a day at the beach

Today i took my Isolde to the beach, it has been to long since i have brought her here and i believe that she missed coming.

she kept watching the people that where here there were two girls running and playing in the surf which is rare especially since they wore bikinis.


it has been almost 7 years since the loss of her brother Tristan at times it looked as if she was searching for him. this was their beach after all. My poor little angel was stiff when we got home and is now sleeping next to me. she even sniffed at some food. it is going to hurt when the time comes to say Good bye.




so i put away another memory. i hold her when she wants to be held. i let her know that when she is ready to leave i will understand and let her go to join her brother. right now my little love is still with me and i try to not cry so much.

thought on the year end

Isolde asleep


this year is thankfully almost over. it has been both a good year i have made some great friends. and it has been a bad year. financially i am ready to scream not that that does any good. i have successfully traped and had spayed 6 females only to have 2 of them lost to cars. i have the vouchers for 4 more but getting a date is getting harry i do not want Isadora to go into heat before the surgery.



Mikael

My garden cats are shifting, i do not see Rue as often, rarely do i see Buttercup and Mikael is maybe a couple times a week. He shows up for food and knows he can get in out of the weather. i worry about them. Bettie my love, greets me and watches the house so i know she is fed. right now she is not happy with my father as he trapped her in the house one cold night. MiniFig and MaMere are fleeting shadows.



Lusitania asleep

I want to thank everyone who has helped me. i feel as if i have grown a lot this year. i have taken to wearing my Phoenix/Firebird ring to remind me that we grow from our ashes.

mixed blessing

i had a very annoying day yesterday and a slight freak out.
it seems that a customer went into our back office and stole my messenger bag and a co-workers Ipod.
i had gone into the office to get my bag to get a gift out of it. which was a jar of pumpkin butter for the girl who works at the coffee shop. when i could not readily find my bag i asked if someone had seen it thinking that a joke was being played. nope it was gone and so was the ipod.
the good thing was just that morning i had decided that i did not want to take some of my knitting projects that were getting to bulky so they stayed at home, just some small random knit projects with no pattern in the bag. a book i had been reading and my lunch, the scary thing was the book mark i was using is a pay stub so i was freaked out that someone had my info to my checking account and my ssn. i finally found another pay-stub and saw they do not have any usable info. i will miss my wood knitting needles they were expensive but replaceable and it gives me an excuse to go back to Muir woods to replace the messenger bag. the other funny was that they took off the clamp on the Ipod which was keeping it from shorting out and it was only full of books on tape.

So whoever took these things messed up their karma for nothing. an Ipod that does not work and a bag of random knitting. my wallet and phone were in my pockets as were my car keys. well they got a kewl bag but they will probably throw it away as it is distinctive, my jacket would have been a better take flannel lined corduroy but also very distinctive with the dancing cats on it.
all in all this has been an interesting year that i will be glad to leave behind. may the next year be better.

Sadness

One would think that one would get used to losing a furry loved one.
I have lost many and each one hurts just a little more.
I am left with the feelings of what did i do wrong, what did i not notice what should i have done different.

Knowing that the little one was predisposed toward an illness does not help. I am still crying, i keep going back to hold Isadora. she is looking at the door giving quiet miaows waiting, i think she is looking for Duncan and i cannot even let her say 'Goodbye' to her litter mate.
Looking back, first i caught Duncan as a sick kitten with upper resp. he also had bad coccidia and other worms. he had such a rough start i wish i could have given him a better longer life but all i could do was make sure he did not suffer.

I also need to let any potential adopters that the kittens have been exposed to corona virus, and i need to watch them real close to make sure they stay healthy.

I have sent my little feral kitten Duncan over the rainbow bridge.




He started showing signs of distress, breathing heavily his belly shrinking never leaving the heating mat. I took him to the vet with little hope of a good outcome.




Duncan with his sister Isadora

My vet did a thorough examination. extremely high temp, breathing loud, gums going blue, his lungs and heart muffled. he was just over 6 months old. i just got the call that ruled out FeLv and FIV which leaves FIP of the wet variety which was what i suspected.

UPDATES

Frankie lounging

Where does the time go. this year is almost over and i still am trying to catch up.

the cats are as always beautiful and i have not seen more kittens.

the 4 remaining kittens i now have the spay vouchers for just trying to get an appointment to have the procedures done and hopefully before Isadora goes into heat! she has come around so much i will miss her if i succeed in adopting her out. Gianni has caught up with her is size so i need to check to be sure who is who.
Duncan looks like he is going to be a BIG cat, his body is growing in starts and he currently looks malformed.
Frankie is my love of them all. He and Isadora always race to greet me when i go back there to check on them. see how they have grown.

Carmen and Durante are still in the room. Carmen has realised that i am not going to hurt her she still will not allow touch but that is OK she comes out to eat and even talks to me.
Durante if i do not see her from the window i would wonder if she were still alive she is so good at hiding. During the first day of the recent storms, before i got protection out, I managed to catch Cage in my room. he had followed Dash in and slept in 'The Closet' Lusitania on guard duty. this closet is 36"wide and at least 6 feet deep of total unusable space, it has been claimed by the cats and each shelf has beds for them. no they are not spoiled.

