No one has stepped up to adopt this boy, so it falls on us to reverse the damage done to him before he arrived here and try to help him find balance in his life, so he can co-exist peacefully with people and other animals.

He has attitude which is rare for the orange boys. So far, any cat that I attempt to put him with has failed. He is full-on Alpha in the presence of other cats (and dogs). When it comes to people he is loving to the point of being scary. He is so starved for affection that he will attack you when you stop petting him. Yesterday, he nailed me right above my glasses when I bent down to grab my shoes, after petting him for a few minutes. If I hadn’t been wearing my glasses, he would have easily nailed my eye.

In the mornings, when I let the inside cats out, I will open up the tunnel doors and allow him inside. That will be the first step. I have told Mike repeatedly that if Solo makes an appearance near him, to please just ignore him. This is hard for Mike to do, but as I explained, this is not permanent. This is just the first step of many to tone down his aggressive tendencies and let him walk freely through the house.

When the other cats come inside, it is usually a matter of minutes before they meet each other and the screaming starts. Then I go in to break it up and put him into the tunnel, leaving him to stay in the big enclosure all by himself. Hopefully, with time, this conditioning will show him that he must behave like a cat and not a tomcat in the presence of other kitties. We will just see how this goes.

I am always happier to work with the true feral cats and not ones that have been owned by clueless, ignorant or cruel people. You can always work with the feral ones, but when people are the ones who mix up the cat’s natural instincts and create in essence monsters of a different sort, that is a higher challenge.

Case in point, our Lincoln kitty. He was owed by an elderly woman who had simply lost her mind. He wasn’t allowed to eat until he sat up in a chair at the dining room table, accepted a  bib put over his neck and then had a fork and spoon duct taped to his paws! Seriously, I do not make this chit up! Talk about a royal mess when he arrived here well over ten years ago. Now, he interacts well with other cats but wants nothing to do with humans and who could blame him? Just the removal of the duct tape residue build-up on his pads would have made any burn victim cringe. The process was painful.

We allow him to wander freely outside and live life on his terms. It took awhile for that to happen, he was that messed up.

So Solo is a challenge because of how his human treated him. We are hoping in time, to reverse the damage and let him live the rest of his days among new feline friends.

This morning when I let Kota outside into his pen, he rushed to the back where the bushes are located. I stepped inside, and then I smelled it- he had gotten skunked. I raced over and because it was a baby, it wasn’t a lot of spray (had it been an adult) Kota would have backed off immediately and raced back to me. But, it was enough to make an impact. The baby saw me coming and charged me and YUCK I got it as well.

Thank God for Nature’s Remedy and hot showers. Don’t feed into the myth about tomato juice. I learned when I got skunked years ago, that does not work! The baby may have been small, but she was mighty! LOL
She kept charging me most of her oil fell on my shoes and jeans.Not a good start to the day-

Back in May, I posted that after we suffered through a bad flood in the house, a contractor arrived and looked at the damage and told us that through a special program, he would bring his team over and do the work (completely remodeling our bathroom) for free. He said the store they work with would donate everything we needed to make this work and he would do the labor for free. The job consists of tearing out the bathroom completely and replacing shower,  sink and toilet- widening the door so that Mike could at least get the wheelchair into the room. I was so stunned because we had over a dozen contractors here looking at the job in the weeks before- most of them said it was going to be a $5,000 job. No one wanted to tackle it for less.

We did put in an insurance claim, but when the adjuster encountered dry rot all support on that end stopped. We were asked why we didn’t catch the leak sooner? How were we supposed to know that the previous owners had put down new tile over old (there were 5 layers of tile on our floor and the leak was under the third layer!) How did we know, since we are on a well  not city water. There was no bill to show a spike that all this water was flooding our home. We didn’t realize it until the water spread to the living room carpet and kept soaking the rug. I was blaming Kota at first when the stain appeared although the only time he ever had an accident was his first night with us. Plus the wetness did not smell like pee.

I did call the contractor last month, to find out when they might be able to start the job,  but the phone call did not go over well. I won’t call again. I don’t know what we are going to do now but when I go into the bathroom, I feel like the floor is going to collapse on me. It is quite scary.

I come from a time where your word was your bond. You shook hands, you helped your neighbors. And if you couldn’t deliver on a promise, you never promised in the first place. There were barn raises, hamburger frys on the weekends, neighborhood block parties. People had love of God, values, morals and manners. All of that seems to be lacking these days and this makes me feel sad… and very old.

Leaving them without food at night although a good plan, well it backfired on me this morning at least. When I opened up the gate to go into the back to feed, there were babies everywhere. They were not in a good mood either LOL

I had Kota on lead and these three babies blocking our way, they were not moving. Nothing that I did seemed to matter to them because of their agitated state. Then two of them stopped stamping and turned around and I knew we were in trouble. As I fled past them with Kota reluctantly in tow- they let us both have it. Thankfully it was the babies and they are still just tooting instead of full-on spraying. Had it been mom and dad we would have really got a full frontal assault. All the yard cats moved rather quickly away from the stench and I had to wait for a few hours to go out and feed everyone.

