About three weeks ago, we got hammered by a surprise rainstorm with hail included! In July- it was totally amazing.

I went outside to feed the horses when I lost my footing in the pasture and I slipped and fell on my back. My right leg went straight, my left leg bent at the knee and went behind my back- OUCH!

I laid there in the muck for a bit trying to catch my breath, plus I couldn’t move right away. Gretchen came over to lick my face (which didn’t help much) but she tried.

When I finally struggled to my feet, my left foot was throbbing and I hobbled off into the house. I stuck my foot into a pan of cold water with ice and soaked it a good 20 minutes. It took some of the hurt away but not all of it.

The next morning I woke up with a swollen and hot foot and ankle so I stuck it again into ice and took some Tylenol.

Since that fall, I have been fighting a foot that swells at the most inopportune times, toes that were now numb and pain traveling up my ankle to my leg. I kept thinking it had to get better, but tonight, it got really bad. Elevating it made it hurt worse than ever so Mike whisked me off the the ER.

Apparently, I have tendinitus with complications (of course) because my left arm is starting to go numb and my fingers are losing their feeling as well. They put me on prednisone and painkillers and I am to follow up in five days with my regular doctor.

I had to laugh though when Dr. Steph told me I had to rest for at least five days. When I explained to him all that I have to do in one day, how much Mike and the animals depend on me, plus the fact that I have to go to work, he just shook his head and said, “Well do the best you can!”

Now, I will be sleeping upstairs with the screen door shut so that the cats can’t come in. (Everest loves to lay on my legs and feet) I kno that I will kitty carolers at the door clamoring to come inside to see me, but I guess you can just call it tough love. LOL

I feel better about at least knowing I didn’t break my foot. I was thinking a hairline fracture might have occurred. But the numbness in my fingers concerns me (and the doc.) Mike accused me of having sympathy pains for him! I wish!

Lake, the kitten Gretchen found when I took her to the river has passed. There was to much damage done to his lungs and heart and though he struggled to stay alive, even with the help of my vet, it was to late for him.

I want to find the person who stashed her in that trash bag and stuff him inside- weight the bag down with rocks and throw him in the river! What a waste for such a precious little girl.

I am a bit worried about Catch. This morning he had a huge mess under his rear and it smelled off, really off. I gave him a bath and he still smelled pretty strange. I have him inside the large cage in the room and will watch him for the next day and if he doesn’t improve, I will take him to be checked. Being tossed that high in the air makes me think that perhaps that idiot didn’t catch him all the time? I did see him playing while I was setting up the cage for his 48 hour stay, and he was eating and drinking which is a relief.

Here is the kitten that was being tossed. Mike said he wants to call him Catapault, or “Here Catch!” I just want to find him and the others a loving home.

I so dread kitten season especially around here. I couldn’t leave them in their current situation and would like to think that others feel the same way.

But taking them in has stretched me to the maximum, not only the strain on the resident cats (we seem to have a spraying competition occurring now) but financially as well.

Don’t even get me started on Obama’s promises to folks like Mike and I (and so many others) about living paycheck to paycheck. He is no answer to the ills of our economy.

I am going to eat some humble pie and ask my readers if they can help me out a bit. On my website
kitten-rescue.com there is donation button. If you could send me $1.00 that would buy me two cans of kitten food and few pennies to set aside for cat litter. I wouldn’t even ask but with Mike becoming increasingly sicker, and dropping his extra jobs that were supporting this home, well, times are a bit rough at the moment.

Right now, I sit with a clowder of 30 and only 3 of those 30 are outside. Everyone else is inside the house or the enclosure.

I appreciate you more than you know. Your supportive words and love are what gets me through a trying day. I am sorry to ask so openly and blantantly for help, especially because I know that my story of hard times is not unique.

If you can help, please do. Visit the kitten-rescue site and click the donation button. If you can’t then just please find time to pray that I am able to find loving, caring homes for these babies so they have a chance at a better life than the one they started out with.

Thank you ~

Yesterday evening on the way to work, I took a detour through a residential area. They were doing work on Main Street, so I knew this way was shorter although the view is a bit dismal as this residential area is known as druggie alley.

