A ROUGH COUPLE OF WEEKS

Yep, it has been a rough couple of weeks, and it ain’t over yet.

 

We buried Punkin on Tuesday… my little orange shadow who followed me everywhere I went out in the yard, who would hid in the ferns and ambush me, who helped me in the garden, and spent hours and hours of his life rolling over to get his belly scratched.

       

   

Punkin arrived during Hurricane Isabel bringing a young kitten with him. They decided the food was good here, so they stayed.

 

      

He and Spook were inseparable much of the time, but Spook started to distance himself as Punkie got sicker. Punk died of renal failure. He was probably about 16, Spook is 9. Everybody loved Punkin.

Meanwhile inside the house, Rascal, the youngest of the cats, (9) has been diagnosed with a probable tumor, his chest cavity fills with fluid and has been tapped 3 times. He was my in-house shadow. Always curious, always watching. Rascal, otherwise known as the Rat, or Mr Bad Boy, is still with us, but we don’t know for how long. He no longer rolls over showing off his fine belly. Eating seems to be a problem and he sleeps all day instead of following me around or getting up into the window to see where I am if I go outside. We try not to ever be gone more than an hour or so. We keep checking on him as we did Punk. I am hoping the medicine he is on will help…

 

They are such wonderful little gifts when they come to us…… it is so hard to lose them.

Meanwhile Hadji, age 15 and diabetic, is holding his own and has not been on insulin for over 2 years. How is that for a miracle? He loves wearing a scarf. Go figure! He is very handsome.

 

Rascal was always a lap kitty as was Punk. Hadj like you to sit beside him on HIS sofa. Just don’t try to get him in your lap. Spook is and always has been, well, easily spooked. I have often wondered what horrible thing happened to him to make him so afraid of people. Generally, I can catch him once or twice a year to take him for his shots. I doubt anyone will ever have him on their lap.

It is rough trying to work out in the yard without my little buddy. And it seems strange typing on the computer without Rat pulling my hair or climbing on my lap.

A PILE OF POSSUMS

A PILE OF POSSUMS and other surprises Life throws at ya… That sums up the past 2 weeks.

I know, I have been out of touch for many of you. If I owe you an email, I am sorry, but life has gotten rather chaotic. I seem to be running a kitty hospice here with the oldest cat, Punkin, in renal failure, and the youngest, Rascal (alias the Rat) suffering from a build-up of fluid in his chest cavity… pathology reports were inconclusive, so, the best we can do is take him once a week to get it drained off, rehydrate him, and keep him happy. All this is going on, shuttling cats back and forth to the vet, researching kitty problems, buying and preparing special foods… and trying not to neglect my other geriatric cat, Hadji, who is diabetic – but has been off insulin for over 2 years thru very careful feeding – and lots of spoiling.

So in the midst of all this kitty care, preparing for our Train Station’s Plant Sale next week-end, and preparing my own garden (peas are up, onions are up, and potatoes are in their potato bags), cutting grass, pulling weeds, mulching, and trying to keep a handle on the house work (OYE!) I get a phone call from fellow blogger, Grenville, http://thefrogandpenguinn.blogspot.com/, down the street, “Help! I’ve got a possum emergency!” And, indeed he did. So, I dropped everything, I mean, who needs clean laundry anyway, right? Clean floors? HA! and jumped back in the van and headed down to his house where he handed me a little box of the cutest baby possums… My guess is they are about 2 months old (2nd birth) and I could see they were a bit hungry. I did not restock any possum formula after the last baby, so I had to get them to another rehabber pretty fast. I transferred them to a deeper box, one they could not climb out of, made a phone call, and headed south for another possum transfer. Isn’t life fascinating? Good thing I am usually a pretty flexible person.

  

Anyway, for those of you who have not heard from me, I have been (and am) very busy, mostly baby-sitting my own sick babies – do you know how hard it is to type with a kitty on your lap? Or I might be transporting possums down the road to someone who is probably as rushed as I am. Fortunately, the folks at her day job don’t seem to mind her having a couple cages of baby animals on a table near her while she is at work. Could you do that? So go visit the Frog and PenguInn and see what he has to say. And may you have a restful calm day!

SPOTS - PICTURES OF PROGRESS part 1

It seems like yesterday we started this project. Well, OK, maybe that is a stretch, but it is hard to believe we have been working at this building for so long. But then, we are doing most of the work by ourselves, a few hours each week-end, sometimes with 2 or 3 of us, sometimes with a whole crew of 6! It is amazing how much we can get done with 6 people all pooling their efforts. Lets do a little review from a few years ago (2009) up to (more or less) today. The check leasing the building:

The first thing we needed to fix was the roof, to say it leaked was an understatement. Unfortunately, it took a while to get a grant to have a new roof put on. It is easy to see the leaks in the “office” area where we actually had a ceiling. The big room was open from the floor to the roof.

   

We even had our first Santa Train with tents INSIDE the building to keep the rain off the visitors and food!

  and we had to keep Santa dry…

BUT, first we needed steps, new windows, then electricity, some door repair until we built our own doors.

  Then we had to replace the BIG beams, brick work, some floor floor, and walls, and fill in the pit at the old scales.

      

And then remove the old walls and ceiling in the office area…

The north end:

 

And on the inside, we built a ceiling in the big freight room:

removed the track-side door, made it a little smaller and reinstalled it. then we built a new door for the south end.

 

replaced the office door:

and added French doors in the freight room.

An HVAC system was installed and we fenced in the outside unit.

The walls were prepared and insulated, then came sheetrock and paint.