Who comes tripping out of the shadows this morning to walk all over my shoes? Why Ms. Patience does and she is back! I sat down next to her and talked to her and told her that if I picked her up at all it would be to help her. I promised her that I wouldn’t put her in the house, a cage, a carrier- nothing. As much as I wanted her to be safe, I explained, I knew that her past experiences with being indoors was nothing but nasty.

She just let me talk(after all I am the crazy cat lady). Then she followed me slowly to the barn where I put her up on a table and cleaned her wound. It looks like she has been bitten. There is a bite mark on top of her right left paw and also underneath and a bit of a tear in the skin. Whoever had her didn’t want to let her go. I told her I hoped she got some good whaps in on her behalf.

She was so good and only cried once when I had to lance open the abscess and gdrain it. She growled but didn’t bite me and she allowed me to tend to her wounds. I followed with a dose of clinidrops and then she rolled over on her belly asking me to pet her! When I finished feeding everyone and went back in the house, I could hear her crying for me softly in the bushes and again my heart broke.

I will keep my word to her and not try to bring her in and get her socialized. I guess she is just destined to be our cat here outside the sanctuary.

Glory Bee’s owners never contacted me, so I wrote them a letter giving them a brief history of how she came to be here, and sent them some photos of her. I told them to please contact me if she was indeed their cat and I would bring her right over. I know they got the letter but there was no word back from them. So Glory is back with us and I will continue to find her a home where folks do care about this quirky calico kitty.

This morning, Patience showed at feeding and her leg was just hanging up. It looked quite swollen (on the pad) and she looked miserable. Without thinking, I scruffed her and picked her up supporting her rear and walked her quickly toward the house. The closer we got to the house, I could feel her tense up, but feeling that I was pretty protected from all the layers I was wearing (It was 16 degrees this morning) I kept walking.

Suddenly, as we neared the door, she went ballistic and nailed me but good. She sailed out of my hands, latched on to my shoulder and bolted behind me and disappeared. Great Mary Anne, way to go, I know how she identifies houses and it isn’t pretty. I should have just medicated and treated her without catching her and now I have destroyed the trust she had in me and she is loose, scared and injured. From what I could see she has part of her pad torn off so either she got in a fight with a predator or a car and either way she came out on the bad side.

I hope she comes back, but i Have my doubts. All that work destroyed in seconds when I get in the moment and react to what I believe is best and forget about how a cat sees things, sometimes it just doesn’t work. This is one of those times.

This morning during feeding, she bounded out of the shadows and demanded I pet her! What a switch that is for the two of us. She is so skinny and she was soaking wet although it hasn’t rained for days so she must have traveled through some pastures to get home. We had a bit of pet fest before she turned to the business of eating. I am relieved to see her back at her post and hope this time, she sticks around a bit longer.

Denver, the new black boy in the bedroom is now out and about and sitting on the window. I pulled the bed back yesterday and laid on it dangling my arms over the front edge and we too had a pet fest. Guess he figured I am not a predator, because pretty soon after i put the bed back, he came out and has stayed out. His sister Trinity is still hiding but enough food is leaving the bowls that I think they both are eating. Torties tend to be very skittish and shy by nature. My last two tortie rescues hid for weeks and are still a bit shy around people. It will just take time for everyone to adjust.

Crazy weather! Wild winds, slamming rain, hail then snow. It hardly ever sticks, but this time it seems to be hanging around. This is our front yard and Ghost admiring the view:

Snow

One of the employees of the shop where the donation jar is just called me. Someone walked off with the donation jar! I had heard some of the merchants at the food stands etc., had people walk off with the tip jars- but those are outside the business, not inside. Dang- she said there was money inside of it too. 🙁

I don’t want to jinx this, but the three kittens seem to be getting better. The custom e-collars I made from old x-ray films worked really well to keep them off their bottoms. Even Jedi has improved. They still have 5 days on the pills, the finished the wormer today. I am crossing my fingers and hoping this works-

Scott Rundle, owner of felinefurniture.com has four catio sets that he will sell at a reduced price and donate all the monies (but $30.00 shipping) to our cat sanctuary! I have three of these sets and my cats love them. What I like best about the catio furniture is the wood is so hard that when the cats’s scratch on the wood it blunts their nails.

He said to let me know if you want to buy one and then send the monies to me. I will then send him the shipping cost (he can only ship throughout the continental United States because this furniture is sturdy and heavy. The rest will go into the kitty.

They regularly sell for $360.00 but he is offering them for $230.00. Here is a photo of the set-

If you can share this on social media I would appreciate it. Plus if you have outside cats- check out his cat barn on his website

I have been beta testing it- okay my cats have and since it has arrived and been set up, I find a cat in it every morning. I can’t say that about some of the other outdoor cat houses I have here.

Looks like I have no choice though. Sophia who was given panacur two days ago is now pooping pure blood which is NOT normal. She isn’t bleeding out, it’s not distemper, I think it’s a worm obstruction but I am not sure and so we go in tomorrow morning to find out. No fever, she is bright, although she just wants mom to hold her all day. She is eating and drinking, just bleeding. Not normal for panacur which is one of the most easiest wormer out there on kitty’s system. I wanted to try and keep my vet costs down- that was an actual new year’s resolution- but it isn’t working.

Also THANK YOU to the party responsible for sending us a big bag of Pure Elements today. There was no name of sender so whoever you are- bless you for helping these cats out.

