Lil' Red

I did it, I trapped a kitty this morning, he/she is in my backseat now waiting transport to Val's where she will take to clinic for me.  The cat will be neutered/spayed, and Val will pick up and return to my house, leave on porch until I can get home from work.  The hard part is when I have to return this poor animal to the street, the very bad corner and shelter I have built there, where some crazy person keeps moving stuff around on me.  A nutcase, for sure. 

I've lost my time to write today with trapping and rushing to get to Val's house, so farewell everyone!  Will catch up tomorrow!!

The Cat, The Rat, and Joe

Yes, I saw a cat, but no, did not see a rat. I just thought it was a good title. I actually saw close to 40 cats this morning.  I also saw an oppossum but that didn't fit well in the title.  I did see Joe, Wally's 'nephew'.  He was out hustling - or just having fun drinking at 5:30 am. and hanging out at the bootlegger's house trying to hustle a dollar for a beer.  Very innocent.  I like Joe.  He wouldn't hurt me, and is very nice to me.  The oppossum has been hanging out at my last spot, where I have a decent shelter built.  He has been caught sleeping in the covered cat litter box that I have a cushion in - I actually had to lift the box yesterday - very carefully, I know... - lift it over the board, and toss him out.  They stay still when frightened.  They won't move.  But there he was again this morning - he crawled under the crate I have set up to keep stuff off the ground, and he wouldn't budge, so I am sure the cats had to share their meal with him.

I have a good friend who has offered to pay for the clinic to TNR two cats tomorrow.  Thats the sweetest and most kindest offer.  Really it is.  I go out and feed homeless cats 365 days a year.  When I go, I am there briefly talking to them, petting them if I can, and then I turn around and leave, and go onto my next stop, all in all 13 locations.  What I see is heartbreaking each day.  So when I am done with that last spot, I go home and get ready for the next 23 hours.  I try to put this in the back of my mind, because it is very stressful both physically and mentally.  I also have a job that is extremely stressful, and people are getting let go left and right.  I don't know one day to the next if I will have a job.  I know I am a good worker, but that doesn't seem to matter these days.  So, my point being, I don't trap cats well.  There are so many factors involved.  If I got two cats, I would have to stack up the traps on top of each other in my small back seat., they would tip, and the cats are scared enough.  Then I have to keep them on my porch until - if I can get someone to bring them to the clinic at a certain time.  They then need to be picked up by 2 pm. - if  I can get someone to pick them up - and then the problem for me is bringing them back to their neighborhood after I have put in a 9 hour day at work, and letting them go.  I know that my friend runs a rescue group, and mostly gets the cats she adopts out from the shelter where they would most likely be euthanized.  But I am a one woman show who has to do the legwork to get them, and its very very hard and stressful for me.  My dream would be to have enough money to pay someone on a full time basis to do trapping for me.  Serious.  That would be my dream.  I know these cats will get pregnant if I don't get them.  I know that.  I don't want to be reminded of that because I know it.  But I can only do so much.  I need help!

Feed Me!

Thats what they say when I pull up.  My first spot, I have four cats RACING to me.  It was quiet out there though this morning, and this weekend.  Not much really happening - the weather has been mindblowing.  We have had two great months so far, being winter and all.  Just a trace here and there of snow.  No below zero degree days.  Wonderful.  Forecast today:  sunny and 40 deg.  I'll take it.  So will the kitties out there. 

Nancy came with me Saturday to try to trap the kitty thats eyes have been sealed shut with infection.  No luck.  We trapped one, but not the right one.  We let it go.  Where am I going on a Saturday morning with it?  No clinics open for spaying on Saturdays.  Will try again though.  I have a chance, maybe, for two neuterings this Wednesday, although the more I think about it, I can't afford it after a very expensive weekend I had.  My Cinnamon was close to death on Friday, and she cost me $350 with tests.  After eye drops, pills and Lisine ointment on her tongue three times a day since, she is doing much better, but I had a lot of unexpected financial situations this weekend, and I can't afford the $50 per cat at the clinic, so will have to wait for next payday.  Life sucks sometimes, when it comes to money.  Really.  Doesn't it?  Back to Nancy, she is the girl that took four beautiful babies off the street recently.  She has Abby and Snowflake, the two sick kitties from Second, who are much better, she took Emma, mama to Rufus and two other girls that a woman adopted in September.  I still have Rufus.  She also took in Boots, or Cutie Pie as she has been calling her, from behind Wally's house.   She had a neck wound that is also healing nicely.  What a saint this woman is.  God has a way of bringing people into our lives at certain times, and this was a good time for him to bring her to me.  These cats needed rescuing.  Thanks Nancy.

