Thats a LOT of Cats!

When I say I feed a lot of cats, I mean it.  You do the math after you read about my route.  I thought I would give you an idea of what I do every morning.

I leave the house around 3:45 am. each day - no matter the weather - and head to one of many many locations I feed cats at daily...

I will count how many stops I make after I finish typing this.  

I head to Melville #1 - I see about 4 or 5 cats here, pour the food on the porch above at this vacant house.  Pour water.  Shelters are boarded up in the carport below that was just boarded a few weeks back.  Bastards.  

I then get back in the Jeep and turn the corner onto Greeley.  I just rescued Greeley, so I am hoping I don't have to stop there anymore because he was basically the only one eating there each day.  Waiting for me.  But no, this morning I saw a cat around there, so I got out and poured some food and water.

Around the corner I go onto Parsells.  The dreaded Parsells Avenue.  I stop at Parsells #1 where I just rescued kitten Nugget last week.  (and Mitzy and Moxy a few months back, and a million others) I pour three plates of food and water.   There is one shelter on this vacant house porch because the jerks - whoever came by, removed all the shelters I had on there over the winter, spring and most of the summer.  Here is a beautiful long haired blue eyed Siamese cat that has become more and more lovey dovey with me over the past few years.  Now I can touch its tail that it swooshes past me over and over until I finish pouring the food, and I leave.  There are at least 5 cats here waiting for me.

Down to Parsells #2 where I had to remove about 10-15 cats many months ago because of the jerk that bought the vacant house and destroyed my shelters, and I had to so something with these cats, but I didn't get all of them, so I placed a few shelters under the bushes next door for the remaining kitties.  The house is still vacant by the way.  There are at least 4 cats here, although I saw a kitten yesterday scurry behind the house.

I then head down to Parsells #3, where DeGeorge Ceilings once had a business, and its a church or something now, always looks vacant, but there are at least 10 RED cats here.  I know a pregnant cat just recently delivered.  I've TNR'd many here these past two months.  All red.  

Head back down Melville, to Melville #4, where I feed at least 5 more cats.  Sweet grey tabby always running up to me, rubbing against my legs until I pour his gold - wet food.  Then a block down to the momma kitty - she bore Bitsy, Itsy and Marshmallow, the kittens I rescued.  She is a sweetheart, and really needs a home.  I feed her under a tree, along with a beautiful pure white cat.  This won't last long come winter.  Don't know what I will do here.  

Then a block down to Melville #2, where some of the Parsells kitties migrated to.  I set up two boxes with boards covering in the back for shelter, and have been feeding there all summer.  There are 4 cats I can see every day waiting here.

I then cross over Parsells and head toward Garson.  Here, I get out and place food on a vacant house porch and feed the cat that had huge milk ducts a month ago, and then didn't.  I then had her spayed, but there are at least 3 cats here each morning waiting for me.

Then down to the regular Garson spot, where George still waits for me on the sidewalk.  Behind the lot, there are at least 8 cats waiting.  That doesn't include the kittens I've recently discovered, all many months old, feral at this point.  I see their eyes illuminating from my flashlight.

Then to Baldwin and Grand.  Here are my regulars.  All waiting.  Beautiful shelters here.  Thanks to the church that allows me to feed here.  There are ....  7 or so cats here regularly.  That I can see, and count.  Many wait in the shadows for me to leave.

Crossing over now to Webster and Ferndale, the two regulars, Bugsy and Bigsy, a calico and a black and white homeless cat poster child.  So sad looking.  But I feed them regularly on the porch of a vacant house.  I did see Crazy Marilee the other morning.  I rolled down my window and told her to stay away from the cats.   I told her that she isn’t allowed to be around animals because of the charges she’s had against her in the past.  I said some other unpleasant things to her, as she did to me, and drove off.  I honestly have not seen her in over a year, didn’t think she was ‘still with us’ anymore to be honest.  I see red when I see her.  I think about all the trouble she has caused, to me, other people trying to trap, the poor animals she has abused… the many police encounters because of her..  I just hope I don’t see her again.

Off across Goodman Street now.  The Back Nine.  Pennsylvania Avenue, I check on my garden occasionally.  Very weedy, I need to clean it up, but the perennials I have there are beautiful.  A block away I feed the four cats that were kicked out of the garden location.  All beautiful, needy sweet cats.  4 of them.  There is now a straggler, he is red also, and there is also the grey that I’ve fed for years that was booted from his spot on the next corner at Second Street. 

I head further west and behind a building at the public market, there has been a little black cat waiting.  Get out, food and water filled, and off I go around the corner.

Niagara.  There are at least 8 cats here.  Their shelters have been removed by the new owner of the business there.  He hasn’t been around, and his property is trashy and overgrown with grass and weeds.  But these cats remain, they aren’t going anywhere, and they need to be fed.  So out I go, feed them, and head to the temporary shelter down the street that they haven’t figured out yet is there.  Other cats around have, but not these cats.  They are all so confused, I am sure.

Turning on to Bay Street, and heading down to Second, I pass the hookers and night owls hanging on the corner, and feed at the lot where the kind man who owns it allows me to feed and shelter.  Of course this was after he took apart the other shelters I had all winter there.  We spoke, and he is a kind man.  Thank you Gene.  Here is where I rescued Carter earlier this year.  Now called Manly by his mom.  There are at least 7 cats here that I can count.  Some wait for the food to be poured under the mailbox across the street.

Next I go to Third and Central, where there are another 4 that are regulars.  Plus the skunk that is usually around.

Off down Central to the shelter in back of lot.  This is where I just rescued poor sick Sylvester.  There are at least 3 regulars here, but now there are two others lurking near the street in the dark, as I’ve placed bowls under a tree by the side of the road for them.

Next to Short Street, where Baby Buttons has been missing for over a week now.  BB is very frail and timid, so this is not looking good.  I am sick over it.  Speaking of, I’ve got to get his mother Buttons into a vet.  I rescued her maybe two years ago? because she had lost so much weight and wound up having most of her teeth removed, which solved the problem.  Poor thing.  Elder.  She was never adopted.  No one wants the older ones.  L  Here we also have Sam, Millie, Mr. Whiskers #2 and Big Red #2 – and a calico that lurks in the shadows… 

Then down Seventh Street where I feed at least 4 regulars, and finally…

The garage kitties.  Momma and her friends.  There are at least 3 cats here. 

Good God, I am exhausted.  OK, let’s count.  That’s about 102.  102 cats.  That doesn’t include all the other stops I make when I see a cat as I am driving – to place food and water for them because you don’t know if they have eaten in days, or not.

Now, who can count how many times I've gotten out, and then in, my car each morning.  😏

That’s all I’ve got.  Now I’ve got to get to WORK.  Ha.

Have a great day.