July 14, 2021
Day 6!
Happy birthday to my mother, who is turning 86 today!
Mitsy feeds the brood either in full or in batches, 2-4. She eats 2-5 times per day, 2 times at night, once in the morning and the evening and a snack in between when I bring her one. Sometimes I am greeted with a hiss, sometimes she blinks at me and looks friendly. I believe she is getting used to our routine as well. Wim still comes with me when I do the littebox exchange, just so I do not have to watch her as I am working. We do it either when she is deep in the Nest with the kittens, or when she is in front of the Nest, back against the far side of the crate. That gives me enough time to react should she want to chase me off. I take advantage of the fact that she has 6 kittens at her teats and therefore is limited in how fast she can get at me. But it is going well. She does not always look friendly, but I am starting to feel that she knows what I am doing. And the singing seems to help calm her. Who would have thunk!
One of the first times I refreshed the litterbox, she went to poop in it minutes later! I was not pleased, but who can blame her for wanting to do her business in a clean box! She stank the place up though! I now figure out how to use my second piece of the plastic placemat, the leftover from our feeding funnel, as a better ‘transportation unit’ to add some litter onto her poop.
I was inspired by coin pusher machines I used to see when there was a carnival in town. You had a tray of coins and you would add coins of your own and a bulldoser would push the heap and IF you were lucky you’d win a price. Which you seldom did, of course. I am having a sudden light-bulb moment here: those coins at the edge, I think they were magnetised! That is why they hardly ever fell! Hah!
I fold a partial placemat into a ‘gutter’, like I did for the food, but I don’t connect the ends with tape. I leave it open. When I push it into the crate with a wider opening, I can aim the litter to land on top of the fresh poop without spilling. Yay! Mitsy was puzzled by the sound of my litter-filling device, but did not hiss. I then used one of my trusted dowels to re-arrange the litter so that the messes were covered. Works like a charm and it means I can stay out of the crate AND that some of the smell is absorbed by the litter.