Skunks and Drunks

I had some of the 'kids' out yesterday when I got home from work - I needed some sun and air, so I brought them outdoors!  First time for them to feel grass under their feet!  (and hopefully the last!)

I have seen a LOT of skunks again this summer.  I have come to realize that it takes more than a little to get them to spray, so I've been lucky just to be able to shine my light on them in the dark, and they run the other way.  On Central and Fifth, where Cammy 'resides', each morning that I pull up, I see the skunk, and I see the bottles left from the night before from the drunks that live next door.  They throw their beer bottles all over the place next to where Cammy feeds by the sidewalk.  Pigs.  I try to clean up as best as I can in the dark.  I need to get him out of there.

Cammy - Central and Fifth

Prince on Parsells

At my next spot on Central and Third, as I walked up the three steps to fill the bowls inside the small porch there, I felt a SPLAT on my face and shirt - I thought I had spilled some water from the jug I was carrying.  I looked down and I had stepped on a GIANT slug.  Its guts squirted all over me.  Such a glamorous life, eh?  GROSS.

I keep forgetting to mention my garden.  As you all know, I applied for a garden permit for this vacant lot in the city.  I have fed, TNR'd and sheltered over 8 cats here over the past five years or so.  Someone moves in, they want the shelters gone.  So had to move to vacant lot belonged to by the city, and then the neighbor next to that trashes everything and says he doesn't want the cats there.  Well, too bad Mister.  I found a way around that.  I applied for a garden permit to build a pretty garden and maintain the lot.  I will do anything for an animal.  I pray it remains.  Had a nice couple come and rototilled the 10X10 ft area I will have as a garden, and then had to order the dirt.  Dirt ain't cheap.  A mixture of dirt and compost, plus delivery, came to $130. After this is delivered end of week, I will need to plant.  Mary has tall grasses for me,and several others have expressed that they have bulbs to plant, in the fall.  I will need to find some CHEAP colorful annuals to plant for now.  I have another friend who will be able to supply a border.  So that is where I am at right now.  The property is 196 Pennsylvania Avenue, if anyone is interested in coming by this weekend with a plant or two!  Needs flowers!  Thank you to Melissa, Yesenia, Mary, Jim, Scott, Mary, Liz and her friend for coming to help/visit on one or the other past weekends .  It was great having  your support.

I am overwhelmed again.  In just one day.  This time, a man who adopted a feral kitten from me well over a year ago called.  He told me he was diagnosed as a chronic alcoholic (I didn't know at the time) and has been advised he needs to go for inpatient treatment.  He also has another old cat that he adores.  He was also told he has beginning stages of cirrhosis of the liver.  I know this man has a good heart, and I sympathize with him a great deal, but you know where this is going.................  he thinks he can find a home for Ellie, but he says due to the little one being so shy, he doesn't think he can place her.  I am thinking he just needs a place for her to for a while.  I told him to please use me as last resort, because he said he would do his best to find them homes with friends and family. I hung up feeling, well, way overwhelmed.

Not five seconds after that, the phone rings and its a fellow employee who works at the hospital who says she has heard about me, and has a feral cat colony just behind Riedman Campus (where I work from) and they are all having kittens.  She is treating her very ill son (terminal cancer) and can't do anything, but is heartsick watching this.  She asked for my help.  I CAN'T do it.  I just can't.  I am way over my head to begin with.  HELP.

So the cats I trapped yesterday morning spent the night on my porch.  The calico has severe URI (they gave her a shot of Convenia at the clinic) and was pregnant.  The tan tabby was post-partum, and the white with red spots was a boy.  I felt TERRIBLE letting the tabby and white with red back on the streets this morning, especially the white with black, he is a good boy, and friendly.  He doesn't trust me now.  But guess what?  You didn't ask about the calico!  She got a LAST SECOND reprieve.  Just as I was on my way out the door to pack them into the truck from the porch this morning, we received a text last night from Patti.  She offered to foster her.  So, this little girl, very shy (and who already has used the litter box!), had spent the night in a small trap after major surgery and being sick, is now in my bathroom snuggled in the carrier I provided her.  :)  Thank you Patti, and thank you Donna!  Donna has offered to foster Prince on Parsells, the black and white kitty I posted pics of yesterday (and above)!  :)  woo hoo!  It takes a village, eh?

"Any good ... that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it for I shall not pass this way again."