I took in the kitten that had previously been diagnosed with “FIP” to let another vet look at that eye. It is determined that Pippi is permanently blind in one eye. The vet says that what is happening is quite rare; the lens isn’t in the iris, it is in the back of the eye. There is no inflammation and no noticeable drainnage going on- so she is summarizing that the fluid is draining into the body- which rarely can cause a sort of cancer to form. Because there is no infection, inflammation or other issues, we have decided to just leave the eye alone and we will keep Pippi till the end of her days and not put her up for adoption. My fear is putting her into a new home will cause stress and stress can do nasty things to cats in regards to their health. She has her routine here, she is happy here and we love her. Unlike the local population around here, I love the tortie kitties. Some people think they are ugly and I think they are beautiful.

This morning, quite early, I went to the store to stock up on my monthly supply of cat food. It was on sale, so I bought my cans and brought them home.

When I feed the cats canned food, I have a method. I take a large mixing bowl and dump the cans into the bowl first so I can mix the supplements into the food and then I feed into their trays and plates.

So here I am, dumping the food into the bowl and the cats are milling around my legs getting excited every time they hear that magic “snap” of the can. I pick up another can and noticed it was dented, but popped it anyway and this horrible, nasty, vile smell fills the area and all this leaky, watery fluid comes out of the can getting all over me, leaking down into the good food and spilling over on the counter. I pull the top back and reveal the contents that are all discolored and nasty smelling.

Not even taking a chance of giving my cats tainted food. I dump everything (the equivalent of 7 cans of food) down the garbage disposal and then call the store to tell them what happened.

They assure me that I can come in and get 7 more cans at no charge, so off I go leaving behind some very confused kitties wondering where their morning meal went.

I get to the store and pick up the cans, then decide to get 20 more as they are on sale. I make my way to the cash register and explained the situation to the girl. The manager was nearby and she saw all the food cans on the belt and said “Tams, just give Mary Anne ALL of those at no charge!” I left that store with a big smile on my face. I thanked the manager before I left and she said “you know, you do such a great service for the cats, it is about time we can help you out!”

With 28 cats- 27 cans of food doesn’t last all that long- but be assured, I will be paying this blessing forward in the next few days.

Molly-Gee

She showed up a few weeks ago in the yard. A calico kitty who has clearly seen better days. I proceeded to set about trapping her- but she is pencil thin and sickly and can easily pass through all my traps without activating the trip lever. Sometimes, when I watch her, I wonder if she might be deaf as she seems unaffected by loud noises and only flees when something comes within her vision. I was able to get close enough one time to try and snatch her, but she saw me at the last minute and fled, I did notice her ears are caked with dried blood and she has no teeth.

I call her Molly-Gee because I am constantly saying to her, “Gee Molly, why won’t you get captured in the trap? Gee Molly, why are you so hungry all the time, what is wrong with you sweet kitty? Gee Molly, who did this to you, who gave you such a distrust of humans?”

I would say by her body weight or lack of it that she is about 14 years old and I know she is sickly. I just can’t seem to get close enough for her to trust me, so I suspect her fear of humans outweighs her hunger pains. I am out of canned food today and she won’t eat the dry so I gave her some cooked and mashed up meatloaf.

Poor kitty, my hope is she can be captured soon and taken in to my vet to be evaluated. If I can help her, I will certainly try.

Looking out the window this morning, I noticed a light dusting of snow on the hills near our home. It grew incredibly cold last night, even though earlier that day rain slammed down with a vengeance. The cats were also on the warpath, racing through the house chasing each other. I thought perhaps they were acting crazy because a new stray has arrived outside but now I realize that they were responding to the change in the weather. Squirrel, my twelve- year gets grumpy during the colder days as arthritis has settled into her bones. Her growls echoed through the hallway any time the kittens scampered near.

