Hoping these three will be in a home before Christmas. It is Darcie’s turn to shine now!

You can truly see the PTSD in this beautiful, skittish kitty. But once he warms up to you- oh my heaven’s He is a love!

It is going to take a very special person to work with him and bring out the best he has to offer. I still get angry when I remember what the adopter told me about him after he had been at her home for less than a week- that he is a devil kitty!  He got scared, he reacted and she over-reacted. But, at least he is here, he is safe and he IS adoptable to the right family.

One of my good friends takes wonderful photos of cats and she came by today and worked her magic. Hopefully, these photos will lead to a loving, forever home for this deserving chocolate point in the days to come.

At the late night feed for the kittens, I noticed that Tweedledum was hanging back from the group. This beautiful tortie kitten’s head was hanging low over a water bowl and my heart sank. This is one of the warning signs of feline distemper. 🙁 All of a sudden she tossed her cookies and it was yellow and foaming (another sign).I have to admit, I said a bad word at that moment. I scooped her up and she was on fire. Woke Mike out of his sleep and he held her while I took her temp 105.3! She was fine at 8:00 p.m. but that is how this virus hits. I rushed her inside the bathroom and made her a tepid bath of lukewarm water and rubbing alcohol and went to work. I gave her supportive fluids, put her inside the warming cage and said a million prayers before trying to get some rest. I was up and down with her all night and this morning, I am so thrilled to tell you that her temperature has returned to normal (which doesn’t happen with distemper) and she is eating and back with the others. I am not sure what happened? Perhaps it was the ringworm treatment as the dip is sulfur based and I noticed after treating all the kittens that she was licking the others dry.

We have kept up with the vaccinations of the kittens against this awful disease but the vaccine is not foolproof and while they are here, there is always the chance they could become exposed. The disease hit us two years ago, the virus lives inside the house for five! I keep my prayers close and do all I can to guard them but last night, I was almost sure I had lost the fight. I am grateful that in this instance, I was wrong.

Tweedledum is a very shy Tortie around humans but she tends to mother the other kittens as she is one of the biggest kittens in there. I hope she won’t decide in three days time to once again lick all of them clean and come out with such an upset tummy as she tries to scare us to death!

She is such a delight and would make someone such a loving companion. Our hope is we can find her a forever home before the Christmas madness sets in-

Here is a better picture of this beauty-

Darcie

There are seventeen kittens in the other room, who should have never hit the ground running. For whatever reason, whatever neglect or horror they endured in their early life, they found themselves on the doorstop of the local crazy cat lady in town. (She really isn’t crazy as she has been labeled) she is just passionate for cats and feels they don’t quite get the breaks that other animals do in her small town.  As she tried to figure out how to juggle feeding so many mouths, a miracle appeared in the form of an 8 month old Tortie who had four kittens of her own. But when asked, this Tortie didn’t even blink, she began to help to feed and stimulate these little ones which was a blessed relief for the rescuer- both on the emotional and the financial level.

They have been forced to stay in a room 17’x11′ and through it all they have formed a family. They love to trash this room daily and are so delighted that mom and dad never had the time to put doors on the big closet because climbing clothes so they can get to the top shelves is so much fun! If they don’t dump their water bowls over once or twice a day, then they compensate by jumping into the dry food bowls and flinging food everywhere- and speaking of flinging- they are experts at litter pan flinging!

Ringworm invaded and although recently the thought was the fungus is gone, it has reappeared. It was even found on their substitute mom yesterday during her spay! This made Mom sad because she prides herself on the care these cats and kittens get while they are here. So the ringworm treatments will continue.

These seventeen kittens need to be neutered before they can go anywhere, and the kitty is completely tapped out. Mom has done several local fundraisers in town- but folks aren’t thinking about the plight of abandoned cats and kittens. They have other focuses this year and that’s okay. It’s a bit frustrating, but it’s okay because the economy is seriously in trouble and folks want trees and presents underneath them to make them feel like life is still normal.

Mom woke up this morning in a bit of a panic. She is wondering what it going to happen next and what she can do to help these kittens find what they need. A new, loving home where they will never want for nothing and will not have to worry about the next meal or the water pans going dry.

I know I ask a lot of all of you. I ask for prayers, for support, for a place to vent and I can’t give back what has so richly been given to  me this year (for the cats). I can’t even begin to express my gratitude for the deliveries of kitten food, cat food, trash bags,  warming beds, heated cat bowls, money stuffed into envelopes and quickly put in the mail to my attention. But I am grateful for all of it.

Now, I am asking for one last push with only one goal in mind: to let these seventeen kittens find their forever homes. My vet is giving me a 20% discount on the spays- The goal we are reaching for is $1,589.00  IF you feel you can help out, praise God. If not, no worries. My life may not make sense to me at time, but apparently, it makes purrfect sense to God.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays to ALL!

M.A. and-, Abatha,London, Paris, Brutus, Marble, Autumn, Nutmeg, Pigeon, glacie, Bramble, Gemini, Lunar, Lego, Tweedledum, Tweedledee, Ginger, Caesar and last, but certainly NOT least- Pumpkin!

If you can spread this plea around social media, I would be grateful for that as well.

These cards have recently come to my attention, and for any animal lover they are stupendous! You can’t get better quality shots even if they are in black and white. I love the cat cards (of course) but also the dog cards and other animal cards are wonderful as well. These would make some awesome Christmas or Thank You cards-

Maybe you could think about spreading the word through social media? I know the gal behind this collection would appreciate  it a lot. She just recently adopted Lake from us!

The Woof-gang

Inside the kitten room, Brambles was lying in the water bowl. How dare I let the water run out! They have four pet fountains in there as well- but the look he gave me was priceless.

