February 16, 2021 Tuesday at Rikki's Refuge
all in a day's work .... photos by those caring for the animals
(you can help support those animals at
www.RikkisRefuge.org/Donate )
Good Moooooorning !!
The rain and snow and ice and sleet has stopped.
We’re holding our breath hoping to see the sun today.
Will it .... or won’t it ???
These two had apparently packed up overnight and decided to head south ......
Cats certainly do sunbathing best !
HIGH FIVE the sunshine !!!
And the left over flooding !!!
Here comes the straw to freshen up everybodys’ beds !!!
And the litter for the week.
We use a full pallet, 50 bags of wood pellets, each bag weighing 40 pounds every week.
We’ve tried every kind or litter and find the wood pellets to be, overall, the absolutely cheapest to use.
First the actual quantity, as in bags or items to be carried, is less.
Secondly the weight is less. You might think that’s silly till you think about how many times it must be picked up. At the store and into the truck. Out of the truck and into the barn. Out of the barn and to the cat facilities. Out of the cat facilities and into trash bags. Heft the trash bags on to the truck. Drive to dump. Hoist the trash bags into the dump.
How many times was that? At least six times !!!
Then you have the volume. The wood pellets start compact and fluff out when you pee on them. Well not you .... I mean the cats. Though if you did, I’m sure they’d fluff up too !!! One bag of pellets fills three litterboxes. We use these giant tubs that are made for mixing cement in. You don’t ask this many cats to share tiny little household boxes !!! It takes 40 pounds of scoopable or clay litter to fill a box. So that’s 3x the weight. Clay litter we must change every single day. It’s just too much cat stinky is we don’t. Scoopable has to be dumped every other day. The wood pellets last about 3 days with scooping. So that means we use 7-9 times as much clay or scoopable.
And that’s a lot more runs to the dump. On a good day we only have to go once. But is we were doing clay or scoopable, some days would have to be more than once.
And we have to pay for every pound we take to the dump. Yup !!! It’s just a few cents per pound. But our bill adds up to about $500 a month. Evey month !!!
And that is using litter that started out weighing 2,000 a week before the cats made their deposits. We’d be dumping more like 16,000 pounds of litter a week with clay or scoopable.
So you can see why we use pellets !!!
We use what ever kind of pellets are the cheapest at the time!! We’re not picky, we’re only going to poop and pee in it anyway !!!
The horse bedding pellets that went up from $4.99 a bag to $5.99 a bag when they learned people were using it for smaller animals too and they added a picture of a cat to the bag! Nope, Rikki’s didn’t invent the idea of using wood pellets !!!
In the winter we can get the wood stove pellets and they are running $5.19 for a bag this week. So a lot cheaper when you multiply that by 50 bags !! AND we get a 5% discount when we buy a pallet at a time which they can just forklift right on to the truck.
But that is still $246.53 a week in litter !!!!!
You know what would be amazing? If we had a special litter angle, who made a weekly recurring donation of only $246.53 !!!
Did I say ONLY? Yikes that’s actually a lot, isn’t it? Well how about one day of litter each week? Would a recurring monthly donation of $35.22 a week be reasonable? If only 7 wonderful donors would do that !!!! Or even 30 donors willing to contribute $35.22 each MONTH would cover the cost of our litter !!!!
Are there 30 of YOU who’d do that to help the cats?
www.RikkisRefuge.org/Donate just follow the instructions to sign up for recurring donations !!
Thank you
SOMEBODY is hiding and hoping we won’t find them and make them go finish the scooping !!!
Panda? Is that YOU???
Snoozin in the sun on dry mud !!!
Could they possibly have gotten tired of rolling in the mud ?
Peppers says, this mud is GROSS !!! I can’t stand it on my dainty little feet !!
A foreigner stopped in for lunch !!
They are frequent visitors. As are all kinds of other wildlife. Though most come at night. The birds in the day.
Despite being chilly, everyone wanted to lay in the sun.
Even the hoomans. But they had too much work to stop and take a rest.
Diner time !!!!
and ... bed time ....
And everyone lives happily ever after at Rikki’s Refuge !
With YOUR help we provide life long homes to well over 1,000 animals each & every day !!!
www.RikkisRefuge.org/Donate
Rikki’s Refuge, 10910 Barr Ln, Rapidan VA 22733 (shipping address for food, etc)
Rikki’s Refuge, PO Box 1357, Orange VA 22960 (secure box for checks, etc)
Thank YOU for making it all possible !
all in a day's work .... photos by those caring for the animals
(you can help support those animals at 
I have to tell you a funny story about a sweet young lady who came to work for us once upon a time, many years ago. Now you don’t come to work blind at Rikki’s Refuge. You come for a long interview and we tell you all about snow and mud, and rain and sleet, and blistering heat, and to dress for heavy duty farm work, boots, quilted overalls, the works. We tell you about the 600 pounds of poop you’ll be helping us to clean up. We tell you about long hours, about sleeping over on bad weather nights. We tell you that you’ll be bitten, scratched, kicked, butted and leaned on by 1,500 pound animals. If the lengthy questioner you fill out looks ok and you still express an interest after hearing all about the job, and you can haul 50 pound feed sacks across fields and you can outrun sheep .... then you get to come and actually try it out for a day.
By the way, did I tell you we’re hiring? We are. So if you find what we’re doing fascinating and you want to be a part of our team, show up at our Life Center, 21410 Constitution Hwy, Rapidan VA 22733, at the corner of Rt 20 and Quarterhorse Ln and the Quarterhorse end of the rainbow bridge fence at NOON (don’t be late, cus we need you at work on time every day, so show us you can do that !) on any Saturday for an interview.
So back to the story. This lovely young lady (we do not hire under 18 per state law) made it thru the interview and desperately wanted to work at Rikki’s. So she was scheduled to come on the working part of her interview early the next morning. And the weather was just about what it is now. Totally icky, gross, wet, and knee deep in mud.
She showed up on time the next morning all excited and showed off her brand new pink boots, pink quilted overalls, pink jacket, pink gloves and long, delicious looking (to the pigs) pink stocking hat. We do warn everyone that working in the pig pen can take some getting used to. In the morning you’re rushed by dozens of hungry pigs weighing hundreds and hundreds of pounds who are pushing and rubbing on your legs just like little kitties do. You have to learn to hold your balance in all that. Or you go plop in the mud.
I bet you know where this is going! Yup, she got down to pigs, was so excited, rushed in, was rushed by the pigs, and went plop into the mud. She came crying into the office asking to use the phone (this was in the days before everybody carried one around) to call her dad to come pick her up and all upset she’d ruined her brand new “farm” outfit !!!!! I had to feel sorry for her, but oh gosh it was so hard not to laugh.
She was one of the many many many people who don’t make the first two hours of their working interview. Working at Rikki’s Refuge really is for a very few very special individuals. If you’re one, come on out here Saturday at noon !!!!
Now back to the muddy refuge on February 14th and see what we were doing instead of getting taken out to brunch or getting flowers or chocolates !!!
It started out icy and snowy from the past few days
And gradually melted as the temp slowly climbed
Turning into a wasteland of ice and snow by midday
Thank goodness delivery and supply could make it down the muddy potholed driveway !!!!
We use several hundred pounds of cracked corn, sweet feed and senior horse feed everyday. A little over half a pick up truck full. All to be lugged on shoulders across the muddy mess today !!! Oh we can’t wait till we can drive across the fields again !!!
And that was it for the day. Really, nothing very exciting here to report today !!!
And everyone lives happily ever after at Rikki’s Refuge, even if it is muddy !
With YOUR help we provide life long homes to well over 1,000 animals each & every day !!!