I am worried for Soot and Spout the two girls. The boys have overcome them and suckled them, so I have separated the four. I have two girls in one part of the new nesting box and the two boys on the other side. I suspect Smokey Joe to be the instigator in this. He is the strongest and the largest and he is by far, one of the most difficult kittens to poop and pee in my rescue lifetime! He whirls around the basin, kicking and squalling, scratching and biting and if you have ever been bit by a 3 week old kitten who is just getting his teeth in- you  have my sympathy. Once he passes his stool- quite easily so there is no blockage or issue, he becomes calm again and lays in my arms looking up at me as if to say “Aren’t I cute?”

It is either Spout or Soot who are sick- no fevers- just one of them- not sure who is vomiting a bit. I have gone back to straight goat’s milk with them for the time being until I can determine how bad this illness is going to get. Time will tell and hopefully, none will fade.

She is 92 years old, 5 foot 9 and 110 pounds. She is confined to a wheelchair, when her phone rings, she will stare at it. If there is a nurse or helper in the room, they will hand her the phone and answer it, then encourage her to put the phone up to her ear. Usually, the conversation will last about five minutes and she will hang up,

She calls me Nancy, Gwen or Mary Anne but her dementia has taken away the brilliant mind this librarian once owned and it has been a struggle to separate this mother from the one in the past. I knew when Dad died, we were going to be in trouble. My sisters found her on the eve of his passing (she had been with him when he died) on her bed, passed out from exhaustion and broken hearted, surrounded by urine still leaking out on the floor. My sisters  not knowing them that she has a UTI assumed she was unable to care for herself and whisked her off to assisted living.

She is now entering hospice and her dementia gives way to bursts of anger against “her girls” who she believes “betrayed her.” I get the brunt of most of this anger, because after all, Life seems to always come full circle and as a child, I bore all her anger until I could bear no more and ran away from home.

They will put her in the hospital for one final time to hydrate her before preparing us for the inevitable, and even though, we have never had a perfect relationship with each other, I find myself saddened that she has come down to this point. I do try to call her every week- I went to see her a few months ago and it ended horribly. I cried the 900 miles home and were it not for our dog who accompanied me on that trip and swallowed my tears, I do not know what I would have done.

She insisted tonight that Mike and I get her out of this horrible place she is in. She snapped at me and said “You can do this Mary Anne, don’t tell your sisters, put your heads together and be smart about it!” I told her that I was unable to trump a doctor’s order and she snarled “You were always such a worthless child!” And then she hung up on my shattered heart.

I just hope when she does leave this world, she leaves behind all the anger she has carried toward me and finally be at peace. She deserves at least that.

While at lunch with my sister and husband, Juno in the truck with over 9 toys already, decided to inspect the calendars that just arrived! She now owes me $90.00! But at least you can see: The calendars HAVE arrived!

Can’t find good kitten food locally. Just put Max Cat Kitten food on our wish list. If someone would like to help us feed the fireplace kitties, they are eating this pureed down into a thin gruel.

Here they are. They did survive the night and are now eating well, pooping and peeing. Being fed every 4 hours round the clock. Two boys, two girls:

Smokey Joe, Ashes, Soot and Spout

It is early morning around 3:00 and about an hour ago, I received a distress call from a woman with broken English. Hard to understand, but the gist of it was she heard kittens meowing in the living room and couldn’t find out where. Off I went after being told she had called everyone she thought she should have called only to be told the momcat would probably come back and move them to safety.

Turns out the kittens were stuck in the flue of the fireplace! Thank Heaven’s it wasn’t cold enough to build a fire! I now have an aching back and a crick in my neck, but am thankful to have rescued 4…2-3 weeks old black kittens. They were ice cold and I rushed them back here, gave them warming fluids, warm milk, put them directly on a heating pad. They are weak but hungry which is a good sign. I just gave each of them some Karo syrup and warmed coffee to help jumpstart cold organs and am about to fall in bed. Please pray they make it through the night-

or two! Goes to a good cause and you can see the results of what we do here-

Thank you and God Bless!

The two trailer park kitties are still with us, which reinforces my belief that whatever took Avis’ life was not feline distemper. They have moved from hiding from me everytime I feed, to cowering in the corner every part of their body shouting how scared they are to be in this world. I am able to pet them now without protection on my hands, but sadly, they are still quite terrified and it will be awhile before I see them relax and lean into the petting sessions. They are eating well and drinking water and using the litterpans. If this indeed was distemper that took Avis away from us, these two babies would also be at the Bridge. I heard before they put her down that Avis temp  went up to 107! That is indicative of FIP and I am glad we made the decision to put her and her babies to sleep however difficult that decision was for us.