Brambles giving the hint

Going to be a busy vet morning. Aurora and Slater are going in for spay and neuter. My fellow rescuers are urging me to keep Aurora intact because she is such a good surrogate mom! I would never do that to her. It is tough on any cat to raise their own kittens and she “helped” me raise 13 that weren’t even related to her! I know that because of her Pumpkin was able to kick her auto-immune disease. She nursed Pumpkin longer than any other kitten this year warning the others off with some impressive growls if they tried to steal her milk. She’s an amazing cat and my hope is her mothering instincts will still kick in for the next abandoned kitten that comes here. I know she won’t be adopted out unless another miracle appears. No one locally appears to love or appreciate torties. They just think they are ugly!

Not only do we think Aurora is beautiful, but we also think she deserves a medal for all her heroic efforts towards the kittens now tearing up our room on a daily basis! I am going to put a xtra small dog jacket on her after the spay to keep the kittens off her. With such cold weather, the only place I have to put her is back with them and she has been inside that large cage long enough. Three days from now, she will be back with her extended family as she still is hostile toward the other cats in the sanctuary.

I LOVE this cat-

also please pray that my vet will decide to give us a decent break on the 17 spays coming up. OSU has already filled their schedule (their spays are free) but they limit them to the students who can perform them and if you don’t get there early enough you can’t get in. The ringworm really hurt us this year- we had to wait until all the kittens were clear of it before even entertaining the notion of spaying and neutering anyone.!

I made them all a promise this morning. That I would run a successful fundraiser and everyone would be fixed by the end of January and in homes before the beginning of next year! A tall order considering most of the lot are mackerel tabbies, torties and torbies. But through God all things are possible~

Here she is, bright-eyed and bushy tailed. It truly is a sight to behold considering how bad she was a few weeks ago! All her air trapped under her skin is now gone- the vets can’t explain it. I can, it’s called the power of prayer! 🙂

Aurora has decided that since Monday she is going in to be spayed, she might as well be in heat! Nights are now noisy around here. My one older kitten Slater answers her call nightly. She is in the bedroom, he is in the living room. He trills and tries to seduce her to come closer but thankfully, the cages keep them apart! Mike just removes his hearing aids and goes to sleep. I don’t have that luxury.

What I do have is 12 girl kittens and 6 male kittens to be spayed and neutered soon. With the exception of London and Paris the two female calicos- all the ringworm has cleared up. It was a long battle of dips and ointments and it really did impact the bonding time with these kittens and myself. But hopefully, with the fungus under control and on the run, the kittens will soon start to trust me again.

The difference in Pumpkin is like night and day! She is full out healthy, her eyes are opened all the time, she is running and playing with the others. She does still have ulcers in her one eye which will be addressed as she gets older, but her fur is no longer oily and coarse looking. The best thing is she has finally forgiven me for all the meds I had to give her of late.

Hope is failing. She is still eating and drinking and using the litter pan, but you can tell she is starting to get the feel bads. The cold weather is pushing its way back in and she spends the majority of her time just laying on the pet heating bed.

Alaska ended up not being a good fit for the home we thought would be her forever place. They have three hyper-active jack russells that stay mainly indoor (in crates) so the energy level of these dogs is over-the-top. When I suggested that they might do better letting these jacks outside in the backyard a few hours a day- well, lets just say that the news didn’t go over well. As far as walks go? You might as well forget it although the occupants of the home could do well with a bit of exercise. Some people just shouldn’t own pets.

I brought her back home and we keep her cage door opened during the day. She will venture out and find our laps but she is yet to really relax around the other cats. She will hiss and warn them off if they do get brave enough to jump on my lap with her. She doesn’t share well with others.

We had what I thought was a new arrival in the yard, however, when I went to check out this cat, it was Malcolm! He has come back from his adopted home! I called Mikal and Mikal said he vanished a few weeks ago- They live about a half an hour driving time from us and I guess Malcolm decided he didn’t want to be a ranch cat. The other cats are still with Mikal and his family and doing good. The reason I know it’s Malcolm is because Malcolm had this odd behavior of darting in between my legs and then sitting on my foot. This cat does the exact same thing. He isn’t as stout right now as Malcolm was before, but it is a long walk for a kitty to make it back here. I guess he is here to stay. I took him to the vet, he was anemic and dehydrated but otherwise fine. He is eating like a horse!

Mike has been dismissed from the home care system and it now falls on me to once again take care of his legs. Right now his legs are doing okay, but that can change in a moment’s time. But Medicare won’t cover the cost of in-home help unless he becomes completely bedridden and that isn’t the case. It was nice while it lasted though, to be relieved of the responsibility of taking care of his legs.

We are going to have a quiet Christmas. No tree, no gifts, just no fuss. The kids are all involved in their own lives this year so no visitors. Just us and cats and that’s okay. Christmas is so much more than the expensive gifts that seem to be the focus anymore. Besides, like I told Mike last night- “All I want for Christmas is our 17 kittens to be neutered and into loving homes!” LOL

I just wanted to share this poem that I hold dear, especially during this part of the year. It doesn’t have a title and the author is Unknown but it is a beautiful poem

If you look for Me at Christmas
You won’t need a special star-
I’m no longer wandering Bethlehem
I’m right there where you are.

You may not be aware of Me amid the celebration
You’ll have to look beyond the stores and past the decorations
But if you take One Moment from your list of “Things to Do”
And listen to your heart, you’ll find I’m right there next to you.

You’re the one I want to be with,
Your the reason that I came.
You’ll find me in the stillness
as I’m whispering Your name.