We have been dealing with pretty brutal temperatures lately. The other morning when I went out to feed it was 12°. That afternoon the temperature got up to 68°. By 8:00 PM, we were back down to 19°. All the kitties are doing well. I have not caught Slip. Both he and Goblin vanished after the last ice storm. I hope they both will return soon.

last week early in the morning, my doorbell rang. When I opened the door, I saw one of my neighbors who has recently moved in. She wanted to know if I fed stray cats? I told her that I rescue, I also added that if a stray cat shows up at the table, I don’t turn them away. Turns out her daughters eight month old kitten during the move into the new home got out of the house and they can’t find her anywhere. She showed me a picture of this tuxedo cutie. My heart sank when I saw the photo. I had seen this kitten a few days prior across the highway. How this kitten got across this highway without getting squished is beyond me.

I told her that I’d send her kitten and told her where. But I also told her that the railroad has been taking their passenger trains out on the weekends  The train track is across the highway. With all the noises from the train and the whistle blowing to show people, near railroad crossings that they’re coming. I told her I’m sure her kitty is probably somewhere else by now

I did offer to let her borrow one of my traps so she could set them out in her backyard in case kitty comes home. Oh, so far, kitty has not been seen. I think two part of the reason that the kitty isn’t coming home is because my other neighbors, which is the house between the two of us, they take horrible care of their dogs and leave them outside on chains at least 10 hours a day. It’s constant barking, even when the people are home, they just seem to ignore these dogs, which makes me nuts. So I’m sure if the kitty is close she’s terrified to even show her self because she could get eaten. These dogs are not friendly by any way shape or form. I will keep my eye out for this kitten, and I told her if I do see her and I can get close to her I will let her know.

Speaking of dogs, Kota continues to have his challenges.I would say in the last two weeks I’ve maybe gotten two hours of sleep at night. I always know when he’s going to have a bad night because he won’t come in and sleep on the bed with me. In the morning, when I go to check on him, he is always on his couch, but his sides are just saturated because he’s been licking himself all night. I keep looking for patterns as to what might prop this type of action on his part. I don’t see anything that makes any sense showing up. I’m getting to the point where I really feel like his days are numbered and he just now turned five years old. I can’t shake the feeling . But I’ve had a lot of German Shepherd’s in my life and I’ve never had one displaying so many different types of health issues at once. It’s quite maddening and frustrating and I know that he is also in pain. He is taking the medication on a daily basis. He is still eating and he’s staying steady at 95 pounds. Thankfully, he’s not as lethargic has he’s been in the past, and I finally found a dog ball that actually was made in the United States so when he sees this ball outside, he wants to play. My signal to know that his quality of life is really suffering will be the day that he ignores this ball and stops eating.

My well pump has been fixed  It’s so nice to have water back inside the house and have pressure along with it. The pump is so nice I can barely hear it. Unlike the last pump which was quite noisy, because as it turned out, it was on its way out.

Today we are supposed to have pretty nice weather  I need to go outside and finish cleaning up the last debris from the storm. We are supposed to get another storm on Wednesday. We did get snow on the weekend but about an inch and a half stuck, everything else melted. I know winter is not done with  us yet  l

Hope all of you are safe, happy and healthy.

Last week I noticed Magoo was frantically pawing at his left eye. He has integrated quite well with the rest of the cats out in the main enclosure. I see him and Ashley both daily anytime I visit out there. They no longer hide or become completely invisible. There have been no conflicts between the cats inside the enclosure. The only conflict seems to be from Twist, who is outside the enclosure. She frequently will visit and challenge the cats inside. I have even observed her, sticking her paw into the wire and batting at the kitties. I also noticed when she does that her claws are out.

I easily captured Magoo and noticed that he looked like what was the beginning of conjunctivitis. The outer rim of his eye was red, and I could see fluid clear leaking from his eye. I took him inside to the bathroom to get a better look at him. That’s when I noticed that his third eyelid looked quite abnormal.

The entire third eyelid was swollen, red and irritated  this was on Saturday, so I called the vet. I couldn’t get in until early Monday. In the meantime, I used some Terrimycin ointment to help him out

The vet numbed the eye, you stained it and looked at it through magnification looking for scratches on the cornea, a hole in the eye, or anything that would explain why the third eye was so inflamed. Not seeing anything, jumping out at him, he did a complete saline flush on both the eyes and sent me home with different medicine. Instead of ointment, these are drops that contain steroids. I was cautioned to not use them with any other cat unless directed by a veterinarian because if a kitty has a scratch or a hole in the eye or near the eye, the steroids will damage the eye further.

I was going to put Magoo back into the introduction cage for the duration of the run of the medicine 6 to 10 days. However, I haven’t done that and I haven’t been sorry. He isn’t hiding when I come into the enclosure, he comes straight up to me. He allows me to pick him up sit down in the chair and put the drops in. When I think of how he acted inside the house when it came to medicine. The difference between those two cats is night and day. I thought I was doing the right thing and keeping both him and Ashley inside and this just proves that when it comes to rescuing stray cats. Sometimes they don’t read the rulebook. Sometimes they make their own rules.

