Thursday, I took Kota back to the vet for a recheck. I was apprehensive because this would mean I would have to come clean and admit I had stopped all medicated baths, all medications, ointments and resorted to holistic measures.

When my vet saw Kota after so many weeks. The first thing he said was: “ Oh good! You’ve been to the Specialist?” I told him no in fact I had canceled the specialist appointment. He was curious about what I did instead, so I told him. I do love my vet, but I do wish that more vets would embrace learning about natural ways to cure instead of relying on chemicals and other types of harsh treatments. When I told him about spraying Kota with an Apple Cider Vinegar and Rosemary solution to re-grow his hair, his expression said it all!

l put Kota on a “Down-Stay” command. I asked him to roll over, he displayed his under-belly for all to see  Instead of looking like he was a cancer survivor, he only had a few patches of hairless skin showing. My vet was puzzled but happy. He started rubbing Kota hard which Kota loves. Kota got to his feet, pressed himself against the vet’s leg and received a full rub-down. The last time this happened the vet’s hands were full of clumps of fur and dander that were falling off my dog. This time when he showed me his hands, they were clean!

He has now given Kota a clean bill of health! My dog is active, sensitive, playful, gone is the couch potato that didn’t want to move even when he had to go potty. He is engaged in whatever I’m doing. Following me around the house helping me with my laundry, doing everything that he was doing before he got so ill.

I believe with all my heart that this turn-round is heavily based on the fact that the last time we were attending church (which was several months ago.) I noticed a Kota wasn’t doing well.  I knew that we had to leave. I was told later by another church member that after we left the building,  everyone got together and prayed for my dog. After that visit, is when Kota began to rebound. We haven’t been back to church since. We are planning to go next week.

I don’t like to speak in public. But I do plan on standing in front of the body of the church and thanking all of them for praying for someone who they hardly knew and praying for her dog who who was so ill. Not only has this church renewed my faith in God, but it also has renewed my faith in the kindness of humans. In cat rescue most times, you are confronted with the darkness of some humans. It can wear-down the soul. It was nice to be re-introduced to the light.

I apologize for not posting sooner. It has been a very strange few days here, both good and bad.So I will try to catch you up.

Wednesday morning, I was in my carport with a gentleman who had come to my rescue to fix a leak in my carport roof. Water was pouring through. We were just finishing up and I heard the screech of brakes, that all too familiar, sickening “THUD!” and the dog screaming in pain.

I dropped everything in my hands and ran towards the sound. By the time, I got to the edge of my driveway and looked toward town, I could see the dog laying in the middle of the highway. He was a young, German Shepherd mix. He was not moving. The woman who hit him had stopped in the turning lane and was getting out of her car, while the highway traffic was whizzing by.  I stepped out into the lane and held up my hand until all traffic going to town stopped, The guy who helped me with my roof, stepped in front of me to hold traffic, and I raced to pup. As I was running, I saw him get up and wobble, he took a few steps and then he got bumped by a car slowing down on the oncoming lane. I looked back to make sure the second lane was clear of traffic (I hate this highway) and when I looked back, the dog had vanished! He had taken off and ran into my neighbor’s yard two houses away. He certainly chose the right home to go to. She has three dogs and a secure fence around her entire property as well as a front gate. The gate was opened. I raced inside looking for him. Someone followed me and shut the gate.

He was cowering back by her fence. Several people were near him talking softly, offering him treats. He was trembling and I could see blood coming out of his mouth and blood on his legs. As I slowed my approach, a woman startled me, she grabbed my arm. She said “God Mary Anne, when we hit him, I told my husband “Oh no, we just hit Kota!” I looked at her and realized she was someone I knew who had adopted several cats from me. I just didn’t recognize her. We haven’t seen each other since Covid hit, although we text often.

I asked the people to back away and asked if someone had a leash? Two men who had been talking to the dog, they were able to approach and put a loop over the dog’s head. We tried to coax him to walk, but he couldn’t at the that time. I ran home, grabbed my truck while calling the vet and came back.

