I’d been planning on getting Sir Furbs into the vet soon for a check up… but it ended up happening a little sooner than I planned.

Thursday after work, he had his dinner, and I noticed he was having a little trouble eating. A short while after, he was shaking his head, and crying. Clearly something was wrong with his mouth. He wouldn’t let me take a look, so I got us a vet appointment for Friday afternoon.

He is neutered, so he’s defnitely been to the vet before. I don’t know what his experience was like then, but he certainly wasn’t thrilled about it this time.

He hoped there was escape out the window… but no luck there.

When that didn’t work, he took up residence behind the computer.

In the end, despite some missing teeth and a little tartar, his mouth was fine. The vet said one of the lost teeth looks a little fresh, so that could be what bothered him on Thursday. (Friday they ate fine)

In the end, he got a blood test (and a pretty yellow bandage with piggies), and three vaccines. (FVRCP (Feline Viral Rhinotracheitis, Calicivirus, and Panleukopenia), Rabies, and Feline Leukemia Virus) and a clean bill of health.

He came home grumpy, but seemingly no worse for wear. He didn’t want to talk to use for the rest of the night

I figured he’d be fine by morning.

I was wrong. When I got up in the morning, I expected to find him on the couch or in my chair. But he wasn’t in either spot. I had to search for him and eventually found him on the floor under the dining room table.

I pulled him out and he screamed at me. He was one very unhappy kitty. I put him on the couch, but he went right back under the table and stayed there until Dave got up. He came out and sat on the couch with Dave but he did not want to be touched. He cried every time we tried. I think the vaccines hit the poor boy hard. Like up with the flu vaccine, I think he was sore too.

As the day went on, it seemed like he was feeling better – but boy was he a sad sack for most of the day.

By Sunday, he was right as rain again. But I’m sure he’s plotting some complicated revenge…

You will recall, that this spring, I bought a little raised bed with a greenhouse cover in the hopes of being more successful with lettuce and spinach. Late spring here can get quite hot, so sowing direct outside without a little cover doesn’t generally give it much time to grow before it gets too hot and the plants bolt.

It was somewhat successful – I got a couple small heads of lettuce (enough for a couple personal salads), and some nice baby lettuce to throw in meals. But it wasn’t as good as I’d hoped.

Anyway, months ago, I’d pulled out what spinach remained. The lettuce was already long gone. So imagine my surprise, when around Halloween – noticed a little head of lettuce growing – and the greenhouse top wasn’t even on. It must have been from a seed that didn’t germinate. I didn’t think much of it. Most of the garden was already shutting down. Then we got all that snow. And plenty of frost.

So imagine my surprise, when I was out filling up Squirrelington’s on the weekend and saw this…

Isn’t that just the happiest little bunch of lettuce? How it survived I have no idea… but I’m going to put the green house lid on and see if I can get it to a decent size.

And it has me thinking… maybe I can sow my lettuce and spinach even earlier than I thought! Definitely something to try next year.

While we’ve been sewing, we’ve been pairing up our postage stamp pairs as leader/enders.

And we’ve managed to fill this little basket with four patches.

I’d say we’re about halfway though the pairs we have together. So we’ve still got a lot more sewing to go!

This is entirely too many cats on one desk! How am I supposed to do my day job?!?

Sunday was cold again – with a little bit of snow, though just flurries this time. So it was a good day to spend at the machine.

I banged out another 13 batik log cabins, bringing my total to 25. And I though that would be a good amount. It would make the quilt 60 x 60. But that was until I laid them out….

I do not love that there are half patterns on the side and top. I feel like I need to make 11 more blocks to finish them out. The only problem… I don’t have enough strips left to make that many.

I do have a good collection of batik fabrics… but I’m not sure enough are pastels. But that’s a problem for another day.

Saturday saw me doing a pile of chores I’d been putting off. By the time they were finished – there wasn’t really enough time before dinner to sit down and sew. So I decided to pull out another long-neglected project.

Remember this little lady? Well… she got an hour or so more attention…

Still a long way to go… but bit by bit I get closer to a finish.

It didn’t get around to stitching until late Sunday night, so I’m afraid the progress is minimal. I got her pet raven done, and the little tree branches underneath done. Here’s a closer look.

He’s a fine looking familiar if I do say so myself!

There wasn’t as much knitting this past week as I would have liked.

But I did get just over a third of the way through the deathflake chart on the second hat. I’m hoping this week brings little more time to sit down with the needles. I’d love to cast this one off by Friday. It’s possible – but I’ll probably have to make a conscious effort to do it.

As they predicted, the temps flew back up and that snow it melting quickly

Though the poor swan is still mostly buried. She got extra snow as that’s where the snowblower dumps it when Dave does the driveway.

But remember how I said roses are tough…

My beautiful Koko Loko emerged from under the snow, fully intact! Most of the roses came through great – with just a handful of stems snapped from the weight of the snow. But snow it pretty insulating, so the cold didn’t seem to bother them much at all.

There’s still several with buds that may or may not get a chance to bloom depending on which way the temps go. I don’t make predictions about the garden much any more – our weather is too wacky.

As I mentioned yesterday, all that snow brings round the bird. They don’t just come for the feeders either…

I leave the seed heads of several garden plants (Globe Thistle on the left, Coneflower on the right) as the birds love them too (especially the finches)

But this has lead to a couple unfortunate casualties this past week. Normally, I cut down all the seeds heads in the catio so the birds aren’t tempted to land in there and linger. But this year I missed some.

On Monday morning, I was awoken by the sound of wings fluttering as Lemmy brought a house sparrow in – alive and apparently unhurt. It got away from him and I was able to shoo it safely out a window. But Thursday afternoon, my attention was drawn by two orange cats streaking by at a furious pace… Furby was following Lemmy, who raced passed me with a bird in his mouth. I finally cornered him in the bedrooom where he’d deposited it under my bed. It was a Junco, and I guess Lemmy had learned from the first round, because this one was dead.

The seed heads have now been cleared from the danger zone but don’t worry – the birds still have many other spots in the garden to feast

If there’s one good thing about the snow….

It brings all the birds to the yard! I’ve been keeping the feeders full so all my feathered friends have the energy they need to weather the cold.

Here are my fave pics from this week.

Goldfinches

Rose Breasted Nut Hatch

Red House Finch

House Sparrows

And of course, the Blue Jays.