Since I know that I am unable to capture Old Girl, I have been lacing tuna juice with Arnica to take down the swelling. A few days ago when I saw her in the morning, she was no longer limping. I didn’t want to say anything at first because I didn’t want to jinx it. However, I have seen her a few times now, and she’s walking on it without any issues! I am so relieved. I am still giving her the Arnica in the tuna juice in case there is any residual bruising or swelling left behind. I am so grateful for this Thanksgiving blessing. Speaking of blessing I hope all of you enjoyed a comfortable Thanksgiving with family and friends.

For several months now, I have been increasingly worried about my old girl. She has been fighting an URI. She is not one that can be easily treated or even caught. Two nights ago when I went out to feed, I noticed that she was absent. This caused my heart to skip a beat, because she’s always showing up for food. When I went looking for her, I found her under the bushes, she was reluctant to move. Unfortunately, the bushes that she hides under are very thick and I cannot get underneath easily. However, when I tried, she did move, but she was limping  Either she has been in a fight, or she has hurt herself on the icy ground.

Tonight when I went out to feed, she was out there, but she didn’t want to move. This is so not like her. I put the food out and stepped back and watched. She is bearing no weight on her right front leg.

It has become increasingly cold here. Dropping down into the 20s at night. if a predator comes into the yard and goes after her she’s going to be top on the menu.

So I once again have put out one of my top-loader carrier. There is a dark towel, which I hope I will be able to put over her to calm her as I carry her to safety.  I also have a pair of Mike’s welding gloves, which come in handy with feral cats who are not fond of being handled. I am hoping in the next few days I will be able to capture her and take her to the vet to be treated.

If tonight is any indication, it looks like she more than likely got into a fight and she’s fighting an abscess. This can go south so quickly I have to move fast, but I have to move cautiously. I don’t wish to cause her to flee and damage her leg anymore than it already is. I’ve tried to just talk to her and let her know that I would like to help her, but she fled the minute. I stuck my head into the room that she was sleeping in. She didn’t even give me a chance to talk to her , I know it sounds crazy but sometimes when they are hurting so bad and trying not to show it, you can reason with them they do understand that you’re trying to help. But she has seen me capture several of her friends in the last couple of months and she never sees her friends again so she’s very leery of me. She is 16 years old. I am praying that I will be able to capture her very soon.

Both Magoo and Ashley have made a full transition in with the other cats, I am still amazed at how well they took to their new living quarters. As well as a little disappointed that they were not that comfortable in the house. However, I see them more now than ever before, it’s always an early morning thrill for me to be greeted by all five cats when I go out to feed. I was even able to flea treat Ashley yesterday without any problems.

I believe I made Magoo’s day this morning because I moved Michael’s old recliner into the cat enclosure. This was one of Magoo’s favorite places to hang out and hide in the house. It was also the reason that I unplugged the electric motor that moved it. It is a lift chair and instead got a hassock to rest my legs on.

So now he has something that he can relate to and hide under if he wishes or sleep under which is what he normally did on a pretty regular basis. And I finally tested negative for my Covid. This time Covid kicked my butt. I felt like somebody threw me down a mineshaft and left me there. I am still very fatigued and my muscles just ache but I did finally test negative which is a great relief. And according to the nurse line that I spoke with, I had the omicron for the first time. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.

Just wanted to wish everybody an early happy Thanksgiving. Be grateful that you can gather around your table with friends and family and enjoy the day. Don’t forget cats love Turkey!

I always find it fascinating when someone departs the group, how the dynamics of the group switch to compensate. Since the loss of Gadget, Goblin has taken it upon herself to meet me every morning at the sliding glass door as I go to feed. She still is quite skittish when I go to pet her, so I stopped trying. That in itself has seemed to relax her a bit,and now she escorts me all around the property as I feed. She stays right by my side, and when I finally get to her feeding platform and put the food out, she will then leave me and go to eat with all the others joining in.

I am happy to say that since she showed up over a year ago, rail-skinny, and gaunt in her face, she has now filled up to be an adorable black kitty. Sneaking in L-Lysine and diatomaceous earth crystals (when there is canned food available) has helped her as well. She really is a beauty, I might be able to, by the end of next year, break through her trust barrier and maybe even get her adopted out. That will thrill me to no end. However, I know that when it comes to adopting out black kittens, people either fear them (thanks to silly superstitions that have lasted through centuries0, or they love them. I happen to love black cats (probably why I have so many here at the rescue).

