Bad news first: the surrogate needs de-parasiting!
Which is not cheap for nursing queens. I had noticed the fleas on the kittens,
and this morning saw the confirmation where they come from. Silver, of course,
I doused on her first arrival, and gave her one of those expensive pills – just
in case – when the kittens were first born.
Good news: I heard the first kitten purring!
Short-sleeve was nursing and I heard the strange sound – it wasn’t either
mommy, so I put my ear to short-sleeve – and confirmed it was him (or her – we don’t
know, yet)! I’m inclined towards Short Sleeve being a girl and her twin a boy.
That would make two boys and two girls.
The Tomato Jam turned out rather a disappointment – it’s
not jam at all! Just cooked cherry tomatoes in a sweet liquid! It wasn’t cheap,
either – home-made stuff rarely is, of course. The tomatoes aren’t even peeled!
Ah well, lesson learned. I wonder whether the Mulberry Jam will turn out
equally disappointing.
I ‘caught’ my neighbour inspecting my new flowers, so
I went down to join her. We went all through the garden, inspected the rockery
and then on to her Geraniums at the back. That’s when we discovered the garden
disservice had cut off several plants, mowed down an Iris and hacked terribly
into the biggest Geranium! She immediately got busy cleaning the broken off
sticks and sticking them into the ground – a bit higher into the rocks, where
they’re hopefully safe! While I started clearing the weeds around the Geraniums
– hoping this will deter the weed-hackers pushing into the plants in future!
The more I cleared the more damage we discovered, poor things! But they don’t
cut the actual grass growing in the less easily accessible parts! The sun was
quite strong, so when the bag was full we went inside.
Short Sleeve is unmistakably purring, whenever she’s
nursing – we evidently love our food! They are so cute, stumbling about,
fighting each other for their favourite nipple, paddling away!
When my neighbour left I started cleaning house –
well, a more truthful version would be I played my online game with occasional
breaks to clean bits and pieces here and there. I packed away my plumbing
project – for now. Vacuumed, except the main bedroom. With both mommies there,
I don’t want them to feel frightened in their ‘home-/core-territory. I also
took the garbage out – placed it just inside by the gate, since they only come
to collect Tuesday morning. All that’s left to do is the dishes and laundry.
The Geraniums are now in the shade, so I’m off to continue clearing around
them.
Two hours and one full bag later – I’ve made a lot of
progress, but there are still Geraniums at risk. I may continue next weekend,
weather permitting. It’s easy going and quite rewarding. At the same time there’s
such a lot still to do, and I have some specific targets I want to achieve
before I leave here. Sounds silly, after all, who am I doing this for, right?
Frankly, for myself. It’s my achievement – regardless how long it will be
around. The number of plants I’ve given a new lease on life are worth it.
Practically every plant has flowered this past year more abundantly than seen
in years. Add to that the many flowers which will survive neglect – like the
Nasturtiums, Cosmos and Vieruurtjies. Even if they mow everything down – there’s
at least the compost and soil adding something to the ground.
No comments:
Post a Comment