Escapees

 I hadn't seen one of the Waterloo teenagers for awhile.  She's so wild I thought she was simply evading my sight.   Then I saw her outside, just ran into her in the dark in my driveway.   I figure she's been out, escaped the ever collapsing cat yard wire, since Jenny got out.    I don't know that.

I set traps and got up twice in the night to check them.  This morning, one trap was closed and I was sure it would be her.  Instead it was the big male who escaped my garage last June.

Man alive.  I'd seen him twice since that morning, June 17, was taking him and 9 colony mates, from a Lebanon colony, to Portland to be fixed and his trap was just empty.   How did he escape it?   I do not know.  The transfer door was still locked tight.

Then I recalled I'd fallen when carrying him in the trap to my car behind the lady's house.  Slipped in a huge pile of cat crap that had to have taken years to accumulate.  Went down but somehow managed to keep hold of the trap.  However, it had been bent and I didn't realize it until after he escaped it.  

It was during the first heat wave.  The second one would come a couple weeks after that, when the temps soared over 110.   I had put an AC in the garage, vented to outside under the garage door, in makeshift fashion, but it left a space he was able then to escape the garage.   The lady never wanted him back if I were to recapture him.   He's been eating somewhere.  He's gained weight and looks great.  Now I have to find him a spay neuter spot.  Be sure nice to also find him a home.  But he may have people now.  He sure hasn't been routinely around here.

Every now and then I set up my game cam to check for anybody out there  I don't know about.  

Anyhow, now comes the wait to find a spay neuter spot.

This was a photo I took of him back in June, the night before he was to be fixed up at the FCCO.

Here he is now.  Looking good!   Don't be put off by the different eye color (first photo cats eyes yellow, second photo cat eyes are blue).  The first photo eyes were altered by me, since they were flashed out completely.  For that matter, so were the eyes in the 2nd photo.  The flash always takes out their eyes with my regular camera, so I redo them myself with a photo alteration program.  

Is it him, however?   Before he escaped I caught glimpses on game cam of another flamepoint, sneaking periodically into my garage.  Who was that cat and where did he come from?  I don't have any idea, but its possible the cat in my garage is that cat and not the escapee, as flamepoints are hard to distinguish. Well, who the hell knows.  I'm going to bed in a moment here.

This evening after a day of projects, I got out and look on my roof and its like some cat party going on.  Fritter, the apartment complex cat, was up there, but ran off when he saw I saw him.   Phantom was there, the Waterloo teen, and so was....wait, what?!  Cookie, one of mine.  She'd escaped the cat yard!   

I went into the cat yard and found yet another hole had torn.  I imagine this happens when neighbor cats decide to play on top of the wire nights.  The wire was compromised due to age prior to the snow at Christmas, but now its really bad.  I zip tie it together again and any weight on it from above and it breaks apart.    

I spent the next hours doing the dance, in and out of the cat yard, as Cookie, now wanting back inside the cat yard, paced the outer perimeter boards endlessly.  She got sleepy in the end.  I finally cut the ties apart in several places, creating four large holes and sat inside, with the ever needy Gigi, who doesn't even belong to me (garage cat), doing her best to make me understand she is the only cat in the world who matters.  

A few minutes later I glanced into the cat yard to see that Cookie had dropped back into it from one of the holes.  Good.  One down.

I then attached all the wire to itself where I had detached it before, or there'd be another escapee soon. Otherwise, I would have left the holes in hopes Phantom would drop back in, too.  Cookie has escaped before.   She does it for adventure.   She's an awesome cat but not quite tame enough to get a home.   Am working on it.

As for Phantom, someone is feeding her somewhere close, but I still have traps set in hopes I can catch her.   She's been out awhile I think.

I'm getting lots of projects done around the house.   Puttering, my father used to call it.  I enjoy it.

Update:  Like fate, like some giant coincidence, after I added the edit that the cat I caught could be instead another flamepoint I sometimes see sneaking around my garage, by game cam, I go out for a last check of the trap before bed, and who is in it?  Another flamepoint.  I was flabergasted and hit my forehead with my palm thinking "how many fricking flamepoints are there?  Only he has a blue collar on and was meowing.  He wasn't happy with me.  I let him out.    Too many cats playing in my yard nights.  And also, atop my flimsy cat yard wire.