Breaker Breaker!

My electricity has been off the past two days.  Not fun.  I need a main breaker replacement. Electrician coming after work.  Ca Ching.  It was a very cold morning, both inside and out.

For those of you new to reading this blog, here is what I do on a daily basis, every day at 3:45 am., and there is no change in the time frame, and there is never a break.  Cats, like humans, need to eat every day.  I head out with a headlamp around my neck, SEVEN 2-gallon ziplock bags full of dry food, 6 large yogurt sized tubs of wet food + 8 cans in a spare bag for extra stops.  At each stop, I have shelters for the cats so that they have protection from the storms we get, and space underneath boards and tarps to protect the food.  At each stop there are an average of five cats waiting for me.  They get bowls of dry and dollops of wet.  They get warm water in the winter until it freezes.  I spend an average of five minutes at each of the 19 or so locations around the public market.  Each spot is either in a vacant lot, or a vacant house somewhere.  Its always under the cover of darkness because if people saw me in the daylight, I am sure a lot of my spots would be trashed.  Its also much safer at 4 am. than it is at 8 pm.  Most people just don't care about cats in these neighborhoods.

In the warmer months, I try to trap two cats per week and bring them to a low cost clinic for spaying/neutering, and then releasing these cats the next morning back to the streets, if they are not sociable.  If they are, I rescue them.  Most cats I feed are sociable.  They have had some form of human kindness, if not for when they were little and were let out, escaped, or whatever, and have led most of their lives on the streets, or from getting to know and trust ME, seeing me each day.  Some run to me, watch me pour the food, begin to devour.  Others sit just a short ways away, waiting for me to finish up and begin to walk away.  There are so many sweet cats out there that I rescued...  I believe around 70 adult cats last year???  and this year over 110 but most of those were kittens.  Some older kittens, some very young kittens.  There are so many on the streets that still need homes.

My wish list:

• Shelters - Styrofoam and plastic totes
• Tarps - dark brown
• Pallets - I am looking for the smaller ones - I've seen blue ones before, look like they hold loaves of bread
• Headlamps - the rechargeable kind - 300+ lumens
• Wooden boards

Here are some scenes from this morning:  (Be sure to click on pictures to see close up)

Neutered grey boy dying to be rescued on Melville

Gorgeous copper colored sweet kitty on Bay - under a year old

Big Red, Mr. Whiskers on Short

Need pallets to raise right side shelter off ground

Have a great day!