Seeing the snow makes me miss Alaska (but not that much). Even though the snow is beautiful when it is falling, shoveling all that snow became tedious and when the temperature dropped shoveling snow wasn’t an easy task. But the adventures we had when the weather was warmer; on our “first date” (we met through a personal ad years before the Internet was even conceived) Mike presented me with a serious lecture on how to catch fish in Hidden Lake. Perhaps he thought that a Southern Californian girl had no knowledge how to bait a hook correctly or perhaps he thought the only fish I was capable of catching came with Star-Kist label attached. But, at any rate, he carefully prepared me with an elaborate lecture on how to catch fish and when I finally was able to get him to relinquish one of his coveted fishing poles, I baited my hook, cast out in the middle of the lake (we were in his Bay Runner) and immediately snagged an eighteen-inch rainbow trout! The look on his face was priceless when I reeled that sucker in!

He decided then to take us to Seward (I was spending two weeks with him) and we launched the Bay Runner out of Resurrection Bay and motored out into the middle of the vastness and dropped our lines. How fortunate that we dropped our bait in the middle of a school of feeding King Salmon and we hauled in enough fish to stay safely in the limits set by Fish and Wildlife. In the middle of this excitement, something swooped overhead and I looked up to see a Bald Eagle circling. There was no land in sight, so this magnificent predator landed in the water and began to swim over to us. Color me stunned, I never thought about whether an eagle could even swim. Mike whipped out his fish knife and carefully chopped up some salmon and we tossed this sushi treat towards that big hooked beak.

Even in the wintertime, we shared incredible adventures. Standing in the middle of Iggi Augi and listening to the gentle chimes of the Northern Lights in an impressive light show overhead, stumbling onto a coven of Ptarmigans, perched on a snow covered tree. The birds resembled snowballs until we startled them into flight. Waking up in the early morning to the phone ringing as Fred our neighbor across the road informing us there was a moose on our porch. Sharing times with our friends Renamary and Vern at the Talkeetnea Lodge…

So I look up at the snow creeping closer to the hills and make a mental note to fill up the firewood catcher on the back porch, finish weatherproofing the outside enclosure and put out clean dry straw for bedding for the barn cats. I continue to look out at the back pasture. The long, tall grasses are drying to a delicate brown and the orange and yellow leaves mix to create a kaleidoscope of colors. I notice the grasses rustling and much to my surprise and delight, I see a big buck rise out of the grass where he has bed for the night. He gently shakes his head and I see his breath playing in the mist. To add to the moment, two does rise from the grasses. The herd turns and heads for the trees. I strain to see them but they are camouflaged well. As they vanish, I send a prayer that they will be safe from hunters’ guns and other predators and will return again to share our pasture and help start my day with a smile

“MEOW…MEOW!” I hear the insistent cry of Taylor and I smile. I am sneaking a few rare moments of rest in the recliner. Mike is on the computer, both of us sitting in the front room. I wait knowing there are more demands soon to come.

“MEOW-OW” Taylor hollers and Mike swivels in his wheelchair feigning annoyance.

“WHAT? WHAT?” He says to the long-haired gray-and-white senior kitty, long-time friend.

“MEOW” she insists. In English this means “Pay attention to me- right now!”

As if on cue, I say to him “Pet that cat!”

“What cat?” He counters with a smile, pointing to her. “THAT Cat?”

Yes, that cat indeed and as she performs this act several times in his day, her next step is to tap his chest impatiently with her front paw. She waits for him to unwrap himself from his warming blanket so she can wrap up with him.

I watch this exchange still smiling and remember back to when Taylor and her siblings arrived over twelve years ago…

It was the height of kitten season and Mike (who was recruited without my asking) to be my kitten assistant for any orphan kitty I brought home, he had 2 week old Taylor in his lap while he bottle fed her. Her littermates were snuggled down into his lap at times struggling to claim the bottle firmly attached to Taylor’s mouth impatiently waiting their turn mewing softly. I sat nearby with a second litter in my lap also bottle feeding.

Last night quite late, Mike’s daughter Donna had arrived from Utah. It was the first time she had seen her father since we got married. Both of us were busy with the kittens when Donna came bounding down the stairs.
She stopped on the landing, took in the scene before her and said “DADDY?”
Mike looked up and said “Good morning Donna, welcome to our home. What’s wrong?”

Donna approached slowly pointing at her father. She wore a puzzled look on her face and she said again “Daddy?”

“Yes Donna,” he said patiently. “What is it?’

