Seventh Street Part Two

Yesterday, on my lunch, I went to this street I have had problems with by either kids, or adults, trashing and removing my stuff for the cats.  I would like to think its kids rather than adults, because it would be easier dealing with kids, if I can catch them.  I was bound and determined to find someone to talk to about it.  I drove down the street slowly, and saw a couple of young girls walking.  I told them about the problem, and gave them my name and number (I have met one of the girls mother - Angela - in the past), and asked them to call me if they see any kids there.  I then saw a woman in a house almost directly across the lot where all this is taking place, and I pulled over.  Turned out to be a nice spanish woman named Maria.  We talked for a while, she promised to keep an eye out on the field there, and even agreed that I could take some of the boards she had in her garage after I asked her about them.  Told her I would come by in the early morning and take a few.  I wrote out a note also to leave for the kids or who ever - saying 'they were not being watched, not to touch my stuff, that I would find them, and the words police and criminal mischief.  Didn't leave that today because I picked up a board somewhere else and layed it on the ground.  Its like a tester.  I will go over again sometime this morning to check on it.  I drove to this area after work also yesterday and saw Angela sitting on her porch.  She lives a few houses down on the same side, and she promised me she would talk to the neighbors and the kids and make sure they don't do anything.  We will see.  She totally understood where I was coming from about that being all the cats had was that one shelter.   I told her how it took school kids a month to build the hut, and someone destroyed it in a day.

This spot is in the back of a lot, and has the back of a garage from the street over as the wall that I lean the board against.  So, wish me luck.  I will try this again today!

Here are a few more pictures I've kept of all the babies I've rescued and adopted out.

 Blackie

 Copper

 Nelly

 Patric

 Smoke-e-Boke

Dewey

Ivan

Patric

Boris & Toonces

 Mickey



Seventh Street

Despite the torrential downpours we had yesterday, along with the thunder and lightning, the kitties were all around and accounted for as I pulled up to their very wet soggy paper plates and bowls I had left for them the morning before.  I fed all, and no sign of raccoons today.   I had to chase a few yesterday, but none were visible today.

I continue to have problems at my feeding spot on Seventh Street.  I pulled up this morning and there was nothing left there.  They pulled up the box crate that was absolutely perfect - it kept the food and water off the ground, I was able to place at towel down for comfort for the cats while they ate, and the board that covered all that was gone.  The board was a lean to against the back of a garage from the street over that protected the food from rain and snow.  The little enclosed litter box, that I had a little cushion in for sleeping comfort, was also destroyed a while back, and gone.  The wooden hut that was built for me by my friend and her students, that had its cover ripped off weeks ago, was gone.  Nothing but dirt this morning.  I layed out some plates with food and a bowl of water, placed my food and water containers in the car, and started to walk around trying to find my stuff.  I even went behind people's houses.  I was very angry and very determined to find my stuff.  I will now be leaving work twice today to drive over there and catch either the kids in that empty lot, or adults outside, asking who took my stuff.  I will also be asking for sympathy for these cats that wait for me daily.  I must find the parents of these hoodlums and ask them to stop.

In the meantime, if anyone can help me out with boards large enough to lean against something and be able to fit a few cats underneath to eat, and maybe two box crates (I think thats what you call them?) I would be most appreciative.  If I could clone myself, I would go and place more boards there and then sit in my car all day and watch for them.  I must find who is doing this. 

50 Shades of Cuteness

I've been told, but I knew this before, a dozen times, that my blog is sad.  So therefore, I don't know how many people are actually reading it.  It really is more cathartic for me to write what I see and do each day feeding homeless cats, and I don't know why I feel the need to share it on a blog for public viewing, although typing that, I really do know why I do.  Because I want people to see life for what it really is, and to show people that there are people like me doing the dirty work.  I think most people go through life with rose colored glasses and don't see reality at its best, and its worst.  I know for myself that I can't even watch a television show that shows an animal being killed by another animal, or any kind of mistreatment of an animal.  I know that I can't even walk into a shelter without crying my eyes out, so I don't do it.   So, I really don't blame those that can't read my blog daily.  It is depressing.  So, to continue or not to continue, that is the question.  We shall see.

So for today, I will share some cute pictures of cuteness in my life.  All I've rescued, minus two I think, Big Red and Angel, who are out on the street still, but they've been neutered (and of course the cute baby monkey, oh and friend Jen and dog Jake, and friend Cheryl and her cats!).  There are so many more.  I think I will continue on with this, I like to see the good I've done over the years!  With thanks to so many others who have helped!

 cute baby monkey

 Butters

 Butters

 Buddy (aka Winston)

 Barney

 Buster

 Butterscotch (aka Butterboy, Butters)

 Cinnamon

 Cosmo

 Timmy

 Kitten found under wheel well

 Taffy (pregnant kitty I rescued)'s Babies

 Harry

Friend Jen and Jake the Dog

Baby Weasel

 Butters

 Cosmo & MaryJane

 Magic

 Larry

 Thunder & Sugar

Tabitha (pregnant kitty I rescued)'s babies!

Angel

 

 Friend Kristin's Artwork

 Barney & Boris

 Big Red

 Dexter

 Cassidy (pregnant kitty I rescued)'s babies

 Friend Cheryl's kitties

 Boris

Copper (pregnant kitty I rescued)'s babies

Laura

Flashbacks!



