Too many cats

I've been reminded that I need to blog once and a while. Things have actually happened so I should report them. We have far too many barn cats. I've always maintained a feeder in the barn for our official barn cats and never worried about the occasional stray passing through. Unfortunately, some fertile queens moved in and rapidly filled the barn with feral cats. I tried to end the welfare entitlement and feed the authorized cats under supervision. This did clear out some of the cats but not all. One of the kittens managed to get an eye damaged, Stacey saw it and now we have a $300 one eyed kitten living on the porch who will be moving in when he's healthy enough. His name is Jack. I'll try and include pictures. We had a birthday party of some note. Stacey and I both have birthdays in August so we invited a lot of folks out for food and firearms. Stacey entertained the folks in the house and I had built a small range in back. We shot skeet and everyone's favorite firearms. It's been a while since I shot my T/C Cherokee and I really enjoyed it. It's lightweight and with the .32 caliber barrel , there's no kick. It was good to see old friends again. With our vet expenses this year, our ability to enjoy the area fairs was limited. We had to miss Wood Co. and Sandusky, both good fairs. We did make the Fulton Co. fair and enjoyed it very much. Their ag display this year was farm trucks which didn't interest me greatly. Everything else was great as expected. Our garden is total crap this year. I have to weed whack large portions just to find the veggies I planted. The tomatoes are producing a handful of poor fruit and the peppers are doing ok. I don't know where the onions and leeks even are. I've got to use more mulch but I've got to hill the dirt up as well. The Farmer's Almanac for next year says it will be a repeat of this year. The upside of all the rain is that I have more apples than I can pick and store. I've discovered a tree in the back of the orchard with magnificent tasting apples. I don't remember planting one in that location. It's too close to a peach, for one thing. I'm going to try to actually take care of it. I hope that doesn't kill it. I'm not good at orchards. The animals are doing well. I had to put up some electric fence to keep the adult steers from walking down the fence to get to all that good stuff on the other side. It doesn't matter that they have perfectly good grass on their side. The stuff on the other side always looks better. Work is a mixed bag. The job is easy on thinking as I'm replacing the batteries in the sirens . My aging body, however, is not happy with the physical labor involved. The muscles seem ok with it but my joints are very unhappy. I hope to be retired by the next battery change. We're supposed to be upgrading the radios in the sirens but it keeps getting pushed back. We'll be doing it in the snow. I know how these things work. No job is ever done on time. That's about it for now. Hopefully, everything stays boring. Take care.