I did winterize the bunny hutch i was given. i was even planning on getting an Angora but you can see who sleeps here.
Dash was sleeping in the bunny hutch.
i do not think i will get much wool

i matched the cat

Robber is just too beautiful. this is my experiment in Eucalyptus dyeing, the bark gave me a blah beige colour but the leaves WOW. i boiled the leaves for an hour than put the pot outside with the yarn in it. after a few days of ignoring it thinking yeah right i will get a pretty colour i went to check and noticed a few spots of coppery orange, such and incredible glowing orange.



so i put the pot back on to boil another couple of hours with the yarn still in the pot adding water to prevent drying out and then finally turned off the flame added some distilled white vinegar and left for 15 minutes. washed and rinsed using the cats shampoo for lack of anything else and again WOW.
now will i be able to repeat this... or hopefully improve....



My Isolde is being helpful, keeping my projects warm for me.

I love the look of a kitten in the window. there is just something emotional about it. sometimes wistful sometimes sad sometimes determined and demanding.
what do they think about as they sit there watching the world? seeing the birds and the ferals pass by

sniffing at the screen. what is it that is hiding behind those enigmatic eyes.
the other night while it rained they just stared at the droplets hitting the glass. I wonder if they realise they could have been out in it or do they remember being out in it and are happy to be in a sheltered house.

i am so falling in love with this group and trying not to. i really need to get those vouchers i cannot wait much longer on Duncan he has dropped and Isadora could go into heat soon. she is the one i most worry about she is just starting to come around she still gives off her snaky hisses when started. Frankie and Gianni i can wait a little more on as they are younger but they need homes soon. little Carmen with her notched ear is adorable but hard to work with i wish i had Cage in the house but my crew watch out for him.
Buttercup shows up rarely now so i wonder where he has chosen to live. Rue is still being a pain in the assets. Bettie is being a sweetheart letting me pick her up and running to great me when i get home. i know it is the food but sometimes i think she actually likes me.

on to other things i have been playing with my dyeing again eucalyptus bark found at a rest stop.


i soaked it 3 times in the bath and this picture is it after drying dipped back in to wick up dye for some variation. i have another hank soaking in a bath of leaves i had hoped for a rusty orange but i am only getting yellowy goldy green. maybe a few more soaks

the cutest thing

i have to say i love Dash.
he is so careful with kittens right now he is teaching Cage to play.
i have some wrapping ribbon tied to the clotheline so that it just touched the ground and dances with the breeze, i have caught all of the cats batting at it and now there is a game of chase happening.
i do want to get a picture of it all but as soon as Cage sees me he hides.

its raining

if i had time i would have taken pictures of the kittens watching the window but i had to run to work when the rain started. they were so fascinated by the drops hitting the glass making designs. i told them that if i had not caught them and been treating them that they would have been out in it and not as happy watching it.
i am getting more comfortable about Isadora being adoptable she still hisses but she also cuddles Gianni is getting standoffish though which is making me sad. Carmen is coming around and is not as scared of me. i will probably release Durante back to the colony but not during the storms. i just cannot release a naked belly in the colder seasons.
Cage is letting me see him a bit more and i am still trying for the other shadow that i see flit about now and again. at least there are safe havens from the rain here the trees shield them and there is also the 'greenhouse' pot storage area..

Robber is not happy about the rain i did not play with him today with Da Bird

updates

had to share the pictures of my angry MiniFig

i had just trapped her last adopted kitten. they were her sister's babies.
she was trying to take me down when i got Gianni and when i caught Carmen she was all screams and glares. she followed me to let me know what she thought of me as you can see.

Durante has now been spayed. it was chancy there for a bit,
my neighbors kid was having a party with his friends
.... loud cars that set off alarms, vibration from the custom speakers .....
when i went to check on her she was so freaked out that she went straight over my head. i was thinking that i would never be able to catch her again after almost 2 weeks of being kept in a dog crate after 2 days in a trap trying to get a sooner appt. but Sunday night she came back looking for food, i was alerted by Dash that someone was their so i set the trap and had her within 15 minutes. in time for her Monday appt. so it was a good thing that she got used to the 3 meals a day in a cage.
right now she is in the kitten cage recovering and Frankie is not happy about losing his cage -- aka feeding station.
Durante is a bigger than Duncan and was estimated at 6 mos so i am thinking she was of a third litter possibly a previous litter from Ma Mere since she looks similar to Dandelion.
Duncan and Isadora are turning into mischief kitties and are allowing me limited contact even without treats in hand they are acknowledging that i, the human, am not going to hurt them. they have watched me with the others and even little Carmen is letting me touch her with reservation.
Last night when i got home and was checking on everyone i saw a huge raccoon (as tall as a beagle) eating the ferals food, made me extremely glad the i had Durante inside recovering and not anywhere where she would have been vulnerable.