As I am driving, I notice ahead of me this chick tossing something high into the air and laughing. As I got nearer, I saw to my horror she was tossing a black kitten! I skid to a stop and run over to ask her what the hell she thinks she is doing? She is higher than a kite, her face showing evidence of a meth head. She has three darling kittens in a box and God knows what she was going to do with them.

I finally get through to her and convince her to let me have the three kittens and load them in the car. I am now late for work, but have no choice but to race home and deposit these three sweeties in a not- to surprised Mike’s lap.

So now, there are eight kittens in the bedroom. The newcomers are around the same age as the others, they are so adorable, and although black, they do have browns and whites intermixed in their coats. There is one orange kitty as well that reminds me of my Bailey kitty.

Mike is asleep right now with kittens piled all over him. I went in a few moments ago to worm and deflea the newcomers and little black and white kitty (the one being tossed about) crawled up in my arms and fell asleep on my hand.

God may color me a sucker, but I guess I wear the color well.

Every day, the diabetes continues to throw curveballs into our lives. For Mike to do anything now that requires even a bit of effort is a total surprise. It falls on me now to do everything around the house, including any repairs on the place. Yesterday, the main rafter of the garage started to come down. I almost got hit in the head by the darn thing. When I asked Mike if he could help me refasten it to the beam, I was told he doesn’t think he can keep his balance on the ladder anymore. I think it came down because it was near the impact point where the limb crashed through the garage during the last windstorm. We tried to shore up underneath the hole, but the rain has gotten in and weakened the beam. I will need to put it up tomorrow as it is almost to the point of totally collapsing.

The cats are instrumental in helping me relieve stress, and at night when I get off of work, they crowd on top of me the minute I sit on the couch. Everest sits on the armrest, Sierra wraps around my neck and purrs comforting sounds into my ears. Charlie perches on my knee, and Cole wraps his beautiful blackness around my leg.

Just having them near me lowers my blood pressure and I become so much calmer and at peace.

The kittens are being let out into general populaton during the day and they are growing like weeds. I haven’t named them yet- the author names didn’t really fit them, so I have resorted to just calling them Bk1-5. Mike wants to call the girl “Shots” because the minute you open the bedroom screen door, she shoots out of the room so fast. But I don’t want to call her shots. That’s a weird name for such a beautiful girl.

Around 6:00 a.m. I headed outdoors to feed the horses and the dog. I was dumping Gretchen’s food into her bowl when she suddenly exploded next to me and raced down the lawn toward the back pasture.

Startled, I looked up in time to see a beautiful sight. A buck, a doe and a fawn had stopped by to graze the grasses and get a drink. Upset at the dog, the Doe took off first with her baby following and the Buck bringing up the rear. I yelled at the top of my voice ‘GRETCHEN NO!” and to my surprise and delight, Gretch skidded to a stop and whirled around to look at me. Her eyes said it all “Please Mom let me play with them.” I called her back to me and she came at my call. I put her into the kennel with her food and swung the door shut. I had a feeling once I vanished into the house, she would have given chase.

Thank God that even at 7 months old, Gretchen is smart enough to listen when she has to. That buck would have defended his family and he had at least 6 points of defense at his disposal.

Ever since beginning this blog, I have been touched…(and not in the head) with the positive responses received by those who stop here.

When I find that the person contacting me, knows very little about dealing with a stray cat, a feral cat or a bottle baby- I often wonder just exactly how they found me. But I know that God has given me a resource to help people shift through the misinformation and confusion that exists on the Internet in regards to these wonderful cats.

In some instances, those I am able to help, decide to also open up their heart and home to other strays and begin to rescue, this warms my heart and is indeed a rich reward, especially for the cats long abandoned.

Someone who stops here on a regular basis recently contacted me. She holds a special place in my heart, and she knows who she is when she reads this excerpt. She lives overseas and we have never officially met- but came together one day two years ago, when she happened upon a motherless kitten in the bushes. Her husband refused to let her take it to the vet, and this little piece of orange sunshine, sounded (by her description in the emails) as if it wouldn’t live to see the next day. I started working with her, using everything that God has given me in regards to this rescue. The kitten survived and thrives to this day. He is her best friend.