I backed right up to where the dog was sitting. We tried to put a blanket over his head (but he wasn’t having any of that.) They finally just gently lifted him into the back of my truck.

As I was racing to vet, I didn’t expect this dog to even survive the trip. He was laying in the back, panting and whining. There was blood all over the blanket. He had lost his functions and I could smell the urine pouring out of him.

This boy got lucky! He will be fine! He got rolled (fairly substantially) but the vet said the cars must have hit him broadside instead of head-on. He is one year old and quite sweet with people. My friend had posted a picture and the story of FB local page and by the time I got back to the vet, there were 15 phone calls from people saying I had their dog. Pictures being sent, (looks like the litter was large and they all favored each other.) But the bottom line is, he was the one who told us who he belonged to. The minute he saw her approaching, he went ballistic, she was squealing. They were very much telling us that they belonged together. She’s a single mother raising a child and said that she could pay me back the vet bill in small payments. I told her to forget it, it was covered. (I have become accustomed to a large vet debt). I’m just glad he was alive, that she loved him and he loved her. That’s all the confirmation I needed.

So yesterday, I got up and drove to town to buy a bag of cat food for the kitties. I knew I could make a 30 pound bag of Cat Chow last till my shipment arrived. When I got back home a few hours later- (hunting for 30 pounds of Cat Chow locally has never been harder!) There was a donation of food in my carport! Two bags of cat chow, two cases of Fancy Feast and a case of Friskies shreds! No clue who put it there-  I still don’t know, but what I do know is that God has got my back.

Also, thank you, those of you who gave of your heart and sent monies into Paypal. I am so grateful. With the supply chain being so tenuous right now and all those shipments backed up at the ports, there is really no guarantee when the cat food will arrive. Your donations will help me buy more food.

For some reason, my blog isn’t letting me post photos. I have not had the time to figure out why. Or I would post this photo of Taz, the puppy who miraculously survived being hit by a car not once but twice.

A Christmas Wsh fulfilled and a Christmas Miracle all in the same day-

God Does Bless Us All-

I just received an email from a supplier that I order dry cat food and wet cat food from. They apologized profusely and said that due to circumstances beyond their control, my order is going to be 1 to 2 weeks late! This morning I have completely run out of wet food and dry food. The monies that I had set aside to buy the food has already been spent on the food, but the food isn’t here. If I could get six people to send me five dollars I could go and get a bag of food to tide my kitties over until their order arrives .

That is all I want for Christmas this year.

This old terrycloth robe is being retired as of today. Deserving of the grandest of ceremonies, it will instead be lovingly packed into a paper bag and laid to rest alongside all the cats and kittens in our pasture pet cemetery.

For you see, this robe has held within its folds multiple cats and kittens either being bottle-fed, medicated, or simply in need of comfort and love. Countless preemies, newborns and adult cats have been tucked into its deep navy blue folds. It’s deep pockets created a cave of security and serenity for so many newborns. One custom-made pocket provided an extra level of reassurance for its occupants. Centered over my beating heart, it not only captured the rhythm of my heart for the tiny being tucked deep inside but also became a heated bed provided by my body warmth. If this bathrobe could talk, it would instead sing to the listener an endless parade of kitty lullabies it has heard, remembered and stored throughout the years.

This tattered piece of cloth has certainly seen its share of hairballs. The folds of cloth have held enough tears to fill an ocean. It’s threads, baptized more times than it cares to remember from kitties making kitty mistakes. It is now threadbare and worn-out used to the point where the material is ripped beyond repair.

Hard to let go of; countless memories wrapped in love, remembrances surrounded by material. Dedicated tear- collector, purr-keeper, occasional  butt-wiper, providing numerous kittens and cats the solace needed during the most difficult of times. A faithful servant whose time has now come to an end-

“Rest in Pieces Old Friend”

Mary Anne Miller

Three years ago today, Mick left me and started on his own spiritual journey. When the angels came for him, I know they gave him two legs, a healed, perfect heart, functioning, working kidneys and a reunion looming with all who passed who loved him both two-footed and four-footed.