So, it is nice to have this new black shadow trailing me when I go out in the mornings. She waits as I go into each enclosure then scampers out of the darkness to join me in my morning ritual. I am not quite sure where she sleeps. I think it might be under the new observation deck, so today when it warms up, I will go out and fill a box with straw and slide it underneath the deck so she can stay warm.

Temperatures at night now swing down into the 20’s and 30’s. Because the deck isn’t watertight, when I mentioned that to one of the crew several weeks ago, he (bless his heart) slid his huge frame underneath the deck and using a large piece of flashing (I think he called it) he made a water slide so the rain wouldn’t get any cats underneath wet. Instead, it catches all the rain and because he slanted it- the rain runs down and dumps into the grass next to deck! I swear this work crew, they were amazng and their love for critters just showed their good hearts. I do miss all the guys very much. Kota still is keeping up his vigil and waits in the morning impatiently for them to walk through the gates.

I received a text yesterday from one of the guys (even though they have left the build because they were finished) several of them told me before they left that I was much more than a client. I was now their friend. They are on another job and there was a cat who had been hanging around for weeks. She is a beauty, she is a long-haired cow kitty. The neighbors told the men that she had been dumped weeks ago. Now she has a home with Nathan and his family. He sent me her photo where she is snuggled down into his daughter’s furry hoodie. I couldn’t be more pleased that she has found a loving home and has been brought out of these severe weather elements we are now facing. I am sharing his photo:

Kota is ill again, it has been determined that not only does he have a rare type of ulcer, but he is now prone to struvite crystals. They will retest him in two weeks. Now there is  a list of food ingredients he can’t have: chicken, beef, spinach, sweet potatoes, brown rice, organ meats, ammonia (found in beef products) magnesium and one more ingredient that escapes me right now. The vet tells me to get him to drink more water- all the tips I use when my cats are dehydrated and not drinking (such as rubbing a bit of salt on their gums) is not working for him. They have all fallen flat. He doesn’t even want to eat salty cheetos! So, I started thinking it and wondering if it might be not the food, but the well water? Next week, I will go into Albany and get the test kit and have them run an analysis of my two wells. I know that our irrigation well has hard water- not sure about the house well.

Unable to find any food locally that didn’t have any of those ingredients (and was under 15% protein) last night in desperation, I called Chewy. They were so kind.  Brenda helped me figure out what canned food Kota could safely eat. It was quite the search though, i so admire her patience. Good customer service is so hard to come by anymore, but Chewy comes through every time. I remember when Mike died, they even sent flowers to me. I had one of my unexpected grief moments on the phone with a rep right after he passed. Today marks the day when four years ago, they dismissed him from the hospital and put him on Home Hospice.  This time of year is still a bit tough for me to get through, but I am working it out. The kitties help, especially helpful is Goblin my new black shadow!

At 10:30 this morning, Gadget had her Rainbow Pass  validated. After bloodwork and three sets of x-rays taken on different days, it was determined that she had a stricture of her ileum (last part o the small intestine) which, according to a friend of mine who is a Feline Specialist, in cats, this is a common place to find intestinal cancer there’s. Sure enough, under that stricture was lymphoma.

I pulled her file a few days ago to refresh my very fading memory. I’ve had three Gadgets here, and this Gadget was one that arrived with Shell. There were three kittens,  that were taken from this hoarder. One died an hour after she arrived here, it was found that she was riddled with cancer. Shell, although she fought valiantly, she also succumbed to cancer. The fact that Gadget was able to survive as long as she did is a miracle. I really want to bury her on my property, but I can’t. It’s not that I don’t have the room, but it’s been raining so hard I won’t be able to dig a decent hole. It would just fill with water. I can’t afford to get her ashes back so she will be sprinkled in a farmers field somewhere. I guess that’s fitting end for a cat who lived outside for her entire life.

I know that having outside cats is not ideal, but sometimes it’s the only way these cats can or will live. I saw her every day. I never saw her go off property. She had three areas here that she loved to stay in. She never went anywhere, and although I could never get near her, I saw her every day and I knew her normal. When I saw her walking across my property or trying to, that’s when I knew her normal days were gone

Now she is with God sitting on Michael’s lap. I’m sure they were happy to see each other. One of the places that she used to hang out in was his shop. I am devastated. At least I know she’s no longer in pain.

