one of them was NOT the cat.  I came inside and got a high-powered flashlight and shined it around the yard just in time to see a raccoon tail disappearing over the hill, but I could still hear scampering noises coming from another part of the yard.  I think we had two raccoons arguing over the cat food.  I went inside and told The Husband we should set the trap and catch the raccoon.  He said, "Then what?"  Neither of us has the heart to shoot it in the trap - how sporting would that be? - and then what would we do with a dead raccoon?  If we chose to haul it away and release it, we'd have to drive it 10 miles or more to keep it from coming back.

I tell you, I am about sick of this animal business.  We thought that keeping the stray cat would cut down on snakes, mice, etc., but it seems like we're just drawing other critters to the yard. 

I am still waiting on the call from Animal Control, still determined to get them to help me catch this cat so I can take it to the vet to be spayed.

Meanwhile, the cat will probably drop a load of kittens on us.

Animal Control should come get this cat while there's only one to catch!

Cat catching - May 19, 2020

While I'm waiting for some glue to dry, let me tell you how my day started.

The cat had an appointment with the vet at 8:00 this morning to get shots and get spayed.

This is not our cat.  Or wasn't our cat.  It adopted us a few weeks ago.  When we saw it catch a rodent in the yard, we decided to let it stay.  I called the vet to make an appointment to have the cat "fixed" and vaccinated.  The soonest appointment I could get was three weeks from when I called. 

During this three weeks, we began to suspect the cat was pregnant.  The vet said they would take care of it, but it would cost me extra.  I said, "Whatever.  I do not want kittens."

This cat is about half wild.  It is not so leery of us that it won't rub our legs, but sudden moves send it packing.  Ever since I made the appointment, I have been planning how to capture the cat to get it to the vet.

The Nephew has a live trap big enough to catch a raccoon.  I borrowed it from him yesterday.  At the cat's suppertime, I fixed the trap so that it wouldn't spring and put the cat food in the trap.  She was a little suspicious, but eventually she went in and ate.  I thought, Game on, cat.

This morning she would not go in the trap.  She went half-way in at one point, and we should have just shoved her ass in and been done with it, but she hissed when we tried to block her exit, and she got away.

Now, we both had to be at work this morning, and the clock was ticking.  I waited a little, and she calmed down and started rubbing on my leg.  I just reached down and picked her up under her belly (which was bumpy with little cat titties - a sure sign she is with child).  When she did not protest much at being picked up, I marched her to my car, opened the back hatch, and tossed her in.

She got out before I could close the hatch.

I gave her a few more minutes to calm down, then enlisted The Husband's assistance.  He brought her to the car, holding her straight out in front of him, with her kicking and squirming, and I opened the hatch and he stuffed her in.  Aaaand she got out again.

I said to The Husband, "F*ck this cat.  I'm calling animal control."

I have been trying to talk animal control into catching this cat for me for weeks.  They seemed like they wanted to help, given the fact that I was going to adopt the cat rather than send her to the animal shelter, but they are apparently short-handed (because of the corona virus) and not all that eager (or perhaps able) to help me get the #(!@ cat to the vet.  But this time I was going to give them an ultimatum:  either come help me catch the cat, or come get the bitch and keep her.

On my way to work, I called the vet.  They put me on hold for 12 minutes before I could say the first word.  When they finally answered, I told them I could not catch the cat and asked them if I could bring her in later today if I could catch her.  They said sure, but it would be a few days before they could get to it, and they'll charge me room and board until then.  I am NOT paying room and board for a cat that's NOT EVEN MINE (it won't be my cat until I actually lay out money on it, not counting cat food).  I couldn't make another appointment, because I have NO IDEA when I will be able to catch this cat.

The next call I made was to the animal shelter.  I told them in a very heartfelt manner that they could either promise to come catch this cat for me so I can get it to the vet (after I make another appointment), or they can COME GET IT NOW.  The person on the phone evidently did not have the authority to make this decision.  I am waiting on a call from the boss.

The cat was still here when I got home from work, so I guess they didn't choose the COME GET IT NOW option.  I glanced over at the patio a little while ago, and the shithead was in the trap, eating cat food.  Apparently the trap is not set, and if it were, I'd have to turn the cat loose since today's appointment has come and gone and I can't get another for several days.

Meanwhile, she's probably going to have kittens.

If that happens, my next call to the animal shelter will not give them only one option:  COME GET THEM.

Garden Progress - May 18, 2020

I checked the vegetable garden Saturday to see if anything had come up.  Nothing.  But I'm still hopeful.  I uncovered a seed or two in a green bean row, and they were swollen and about to burst open.  We had a good rain yesterday, so maybe that will help.

The day after my daylily shipment arrived, my sister sent me two buckets of daylillies from her garden.  She sent them by my niece, who texted me Thursday afternoon to tell me she had them.  I told her I'd come get them the next day when I got off from work.  Well, I forgot, and my niece texted me again Saturday morning and said that she would not be responsible for the death of the daylillies, so I went and got them on my way to the grocery store.

Since I'd planted twenty new daylillies only a day or two earlier, I was kind of out of the mood to plant more, plus I was running short of good places to put them.  But Nanny said she would like to have some of them, so I took half of them to her house and planted them near her back porch.  They should do beautifully there.  Meanwhile, I scoped out a couple of locations in my own yard where I can plant the other half.  I shall do that today, after work, if it's not raining when I get home.

