Thank You!

Thank you to those of you that have stuck by me.  I was thinking about this - how many kind people are out there in our world - if I could be a hermit sometimes, I would - I try to shut my life down after I leave my job during the week - I know I have a limited amount of time to do what I have to do when I get home before I have to be in bed and get up six hours later to do it all over again.   I tend to get lost in my own world (I try to forget about what I see out there - and cats in general - after I feed and trap in the mornings – heck, I can’t even drive there when its daylight, I don’t want to look around, see the cats, I would want to stop at all my spots and refill everything), and I know that others go out of their way for me, and I just want you to know that I appreciate it so much.  I am not crying myself a river or anything, but what I do is very hard, emotionally, physically, and financially.  I know I don't HAVE to feed cats - 40 lbs a day just in dry food... ($150) a week - but I can't stand the thought of a cat going hungry.

There is someone that is part of a TNR group in Rochester that believes I should NOT be feeding cats.  I would never speak ill of that person, because of all the good they are doing, but it makes me feel bad, as if I've wasted 20 years, and all that money feeding these cats.  “I haven't seen the evidence of cats starving - but there will be fewer cats if there's less food. I know you don't approve of the drive-by feeders who don't trap - but if you're not keeping up with growth, it's almost the same thing, isn't it?”

I do double duty - I am also trying to spay and neuter those in my 20 colonies in the Beechwood area.  Yes, I've had failures - new cats come to these colonies, have their babies, and on and on it goes.  But there are a few stable colonies that I feed at, and I am like their mother.  They KNOW me.  They DEPEND on me.  If I had more money, I could trap more.  If I had more available spots at clinics, I could trap more.  I just found out someone called Lollipop and they are booking into October.  “There's NO QUESTION that you're making a huge difference in the lives of the individual cats you touch - whether you neuter them, or rescue them - but it's possible that you're also increasing the population, and making the overall problem worse by feeding unneutered cats. It makes people question whether TNR works at all.”

If I drop dead tomorrow, yes, there will be unbearable suffering amongst the cats I feed, due to starvation.  I know this.    Most are semi-feral to strays that I feed, and they are not hunters.  They will not know where to get food, and they WILL suffer.  But I won’t care after that point, will I.  I have no one to step in and do the job for me.

I had to release “Baldy” yesterday back to Baldwin after he awoke from his drug induced sleep (I made sure he was lucid enough to be let back out!).  It was heartbreaking for me, as I know he is a good boy, and allowed me to pet him inside the cage.  What was worse was seeing him this morning.  He came to me, and cried.  I placed food down, and had to leave him.  I MUST RESCUE HIM.  The other two cats, both girls - one was pregnant, the other post-partum.

I tried to rescue REESE this morning, the black and white polydactyl cat on Parsells - because there has been an offer by a kind girl in Lyons who wants to foster him - but he was no where to be found.

I also saw another kitten.  A FIFTH kitten on Parsells #3.  I thought we had gotten them all.  UGH.  He was a tiny little red and white kitten, and looked like black around his nose.  I must get him.  But how.  Speaking of, his siblings, who are split amongst Melissa and Sue – two are very sick.  I had to call to make an appointment for them at Caring for Cats, but can’t get in until tomorrow.  One has eye issue, the other has a very foul odor coming from its mouth, with discharge.  UGH.,

If anyone would care to donate, I would surely appreciate it!

PS, thank you Joel for offering to help fix the traps!

This is all I ‘got’ for today!

"Life is too ironic to

fully understand.  It

takes sadness to

know what

happiness is. Noise

to appreciate

silence & absence

to value presence."