I also was recently alerted that I have been placed in the number two spot on Feedspot’s Top 25 Cat Behavior Blogs  i’m grateful that there are people still out there who are reading this, even though I’m not writing in it on a regular basis.

l have been a bit absorbed in other issues here at the house, including Kota, who now has other health challenges ahead of him  Currently, he is doing better, then he was a few weeks ago. But I know that could change at any time. It’s been determined that he has an abnormally large spleen, (which as I found out) is fairly normal in two breeds: Golden Retrievers and German Shepherds. What is it common is the mass they see at the tip of it. He also has started eating better, and he is gaining weight again instead of losing so much  he has gone from 85 pounds to 93 pounds in the last month.

Slip, is still giving me the slip every time I try to approach him. I was hoping this heavy rain that we’ve had recently, which has caused by creek to even overflow a bit would bring him closer inside to the other kitties. But he still beats a hasty retreat back to the creek, every time I try to approach him. He is a male, thankfully, the other day, when he was running from my presence, this time is tail was up, and I was able to see he has been neutered! That’s why there’s been no fighting between him and the other cats.

they are supposed to finish my well today, and I will finally have water leak pressure inside the house when they’re done. Then I won’t have to listen to Harry Potter’s snake that is living in my drains recently.That’s the only way I can describe the noise that happens when I flush the toilet or take a shower. The guys tell me that it’s because of air and the fact that the water is coming from such a large distance inside of a hose instead of inside the pipe. They promised me that by 10 o’clock this morning I will be up and running on both wells!

All of us here, both two-footed and four-footed, we hope everyone is now safely home. Not stuck inside some airport, waiting to return home while searching for your misplaced luggage. Or dealing with severe weather conditions.

We are currently doing well as far as the cats go here. We had a bit of a hiccup over the holidays when my pump in the well house decided to melt! I had no idea that was even possible but apparently it is. My neighbor was kind enough to allow me to draw water from her hose, so all kitties were able to get plenty of water. The pump apparently is so old. It is now obsolete. A new pump will be delivered on the 12th. Since I have two wells, two of the workers from the recent build, were kind enough to come over and do their magic. They connected my irrigation well to my house well and I have both hot and cold water now. We were without water for four days because of the holidays. Thankfully, that is no longer the case. They did this all for me free gratis for which I am over the moon thankful.

I am also extremely grateful for those of you who opened up your hearts and donated last year to what we do here. I can honestly say if it weren’t for you, I don’t think we would still be afloat. But we are still in the fight, and I am still trying my best to trap or bond with Slip my newest black cat arrival. (He doesn’t get that name for nothing! LOL) however, I am nothing if not persistent.

For those of you who donated, I will get your receipts to you as soon as I can. I am hoping next week I can actually have enough time to sit down and write out the emails and send the receipts. If you need it sooner than that please let me know, and I will do my best.

Right now we have been slammed with several of the storms which are hitting the West Coast. Thankfully, we do not get the front of the storm, but we do get the residual. I did learn last week on the news they announced that we are no longer considered a drought state. But we still do need to maintain steady but not over bearing rainfall until winters end. The weather has been so unpredictable. Who knows what’s going to happen. It’s all really in God’s hands.

I noticed this morning, when I was feeding. There is quite a bite to the wind. I’m hoping that doesn’t mean that we will be getting freezing temperatures. Speaking of freezing temperatures, I’ve reached out to several weather organizations in the Pacific Northwest about my bubble dance that I experienced a few weeks ago. I finally got an answer most of the weathermen were puzzled. None of them had ever heard of anything like that. So I went larger and contacted the Pacific Northwest National Weather ServiceThey told me that what I experienced is extremely rare. But it is fog bubbles from fog that due to atmospheric issues fails to form. They appeared to be quite excited that I had this experience. So at least now I know I don’t have fog on the brain, that I wasn’t hallucinating from lack of sleep. There actually is a rare phenomenon when fog is beginning to form and for whatever reasons in the atmosphere cannot do so.

I wish all of you a safe and sane start of the new year. I hope all of you are well, happy. Please  make sure that in your day you spread at least one or two acts of kindness around you. That could make a real difference in someone’s life. I know recently it has in mine

Here is the Calico that has been lurking by the creek. I finally was able to grab her up and get her out of the freezing cold. Turns out she has been chipped! Ironically, the chip comes back to me. I had her as a kitten and adopted her out to an elderly woman. The woman did not follow up with getting information transferred back to her so there is no way to contact her. It has been quite awhile, but I think I remember where she lives. I am going out this morning to see if my memory serves me correctly.

She is scared and a bit skittish with me, so hopefully, her owner is still available to take her back. If I am correct, her home is 6 miles away from here. Did she come back on her own? I don’t know, but stranger things have happened. I am just glad she is inside and warm and safe. Currently, we are sitting at 21 degrees F. We are also now sitting at 12 rescues here. One more stray Slip is still lurking in the shadows, however, this morning when I went to feed, he had straw all over his backside. This tells me he has integrated into the group and sleeping in a straw bed- instead of in the woods behind our property.

