Pink Fox: its Raining...IN MY HOUSE! :/

[pinkfox]

cat pregnancy usually lasts around 65 days, once you think shes getting close youll want to keep her indoors if possible (to make sure she has her abbies in an apropriate safe place and to make sure the babies dont end up as racoon or hawk food)
if bringing her inside isnt an option you want to make sure you set her up a box in a barn or shed somewhere seculded safe and reitlivy dark away from drafts, a wooden crate or other high sided box is good for this as it keeps drafts off the kittens.
fill with a thick layer of newspaper and some blankets or straw.
in the house set up the box somewhere quiet and dark, a clost is usually the place of choice for cats...shes not going to be wanting to be bothered too much in the first 2 weeks so somewhere out of the way of human and animal traffic.
doesnt need to be elaborate, just something to keep the kittens in untill there older that can be filled with something absorbant for the delivery and will keep the drafts away from the babies.

setting up that place now well before shes due to give birth will mabe it much more comfortable later and shes more likely to use it...
you want newspaper in the bottom and then easy wash blankets (fleece is perfect for this as cats sem to love the texture and its easy to wash and doesnt freay or get caught on tiny nails)
i also like to sprinkle a little cat nip in there
even after tons of hard work she may still not want to use the box...but gtting it together early makes her much mroe likely to.

if she gives birth somewhere other than the box let her finnish up and then move her kittens into the box. shell tend to move them out but keep putting them back and gently encorage her to stay in the box (petting sweet talk ect)

up her food, or switch to a kitten food...she can pretty much eat whatver she wants are this stage if shes pregnant lol

by about 1/2 way through pregnancy shell be eating anything from 2 to 4 times as much food as normal. and break up her wet meals so shes eating 3-4 times a day rather than 2

switch to NONE clumping litter in the litterboxes...(she may decide the litterbox is a good place to have her babies and clumping litter will stick to them and be ingested when shes cleaning the babies...as the babies start toddling around they tend to eat the litter at first and clumping litter will cause impactions.)

http://cats.lovetoknow.com/Cat_Pregnancy

 

[pinkfox]

well brought in the new years with a mikes hard and a zombie movie LOL.
finally whent to bed around 1:15...woke up at about 3 and HAD to turn the heater off it was toasty last night lol (its still very comfortable in her with no heater on, hoping this weather sticks around for a while...not running the heater is a good thing. my december gas bill was $25 (but there were a couple of seriously damp chilly days and th heater was on almost constantly so thats not bad to heat the entire house...id like to get it back down though. itll be easier once the little babies go home...right now there still young neough that a chill can be dangerous so ive been a little more lax with the heat to make sure they stay comfy.
once they go to thier new homes i can just throw on a sweater and a blanket if i need it lol.
the house does seem to retain the heat well but i need a de-humidifyer...theres not enough airflow when the heaters on to keep the moisture down and im whiping down mildew almost daily (dont want it turning to mold)...

anywho.
2012 started off to the dogs allowing me to sleep in untill 9:30...i freaked out when i woke up because it was so quiet i thought somehting must have happend
everyone was fine though lol.

the sun is shining the skys bright blue, theres a pretty deacent gusty wind going on out there but its beautiful...

and dozer managed to figure out how to get on the ottoman all by himself this morning...
hes still not figured out how to get on the chair if im sat in it but it wont be long so investing in some folding chairs so i can eat at the table has suddenly become a little higher on the list lol.

hes smart though...2 days ago i started making him sit and wait for his bowl for breakfast...usually i put it down and hes right in it...but i wanted to control that so i made him sit as usual, put his bowl down and told him to wait, and picked it back up the moment his butt came off the floor...he got the point pretty dang quickly...yesterday i only had to pick his bowl up once....this morning...i only had to remind him to wait and he sat his but back down and watched hsi bowl intently untill i told him he coudl have his breakfast.


todays plan involves, letting breakfast go down, then giving the little ones a bath...then i think im going to get my butt outside and see if i can pull some more boards off that shed...i may even set up my paint cans as a make shift sawsall and start trimming some of the boards up.
its too nice to stay inside so i think the painting will wait...

ok off to check my email then to get my day realy started

 

[Wannabefree]

The cold front is on it's way girl! We got a straight downpour this morning about 5 a.m. but it only lasted about 5 minutes and was gone as quickly as it blew in. There is supposed to be a cold front blowing into the area tonight though. That's what all the wind is. The low is just below freezing for the night. You better squeeze as much out of today as you can!!

