Frozen

Sunny weather during the day around these parts last couple of days.  But cold! 

Nights are well below freezing.

Nonetheless, early yesterday morning, off I went to trap the last cats at the Griggs colony.   That's Jack's colony.  He's the orange tabby in the bathroom, the one who was exposed to ringworm (thus far no signs).

I knew of four more cats. I'd seen them, that aren't fixed yet.  So far there, I removed 13 kittens and teens and got 8 other cats fixed and returned them.  There was a fluffy gray tabby, a stocky black short hair male, another mackerel tabby and then the torti, who is just a kitten.

I never saw the black male while I was there.  I was prepared, with chicken scratch, as diversion to the numerous chickens and ducks who storm the cat food and even a trap with cat food in it.  If I throw out chicken scratch, in large cupfuls, onto the ground, in a wide arch, the chickens and ducks go after that, not the cat food.

Took me awhile to catch the two,  because I arrived late but I caught the fluffy gray tabby and the mackerel tabby.  I didn't see the little torti til I was leaving and she darted back under the trailer.

I was near frozen by then, waiting in my car.  I had put a huge pile of food in the back of the trap, then a full water bottle under the trap door, to hold it up, with a line tied around the bottle neck and strung out to my car, through the passenger side window.  There are lots of already fixed cats there and I didn't want to waste time catching them, just the ones I wanted to catch.

The drive out to the colony, though late, by my standards (after 8:00 a.m.) was beautiful.  The countryside was white with frost.

I caught this kitty, one of the four I was after.  Named him or her Gypsy for the records. Will be fixed today.

There's Sally, on the left, already fixed, then Gordy, the orange boy, also fixed, and Sabrina, the black girl, already fixed and finally the not fixed mackerel tabby, who is now in my garage, named Homie for the records.

Sabrina, who is fixed, next to Homie, who isn't fixed but will be by this evening.

Pandora, who was fixed last time around, peeks at me from behind Christmas decoration remnants.

So I got two there and was happy and went home with them about noon.

Later on I picked up three on Kennel Drive.  This is the mom of the orange and white boy kitten fixed last Monday from a different road.  And two more of her kittens.  No photos of them yet.

And I went up to a new colony, a very large new colony.  I had just two spots to fill at this point, until I was given two more by another woman who had reservations and wasn't going to use them.  I trapped four at the new colony in about three minutes.   I'll get photos later of those four, but here's a photo the colony caretaker sent me of some of the cats, at feeding time.

At least four is a start. 

This morning, once again the ground is painted crystal white in frost.