Since his death I have seen him quite a number of times. Not him as if as a ghost, but men who look remarkably like him. Balding, rotund, gray beard. I would see them walking on the streets (always alone) or in cars or restaurants. One time, I almost veered out of my lane the resemblance of the man who had just driven past me was identical to Mike. They could have been twins.

I only cried twice this year. Both times, Kota came to me well in advance to let me know the storm was on its way. But these storms are different now, they are healing. The last storm I had yesterday didn’t last very long. I had a written a poem for him. I’ve started a new ritual for my remembrance. I write him a letter on his passage day. Then I take the letter out to the burn pile, set it on fire and send it skyward.

When I finished the letter, the phone was ringing. It was a dear old friend of ours,  her and her husband ran an Inn in Talkeetna Alaska. Mike and I would go there three times a year. His company, Alascom (the major phone company in Anchorage) would send him there for three weeks to calibrate the earth stations up on Denali. I would go with him.

She told me that she had learned he had died, but that was all she knew. Over the years, she and I became good friends. The rooms back then were sparse. No television (back then there wasn’t cable or cell phones) it was that long ago. LOL  I did a lot of hiking with our dogs, and a lot of reading. Finally one trip, the Inn was full and Renamary looked like she might need help. I asked her if I could help her clean the rooms or work with Vern in the restaurant. I told her it wasn’t for pay. So that’s when it started. Every time we would go up there and Mike would vanish on the mountain- I would help out with cleaning and laundry.

So when she called me, she wasn’t being nosey. I had called the Inn just prior to that phone call. This year I have started to go through the two upstairs rooms where a lot of his boxes still remain. I ran into a card her kids made him one time when he broke his leg fishing on a friend’s boat. The card was amazing being that it was made by children ranging from the age of 12 to 4 years old. It shows Mike on the dock, he has his fishing pole he is using as a cane, but you see a line going out from the pole into the water and there is a huge halibut fighting underwater because Mike has hooked it. His broken leg is propped up on a cooler and I am sliding the cooler along the dock slowly so we can get him up to where the ambulance was supposed to be arriving. The kids did a good job illustrating a true story (except for the halibut part).. So I called the Inn, but in the winter, they don’t man their phones,  I left a message. Within minutes she called me back and we talked almost two hours.It was cathartic for both of us.We laughed, we cried, we shared memories we had to him and we reconnected. It was healing and confirmation for me, that my path of grief was indeed changing.

He died at midnight on the 9th- so once again sleep eluded me this year. I was up all night opening boxes and finding bits of myself again. I have been lost for a time now. I am finding my way back.

Now if you will excuse me, I have a letter to deliver.

May God Bless All of You-

Last night, I realized that I accidentally might have solved the issue of why Kota’s fur is falling out, and why he has been acting so sluggish and off. It took awhile to put all the clues together. I have been journaling when he exhibits the symptoms that alarm me: I believe he is allergic to Ashley, his sleep partner.

Her and Magoo vanish during the day. It’s as if I have two invisible cats in the daylight (they hide underneath my recliners) I don’t dare even recline in them anymore, they are just straight chairs. At night they appear. Ashley will sleep with Kota on the bed, and Magoo sleeps on the condo in the bedroom.

Lately, at night Kota has been keeping me awake. He is continuously and furiously licking his lips (slurping) to catch the drainage (clear) coming out of his nose at a constant rate. I have an appointment with my vet for him on the 16th to try to figure out why.

Last night, I was looking at my journal/calendar and trying to figure out this puzzle. The pieces just came together for me. He is allergic to Ashley. Not actually to her dander, but to the toxins that have settled in her skin. It makes total sense to me now why they are not grooming themselves, or each other. I did not buy one vet’s explanation that they don’t groom because they didn’t have a mother who showed them how. We have had hundreds of orphaned bottle babies here, who have grown up grooming themselves and mutually grooming others. It’s all falling into place. A dog’s nose is so sensitive, they can even smell human emotions. Their noses are so advanced, that is why they are used in search and rescue, narcotic searches, explosives etc. Kota is picking up the chemicals and reacting to them in a negative way.