I have a couple folding chairs you can borrow till you can get some of your own, if you want, remind me Tuesday morning to clean them up for you. They go with my patio set, but they have been on the front porch and are a smidge dirty. Nothing the hose and sun won't take care of though if you'd like to use them for a bit. I don't immediately require their use.

Dozer is such a good smart boy! I can't wait to see ya'll again!!!! Have a great day sister!

 

[pinkfox]

well, after my last post i decided the puppy baths coud wait and id get outside and do some more on the shed.
i now have almsot all the shingles off the front and then hit a wall. theres a thick ledger board running along the top of the front boards, its too high for me to reach without a ladder and im not exactly "ladder safe" so itll wait for now.
instead i started removing some of the stuff inside the shed and now have a few nice piles of stuff.

pile1 is a pile of wood, much of it should be usable in some way shape or form...
its actually split into 2 piles, those with boards 8" and wider and those with peices 3" - 8" wide...

pile 2 is a pile of trash, wood thats so rotted it woudltn withstand having the nails removed, clothes, a peice of BRIghT yellow carpet that hadnt seen better days fresh from the manufacturor (lol, i like yellow but this is WOW...lol) paper...a sheet of tar paper that would have been great if it hadnt rottet itself into one solid tube...(theres no way to unravel it i tried its completly fused)

pile 3 is potential recyclables...mil jugs, beer bottles glass jars alof them are thilthy and have been sued by squirrels and mice as stroage and nesting places, many are broken or crackd and the ones with lids are rusted on.
were talking coffee and peanut butter jars from the days when they were still sold in GLASS...
im thinking there may be ways to reuse some of these (im not sure id ever use them for food but other options mabe?!
or at the very least take them all to the recycling plant

then theres my salvaged goods, 5 black plastic nursery plant pots, 3 terracotta plant pots and 2 nice old glass whiskey jugs. not sure what im going to do with those 2 yet but i love the shape of them and would like to use them somewhere in the garden.
the terracotta pots are small enough for kitchen or table top use so they will probably get used for herbs so i can pot some up and bring some in before the frosts each year to have fresh all winter...
the black nursery pots will also be good for potentially over wintering a few things, there not huge i belive their 1 gal pots, but im sure theyll come in handy.

these still plenty more junk in shed #1, alot more glass burried under everything...(seems like they were collecting jars then things just whent to pot?!) a couch that needs to be done away with the spings are rusted underneath and the mice are probably living in the cushions
theres alot of broken glass that needs some special handling (i need some kind of solid tote to stick it in so noone gets cut.)
and i need a donation of about 50 bazzillion of the heavy duty contractor trash bags for the small junk, rusy old cans old clothes bitsof foam insulation that themice have happily made snow with.

the floor inside shed #1 has mostly collapsed, im thinking once i get most of the big stuff out and rip off more boards and get the main sturcutre down i could probably level most of whats left in there (alof of shredded foam, wood pulp, leaves, pecan and oak nut shells ect...i can probably scrape it all out of the way, pull up the floor (which is so rotted it shoudlt be hard, then just scrap the degradable junk down and build over it, being its mostly dirt leaves and junk itll continue to rot down under the chicken coop and eventualy go back into the earth.
im planning on building the new coop on those concrete deck blocks (the current shed seems to be on boulders)

shed #2 (the one at the back of this) does seem to be in better shape and im still not yet sure if that secion might be salavagable by rebuilding the roof trusses and the back wall and cladding the inside with plywood and repainting the outside (most of the boards are starting to rot but i think if they were pressure washed and repainted...(or even rip off the gap borads and put siding over the base boards...i duno, i need someone with a more structural eye to give me the opinion on that so ill probable delay removing that secion untill dad gets here...
the one im currently ripping down though, that can continue to be completly removed as long as we can seperate the one im working on from the shared wall.
shed #2 also contains come more glass, 1 broken window, 1 sash window with a single pannel that might e usable (probably the other half to the broken pannel) and about 3 doors, all with broken glass but possibly usable for things like a potting bench or a table top for a coffee type table for th patio ect...
theres also alot of old painted trim in there that might be salvagable and a toilet...which im currently seriously thinking about turning into a planter for the kitchen garden....i know thers at least 1 more old toilet back in the woods so i can have a matching pair lol (and yes we know im going to buy hot pink enamal paint and paint them lol.
it only makes sense to use them though there big there heavy and theyd cost a fortune to trash but there certianly not in good enough condition to resell...