I was behind a schoolbus this morning, waiting for it to turn off the expressway exit, and had a minor 'flashback', if you can call it that.  It was a warm cozy feeling, and I felt as if I were very young again.  It lasted about one second, but then I started to think again of something else in my childhood that I've never forgotten.  We used to live in an apartment, my mother, sister and I, and we had a neighbor Sharon, I used to hang out with her daughter.  It was either before my father died, when I was about 11, or after, but Sharon had a boyfriend who lived in the country.  I remember she would take me and her daughter to his house on the weekends to this remote place, with forever fields, and long, winding roads with crickets chirping, and grasshoppers jumping.  Quiet as could be out there.  That was a happy place to revisit in my mind, and for a moment, I felt safe, cozy and secure.  Its hard to explain the feeling that overcame me, feeling like I was maybe 10 years old again, but it was such a great memory, one of the few I have left.

I was also thinking about all the cats I've rescued and adopted out over the years.  I am the type of 'mom' that goes to the person's house, makes sure its not a bad situation for the animal, makes sure the person seems like she loves the cat, and if its a good fit, I reluctantly say my goodbye but 'see you later.'  I always follow-up down the road to make sure things are going well, and the cat is getting along with either another cat or dog, or just the person its been adopted out to.  Most people who have taken a cat from me are in my life, and I see the cat occasionally, or I get updates from time to time.  My family members have adopted many, so I get to see the kitties on a regular basis, as regular as I see my family.  But there have been people that would rather I don't follow up, and thats been hard.  These type of people obviously are not the kind of people I would have normally adopted out to, because its important for me to follow up, make sure that cat is OK.  But in the rescue business, and for me being a one-person business, you have to trust because these cats need to find a home, I can't keep them all.  So you do what you have to do, reluctantly.  As I drove and fed at the first 5 spots, I counted that I had just fed 21 cats.  And that was only less than half my spots.  Think about it.  21 cats alone.  They all need homes.  Thats just half of what sidles up to me each morning hungrily waiting for the food to be placed before them.  And they all need homes.  So sad.

On a brighter note, yesterday, at close to my last spot, I was petting the new mama cat, that looks like a Van Gogh painting, and finally went round the corner to 2nd where there are young teenage kittens, kindhearted Laura surprised me.  She was there with her box trap set up for TNR'g because she had problems with her own area and needed to get some kitties.  Such a kindhearted good woman to help me out with my own clan.  Really.  I do need the help.  Its all me, all by my lonesome out there.  And its a struggle.  Every bit of help I can get is so appreciated.  Have a great day!

"Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw

all the paint on it you can."

Raining Cats and Dogs!

Picture of my beloved Thunder, who has been diagnosed with bladder cancer, but seems to be doing fine at the moment!  Isn't he cute!

And this is a picture of Butterscotch (aka Butters!) with his buddy Rufus, in their usual wrestling pose.  They just love each other.  Although Butters still is awaiting a good home!

We had a major storm here yesterday late afternoon.  I could hear the storm above my head where there is a skylight over my desk.  Buckets of rain fell in a short period of time.  Lightening, thunder....  all the things that make me immediately think of the kitties out there.   Someone said to me at work this morning - Happy August!  I answered the same, but with a fake lilt in my voice.  I don't know why I can't be a normal person, and accept the months as they go by.  Instead, my thinking is that at the end of this month, it turns fall.  And fall brings colder weather, and sometimes snow.  And then winter is just around that corner.  So I start to dread the coming months, and August is the closest to that dreaded season.  Don't get me wrong, deep inside, I LOVE the fall, and I LOVE the winter, but for myself I do.  I love the pretty colors of the leaves, I love the smell in the air, I love the fall vegetables, mums, pumpkins, all that stuff.  I love to drive in the snow.  I love a good snuggle under a blanket on the couch while the snow is blowing.  But its hard to enjoy that fully knowing what the cats outside are enduring.

This morning, at my spot on 7th, they were at it again, and this time, removed the board.  They must have done that yesterday, as everything, including the towel that lay on the crate that I place the food on, was soaked.  It was no where in sight.  The little brats.  I wish I could catch them.  I wish I had a friend who could drive past there during the day and catch them.  I think I know where they live, and might just have to pay a visit.  But that doesn't help me in the short term.  What I did though was I made the best of the situation by standing up the only remaining, crumbling board there, and then I walked across the street to see if I could find the other crappy board they took, and I saw a piece of plywood in the yard of the suspects, and TOOK IT!  I walked right accross the street with it and brought it to the back of the lot.  Of course, they probably think this is a game now and will destroy everything there.  Grrrr.  I am so upset about this.  I am now off schedule, and scrambling to the rest of my stops and late getting back home to get ready for work.  But on the way to the final stops, I spotted the mama kitty - she is a tortoise color, and the only way to describe her markings is like a Van Gogh painting.  Air brushed, she is beautiful.  And her nipples are not as hard, so her milk must be subsiding.  Wonder where her babies are...  I was able to pick her up, she is so sweet, and friendly, and hungry.  I must get her spayed.

I am now running out of food most mornings.  Putting down less dry for the cats because of fear I will run out.  There are so many cats that are hungry out there.  My wish list would contain small bags of dry food, as they are easy to store in my car trunk, and easy to grab.  I was feeding 16 pounds a day, I would say its now up to 18 pounds.  And of course, a select few get 8 cans of the large BuJu because there is never enough of the wet to go around, but that is their favorite, so I feel bad. 

So, thats another day in the hood.  Enjoy yours, whereever you are.