Cats and other things.
Aug. 28th, 2018 07:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsittingstillThree days ago we were re-staining the shed, and a small marmalade cat emerged from underneath it. She looked like one of those half-grown kittens that have set out to find their fortunes; you know the ones. She was not shy at all; came right over to be petted, so Kip took his gloves off and sat down with her to make her acquaintance.
I was worried she would get into the stain, which was oil based, and try to lick it off and get sick. Kip said “I can fix that” and opened a can of salmon. Which did indeed fix the problem, but.
She took to hanging around our place. Day before yesterday morning we broke down and bought her a collar, to which I taped a note saying “Is this your cat? Please call me” and my phone number. We also bought some cat food. And in the evening a flea collar because she seemed to be scratching a lot and there were little tiny bugs deep in her fur. She has obviously been with people before because she was very blase about the collar / flea collar, and also is not scared of us at all, and likes to be scritched and petted.
Yesterday we started calling her O’Keefe because of the whole paint thing, and when we painted the garage door (latex paint this time) we thought we kept an eye on her but not a good enough one, because yesterday night we had to hold her and use Kip’s beard trimmer to remove the white paint along one side of her tail. She is very tame and gentle and though she didn’t like the trimmer, she didn’t scratch me even once.
She obviously wanted to come inside, but my brother is VERY allergic and stays with us for a couple of weeks every summer so it Could Not Be.
No calls claiming her, so today we took her to C.A.R.E.—the animal shelter off Hwy 92. She was very unhappy at first in the car, and sank her claws into Kip while climbing to his shoulder and even bit his ear but didn’t draw blood. She calmed down after a few minutes and calmed down more when we stopped for a few minutes in the parking lot and told her what a good cat she was. We told them we will call back in a month and if nobody has adopted her she can be our outside cat. She is incredibly cute but we wanted her to have the best chance of being somebody’s pampered indoor cat we could give her, so we thought she should go to the shelter while still a kitten.
It turns out they think she is 10 months old (!) so I guess small and cute is just her thing. They also think she might be pregnant (!!) though maybe it is just worms and they’re giving her some worm medicine and vaccinating her. I am going to call back in a couple of days and find out how she is settling in.
It is silly but I miss her even though she was only around a couple of days.
In other news, the patio roof is now up. Basically I called the guy who had put our new roof on a few years ago, and he was booked up months in advance but could recommend Andy Belz, who usually does gutters but was willing to take this on and was available in a couple of weeks. It cost us more than we expected but he came when he said he would and did the job when he said he would and I’m quite happy with him. Very UNhappy with Brian Church, who broke the old roof and said he would repair it and then didn’t, but that’s not Andy’s fault, and now I think about it, do I really want someone who is as careless as Mr Church working on my property?
The shed we bought a couple summers ago needed to be re-stained so I scrubbed it and pressure washed it (the neighbors kindly loaned me their pressure washer) and after a suitable period drying (and another period of waiting for a long enough spell of dry weather) Kip and I put new stain on it. The wood was very thirsty and drank a lot of stain but I think we did a pretty thorough job of it and hopefully it won’t have to be done again for a while.
All four of the iron columns have been completely stripped and have received 2 layers of primer. I still need to paint them. The paint was also flaking on the garage doors I built when we moved in, so Kip and I scraped and sanded them and I rinsed them off thoroughly and let them dry and we’ve given them two coats of latex paint and they look much better.
Dad and Jake will probably be here in a week. So much to do; so little time!
I was worried she would get into the stain, which was oil based, and try to lick it off and get sick. Kip said “I can fix that” and opened a can of salmon. Which did indeed fix the problem, but.
She took to hanging around our place. Day before yesterday morning we broke down and bought her a collar, to which I taped a note saying “Is this your cat? Please call me” and my phone number. We also bought some cat food. And in the evening a flea collar because she seemed to be scratching a lot and there were little tiny bugs deep in her fur. She has obviously been with people before because she was very blase about the collar / flea collar, and also is not scared of us at all, and likes to be scritched and petted.
Yesterday we started calling her O’Keefe because of the whole paint thing, and when we painted the garage door (latex paint this time) we thought we kept an eye on her but not a good enough one, because yesterday night we had to hold her and use Kip’s beard trimmer to remove the white paint along one side of her tail. She is very tame and gentle and though she didn’t like the trimmer, she didn’t scratch me even once.
She obviously wanted to come inside, but my brother is VERY allergic and stays with us for a couple of weeks every summer so it Could Not Be.
No calls claiming her, so today we took her to C.A.R.E.—the animal shelter off Hwy 92. She was very unhappy at first in the car, and sank her claws into Kip while climbing to his shoulder and even bit his ear but didn’t draw blood. She calmed down after a few minutes and calmed down more when we stopped for a few minutes in the parking lot and told her what a good cat she was. We told them we will call back in a month and if nobody has adopted her she can be our outside cat. She is incredibly cute but we wanted her to have the best chance of being somebody’s pampered indoor cat we could give her, so we thought she should go to the shelter while still a kitten.
It turns out they think she is 10 months old (!) so I guess small and cute is just her thing. They also think she might be pregnant (!!) though maybe it is just worms and they’re giving her some worm medicine and vaccinating her. I am going to call back in a couple of days and find out how she is settling in.
It is silly but I miss her even though she was only around a couple of days.
In other news, the patio roof is now up. Basically I called the guy who had put our new roof on a few years ago, and he was booked up months in advance but could recommend Andy Belz, who usually does gutters but was willing to take this on and was available in a couple of weeks. It cost us more than we expected but he came when he said he would and did the job when he said he would and I’m quite happy with him. Very UNhappy with Brian Church, who broke the old roof and said he would repair it and then didn’t, but that’s not Andy’s fault, and now I think about it, do I really want someone who is as careless as Mr Church working on my property?
The shed we bought a couple summers ago needed to be re-stained so I scrubbed it and pressure washed it (the neighbors kindly loaned me their pressure washer) and after a suitable period drying (and another period of waiting for a long enough spell of dry weather) Kip and I put new stain on it. The wood was very thirsty and drank a lot of stain but I think we did a pretty thorough job of it and hopefully it won’t have to be done again for a while.
All four of the iron columns have been completely stripped and have received 2 layers of primer. I still need to paint them. The paint was also flaking on the garage doors I built when we moved in, so Kip and I scraped and sanded them and I rinsed them off thoroughly and let them dry and we’ve given them two coats of latex paint and they look much better.
Dad and Jake will probably be here in a week. So much to do; so little time!
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Date: 2018-08-28 11:34 pm (UTC)