Better Late Than Never

The rain.  Good Lord it was wet out there today.  We just got drenched.  Thank God for two things:  Kim, who bought, spray painted and delivered boards to me.  And the other is for June and Gary, who have been such longtime supporters of my work.  They made me something very ingenious.  So you know that there is a man that drives a yellow hummer who hates me - does not know me whatsoever except that I care for cats on Niagara Street every day - and he takes a chance every day to come and take whatever I can muster up to cover the food that is all these cats have.  Two plates of food and a dish of water.  That's all they have in their entire pitiful lives.  And he comes and takes the boards, and throws the food out.  I have spoken to an officer about this, and they are trying to hunt him down by his license plate, which I was lucky enough to get while he was getting mine (see past posts).  So now I am using whatever I can find by the side of the road because he has taken so many good boards, and doors (thank you Kathy Maltby!) that I am running out of things to place there, due to our lovely weather.  But June and Gary took a large piece of cardboard, and wrapped it with either plastic and duct taped it, or something like that, looks easy enough, and made it waterproof and durable enough to act like a board to cover the food.  I've used two now, and the bastard has not touched it, yet.  He must not have come by yesterday.  Of course, he probably came by today and snatched it.    Thank you June and Gary, really.  I hope they really were not hard to make.

So I was putting food in the back of a house that is being renovated on Ferndale Crescent, as that is where a mother cat had her babies, in the shelters I had on the back porch when the house was boarded up.  Now some one has bought it, is renovating, and I am coming close to being totally thrown out of this little colony I feed.  But I was doing this behind the house this morning, and  heard the usual dog barking behind the fence.  When I shined my light back there for a second, I saw this Pit Bull on THIS side of the fence.  I saw he was chained, but I thought - that's odd.  Is this guy that is renovating keeping this dog back there?  Then I looked at a metal garbage can on its side, the end facing the other way - was this supposed to be the dog's shelter?  He could barely fit inside.  Then I inched my way over, I could see the dog's tail wagging.  I then spotted a very heavy thick chain around its neck and then saw the chain wrapped and twisted around a tree trunk, so the dog couldn't move.  I then saw a hole in the fence that obviously the dog was on the wrong side of.  I got closer and closer, and got close enough - she/he was either going to bite me or not, but I had to free it.  It didn't bite.  In fact, at one point, it tried to jump on me it was so excited to see me.  I bent down and for the next five minutes, stood in the pouring rain, mud all around, and got this poor animal loose.  I peeked my head through the hole in the fence, and saw a dog house, but no food or water, around the mud.  So I went back to the car and got a plate of cat food and brought it back, walking away as I watched it wolf the food down.  

These are just some of the things I see.  

The picture of the two cats under the tree:  This morning, as it was raining, the older cat ran to me when I called for it.  It came crying from under the car. I thought it was hungry.  It wasn't.  IT was hungry for a home and love.  He ran back under the car as I walked back to get into the truck.  I gotta get that cat.  He's about a year or so old.  I may give it to Paul, from Second Street, who just had to have his cat euthanized and is longing for a companion.  He is the black man that allowed me to place shelters behind his house for so many years.  The kindness he showed me was so out of character compared to the dislike I get from most in this side of town.  Paul has been calling me to find him a cat, so maybe this sweetheart will be the one.  Of course I could not ask Paul to cover the spay/neuter fee, he has nothing.  

On a good note, I went to Foster Max's house on Sunday to visit Apollo, the kitten from Parsells he adopted from me, and Sophie, the cat he is fostering for me that was picked up on Short Street.  Boy is she beautiful. The vet considered her a juvenile. Its hard to tell sometimes when you are feeding them in the dark, by flashlight.  Her thick luxurious coat is becoming more and more soft and clean.  She is 'tolerating' Max's dog Ollie, and learning to play with Apollo, who took a few swipes at her while I was there.  Max is doing great, and sent the new pictures along.

I also went to visit Fluffy, who is finally an empty nester, with all her kittens adopted out.  Her foster mom Estelle takes very good care of her.  She spoils her, like she does with all her cats.  Fluffy gets along with everyone, and is very loving and affectionate!

And do you think Muffin looks content?  Thanks for the great pic Foster Mom Melissa!

Muffin on the left

That's all I have.  

Have a nice day.

Nurture

by Maxine Kumin

From a documentary on marsupials I learn

that a pillowcase makes a fine

substitute pouch for an orphaned kangaroo.

I am drawn to such dramas of animal rescue.

They are warm in the throat. I suffer, the critic proclaims,

from an overabundance of maternal genes.

Bring me your fallen fledgling, your bummer lamb,

lead the abused, the starvelings, into my barn.

Advise the hunted deer to leap into my corn.

And had there been a wild child—

filthy and fierce as a ferret, he is called

in one nineteenth-century account—

a wild child to love, it is safe to assume,

given my fireside inked with paw prints,

there would have been room.

Think of the language we two, same and not-same,

might have constructed from sign,

scratch, grimace, grunt, vowel:

Laughter our first noun, and our long verb, howl.