When the kittens do visit me on occasion, they will jump on my lap and crawl up my chest. They press their bodies against my face and as I try to breathe before I move them off, their fur doesn’t smell right? They don’t smell like a cat- they smell like a chemical or chemicals. I believe that during their traumatic birth in the fires, the ash and soot settled on them and absorbed through their skin. Kota is not allergic to cats, he is allergic or responding to the toxins on their skin. I have given these kittens so many  baths to remove the smell, but nothing works. The concern is where might these toxins be besides their skin? It’s to early to tell. During the day, because they are not around, Kota’s nose is dry and warm.

Today, I will again wash all the bedding in the room. I will close off the bedroom so the cats can’t even get inside. Tonight, I will be shutting my bedroom doors so that Ash can’t come inside to sleep with her buddy. I am betting that in doing this, Kota will sleep undisturbed with no massive drainage pouring out of his nose. I will also finally be able to sleep without worrying about what is wrong with my dog now.

Time will tell if I am right, but I really believe I am on the right track.

Misty had recently vanished for a week. When she returned, she looked so haggard and thin. I could see she was fighting an URI. I could also tell that she was extremely dehydrated as her third eye was almost covering her eyes. What do you do when you have a feral cat who absolutely wants nothing to do with humans? I do have to wonder what she went through before she arrived here. But now it was not time to dwell on thoughts.  I had to put a plan in place and activate it.

I went over to the feed store and bought several feeder mice that were already deceased.  Using a large syringe I pumped so much fluid into these mice they looked like balloons. I also for good measure added some liquid antibiotics. In her heyday, Misty was a great hunter. She would always bring trophies up to the house and drop them on the steps. She would make quick work of them so we generally only got the leftovers. She would stand some distance away looking quite proud of herself when I would come out of the house and scream when I saw her treasures. LOL

I am happy to report after she has had a week of these manipulated mice. She is doing much better. Her breathing is no longer ragged. Her third eye vanished in just a few days.  She also is now drinking on her own and eating a lot better.

I have no idea how old this cat is  when she arrived here I had my horses and that was years ago. The vet put her at about three years old at that time, so she has to be at least 20? I think for her it’s going to be a matter of just coming out one day and finding that she is deceased  Even looking so haggard and thin as she was I didn’t think she’d have energy to move away from me and I was wrong.

Thankfully,  I have only had a few feral cats that have behaved in this manner. I would say though looking back at how they were towards the end of their lives, she is the toughest to deal with. But at least I have found a way to give her fluids and medicine without her being wise to it.

I knew in deploying this method that there would be a possibility another kitty would take her treasure from her. But I also knew that when she did have her prey in her possession she would vanish under the house or wherever she could find a place to get away and she would make short work of the mouse or the frog or whatever she decided to catch. She even brought me a garter snake one year.  So I took that chance that she still had that strong prey drive despite her depleted state

What will happen next is completely up to God. I can only make use of the tools that I have learned over the years and living and loving these wonderful, totally misunderstood creatures.

I know it’s early. But I’ve seen Christmas trees on top of cars already. I just wanted to wish all of you a Merry Christmas,Happy Hanukkah or however you celebrate the season. May we all wake up in 2022 to a kinder world  God Bless Us, One and All-

Winter has arrived earlier than predicted this year. Temps in the lower 30’s this morning. We opened our last cans of wet food  yesterday. If anyone happens to be in the Christmas spirit a bit early  and can find it in their hearts (and wallets) to send us Friskies Shreds, we would appreciate it more than you know.

We have been adopting out to barns and homes, several of our cats over the past few months, our sanctuaries are now down to 14 cats. No one else here can leave as they are either to feral or have issues no one else would like to tackle.

Some folks have a misconception about adopting out barn cats. They seem to believe that all we have to do is capture up the selected cat and drop her at the barn. She will be fine running free and eating mice. The reality is, the cat has to be able to be caged up to 6-8 weeks inside the new barn. You have to feed, water and clean litter pans on a daily basis. Some folks don’t want to put in the work, and some cats would come unglued inside a cage and try to attack anyone helping them. Once they are released, you still have to feed them daily and deworm them every 6 months, most farmers don’t want to bother.