I call her Durante

while i have been trapping for the feral spay days i saw a little tortie in my backyard.that Carmel stripe on the nose is to funny, makes her nose look huge.

i succeeded in trapping two kittens which i got in. one little girl probably from the same litter with Frankie and Gianni, i am calling her Carmen. with her i caught a slightly older male kitten being called Cage, as he keeps going into them and getting re trapped 3 times in a row. now i am watching the shadow kittens that i still see.
Durante is i think going to be a bit much for me at the moment so i will take her in to the feral spay days which is in a week, i wish i could work with her to socialize but dealing with the issues inside i have to cage her outside so working with her is a challenge. the frustrating thing is i know that i am not getting all of the female i heard the classic fight for the female last night with a kitten crying in the middle of it. so was it male defending its ground from intruder kitten or was the kitten a female hitting first heat.
Isadora and Duncan still greet with hisses but are wanting to be pet. they will be great if someone wants a cat in the house but not a cuddler. they are good about medicine.and take it quite well.

coccidia

i have found out today that Isadora and Duncan have a real nasty bug. they tested for roundworm and coccidia. this means that Frankie and Gianni have been exposed to it if they do not have it already since they come from the same colony. i have been told to bleach everything they come into contact with since they are playing in the room that contains the loom this is going to be fun. currently i have Frankie, Gianni, and Isadora in their cages - no they are not happy - and Duncan is being elusive. i think i tricked him into taking the round worm de-wormer i put it into a pill pocket and set it down on the floor he quickly started to play with the treats now if he eats them that would be great.

right now i am sitting in a coffee shop since my home Internet is not working. so when i get back home i will try again to catch Duncan and get his first round of meds down him, he might be hungry by then.

a short update

Frankie and Gianni are still thin but eating i need to get more fluid down them next step is sub-q. i am letting them out of their cage for exercise. so the are out tormenting Isadora who also is out and not coming back to her cage. funny she was so sweet in the cage and so shy outside of it.




Luckily Ma Mere was not pregnant, but she is lactating. so it is a kitten hunt. I know there was one more from the Dandelion litter that i had caught so i may have another Helios to trap. i don't think there was enough time for her to have dropped another litter but it could have happened.

so kitten hunt and spay vouchers are next on the agenda

Ma Mere

last night i finally caught Ma Mere.
she is pissed, spitting, and slapping the trap.
the bait used was lightly boiled chicken shredded and daubed with karo syrup.
i tried probing her belly through the cage and i think she is pregnant her nipples are distended but not enlarged.


she is a very pretty girl and if i remember correctly she showed up years ago as a young mommy that was following her brother i saw her only a couple of times and had attempted to trap then. i stopped when i found out she belonged to someone in the neighborhood. i did tell them that they could get a free or low cost spay. 'it is the daughters cat and should be "her" choice' and 'the kittens are so cute'
the brother would show up on my porch torn up from fights, sick with huge abscesses i would call the people to let them know he was at my house and needed to go to the vet he was in a bad way. i finally gave up and took him to the shelter where he was put down having FIV which if he had been keep inside and neutered would not have been a death sentence. i still cry when i think of the boy i called Sage.



since she is eating here now i believe that her 'people' have finally moved and left her behind. since she is bringing her babies to my house she had to have had them outside and with the stormy season coming any kittens would be doomed


i called everyone i could think of last night got the numbers of where to get the vouchers and have since been going crazy with 'all circuits are busy please try again latter.
i give thanks to God that Barb got back to me today to let me know she got an appointment for the spay.

i know God is laughing

the irony of it.
the day i gave up Dandelion and Helios i caught another Siamese kitten.


i am calling him Frankie, from his size he is about 8 weeks old and has been starving. his teeth make me think older.
the next night i caught his brother Gianni, also a starving kitten. Gianni is a full furred spotty tabby kitten he feels like a chinchilla. i will post pictures when i get a good one of him. he is the stronger of the two. he was being guarded by MiniFig so i believe they are Belly's babies. there is at least 1 more kitten to catch and of course Ma Mere and her other baby.
I am very worried about these two and took them to work with me to keep an eye on them. as i pulled into the parking lot one or both threw up. i got to see what was in their bellies and could understand why they were not eating for me, the main contents of the stomache was twigs and candy wrappers. i got some electrolytes down them and finally they ate slivers of chicken and steamed liver. i also weighed them Frankie weighed in at 1.75lbs and Gianni 2 lbs.


as for the other feral kittens. Growler is now being called Duncan and his sister Isadora. they are turning into sweet kitties that are about 5 months old and need to be spayed. i want to find them homes i do not want them going back to the street.
i saw Buttercup last night he was 3 houses down i wish he would come in. Mikael is hanging around more also coming in sometime i will catch him on my bed, he is so beautiful. he comes to play with the crew when robber finally gets me up to play Da Bird with them.