Miss B. will finally be moving into her apartment on Tuesday, and will take Midnight and Buster off my hands.  I can use the downsizing.  Her new place is minus a stove, refrigerator, washer and dryer, but she doesn't care.  Can you imagine living in a women's shelter for four months?  She is so grateful that someone accepted her.  I am happy for her.  She is a neat woman.  Really.  I like her.  Speaks her mind, and is very honest.  Thats what I like in a person.  If anyone has ANYTHING they would like to donate, I would be ever so grateful.  Friend Mary has donated a bed, and linens, and a chair.  Otherwise, she doesn't have much else.  No TV, not even an electric skillet to cook her meals until she gets a stove.  Gotta be tough, but so is she. 

My Critters

Meet Buster:   She is one sweet girl.  She has a darling face.  If you can't make this picture bigger, let me know and I will send it to you via e-mail.  Its worth the close up.  I went and picked her up from Wally's last night, and made it known to Wally that I was unhappy about this.  But what am I going to do.  I can't force my life upon someone else.  If his landlord said get rid of it, then he had to.  He can't afford to look for another place.  There are a lot of reasons why he is in his situation in the first place, and who am I to scold him.  So, I have to let it be, and pray that Miss B. moves into her new apartment, which she tells me will be Tuesday when the gas and electric are turned in, and she can take Buster, who is now prisoner in my bedroom.  Yay.

Each morning, while you are all snug as bugs in your rngs in bed, I am out there feeding cats braving the elements.  I hope you all feel guilty!  Guilty I say, guilty!  ha ha.  I thought about this as I was driving around, and how nice it would be for me to be laying in bed not having to do this.  But do it I must.  My own animals have me trained, and I don't like it.  By 3 am., I hear scratching, and I hear the dog whimpering.  I can usually get up, feed the cats, give Trouble her insulin shot, let the dog out, feed the cat on the porch (homeless, but I leave the door propped open for her to sleep on chair), clean out litter boxes, take my vitamins, turn on TV and coffee, and get back into bed for an hour until 4:30 am.  I usually lay there, too wound up to go back to sleep, or this one or that one wants to cuddle, like Rufus, the feral kitten I rescued in November, who is now sleeping on my bed, and cuddles face to face with me now.  Anyone want a kitten?  Anyways, at 2:30 this morning the dog is crying and the cats are scratching.  They know how to stir me.  I refused, and layed there, and then heard a bowl crash on floor, and heard the million little pieces of dry cat food that was in it cover the entire kitchen floor.  I put the cat food on the counter at night so the dog doesn't eat it.  Well, let me tell you, that was fun having to get down on my knees and pick up each little piece of food.  I was so mad, but they got fed anyway, and Thunder was let out to do his business, and the kitty on the porch was fed, and everyone was happy, but me.  Got back into bed, and tossed and turned, and went out on my route, and here I am now, exhausted, and ready to go to bed.  But go to work I must.  And thats that. 

You have a choice: To do good, to do bad, or to do nothing at all...

Love that.  Really powerful that is...

BUSTER:  Its always something in my life.  Last night, as I finally got home from work after working the usual overtime that I put in daily, and I was sitting relaxing having my usual egg white omelette with one slice of 2% cheese (I know, how boring, but I love it!), I got a call from Wally.  He said 'you got to come get da cat, my landlord wants it gone - he says no cats no dogs'.  I was stunned.  Here I was thinking this kitty had a temporary home until Miss B could get her place, which is supposed to be sometime soon - I pray - and here Wally comes with this.  I think Wally knew full well before he placed the call to me that I would be very upset.  Well, I did my best to control myself and not scream at him, thinking he should have stood up for himself to this landlord, who I think is in cahoots with the witch tenant upstairs from Wally.  Wally could have asked for a break saying he was keeping the kitty for Miss B. until she got her place.  I don't think Wally has a backbone, and I believe he is very simple-minded.  I think he is also very fearful of losing his apartment, and will do anything his landlord tells him.  What, is the landlord allowed to come in at any time to make inspections?  Buster is a quiet kitty, sleeps a lot in the back room, how did the landlord even know he was there? What is this policy, no cats no dogs?  Whats up with that?  If I were a deeply religious person, I believe these two people, the witch and the landlord, will pay in the end their treatment of God's children.  I am not deeply religious, but I have a strong faith from a lot of different sources, and I do b elieve we will all be judged in the end by our behavior in life.  I hope so at least.