I recently had a health scare and won’t know for a week what is actually going on- but woke up about a week ago unable to walk on my left leg without a great deal of pain. I thought it might be a residual of the bike wreck, so I treated it with home treatments and aspirin hoping it will go away. It didn’t, it got worse so I went in. The doctors ruled out all it wasn’t- said they haven’t quite seen such a puzzling injury before. The know it is NOT gout, tendonitis, Achilles rupture, or two other diagnosis that I can’t spell. They have put me on Doxycycline, an anti-inflammatory and gave me a pain shot that put me in lala land for a bit. 🙂 They took blood and said they will know in a week if this is an infection or something requiring surgery. They kept mentioning the dreaded D word to me (Diabetes) I told Mike if I get that result back I will become a vegan overnight!  Not sure what is going on, but for the first time in a week, I can walk on both feet without screaming so this is GOOD news. I told them it might be cat scratch fever as I share my bed with at least 6 cats and sometimes I wake up in the morning, see a fresh scratch and wonder how that happened? *G* I just gave it to God yesterday and it is in His hands as to what happens now.

Two days ago, I went to the local shelter to pick up yet another feral cat. While I was there, they were talking about a litter of puppies that just sounded so adorable- Great Pyrenees/Border Collar cross. I went on the floor to view the puppies and instead, I found this very strange looking older dog with the saddest eyes in the world. Looking at him, he is a cross of German Shepherd/Boxer/ some sort of coonhound (he bays) and he has the blue tongue of the Sharpei or Chow. All around him were pits and pit crosses and our eyes locked and his pleaded to me- “Please pick me.” His history is sketchy. They only had him a few days. He came from a transport from AZ. They knew zilch about him really and it didn’t matter. I had fallen in love. I put a 24 hold deposit on him, went home told Mike about him and before I knew it, we were back at the shelter with wheelchair and Juno in tow for the meet and greet.

Athough on paper, he was cited to be dog-aggressive- he and Juno played and rough-housed like normal dogs do. Juno is pretty persistent with new dogs when meeting them (like the energizer bunny) and he kept up with her and several times put her in her place. We brought him home- his name is Cooper.

He breaks my heart on a hourly basis. He shows me that he has been the type of dog who has never been in a home, never known a kind word. Just reaching out to him to snap the leash on his harness causes him to drop to the floor, roll over on his belly and cower! He is so gun-shy of Mike and I suspect it isn’t just the wheelchair that frightens him but men in general. I believe he has been beaten by a man. He is a bit shy with me, but he is warming up gradually.

I also would bet money that something traumatic happened to him in a car because when I ask him to jump into the truck, he cowers, pulls back and pees all over himself- much like Quincy did early on.
I can’t really lift him easily- although he is smaller than Juno he is lot more muscular and heavy- yet he still needs groceries as he is skinny. So we did some training with KFC chicken, and improvised launching platform (the top of a large dog carrier covered with a rug) and now after two days of training- he jumps in and out of the truck on his own! He has ZERO prey drive. A cat runs by, he lifts his head then goes back to sleep! We went to see Quincy this morning and they got along famously. He really is a sweet boy. He is two years old.

So here is a photo of him in the dog pen out back. If you click on the photo and enlarge it- you can see the blue tongue- but when you look at him overall, you just scratch your head and wonder how many males actually took this female in that heat cycle! His tail looks like that of a greyhound.

If anyone would like to comment on what type of crosses he has in him- feel free. I do know he has coonhound- his baying cracks me up. I think he has lived the majority of his life on the end of a chain or in a kennel and whoever had him did bad things to him.

It will light the way for a older mack tabby found on my porch this morning. I almost tripped over the cat carrier in the rain and I put the kitty inside the truck- not wanting to take a chance and bring it in the house. It was crying so badly. I rushed it to the vet and the temp was 95.2 🙁 She was trembling, lethargic, anemic, dehydrated. Her back claws had dried blood on them and when they put the needle in to test her- they couldn’t even get three drops. Her gums were bleached out and there was a evil smell overcoming her. I checked her over while they were talking about her and found a wound on the center of her back (scabbed over) but it was a substantial wound. Suspect she got hit by a car and then just bled out. 🙁 The reason I said to place the candle in the wind is that this is how short her time with us was- about 20 minutes before her bridge pass was stamped.

I named her Badger and told her that I was so sorry that I didn’t get to her sooner. The original plan had been to get her tested, vaccinated and then have the vet keep her for the 5 day period when the vaccine finally kicks in and starts protecting- then take her home get her stronger and get her adopted out.

There was $10.00 inside the carrier) so I guess that is how much the owner thought she was worth. So yet another hit on the vet bill as unexpected as Avis and her family.