Last Tabby

 Sometimes fate plays its role in the universe.  

This time it was in catching the last tabby behind the local nursing home.

Everybody else is fixed there now.  Most now are living at the lady's property who had fed them behind the home.   She was still feeding the last tabby.  That is, until she caught norovirus Thursday.   Or some virus that's a close noro match.

It's going around this area, with a vengence.

So she didn't try to set the trap or feed Friday morning.   She hadn't caught him anyhow the last three days of setting her trap mornings when she got to work.   The cat got no food from Thursday morning on, which meant I might have a chance if I used the drop trap last night.  So I arrived about 7:30 p.m. at the location with my drop trap, and various electronics, hoping the twist of fate--the feeder's stomach virus that kept the cat from getting any food, would be just the ticket.

I took my baby cam, to monitor the drop trap in the dark.  After dark there, you can't see a thing, let alone what cat is eating under the drop trap unless you interpret shadows.  I took the drop trap remote control too.  I hate that thing.  Its designed so poorly and I've never really had any luck with it working right, when it needs to work.  But I wanted to sit out of sight of the drop trap, monitor cats under it with the baby cam, drop it with the remote if the cat showed up.

All the electronics failed.  The baby cam worked only a short time before going dead.  It won't hold a charge.  Later on, peering at the trap with binocs because the baby cam failed, I saw shadows under the trap.   I flipped over it with a brief burst of flashlight and it was the right cat eating there.  I pulled the trigger on the drop trap remote control-----big fat NOTHING happened.  I'd tested it when I set it up too and it had worked.  Ah shoot.  

I walked forward then to the trap.  The cats ran off, two of them, one the neighbors Siamese, the other the one needing caught, that last tabby, number 8 from there, in need of fixing.  I removed the garbage remote control unit and stand, resisted the urge to hurl them into the dumpster right there, set up the drop trap on its usual stand, tied on the cord, played the cord out clear back to my car, and picked up the binocs to again watch for shadows.  Soon I saw a shadow, gave the trap the brief light flash to be sure it was the right cat and it was, then yanked the cord.  I got him.  Or her.  Finally!

I drove the cat clear to Portland this morning to be fixed at the FCCO.  I was going to spend the day up there, to save gas and drive time, but just drove home.  There was little traffic early on the freeway and I needed a nap and I can't nap in a hot car in parking lot.    I'm headed out in a few minutes to go pick up the cat.  I was too tired last night to check under the hood, so to speak, to see if this is boy or girl, and too in a hurry early this morning to check that out.

Let's hope its not a lactating female.  Looks a bit malish to me!  Or maybe that's just hopeful thinking.

I'll call this cat Fateful, or how about Noro?