All Day at the Office

 I spent all day in my cramped office and the heat was off.   

I couldn't resist that one.  Yup, another day in my car out at the Shedd colony.

I was in a starchy mood to start and it was freezing, no lie, with spurty spluttering rain and high winds.  Great trapping day, eh?  Not so much.

The drop trap had been damaged.  How?  Well I don't know for sure.  I can guess.   The back bent.   It had been moved, and was leaned against the old truck, obviously not being fed under, if it ever was there.  

At first I couldn't set up my remote on a large tomahawk trap due to the heavy rains.  If even a drop leaked into the receiver, fry time.

I had forgotten a plastic ziplock to seal it off from rain.   I found some plastic carpet runner in the car later on and used that.  Then I set it out by the barn.  I could barely see it from my car with the fogging of the inside of the windshield, then sometimes splattering rain.

The wind howled through the property and it was a freezing wind.  Nonetheless, I reset traps, got cats transferred from the drop trap into live traps, all wearing only a T shirt and old fleece zip up, which wasn't zipped up because the zipper broke long time ago.  I'm hot blooded, what can I say.   I did start some shivering after a few hours in the car, but some movement cured that, and I also broke out the handwarmers.  Gawd I love those things.  I especially like the ones with adhesive backing.  I can stick them to the inside of my jacket.  I even had one in the rolled rim of my knit hat.  Warm?  Plenty warm.  

I caught the muted torti first.  She's young and hangs out near the house.  She refused to go under the drop trap til a big huge male showed up and went under.  Then under she went too and I caught both at once and was feeling fine after that, my attitude vanished, at least partially.

Young muted torti eyes the big unfixed orange tabby tux male eating under the drop trap from the pickup bumper.

This boy is as big as Mr. Awesome!  I see Mr. Awesome all the time out there.  He's doing just fine after his neuter.  I saw him yesterday also.

Bad photo of the young muted torti I caught together with the big male.

I caught the next three---the buff tabby tux teen, his orange tabby and white mom, and the muted torti tux, using the remote controlled trap from where I was sitting in my car about 200 feet away.  

I haven't taken photos yet of the buff tabby teen and maybe his mom yet since trapping them.  But here's the barn muted torti tux I caught.  And here is a photo of the buff tabby tux teen with the cat who may be his or her mom, together by the barn, in a photo I took a few weeks ago.

Buff tabby tux teen and maybe its mom.  They're always together, until recently that is.  They may both be girls but will find out after they're fixed.

This is the barn muted torti tux.  But she looks so much skinnier than the photo I took of hopefully same cat in the grass.   And am I nuts to think the gray in her coat to be a little darker?  Can be tricky with photos, the colors and even the size.  They fluff their hair up when its really cold and its been cold every time I've trapped out there.

The cat in the photo above looks bigger, fatter than the barn muted torti tux I caught, but the colors seem to match perfectly.

Lastly, the other muted torti tux got herself high as a kite on catnip I had liberally distributed, as I am known to do, then danced her way under the drop trap where a handsome already fixed black tux was eating.   Boom, I yanked the cord from my car and dropped the trap over both and had to run back to the barn to get my last trap, the one with remote attached, to transfer her into from the drop trap. The black tux sat in a corner, when I pulled up the trap to let him head out, like a deer caught in headlights.  He really just wanted to eat some more tuna.   Ok, go ahead bud.

She too looks way smaller once caught, than in the photo I took of her to add to my uncaught unfixed cat list from out there.

The boy on the right is already fixed, but I've been after the trailer muted torti and finally caught her yesterday (photo below of her in trap)

I'm still after Dirty Tail and Limpy, who is a very pretty mottled dark orange tabby on white, now with a rear leg limp, probably from fighting.  Dirty Tail will be difficult to catch as I caught his little runabout friend, Taco, with the remote controlled trap, right in front of him, a couple weeks ago.

Dirty Tail

Limpy

Also needing caught still---a black tux I call Half Moon, with a circular blob of white to left of nose and mouth on his face.

Half Moon there on the left

Also still needing caught, the inheat orange marble and white female, if that's what she is, and not just a male other males are chasing.  Post It, I call her, because she escapes unwanted attention perched atop a fence post.

Post It

The other unfixed one I know about is a smallish darker buff whom I call Little Buff.  I didn't get a photo of him.  There could be others.   Between myself and the colony caretakers daughter, we've caught 58 there now.   The caretakers daughter had originally caught 13 last fall, then requested help in January catching the rest.  Five of those were the kittens, four of whom were adopted out, one of whom died.  I know at least one of the original 13 fixed has died.  The caretaker took the cat in to be euthanized as the cat could not overcome giardia infection.

I came home then, since it was almost 5:00.  There are four or five left needing caught, but I got most of the girls (I think).  Anyhow.....into a hot shower, as from experience, I know I may not feel cold after sitting 8 hours in the cold, but I will an hour after I get home.  I don't know why that is, but it is.

The mature eagle was back.  At first a younger eagle was on the tree top, but when the older one came, off went the younger one.