20 Cats

There will be discontent and complaining here next few days, from the resident cats.

I did get 8 cats fixed Monday.  Four are still here, not yet returned.  I got too busy today to return them.

It's the Sweet Home four still here, the mom and her three teens.   Tomorrow I take them home.

As promised here is Fluffy the Kitten's photo.  He's from Sodaville and was fixed Monday.

Fluffy!

Here's Willow, the Sweet Home mom cat fixed yesterday....

I got too busy to return them because I was scheduled to begin trapping a very large Salem colony.  I loaded my car last night, with traps, lined in pee pads.  I loaded up bait too, everything I might need.  There were already two drop traps up there being fed under.

And 6 FCCO traps.

I left when it was still dark after waking suddenly to my alarm at 5:00 a.m.  I was on the road by 6:00 a.m., nervous, as I usually am before I start a new colony.  I calmed myself as I drove, listening to the whine of the new old car's transmission.  Something is yowling in there and it too makes me uneasy.

But it took my mind off the day ahead and the pressures that can come when juggling people and trying to catch cats.

These folks are in their mid to upper 80's.

I have 20 reservations for day after tomorrow, and Meow Village is taking half the 20 after they are fixed.

Now I just have to trap 20.

I spent all day at it, at first feeling pressure then letting it go as the day passed.  I caught 20 cats.  I caught big males and in heat females and teenagers and one little kitten.  I caught orange cats and calicos and brown tabbies and blacks. I caught some in live traps but most I caught one or two at a time, patiently waiting, like a cat waiting for a mouse, until one crept under the drop trap to eat and yanking the string attached to the stand that holds it up.  Then I'd run out, cover it completely and transfer the cat out, through the drop traps transfer door into a live trap with a transfer back door.  One by one by one.  Yank.  Clatter.  Panic. Cover.  Transfer.  One more in the car, in a live trap, to join the growing numbers.

In the end I had 20.   I watched TV, while he told stories of times long gone, and kept one eye on the patio where the drop trap stood waiting for the next cat, who got a whiff of tuna, or catnip, or both and took a chance.

In the end I got antsy, had 19, needed one more, and finally, bored, stiff, tired, went out to my car and checked the traps in the pole barn and sure enough, a little black tux was in one.   I was happy, done too.  DONE.  Not really done though.  There are more needing caught and fixed, just it wouldn't be tonight.  But I had 20 reservations and now I had 20 cats so I loaded up.  The old couple came out and peered at the cats in the traps with a flashlight, trying to remember the names they'd given them, asking each other, Is that Molly?  No, this one might be though.

I was pleased as pie to have 20.  I'd given myself 2 days and now I can relax tomorrow, take back the Sweet Home four, get some sleep, do laundry, nap......

But my cats are not happy, especially smelling big unfixed males.  They do stink.  But they won't be here long, not long at all and my cats will get over it.