The News

This kitty has been running up to the truck every morning for
well over a year or two... sweet.  Hard to drive away each day.
GARSON AVENUE

It was a brisky morning out there.  Brisky?  Is that the right word?  There was a slight chill in the air.  Lets put it that way.  My thoughts turn to shelters, and how am I going to keep the kitties that have no shelters, sheltered?  Where am I going to put shelters that will be safe.

I’ve been thinking about this the last week or so – wouldn’t it be LOVELY if the City of Rochester allowed shelters on their vacant properties, ALL vacant properties, and maintained them like other larger cities are now doing, or allowing caretakers this opportunity – with the public being made aware of this, and with consequences for people destroying or taking these shelters.  Instead, we are going to have thousands upon thousands fighting to keep warm and fed this winter.  They will literally suffer and die without some form of shelter from our zero and below temperatures, and storms, and no food to eat. 

I would love some help in the next month or so to build up my shelters.  Put new tarps down with weights to hold them, add more straw to totes, get a few more pallets to add under them to keep them from sinking into the snow…  Anybody?  It would require you to get up BEFORE the crack of dawn, come out for a few hours and help me feed and batten down some hatches.   You only have to do it once.  Sheryl only has to do it once a week.   I have to do it every day. 

My next thoughts were about quitting this cold turkey.  What would happen to all the cats that run to me now, let me pet them – like the cats at Niagara, who now allow me to touch them, and believe me, that is BIG.   They had no trust for me up until recently.  Such beautiful babies.  They would have no food source and would surely suffer, and die.  Its not the dying part that bothers me more than the SUFFERING does.  I believe dying would be a better solution for them than suffering before death.  So, I can’t just stop.  But I don’t know when the end will be.  People tell me occasionally, you must cut back, you must slow down, you must stop.  I just can’t do it yet.

I can’t do it because there are cats like SOPHIE!  I just rescued this baby this morning.  She has been hanging around Short Street every day, looking more and more ragged.  She looks so much like Vanessa, my Vanessa, who I just lost.  Thank God for people like Melissa, Estelle, Kim, Shannon and Kathleen, Janessa, Sue, Kristin, and recently Max, who has offered to foster Sophie – these are people that are willing to give a home to a cat or kitten until they are adopted.  They all take their chances knowing that cat or kitten will be with them – could be weeks, could be months, sometimes longer, not usually, but they still are willing to open their hearts and homes for a defenseless animal with no voice.  I thank God for them.

That’s all I have.

Have a great day everyone.

"You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself

that you truly give."