***Update:  I just got back from Priscilla’s house. There was no one home when I knocked. A neighbor came out and told me that Priscilla had passed away two weeks ago. She said when the ambulance came out, the cat ran off and she’s been looking for Bella ever since. I looked over on her front porch and saw a cat bed, and several bowls of food. I introduced myself..I told her that Bella had shown up on my property recently and that I had finally gotten a hold of her. She seemed really excited and relieved and asked if she could adopt Bella! She said that all of Priscilla’s family was gone, so if the cat did come back, they would likely take her to the pound.

So I ran home and got Smuckers/Bella and turned her over to her new home. Here’s the strange part, (not like the other part wasn’t strange) but when I got home, it was still really cold. It was 22° as I walked through the back gate into my backyard, out of the sky came all of these minuscule bubbles? I’ve never seen anything like it. I would’ve not even noticed them because they were so small, except I walked right through them. The way the sun was reflecting at the moment between the trees, I could see these clearer tiny circles coming down out of the sky. At first I thought maybe they were insect eggs or bugs? But closer examination of them, they were crystal clear and they looked like soap bubbles, only they were tiny? They didn’t last very long, just a few moments. But as I just stood there, with my hand out and watched these bubbles fall all around me, I have to say it was pretty magical. Perhaps some sort of crystallization in the clouds above, transforming into a bubble dance of some sort? Or maybe, Priscilla was sending me a message and thanking me for still caring about Smuckers? Don’t call the loony bin on me. I’m really not crazy. But it was truly a moment. I won’t soon forget.

We are in the process of signing on with chewy with their giving back program by becoming a member of their non-profit program. In the meantime, our Christmas wish for our cats. Here is simple. We just need food. Dry food, wet food, doesn’t matter at this point we just need food. We have another new stray here that showed up. She looks quite young and she looks quite skinny. She is a beautiful calico, but right now her coat is dirty and unkempt. I am calling her Brooke because she was back by the creek. That seems to be a entry point into our property for a lot of our rescues. So again, we just need food. Purina Friskies fancy feast. Nothing is off the table right now because the table’s about to be bare here in just a few days.

2022 will soon be wrapping up. As I look back on this past year, I reflect on the losses of some incredibly wonderful felines: Dash, M.K. Molly, and Gadget. Thankfully, Old Girl did not join the Bridge Club this year. Not only is she walking stronger each day, but she no longer flees in terror every time I come into her sight. In the mornings, when I enter the shop to feed, she actually shadows me, staying near my rear legs. Quite a contrast from her past behavior.

But that is feral cats and that is how they roll. They hide their pain so effectively, and when it finally overwhelms them, their feral instincts kick into high gear. Anything bigger than they are become instant predators. Since they know they are low on the food chain, they do all they can to stay off the menu.

For so many years, she kept hidden under the house with her own clowder. Now with Gadget gone, she is the last of the “Under the House Gang.” Thankfully, when they sealed off the house, she did manage to merge successfully with the shop kitties. It took time, but it did happen.

With our temperatures slated to start plunging into the frozen zone soon (I have already dealt with a busted pipe in the pasture) I have stuffed as much straw as possible in the back rooms of the shop. The kitties, should they desire to, could build some impressive tunnels now to keep warm. The new black kitty, who I am temporarily naming Slip is still quite elusive. He slips quickly under the fence when I go out to feed and takes off to the creek on a run. I can’t even guesstimate how old he/she is at this point. I suspect once the snow and winds kick up, he will find his way into the shop joining the others.

Because of the burst pipe, I shut off the pump at the well house. Now all the water for the cats is being carted from the house. I am grateful we have two wells here. Speaking of water, the house well has been tested and nothing alarming has been discovered. It is hard water, which I already knew, and there is some acidity to it, but it is within normal ranges. The testing was tricky when you are looking for health issues. They have a huge list and each portion of the items are grouped according to the health issue they are testing for.  Each group carries its own individual pricing.  I had to be very selective in what they tested for as it could have been spendy to test for everything. This year, we only made a fraction of what we usually bring in for CATS. Testing for everything going on with Kota wasn’t possible.

I received quite the blessing this Thanksgiving. I discovered quite by accident, a cassette tape Mike made for me many years ago. By the time we got married, we had quite a collection of letters, photos, cassette tapes and phone bills (remember those?) He made the tape after I flew to Alaska from California to meet him for the first time. We had a wonderful 8 days together, camping, fishing and discovering ourselves along the way.

I listened to the tape twice. I thought I had gathered all the letters and tapes about two years after he passed and burned them on the pile giving them all back to him on his birthday that year. I missed one. God meant for me to miss one. This was the one to miss and one I will not burn. I had an Epiphany after listening to his message to me. I am weary of being sad. He would not wish for me to be sad. It’s time now to move forward—

So here’s to a Better Year in 2023 for ALL, on all Fronts.

May Peace and Love follow you through the upcoming Holidays-

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!