Donna stopped in front of his chair and with a small voice said “But Daddy, you HATE cats!”

Startled, I looked up at this man I married. This was the first I had heard of his hatred for cats. Mike, juggling his lapful of kitties and still bottlefeeding Taylor looked at his daughter, then looked at me and said with a grin “Well maybe I do, but I love Mary Anne.”

Fast-forwarding back to the moment of Taylor’s insistence, I think of all the kittens who Mike has held, stimulated, fed and comforted realizing that Taylor knew earlier than anyone else (including Mike) how much he really loves cats.

Rayne went back to the vet today as she won’t stop sneezing and I can’t get her fever below 102.9

After a thorough exam, I was told I am doing a splendid job at keeping her safe and all they did was change the medication. The poor girl sneezed about 20 times in a row just as the vet entered the room so that was timely! She is all stuffed up with a heavy sinus infection but it hasn’t morphed into pneumonia (yet) I am also supposed to use Lil Noses on her, but they don’t make the drops anymore, just the mist spray which scares her little self to death! I am going to see if i can shoot the mist into a syringe and give her a few shots up her nose.
They presented me with the bill and all I could think of is “All I want for Christmas is my vet bill paid down!” But, she is worth every penny and hopefully she doesn’t have FIP as once feared and just this nasty sinus infection. Time will indeed tell!

7:30 p.m. Rayne’s fever has finally broke! Thank you God that was the longest-lasting fever on a kitten I have ever encountered. It is now 102.8 which I will take any time of day compared to how high it was four hours ago. I ended up just putting damp washclothes soaked in rubbing alcohol and wrung out on her head several times a day. Nothing else seemed to be working. She still has sneezing fits but at least the fever has gone away.

Have a feeling deep inside that this winter is going to be exceptionally brutal and so we just finished insulating the rest of the patio for the cats. it was slow going as we were using donated funds- thanks to all of you who helped us! And we had to work around the doctor appointment and tests etc… on Mike’s leg. It’s nothing you would contact House Beautiful about- and we couldn’t insulate the ceiling- but it will help to keep the kitties warm this year.

Last night it dipped into the low thirties and when I went out to let B out at 4:00 a.m. I saw most of the enclosure kitties out there asleep- all their ears were so cold, so this morning, I told Mike we needed to finish the insulation and we did.

We ended up using just the insulation boards at Home Depot rather than the type that is spun and shot out of machine. We don’t have the interior walls up yet and I don’t want that fiberglass available for kitties to play with.

Rayne’s fever isn’t breaking. It is staying at 104 even after I am pumping fluids- giving antibiotics and doing all I can for her. She is eating and using the litter pan- her only symptoms now seem to be pain when she is touched on the back, sneezing (rapid bouts) and this dang “fever of unknown origin.” Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers if you would?

Her temperature spiked again but this time, I am just keeping her home. I have her confined, and I am pushing fluids- she is eating but not very much. She’s just a tiny little girl and I wonder if the antibiotic shot they gave her will really work? She doesn’t like being alone and cries out in the day for her brothers and sisters to come and join her. They sit at the screen door of the room, but she is a cage on the far side. They can see her and smell her, they just can’t get to her. So- I will continue to fight the good fight against the “fever of unknown origin” and we will just see what happens.

Late last night, Rayne decided to scare both of us to death and she just began to fade away! I noticed her third eye showing profusely and grabbed the thermometer, not a digital- put it in and before I could even run the time, it went to the very end of the bulb! I called the vet and rushed her in but I did put a fair amount of rubbing alcohol on her head first to try and cut down the heat. This was around 2:00 a.m.

Now it is 4:30 p.m. and she is home and I am $350.00 poorer, but she is alive with only a diagnosis of “fever of unknown origin.’ and yes, they tested her for distemper. Now, she is having mutiple sneezing fits and she is weak but she is alive. I told her she broke the bank and almost broke my heart as I would hate to lose her. She was the runt of a litter and she bites the hand that feeds her, but she is a lovely little girl who likes to curl up on laps for naps.

I was so scared she was going to die, and I am grateful she is still with us- even if took all I had left to get her back- some cats, even strays- well they are priceless!