Too many pets for one weekend

I never thought I'd reach the "too much horse" time limit but I did this weekend.
( I'm tired )

We also decided to adopt the two half grown kittens running around the barn. They are a male and female pair of orange and white tigers, brother and sister. They excel at capturing and killing the tassle on my lunge whip. Saturday, the Boy was playing with the male and we had the "I want a kitty" talk on the way home. We'd been talking about getting an adult cat to help control the mice population in the garage. I'm assuming as soon as the weather turns, said population will head for the warmth of the house and I'd rather have a cat around than poison. My ferrets have been known to catch and chew on the occassional mouse and I don't want to risk it. Normally I'd insist on getting adult cats from a shelter but, as the Boy pointed out, this is about equivalent. If they stay at the farm, they will end up not getting fixed until after they reproduce (they are pretty far down on the neuter list, somewhere after their mother and she's already pregnant again) and only minimum vet care. They haven't had their shots or even basic worming done and their about 4 months old at this point. After the initial spaying cost, having two is about the same cost as having one and I really don't want to break them up. They hunt very well together and they can keep each other company during the day. I have to get the rats' shots updated and pick up some supplies before we bring them home next weekend.

Also, my scooter blenny is ill again. He didn't come out to eat last night and didn't bury himself in the sand once the lights turned off. We tried feeding him with the eye dropper but he kept spitting everything out and then got pissed and started flaring up at us. Tonight I'm going to do a water change in case something is bothering him. Normally the shrimp would be affected by bad water before the fish would be, though, and the shrimp is fine. In fact, he just molted the other night and, if the water was off, it would have bothered him the worst then. It doesn't make sense. Other than a water change, I don't know what to do. He may just be getting old. We've had him a long time now and he hasn't grown any since we got him. I'm assuming he was an adult at the time of purchase and we have no way of knowing how old he is. Still, if he doesn't pull out of it, I will miss my little toad-eel.

The hedge doth guard a wonderous gift, prized and fair

I came home from the farm on Friday to find the Boy out attacking the mutant thorn bush. He had quite a bit of it nipped back. I managed to get past it and started exploring.

Now all along our back yard are wild grape vines. We called them fox grapes growing up. They are edible but very small and tart and are mostly seed. Past the mutant bush, you can see a virtual sea of grape vines and I just assumed they were more fox grapes. Imagine my surprise when I got back there and found grapes the size of quarters and bigger. Someone planted domestic grapes and then abandoned them. And they thrived! Sure, the bunches are small (less than a dozen per bunch) but the grapes are immense and there are hundreds of them.

Their arbor is nothing more than a bunch of mostly dead maple trees and it lookes like the deer sleep under the bushes. Part of me wants to build a proper arbor, shore them up, prune and reclaim them. Part of me says leave them be, they made it this long on their dead trees with no pruning and they obviously aren't suffering for the lack. Either way, I'm looking forward to fresh grapes soon. We got enough blueberries off of our bushes this weekend to make kruggen. Maybe wine will be next. I also found our blackberry bushes but they are pretty sour still. I keep forgetting that MA != PA as far as harvest times go.