Because of her exposure to my world, she decided last year to rescue the strays in her village. For days on end, emails flew across the ocean between us as she picked my brain regarding TNR.

Her husband, less than thrilled with the prospect of more cats in his home, opposed her from time to time but she continued on, posting messages on a village bulletin board that she would pay for the first ten people responding to her ad for a neuter of their cat.

She would tell me of sitting out in the rain, watching the traps, her coffee long cold, wet and miserable while neighbors laughed at her and even refused her the use of their toilet to relieve herself.

A few months ago, her husband began making viable threats towards hurting the next cat she brought home. Now mind you, she brought these cats home only until they were vetted and neutered, then she let them go. But he had reached his limit and the threats started to get ugly. She was told she was a mental case (hmmm how many of us who rescue have heard that?)

During our correspondence over the years, she was responsible for so many kittens that I rescued finding good homes. How? She would contact me and tell me she would pay for the spays of the latest litter, or she would pay for the initial vet visit and she was good to her word. My adopted families were so amazed that someone not a part of this house rescue would do such a thing. They were bowled over by her unconditional love for these creatures, and so was I.

Recently, she reached her limit with her husband and has left him and her grown-up children so that she can continue to rescue the strays. She lives in a rented home along with all the current cats waiting for their vet visit and she confided to me that for the first time in a long time, she is relaxed and at peace. She said, she will never go back to the man she married.

C- I know you don’t have access to a computer anymore on a daily basis. But I just want you to know that I admire you immensely for your love and your committment to these cats. Although we have never officially “met” I consider you one of my dearest friends. I can’t imagine what it cost you to walk away from a marriage of so many years, but if he indeed was making those threats against cats, pretty soon violence towards you or the girls might have started and that would have been a travesty.

You are a prime example of how one person can make a difference. I am proud to call you my friend and I wish I were close enough so we could share a coffee and some laughs. Take care of yourself and watch your back. He may just be beginning to get even with the cats that took him away from his wife and all that she could do for him.

Here are the babies after being fed and cuddled

The latest rescues went to the vet’s yesterday for a check-up. They were wormed and evaluated and although to young to test, they appear to be pretty healthy.

I have named them after authors although someone suggested because they are black kittens and there are five of them, that I name them after the Jackson 5. I think I will pass on that idea though and keep the names for now that I came up with.

Here is Hawthorne. Multiply his image by three and you have his brothers, add a long-hair smoky girl with a burst of color on her chest, tummy and neck and you have his sister Chandler.

They are becoming well-socialized and they want out of the bedroom, but I cannot allow it- not until they get their vaccinations.

I never want to travel to the place that seeing an animal hurt becomes so commonplace, it no longer effects me.

I neve want to travel to a place where a caring heart is replaced by one of stone…

I never want to travel to a place where seeing an animal suffering, I will not stop my busy schedule to lend a hand…

I never want to travel to the place where taking an animal’s life no matter what animal no longer matters to me…

I want to stay at the place that when seeing an animal in the road, causes me to swerve off the road and the cat escapes injury.

Not ten minutes ago, WK (Wild Kitty) was hit on the road. I heard the impact and went running out. I must have looked like a crazy person as I dashed out in front of traffic waving my arms wildly and screaming at the people who could hit her again. I stopped traffic, and picked her up and carried her over the side of the road where she died in my arms.

No one stopped to lend aid, no one thought one minute about this mackeral tabby. Probably thoughts were focused on the crazy lady who almost got hit trying to rescue a cat beyond rescue.

It was over in minutes, this wonderful true feral cat who had lived on my porch now for over two years and who I could never touch. In the throes of death, I hugged her to my chest and told her I was sorry as she left to join the angels waiting for her.

I saw a bumper sticker the other day it said, “Man was made to be stewards of the earth, not inconsiderate assholes who want to be God.”

For me, that says it all- We used to live among the animals, now for the most part, many disregard animals as having no worth.