In the meantime, after sitting there stunned, for a good 10 minutes with my mind racing as to what I was going to do, I called Wally back and told him I would be there after work the next day to pick up Buster.  I told him he'd better not put him out on the street.  I will go get Buster and keep him in a room for now.  I must find a temporary home for Buster, if anyone can volunteer their space.  She is a very sweet, and gentle girl, and I will get her picture on here by Friday or Saturday.  I have way too many kitties now, with Buddy and Rufus still not being adopted.  I need serious help this time.  Pass the word, please.

Eyes Wide Shut

Reality ...  Check~!  Some of you don't like to read my blog because it contains some sadness.  Well, guess what, its reality, for sure!  Here are some observations from this morning.  There is one good one, so read at your own risk.  It is damned cold out there.  My fingers were beginning to go numb the first 15 minutes on my trip.  You ask, why don't you wear gloves?  I don't wear gloves because at each of my stops, I have to thaw out the water bowls, and to do this, I have to pour water over the bowls, and then pop out the ice, and pour in the hot water.  This gets on my hands, and gets the gloves wet, and then my fingers are in real trouble.  Hence, I don't even bother.  Secondly, there are four kitties that ran up to me at my first stop this morning, I have placed their bowls on the side of a house, right next to the other neighbor's driveway.  They must see the bowls, and its certainly not a location I can place a board to protect the food from the elements - I just have to do the best I can and hope four people will say they will adopt each one.  Right. 

Second, Big Red was waiting for me this morning, freezing.  I wish he would use his pea-sized brain and use the shelters, I pray he does and just runs out when he hears my car each morning.  Otherwise, he is just sitting there, freezing.  I have not heard from the girl who advertised for cats for her barn.  Hoping she is just busy.  It doesn't look promising, as she hasn't returned calls or e-mail.  Poor Big Red. 

Third, at my Short Street spot, and this is the good one, someone placed a board to protect the little carrier and food dishes I have under a porch on that street.  I was stunned this morning to find that!  During the summer, if you were to drive down this street, to me its the scariest street, mostly because of the way these people live, with trash all over their yards, and the houses are pretty scary.  Its not a street I would walk down without some hesitation, even though its a very short street, hence its name!  But at 5:30 am., its pretty safe, and dark, and there is a black kitty waiting for me there every morning, so there is no hesitation for me to go there each day.  But for someone to place the board like that, I was SHOCKED.  And grateful!  I must have a friend there, right?   

But at my second to last spot, there is a kitty that is so sick, its eyes are sealed shut due to the crust freezing them closed.  Its SO VERY SAD.   I don't know how it can even see to run from me when I pull back the board that it sleeps behind.  I do have soft warm blankets, and its fairly dry so it doesn't get exposed to the elements, now, and there is a nice igloo dog house with straw stuffed in it, and food each day, but what else can I do.  This is where my friend Nancy has now rescued two cats from last week.  I have rescued countless animals, including Buttons, the kitty my sister took.  We have also TNR'd a few there, but what can I do?  I don't have room to care for another cat, nor the money to get it vetted.  I must just do the best I can do.  Thats all I can do.  I feel so hopeless sometimes.

Brrrrr!

Getting colder here in Ra Cha Cha!  I was out this morning bundling up my little shelters for all my little ones out there.  Thank God for FUR.  I had a dog house donated to me by my sweetie Sue out in Conesus, she runs a dog rescue called Another Chance.  I placed it at my Central Park location, and I think it will do nicely.  Its such a hodgepodge of different boards, and there is a hut that my friend Mary's husband Mike made for me years ago.  Its the spot that was shown in my video with my head getting bopped, the one I had to move next door on account of the owner of the property wanting me to move it by the end of last summer, which I did.  Its going to be warm, hopefully, as its tucked into the corner of a house, with the westerly winds being blocked by a back porch.  There are several kitties, predominantly black and white kitties.  At my second location, next door and behind Wally's place, Joe, a 'nephew' of Wally's was walking (at 5:30 am), I think he lives next door, or crashes at Wally's occasionally  and asked for a ride to Second - thats where the bootlegger house is, he 'needed' a beer (at 5:30 am - but hey, its 5:00 pm. somewhere!).  I told him he would have to make 'stops' before he gets to Second Street, so along he came, with me on my journey.  He was good company.  He talked and talked, and even made me laugh, each time at each spot saying 'hey, I know that cat!'.  I dropped him off on Second in which he turned to thank me for the ride, and wish me luck with the rest of my stops.  Such characters I meet on the streets...  But he is one of the good ones. 

Posted here are puppies I met out in Conesus yesterday, that will be available for adoption at Sue's Another Chance Rescue for dogs.  Aren't they SWEET!