I told my vet that I felt like I let her down. He told me: on the contrary, you saved her from a great deal of pain. You caught this early and you knew something was wrong and you fought for her. You were her voice. Had you not brought her in, she would have been losing weight soon, not eating and if she vanished again and didn’t reappear, she would have lingered on until the stricture just choked her.

Here we are spending the last moments together before the vet arrives with the final solution:

God granted me a 15 minute lull in the storm. Gadget has been laid to rest by the barn she loved to hang out in.

I just spoke with my vet, and there are no clear answers as to what is going on with Gadget. She is very depleted energy wise. She is very docile, and he even had her on his lap for about 20 minutes, and she was accepting of his pets as he was quietly examining her! He is concerned at the consistency of her stool, so they are keeping her for a few days on fluids, and giving her his cocktail to stop the pudding like consistency of her stool. They are also going to put her on A/D

I almost have a feeling now, that she came close to losing one of her Nine lives, and in the process she met God and He told her: ” Go ahead and give Mary Anne a chance because Mary Anne is really a nice person.”

For her to be so altered in behavior is the most baffling thing I have ever encountered  he thinks it just might be something neurological. As if she got struck on the head and it has rattled her. I asked him about her inability or unwillingness to walk and he said that he wouldn’t really call it walking right now she sort of scuttles out of the way when she’s left in a room.

I am sitting at my desk, completely overwhelmed at what just occurred. It is 3:13 a.m. right now. I was woken up by a kitty crying pitifully right under my bedroom window. I did not recognize the crier. Hastily, I got dressed, grabbed my flashlight and headed out the door.

I found her lying underneath a tree. It was Gadget! She started to get up to run away (this kitty is full-feral) but she couldn’t. When she vanished on Weds after the storm, I pulled out several cat carriers and placed them around the property. I do that when a feral cat vanishes, just in case when or if they return injured (which has been the case too many times in the past) I can get them to safety quickly.

She is walking wonky. She is walking on eggshells, that would be the only way I could describe it. She walks slowly, she is slung low to the ground, and she is high stepping her front legs in front of her (somewhat like a parade horse does) her rear legs seem to wobble, but she can move her legs. Nothing appears broken.

I started talking to her quietly, telling her that I had been extremely worried about her leaving. She has never once gone missing from here. I could see that she wanted to flee, but she didn’t have it in her. Taking a chance, I bent down lower to the ground (to remove the threat of a bigger predator). I gently touched her head and she let me pet her! Although this thrilled me, on the other hand it deeply concerned me. She would never under normal circumstances allow this to happen. She would have shredded my hand- when I say she is full-feral, I mean full-feral. I have never even been able to flea-treat her with topical- so I feed all the ferals diathermanous earth crystals food grade in their meals..

I gently stroked her back. She did resist, growl, hiss, swat or attack. My concern growing, I finally just gently scruffed her, lifting her up, supporting her rear gently. I walked with her around the corner into a waiting carrier. Instead of going ballistic after I shut the top of the carrier, she went flat.I quickly brought her into the house and put her near the heater. I knew that watching her before I captured her, she couldn’t sit on her rear in a normal way. She would not be comfortable inside of my cat carrier until Monday when I could drop her off at the vet’s office.

I put together a small cage for her. She is now in my mudroom, the heater is on, she is laying on a bed of blankets and she has food, water and litterpan. I have been in there a few times checking on her, put flea treatment on her and tried to find any  type of injury. She is eating- I had to force feed her first. I think she is worn out from running away from the storm and has somehow sustained an internal injury.The wind was howling on Weds and debris was flying. I do not think she was hit by a car, all her claws are intact and she has no road rash.

I am still stunned that she has allowed me several opportunities to pick her up and gently explore her body. She is making no resistance at all..She has stopped crying and is quietly laying in the cage on her side.I have covered the cage with a dark blanket, and other than checking in on her from time-to-time, I will leave her be. I hope come Monday, she will allow me to put her once again into my top-loading carrier so I can get her to a vet.

For her to do this complete reversal of her behavior for me, means one thing. Whatever has happened to her in her absence, it had to be quite substantial. However, she is eating and drinking and using the litterpan, so these are all good signs. So, we will see what happens come Monday.

We had hours of pounding rain last night. After five years of drought conditions, we finally got enough rain to give us. Hope that more will be on the way and we can get out of the danger zone. But it was crazy. Heavy rain, High-winds, thunder,lightning the whole 9 yards. I was afraid to go outside this morning because I was sure that I was going to have multiple limbs down in the yard but because the arborist trimmed a bunch of my trees, most of the limbs are still where they need to be.

