This month two little kittens joined our family, work in the garden is in full swing and everything is in bloom and it’s only the middle of may!

Feline season

The birth of the kittens

Hip hip hurray! Our Ekat has given birth to two healthy and cute kittens.

On 05.05 she clearly signalled to us that the birth was imminent. She spent the whole day meowing near me. In the afternoon she cuddled with the dogs on the sofa – even with Henriette! At first she made herself comfortable on the living room carpet when the first contractions came. However, she decided to go into the garden room and give birth to the first kitten in the middle of the room. It went faster than expected. Even Henriette was confused as she was standing right next to it when suddenly a kitten meowed! Half an hour later, the second kitten followed. After that, the proud mother cat fell asleep on the carpet.

We prepared a box for her in the bathroom, as it is warm there and Ekat always sleeps there. She spent the first night there with the kittens, too. The next morning, however, she preferred to stay in the hallway, because there you have a good overview of everyone and everything. So she moved downstairs to the garden room. Since then, the cat family feels very comfortable there! And only now did I realise how fast time flies and that the kittens are almost a week old!

Kittens grow so fast!

The black and white kitten was the first to be born. The little racker is a real screamer. If he is not close enough to Ekat or if he doesn’t find the teat directly, he howls straight away. The kitten was even born with a scream. Otherwise he is a very nimble kitten and crawls around the nest super fast.

The white (with black & brown fur) kitten is much bigger and already has much longer fur. It is very calm and doesn’t make any unnecessary movements, but when it does, it is very goal-oriented. We like the white kitten very much, just the fact that it has three colours – so again a luck cat!

Soon two weeks

While I had to interrupt the article for a few days, the kittens developed rapidly. Soon they will be two weeks old and their eyes are both ready to open!

The gardening season is here

Front porch upgrade

Since returning from France & Germany, I have made a list and am working through it.
Among other things, an upgrade in the front garden was on the agenda. Besides the renewal of the gravel path, the water problem from the porch should be solved. The water from the gutter was flowing directly to the rhododendron, which was suffering. The simplest solution for us was a rain barrel. As you can see in the pictures, it is planted on top and looks more like a vase than a classic rain barrel. In addition, I planted more rhododendrons, some of them bee-friendly. All varieties grow to a maximum height of 1.5m so that the windows are not overgrown.

Climbing plants as sight cover

Since (sooner or later) a bath tub is to be placed on the terrace, I started planning a privacy screen. For this, I combined white clematis (Paul Farges) with a red climbing rose (Sympathie). We planted Catmint around the outside of the bed, as we still had some left over. The goal is to build a bench with storage for cushions. I still can’t decide whether to paint the spalje white or not. At the time of construction, the wood was still too damp, so it will have to dry first during the summer.

The photo shows the absolute inclination of the shed. Here we are pushing the work that lies ahead into the future…Along the cherry laurel (which has suffered a lot this winter) we have built another trellis. Wild vines have been planted here to delight us in summer and autumn.

The fence – It never ends !?

We made a big step forward with the fence. But it feels like the end is still a long way off. At least 10 sections are missing. And on top of that, there is the area near the car park.

Now the supply of laths is almost completely used up. First of all, that means a good job of paint. And linseed oil paint needs three coats: Primer, middle coat and the final coat. One important preparation we have to make is cleaning up the car park. Especially the tree trunks have to be either cut up or disposed of. The edging of the car park is also still on the todo list.

Summer time

With this consideration the post ends today & until next time,