Misty is hanging in there, she has gained some more weight but not enough to get her through the winter on her own. I have filled the last half of Mike’s shop with straw for her and Crazy Eyes and Goblin and Twist to sleep warmly. Temps are supposed to drop into the low 20’s in a few days…

Going to be skipping the Holidays this year. I am just drained on all levels. My primary focus right now are my animals. Kota goes to see the specialist on Jan. 4th. He is still losing so much hair still and his appetite is so low . 🙁 I hope they can figure this out. It is quite worrisome.

Approaching the 3 year mark, the time when Mike left us. This year, I see that my path to grief has now included the healing process. I welcome this new path with open arms.

Goblin has been appearing on a regular basis every morning and evening right before feeding. The other day, I knelt down on the ground and opened up a can of food. I gently clicked to him, which is the sound I make with my tongue against the roof of my mouth when I’m feeding. He slowly came to me and allowed me one brief pet. Then he backed away into the bushes. Unlike Twist, Goblin did not try to swat  me or make me pay for this intrusion.

I know that someone either owns him or has owned him. He shows every tendency of wanting to trust but being afraid to take that chance and get hurt again. But he absolutely has no feral tendencies at all. I did notice this morning that Misty was up on my neighbors fence two houses away which is not like her at all. I had to wonder if goblin had something to do with the distance. So I went ahead and set up my trail cam near the feeding platform to see if I could figure out why this new behavior of Misty is showing up.

For the first time in five years, Little Creek at the back of our property is now flowing. It’s not flowing very quickly, the water is not stagnant but there isn’t a lot of it yet. But we have 15 days of predicted rainfall. My hope is the creek will fill and start to travel bringing back the fish the frogs the salamanders and all the other life that used to hang around in the waters. I really miss the beavers. They have abandoned their dam years earlier. If the water does come back full force I’m hoping they will rebuild their home and take up residency again.

I am learning to be self-sufficient once again when it comes to things going wrong here that need fixing. I am relying heavily on YouTube for problem-solving. I feel a great deal of satisfaction (although some might think it odd) my gutters needed cleaning so badly and I have successfully managed to clean out all of my gutters and it is amazing to me because I suffer from such a fear of heights. I did it as safely as I could. Thankfully staying off of the tall extension ladder and I am happy to say that all my gutters are cleared out just in time for the next downpour

Kota is doing a bit better  he seems to be having more energy and is getting interested in life again. I am supposed to be giving him a bath every week, but I realized three weeks into this process with yet another new shampoo that this was exacerbating his problem of losing hair. So I have stopped the weekly shampoos

Instead I lean on him to tell me when he is uncomfortable and needing ointment put on his belly and legs  If I see him sleeping on his back with his legs straight up in the air, that is my clue to grab the Nystatin and rub him down. Another signal is he gets these really bad blister-type sores under his legs  The ointment will cure the problem but the problem will reoccur  when I see him laying on his side and wrapping his one leg around the other to keep it off the ground, that’s when I grab more ointment and apply it.

December 21 is when we go to the specialist. It was the earliest appointment they had.

I am still missing my husband, but my path in grief is now in healing. There are no more gut-wrenching sobbing moments where I lose control and can’t stop myself from crying. (Can’t say I’m sad to see that part of it disappearing). It has been replaced with a realization that what happened to him was the best thing that could possibly happen because of the amount of pain he was in towards the end.