All kitties were accounted for except for Gadget. Gadget is a dilute calico and she is in her senior years, so I’m a little worried that she might’ve taken off during all the chaos. I’ll go out later this afternoon and see if I can find her. I did a search this morning but it was still raining so it’s supposed to stop about 3 o’clock and start up again at six. Hopefully she’s just underneath one of the outbuildings.

When I went into the cat enclosure and did my kitty call all FIVE cats came running! Ashley jumped on the food platform first, and then her brother followed. They all ate together on the table and I watched Magoo jump down and use the community litter pan area. There are 12 litter pans in this area. He did not go back to his cage and use his litter pans.

We now have full integration between all the cats. Humans  could take many life lessons on how cats interact with each other. So, although the heavens opened, and we went through one, heck of a storm. God delivered not a rainbow this morning, but a huge blessing to my heart about my decision to bring these kitties outside into the main enclosure.

I almost hesitate to post, because it is going so well outside in the enclosure for the kitties. I ended up leaving their door open during the day, and they are slowly integrating into the group. Last night I left the cage door open, so if they wanted to get on a heated cat bed instead of a self-warming bed, they would have that opportunity. I slept in this morning, and when I went out there, I was apprehensive, but I shouldn’t have been. My cats are used to newcomers and they have fully welcomed both Magoo and Ashley. They were all curled up on the huge pet heating pad!

Pigeon is still pacing but his pacing is for a different reason. We gone from 84° to 46° within minutes. I have tarps the entire enclosure and put the lights on a timer.
With the addition of the two new black strays, we are out of cat food. If anyone can send one bag of dry cat food, Purina natural, please do it would be so appreciated.

I am not referring to the approaching cold-weather, or the choking smoke that lays over the valley. I am talking about a decision. I made last week, after much consideration, procrastination, and reaching out to others who rescue within their homes. After listing the pros and cons of such a monumental decision, I decided to go ahead and move Ashley and Magoo into the introduction cage.

This decision was not an easy one for me to make. Moving them could mean a major upheaval, and setback from where we are right now. It would also mean for the first time in my life, I would not have cats in the house. The only cats from here on in that will be in the house will be bottle babies or small kittens. Once they have been weaned and spay and neutered, I will do everything in my power to find them loving homes.

I had cats in my crib growing up, I played with them instead of dolls. They were my best friends. Now my house is empty of cats and it feels very strange.there are no cat condos, litter, pans, cat toys nothing it feels like another planet.

When the carpet and the pad were pulled up and I saw the damage underneath, I knew that even though I “thought” I was smart and ahead of the urine game, clearly I was mistaken. If you have more than two cats in your home, and you bring in others, either periodically or consistently, one of the ways to communicate with each other is through pee-mail (as I have mentioned before). You cannot stop this interaction, it is instinctive. Of course they communicate in other ways, but one way that is not spoken about until litter box mistakes start to happen is how they talk through their pee.

The cats have been out there now for a week. Yesterday I realized that the move has helped both Ash and Magoo. I have had more contact with them in the last seven days then in the year they lived in the house. They are not in a small cage. It has three levels, and I have created warm caves inside to give them extra security. I decided while I was cleaning yesterday to leave the door open and see what happens.

After I emptied their litter pan and cleaned the cage, I left the door open. I settled back on the couch out-of-the-way to watch what would happen and be ready to stop any rumbles. Magoo was the first one to depart. He met pigeon first they sniffed, there was no posturing, growling, hissing, after they met, Magoo continued in, exploring his new world while pidgin watched intently from overhead. I observed him carefully. There was no twitching of his tail, his ears weren’t back he was almost indifferent. Magoo next met Bentley and PITA, no issues presented themselves. I was finally able to breathe again.

Ashley, soon followed she was more apprehensive than her brother. But no issues presented themselves when she met the other cats. However, she was the first one to jump back into the safety of the cage. Magoo wanted to stay out, but I put them back this was a first time experiment and it will be continued another day. I will do this gradually for the next few weeks, and then, depending on what happens during these experiments will determine whether I will leave the cage door open permanently, keep it open during the day and close it at night or not open it at all. I suspect that my next phase of this experiment will be keeping it open during the day, but closing it up with the kitties safe inside at night. Cats behaviors change at night their predatory instincts kick in . Both of these cats can spray to their hearts content out there and it won’t matter. It’s a dirt floor that gets treated every year with lyme and fresh dirt  I hope within the next two weeks they find their way safely into the group.