The rain storm we had yesterday was a doozie.  Our electricity went out not long after the storm started and stayed off for a good while.  I'd put a roast in the oven about an hour earlier and worried that it would not get done in time for dinner.  Just as the power came back on, The Husband saw a stranger walking around in our back yard and went out to investigate.  It was the power company guy, checking on things.  It turned out that the wind had blown over a tree in our neighbor's yard, which had grazed their house and yanked the power line loose and zapped the transformer.  Our house and the neighbor's house were the only two houses affected.

The neighbors are elderly and had no way of removing the tree from the house themselves.  Our chainsaw is at the repair shop, and we had to hunt the neighborhood for one that would work.  Finally, we found one, and we mustered the local sons, grandsons, and nephews to come help cut up the tree and get it off the house.

Thankfully, the roast did get done in time for dinner.  :)

Daylilies - May 14, 2020

A package arrived in the mail yesterday.  It was the right size and shape to be some shoes I had ordered a few days earlier.  I tore into the box, and it wasn't shoes.  It was daylilies that I had ordered w-a-y back in the fall.  Twenty of them.  I was so sore from wrestling the tiller Monday that my first impulse was to stick them in a bucket of water and deal with them later, but I knew what would happen if I did that; they'd most likely sit there and rot.  So I grabbed my little digger and stuck them in the ground, here, there, and yonder in the yard.  The exercise was good for working out a little of the soreness.

While I was resting on the porch after the planting, I kept hearing a strange, moaning noise coming from the woods behind the house.  There are squirrels and birds and frogs in those woods, and they make all kinds of weird noises, but this was something new.  In a few minutes, I caught some movement in my peripheral vision and looked up to see a big old turkey hen slowly strolling past the porch.  She ambled around for a few minutes, making that crazy moaning noise, then turned and eased back into the woods.  Just as I got up to go tell The Husband about the turkey, he came out to the porch.  When he heard the news, he grabbed his phone and started playing turkey calls, hoping to lure the hen back to the yard so he could take her picture.

Who keeps turkey calls on their phone???  Geez.

Yesterday was Planting Day - May 12, 2020

I was grateful - and THRILLED - that the menfolk had plowed the garden for me.  Knowing that weather reports were predicting rain for today (Tuesday), I was determined to get my seeds in the ground Monday.  Since The Boss turned me loose from work at about noon yesterday, I had the whole afternoon to work.

I started by re-tilling the rows I intended to plant.  As I began to work, the Ghost of Gardens Past brought some thoughts to mind.  One of the biggest problems over the years has been the fact that my garden spot is kind of in a bowl and stays too wet for too long when it rains.  I wanted to make some actual raised rows that might keep the plants out of the puddles. 

The Big Black tiller has a furrow attachment that has sat, unused, for most of the time we've owned it.  The attachment reminds me of a seagull in flight, with a pointy body to tear into the dirt and wings to funnel the dirt to each side.  It was right in the gardening shed where we'd left it.  The Ghost reminded me that I'd had trouble attaching it that one time I'd used it.  The instructions were still in a drawer in the shed.  I found the necessary wrenches and pliers, and sat down on the ground behind the tiller to figure out what I needed to do.  A nephew on the hill has a new puppy - a yellow lab with more energy than any dog I've ever seen - and this puppy was out in the yard while I was trying to work on the tiller.  He kept licking my face and jumping on my back and trying to crawl into my lap.  I hollered for the nephew to "come get this #)!(@ dog," and he came out and corralled the dog, and lifted the tiller up while I installed the furrow attachment.  Soon, I was furrowing like crazy.

The sky began to darken, and I felt pressed for time.  I tilled up a few rows and planted them.  Tilled up a few more, and planted them.  I was down to my last pack of seeds - a good-sized bag of purple hull peas - when it began to sprinkle.  Boy, I was irked, knowing that once it rained it would be several more days before the garden would be dry enough to plant the peas, but I put up all of the gardening tools and came back to the house. 

Five minutes later, it quit sprinkling. 

I put my shoes back on and went back to the garden, hauled everything out of the shed again, and finished the tilling.

The Husband showed up with his gardening gloves just as I was dropping seeds.  He helped me cover the seeds with soil, and we came on back to the house.

I was so tired I would have cried if it would have helped.  When The Husband started talking about what we were going to fix for supper, I said, "I DON'T CARE!"  Sensing my mood, he volunteered to drive to town and get us a hamburger.  That suited me just fine.

While he was gone, I showered and changed into my pajamas.  As we were eating our burgers, I said, "I'm going to bed at 8:30."  And I did.

But, land sakes, I ached.  I got up at midnight and took some ibuprofen, and crawled into the spare bed to read until the pain-reliever kicked in.

Thankfully, getting out of bed this morning was not as hard as I'd anticipated.  My muscles aren't so sore, but my right boob is bruised (from the tiller handle) and swollen.  Big Black fought back!

Mother's Day - May 11, 2020

My family was very nice to me this weekend.  The Husband gave me two hardy hibiscus, AND he planted them for me.  My younger son, who is w-a-y across the state sent me a sweet text.  And my older son, plus my might-as-well-be-my-son, plowed and disc'd and tilled my garden.  The whole thing is now ready to plant.  I am going to try my best to get the seeds in the ground when I come home from work today.  It's supposed to rain tomorrow.

The cat that has adopted us is pregnant, I think.  I made an appointment to have her spayed and get her some vaccinations, but because of all the virus stuff, the first appointment I could get isn't until May 19.  I will be surprised if she doesn't drop a load of kittens before then.  She is blowing up bigger every day.