its a little overwhelming though right now so im taking a break and im going to give the pups a bath in a few ins to re-center myself.

i do seriously need a truck (or some kind of small suv and trailer) i think if i could load this junk onto a trailer or into a truck as im doing t and just do it truck load by truck load 1 week at a time it would be a little less daunting...right now it feels like im just moving trash around rather than tackling the real problem of actually getting rid of it all...

oh well, i DID get more stuff done though, the shed is 1 more step closer to demonishing time and i managed to get a couple hours of sunshine while doign it.
need a long 3 prong extension cord so i can run my jigsaw and start tackling the wood pile trimming things up so i can make my veggie beds and such. my jig only has a 4 ft cord LOL.

 

[pinkfox]

hmmm...
heres my yearly overvewi horoscope for the comming year...

Year 2012 Overview

The winds of change are not about to let up just yet! With the arrival of 2012 comes yet another flurry of eclipse patterns to shake up your status quo. In June, the full Moon lunar eclipse in Sagittarius is the last of the series, bringing the final wave of a sea of oceanic changes you've weathered over the past few years. You've probably experienced dramatic endings or beginnings (or both) of important relationships and extensive personal transformations recently. Depending on where you find yourself at the start of the year, you can expect to experience the total other end of the emotional and relationship spectrum before 2012 is over.

Venus will grace your relationship sector for an extended stay this year (spring to summer), setting the tone for beauty and romance at the ideal time of the year for new love. You'll welcome the amorous reprieve, because Mars and Jupiter will have kept you working hard most of the year. Plus, Jupiter will spend the first half of the year in your work sector, something that will bring glorious opportunities in your chosen field ... but won't leave much time for anything else. And with Mars firing up your career sector for the first six months of 2012, you'll channel some serious energy in service of taking your career to the next level. By summer, you should be at the very top of your game. This is the year to get yourself on the map, Archer, so go for it!

In June, Jupiter will enter your relationship house, changing your focus from work to relationships. Saturn will depart from your social sector this October to give you back a real social life. When it moves on to your house of sleep and dreams in the fall, you'll welcome the retreat after the constant work mode of the first half of the year. Be sure to push all your projects during the first nine months of 2012 - you'll be ready for an extended vacation by the time October comes around!


definatly sounds like it semi fits the current situation lol
heres to hoping things go smoothly!

 

[dragonlaurel]

Good job! Sounds like a good year coming up. Lots of stuff done in the beginning, then time to enjoy yourself, then some well deserved rest.

 

[Wannabefree]

I'm coming to rescue you Pinky just give me time Maybe when this crazy homestudy business is over I'll be able to pull away from here for a bit and get the truck to working for you! I'm gonna see if I can borrow a little trailer too. I know a place we can dump it all, there are several of the little roadside recycling "dumps" around, just gotta figure out which is closer to you so I aint burning so much fuel but we'll get it going SOON! I know how you feel not having a truck though...been there and this truck has been a BLESSING!!

Homestudy folks are coming back Jan 5th, and they will schedule one more visit after that I still have no clue when I have to go to KY to see the kids, or if, or when I'd have to go get them :/ I gotta haul steel this week and get some money put back!! I hate how everything takes so much time I'd love if this homestudy business was done and we could get this knocked out so we could both feel like we're making progress.

 

[BarredBuff]

Dont have to worry about the cat having them outside, the door could stand open the whole day and she'd rather stay in here But atleast she catches mice Thanks for the help, Pinky!

 

[pinkfox]

thats great news that you finally got some word on the next home study date though....they may not be in a rush it seems but at least things are still moving forward.

and no worries, i apreciate any help whenever it comes lol, and in reality it gets done as it gets done...the rabbits are my big january must do i think...along with possibly 1/2 a dozen runner ducks (im hoping to use solid floor in the hutches and then turn under the hutches into a duck house lol.)
i figure im only realy in a rush on the shed/chickens because i want eggs, and runners will give me eggs, and with runners i dont have to worry about flying or a super secure pen as there not flyers and cant realy jump either so even 12" tall circle of chicen wire will keep them in whatever area i want them in as long as there locked in securely at night and have some cover...

we'll get there cindi, we'll get there

 

[BarredBuff]

Sounds like Janurary will be big for you, I have Muscovies now and if I get rid of them and have a desire to get more it will be Welsh Harlequins, I dont know why but I like em