My oldest stepson called the other day and we talked for quite a while which is unusual because David does not like to talk on the phone. Because this is the time of year when it was all coming down on top of everybody. He just wanted to talk about his dad. I found myself sharing with him the final moments with Michael. As I told him what took place, I told him he didn’t need to share it with his brothers or his sister but I just wanted someone to know how Michael spent his final hours  Dave is the family historian and I didn’t want something to happen to me without letting Dave know how peaceful Michael’s final day was for him. I believe I was able to give Dave a smidgen of peace and I hope it brought us closer together in the sharing.

well I hear the thunder starting. I need to get off my couch and go feed the cats and turn on cat beds so they will be warm and toasty tonight. I ran an extension cord out from the house to the barn and plugged in several cat beds and weather is supposed to dip down into the 30s in the next few nights. Not exactly sure what that’s going to do with my electric bill  Time will tell. Right now I am feeding on the dry food because that’s all I have. But my cats are not suffering and we’re not even into winter yet although it feels like we are.

Love to all who drop by to read this blog. Stay safe, love each other fiercely and hug those furry ones who desperately need you

Just in time for Halloween, he has found a place of safety and sanity away from hands that may do him harm being that he is a black cat. Twist was in an awful state this morning. At first I attributed it to the fact that I had overslept for the first time in many weeks. I was behind a couple of hours. (Kota and I had a pretty rough night together.) When I got closer to the feeding platform and saw the feline welcoming committee,I did a double-take. Instead of three black cats to greet me there were four!

For the first time since his arrival, I was able to see Goblin clearly. Similar to Crazy Eyes, Goblin is cross-eyed. Unlike  Crazy Eyes, whose pupils do this frenetic constant dance ( hence his name). Goblin’s gaze is steady, one can clearly see that he is cross-eyed.

He met my gaze, so I slowly blinked my eyes, lowered my head to reduce the threat and continued my walking. Before today I have only seen glimpses of him seconds in the night. I could see out of the corner of my eye that he was still stationary and hadn’t fled yet. As  I walked, my mind was processing all I had seen. Goblin is short-haired  he is pitch black, he is extremely skinny, his ribs are pronounced. I knew he would flee the moment I returned to look at him  But I took the chance that he wouldn’t. It failed. As he turned to run away from me, I could clearly see the unmistakable signs that he had tapeworms. It was time to return to the house and form a plan of action.

The next time I returned, I was bearing individual plates of food instead of trays. Each dish contained wet food, diatomaceous earth, L-Lysine and ground up pumpkin seeds. The diatomaceous earth was for the fleas, the L-Lysine for general health and the ground pumpkin seeds for the tapes  At the last moment before I left the kitchen, I had broke open a few pouches of donated fancy feast tuna and broth and dribbled all of the juices over all of the offerings as a final temptation.

Using ground pumpkin seeds to kill both the adult and the eggs of the tapeworm has its drawbacks. First it doesn’t magically kill them overnight as Drontal or Pro-fender would  Secondly, when you deal with outside cats who want nothing more than staying as far away from you as possible. You have no way of monitoring who is eating how much food. I have learned over time using this process and working with it, that if you start with a very small amount of canned food and add the seeds mixing well. You have a better chance of success that all the cats will eat only out of their individual saucers instead of getting more than the others.

I have also learned, the finer you can grind the seeds the better you are with the cats accepting them  The seeds don’t appear to have an odor, but the texture can be off-putting to some of these carnivores  Once the plates have been licked clean, more canned food comes out along with dry.

The pros are: It works! I will admit I was skeptical when I first learned of this process, but working through it and tweaking it has shown me that it can indeed work. It is so inexpensive compared to the chemical route, not to mention so much better for the cats overall. If one cat gets more than he’s given, it won’t hurt him  It’s a micro bacterial fiber but it doesn’t even produce diarrhea. The powder passes through his system easily. Yes, the preparation is a bit arduous for the human. But the human doesn’t have to donn on their Hazmet suit, set-up traps or try to barehand-catch and medicate their clowder  This method is a win-win for both sides. So much less invasive.

Goblin will be pampered with good food, clean water and a safe harbor to ride out his days  Looking at him I estimate he’s probably just over a year old? Hard to tell unless you can see the teeth, I’m not anxious for that experience, thank you very much. He’s right on time too- not only to escape what sometimes happens to black cats on Halloween, but he’s also landing on his choice of a variety of heated cat beds when the temperature outside is reading 34°F. Welcome to my world, Goblin  I am so pleased to meet you.