Week Gone

Ian left to return to Calgary this morning but it was such a nice week. We worked hard but got a lot done. He put in the new floor, which looks wonderful; he took out part of the wall between bedroom and bathroom. This was originally done so Gary could get my new washer and dryer into the bathroom.

The original door was too narrow. But once we got the doorway opened we realized that a 27" door is far more practical than a 19" one. For example, if either of us ever requires a walker or wheelchair again it wouldn't have fit through the old door. Now the bathroom is accessible from the bedroom. We bought a folding door to install there. Not my favorite door, but practical in this application.

It's now two weeks to moving day. I'm hoping to have all the "jobs" done in the next week and be able to start moving our stuff in the last week.

The cherry trees are beginning to have tiny buds on the branches. I looked out this afternoon to see about a dozen quail in the two trees in front of the Tinpalace. I couldn't understand why they were there, as they rarely fly into the trees. But it was soon apparent. They were eating the emerging buds, shades of their eating apricot blossoms last spring.

I took a picture looking up through the branches of the one tree, just to have to remember how beauty can be found even in plain things.

And, as I remarked in an earlier post, I've been feeding the stray cats all winter. There were three to start with, but two have disappeared - we have an active coyote population, and they prey on house cats. We're left with one extremely beautiful long-haired calico girl who has been too terrified to allow anyone to approach her all winter. But finally starvation over fear and I found her trying to dig a few morsels of food from the dish about a week ago.

I came in, got a can of food and filled the bowl. She dove in and wolfed the food down, shaking and trembling all over. I talked to her in a quiet voice and after a couple of days she allowed me to stroke her very gently with one finger. Over the next couple of days she relaxed a bit and allowed me to pick her up and carry her to the food dish, and now I can pick her up and carry her and pet her.

She is absolutely knife-thin and to make it worse she's pregnant. I'd estimate that she weighs three or four pounds. I can't imagine the hunger of that little body, as her kittens pulled the few calories she managed to scare up.

If I can tame her sufficiently in the next two weeks Salvador will have a sister. After her kittens are born we will have her spayed. She will also need to be shaved, for under her floor-length sweep of soft multi-coloured fur she has matts the size of ping-pong balls. I've decided to call her Yoo-gyar'-uhs which means "Smoky Girl" in Skarure. "Yugi" for short.

Sal is very dominant so I hope he will accept her. She's very submissive and extremely gentle, so hopefully he will share us with her without inflicting damage on her to begin with.

So that's been the week, work until we drop into bed at night, then get up early to do it all again.