If you can, please pray for Sophia, I know she feels punky and as soon as I can, I will be curling up on the couch so she can have my lap.

Recently, I put a donation jar at a local shop in town. Face it, everyone is broke from the holidays or dealing with their own crisis and donations aren’t high in the month of Jan. I still have several hundred dollars owed to my vet.

So I got a large pickle jar and decided to jazz it up a bit and decorate it with photos of the kitties here for adoption. One of those kitties is Glory Bee.

Last night I got a call from a man who said “You have our kitty!”

I went “Excuse me?”

He laughed (thank God) and said “I am here at the store looking at your donation jar, and I see our kitty we lost on your jar!”

And indeed, it turns out that Glory belongs to him and his wife. His wife has recently been quite ill and he has been shuttling her from Portland almost four times a week. They are retired and usually home. Their calico vanished during this time and their calico is GLory!!!!

Roger said his wife is in the hospital but she will be getting better now that her kitty has been located! I bring Glory back to her owners tonight!!!!!!!

Doesn’t matter that the CATS Inc., donation jar is empty, this is the reward worth waiting for!!!

It has now been over two weeks since I last spotted Patience. I have to wonder if pushing her to accept my pets has led this former cat hoarder’s kitty to find a safer place to go? My hope is she has been adopted out- but that is doubtful. Although she is a gorgeous kitty, people around here are more apt to adopt a dog than a cat.

Speaking of dogs, my new neighbor who when he moved in told everyone who would listen that he hates cats and would shoot any cat in his yard- now owns a pitbull. The dog is running freely in the pasture and yard and yesterday the guy saw me and smirked. I don’t know if this pit is friendly or not. B-dog who was attacked by a pit in her past isn’t going to get close enough to find out and I hope my cats will also steer clear of the yard now. The kids are all excited about their new dog and since the man has a toddler, I hope the dog is friendly. In our town the pitbull seems to be the dog of choice and many of them aren’t in loving homes.

The cold weather is lifting (sorry for those on the East Coast who are battling such severe cold). There is a week of rain coming and we really need it. Our lake is 23 feet below normal right now.

The kittens started treatment yesterday and poor Jedi had such severe diarrhea last night. I cleaned her cage several times but it just kept coming which I suppose is the point, but poor girl. She is exhausted right now and cuddling with Mike while wrapped in a towel. kojak seems to be better than before so maybe all of this was a worm load- although they were given drontal several times. Time will tell.

First off, thank you to those of you who have sent inquiries about why I haven’t been blogging of late. I appreciate that you follow this life of mine, however hectic or unpredictable it can become. I am fine now, was sidelined by a nasty virus (although I did take the flu shot) and then Mike got it as well and I was busy trying to take care of him. I know that I have men who read my blog, but women can relate when I say that men are such babies when they are sick! Mike is no exception he plumb wore me out in taking care of him while he was down.

On the Mike front, he has lost 15 pounds, I have lost 21. His legs are slowly improving although there have been some drawbacks at times but the necrotic tissue is almost gone and I am breathing a bit easier.

On the kitty front- Agatha is now Queen of her new home and I went to see her the other day and I had to laugh. She was splayed out along the end of the couch (she looked like a bear rug!) The family had decided instead of sitting on the couch, they would sit on the floor “so not to disturb her!” I believe she is where she needs to be and I left smiling.

I had a bad bout of kitty diarrhea hit here with several kittens affected. Fecals were taken and nothing was really discovered until I started logging a lot of stuff down and I think I have figured it out. It isn’t just Jedi who is sensitive to market foods, it is all the kittens who encounted the distemper virus. Although it took the Kitty down to almost a zero amount. I am now feeding a high-end cat feed (dry). I am no longer free feeding (except for the barn cats) and it seems to be working. I also am setting out small amounts of canned pumpkin as the kittens love it and eat it like candy. The older cats can’t be bothered, but they are fine anyway. It is much more expensive to feed the high-end low residue food, except if you take into consideration the amount of the vet bill that will be reduced in the long-run. At least that is my hope. I believe the distemper virus has skewed the kittens digestive system and the insoluble fibers so often found in the market foods (and the food donated by kind folk to our sanctuary) is full of the buggers! Even jedi has been better, she has a discharge now that is occassional but nothing major. In my research on this issue, I did find out that chicken by products generally means ground beaks, feet and bone. I never knew that and although kitties are carnivores, they don’t generally eat bones in their diet.

The local feed store had put up a giving tree this Christmas and asked three of the local rescues to participate. We all made our wish list- one rescue did horses, one dogs, and us and with our cats. The store called me yesterday and told me regretfully that NO ONE this year contributed anything to any of the rescues! It was a sobering take on the economy and this dying town. I was sad because I know the horse rescue has over 62 horses to care for but it didn’t surprise me much.

My oldest sister is all excited. Her significant other gave her a pretty cool Christmas gift. They are going to spend two weeks in the arctic inside a “tundra lodge” and get up close and personal with polar bears! Hmm- when I was in Alaska, I saw a polar bear take down a seal and getting up close and personal to that claw action would not thrill me. But Gwen is a photographer and one of her black bear photos is online (will see if I can find the link) and it got her some pretty sweet prizes when it won a contest. They travel all over the world so this would be the gift you give someone who has everything. So I guess Frank scored there! LOL

Hope everyone is doing good. Your cats have survived the craziness that usually accompanies the holidays and all of you are now signed up with obamacare! LOL

God Bless-

MA