Fences are GREAT Neighbors!

I live in a freeway town.  Cars and concrete.  It can drive a nature lover nuts fast!

We don't have nice hiking parks, just those block parks of tailored slightly neon colored grass, with a bench or two, and maybe a sawdusted area with some children's play equipment.   Heck we barely have sidewalks in much of the town and where there are sidewalks, you better watch your feet because the sidewalks are full of cracks and humps.  One of the parks down by the river has no restrooms and little of anything else, except a picnic area, and you must wear heavy shoes, because you don't want to step on a needle in thongs. I went down there, when trapping, sure I could find a restroom there.  The bane of trapping---finding a restroom.  Consequently, I rarely leave my place.  But that's partly because the car has so many miles on it, too.  And to limit gas expenditures.

Someone who longs for nature probably shouldn't live here, unless you've got transportation and the money to drive out to some nature.

Yesterday, someone moved into the house at the end of the cul de sac.  Means more cars.  Since the same real estate company that sold that one for the bank that owned it, after its owner was foreclosed on years ago, has dead Jack's place too, I figure they'll try to sell it next.  Means I better get busy on that fence.

I tried to make friends with neighbors when I first moved in here.  Other than Jack, nothing worked out. In fact, the big backfires were horrific, with one neighbor in particular.  So now I just want to fence out all the problems that come with closely packed neighbors.

I found a property monument, in the NW corner!   I was ecstatic.  It's just this side of the chain link fence, so that fence is likely the north property boundary.  My landlord brother said "build it".  I will build it.  The neighbor on the other side of dead Jack's place built a fence along his border with the property right after Jack died, which was smart.

NW Corner Property Monument

These properties are all rectangles. Except the ones on the cul de sac curve.

I'm not looking forward to digging holes but that's life.  Only three stud holes for the back part are needed at least.  Guess I better get at it.  We're supposed to have sun all week so everyone is going a little nuts.

I believe the white female has had her kittens, and under a house that is for sale, bank owned.  There are also two teens from her last litter, and they all probably spend the day under one particular house.  They are not trappable due to the legions of owned cats free roaming the area, who get into traps.  And because there are multiple feeders who don't stop feeding.

With some experienced help, which I have been unable to find, I'd mount a last ditch effort.  It'd go like this.  One person watches a trap set over the front small foundation hole.  The trap would be blocked at the back, and at the front sides, where the door sticks out.  The back block is so if a cat shoots in so quickly they miss the trigger plate, they can knock the trap backwards.  Then if they shoot back fast enough to the front, they may get out.   The front person would have to be able to quickly change out traps, in case all three targeted cats are under the house, or some owned cats are, which is common there.  A second person would have gone under the house through the back foundation hole which is quite spacious, to listen quietly for kittens, and herd the cats out.  This person should be younger and skinnier than I am.  The third person would block the back hole after the other person goes under so a cat cannot exit that way.

That's the plan and this same plan has worked countless times, with the right people.  This plan usually works better than blocking the cats under the house with traps set, because they tend to panic then.  But where to find a couple more people.  That's my problem.  I can't find even one other person.

I've met quite a few interesting enjoyable people over there trapping where the white female roams.   There's D, who boasts she comes out of the house only four times a month.  She told me last night she'd been out all day and I nearly fainted!  "Really," I said, "out enjoying the greater Albany world!  Good for you!"  Ha.   She is very funny and a good story teller.  She also laughs at my jokes which is a plus.

There's the crew across the street, who are enjoyable too, who own several cats, including Dozer, who is always staring me down, when I'm there, to get by me, to go get in the trap again.  I blink my lights at him, or open the car door, and wave wildly his direction and he stares back.  He's not athletic at all, and his belly flops side to side when he runs.  I lecture him from a distance, admonishing him about getting in the trap again, and sitting in the middle of a busy street, how fatal that can be.

Their kids (son and daughter in law) live in the house next door and they have Shadow, who also tries to creep over and get in the traps and he's not as easily dissuaded as Dozer is.  Next to them is where Fletcher lives, and he's now fixed.  He's a porch white cat.  Inside they have a white female with three kittens born just over a week ago.  They're going to get her fixed as soon as the kittens are older.

 I stay clear of the people who now claim Maurice, whom I got fixed, but Maurice, now sporting a stunning studded bejeweled collar, knows me but I still have to chase him out of the traps.  Then there is miss Prima Donna Bella, a long hair Siamese, gorgeous and she knows it.

Then the house behind owns three cats, all girls, allegedly all fixed.  I've seen two of them, at least, and they know me now too.

But what about this unfixed orange and white, been there twice now, when I have, yowling pitifully.  Photo is very bad because it was dark and taken through a window.

Lastly, I will mention, Garage Boy, a.k.a. Opie, fixed Monday, released yesterday, although he immediately went back into my garage where he spent a good part of the day, finally roamed off.  But....when I went out to check the trap I'd set for a young brown tabby male I'd seen in the middle of the night, hoping its the kitty lost a few blocks from here, I'd caught Opie once again.  This means Opie loves me and probably doesn't have a real home.

Or he likes the wet food.

Also, lastly, really this time, ducks abound in this town.  They're everywhere, wandering among cars begging in parking lots and getting killed on streets by cars.   These three were roaming among moving cars begging for food in a parking lot.