I am still holding firm to not putting food out at night. Tomorrow, I will just have to be prepared to do battle if it comes to that. Not sure if a squirt bottle might move things along without incident. I will think of something to prevent another spray takedown. LOL

The skunk babies are getting so big now. Last night, when I went to feed at midnight, they were all over the place waiting for me to put out food. I looked at our barn cats that were over on the other side of the property and decided to just stop feeding dry food after dark. The midnight ramblers (what I call the stray and feral cats who come in after dark) will just have to learn that food will be available until it gets dark. I can’t keep feeding these skunks here- it’s hard enough to keep the cats fed let alone the wildlife.

They are out all day long- but the hope is when I stop providing midnite snacks they will hopefully move right along and find other places with more natural food. They don’t seem to like the wet food, but they devour the dry. There’s a fairly large forest right behind our place so I am hoping they will move off into the woods. Time will tell-

Solo, the orange kitty removed from that parked car over a month ago is now up for adoption. I am hoping to find the person with the right heart and home to help this special needs kitty find a forever home. The challenge is not only his age, but how pet aggressive he can become if you aren’t careful. I do not think he would be good with an elderly person or small kids. He is so starved for affection that it does become a bit dicey once you start petting him. Another challenge is his age- he is between 9-11 years old (bad teeth) so it is hard to tell. But his tarter has been scraped off and other than a bit of drooling he is in good health. His selling point is he is orange and they are usually in demand.

We’ve moved him from the smaller enclosure into the large one that attaches to the house. We want him to get used to the other kitties without copping an attitude. So far, he charges the other kitties when they come up to say hello. He does the same to Kota, so therein lies the final challenge. He needs to be an only kitty or one of only two cats in the house. He might get used to one cat, but more than one, he wants nothing to do with them.

Enjoy the photos taken by my friend Midge: This is his dance for affection

I found Shy- the kitty with half her face engulfed in an abscess – well Kota found her. She was back by the creek inside  of a blackberry thicket. She has been gone for several days. She was too far gone to even give her a decent burial so I just put some ferns and leaves over her body. She will suffer no longer poor girl.

For the last few days, I have been cat wrangling and trying to get all the sanctuary cats safe inside before the insanity starts. We have a few neighbors who try to get away with illegal fireworks so it can and does get a bit noisy around here at dusk. So far, the only kitty I haven’t been able to capture and tuck away for 24 hours is Bron- the orange kitty with one bum eye. I can only hope that once the fireworks begin- Bron will just duck under the barn and wait it out.

I’m not sure what the baby skunks will do. Hopefully not get so stressed out they run into harm’s way.They should be moving on in about two weeks as territorial disputes are breaking out daily. They can travel up to 12 miles to find a new home, which I do hope is soon!

This morning, Kota and I took our walk back to the creek and the culvert has been blocked off- not with debris floating downstream but a family of beavers have set up residence and built a pretty impressive damn right at the opening of the culvert. It is quite the sight- but the water is backing up.We can’t mess with them, by law both the skunks and the beavers are protected- so we will just have to wait and see what happens from here.

I got in touch with a friend of mine who helps run a rescue outside of Portland. I told her Mattie and the kittens story and texted her photos. They had a meeting and they have agreed to take the whole family from us! They have access to excellent vets, numerous foster homes and people who are skilled in helping cats and kittens in distress. Right now, on this end, it is me and two volunteers and that’s it. Plus we now have a $3,000 vet bill to worry about.

So she is going to meet me later this afternoon in a neighboring town and take the family. I could just weep, I am so relieved. The kittens are all doing great. Mackie is energetic, vibrant, eating, drinking playing with the others. His only residual from all he has been through (just like Mattie) is a bit of diarrhea. Nothing too extreme and the new rescue will be fully briefed on the situation and all vet records will be transferred.

I heard from the owner of the cats from the car. The gal had found herself homeless after her dad passed suddenly and she was keeping the animals in one car at parks and using a second vehicle to look for a new place. At first she wanted all the cats back, but when I explained what had gone on since she left them in the car. She decided that she only wanted one back- but she is still homeless. It was a long conversation and there was a LOT I did not say to her, but in the end, she decided to just let all of them go on to happier more stable lives. She works part time on minimum wage and has one mama dog with two puppies and a boyfriend to provide for- she didn’t say if he worked or not. By Oregon law these cats became ours 30 days after we first rescued them. She swore she would pay me back for the hundreds of dollars caring for these cats have cost us, but I told her instead, I would rather she just promise me that she won’t have any more cats in her life until she is sure that she can provide a stable, loving home for them. I mean come on, she’s homeless and she is going to repay us over $500.00?

So at least these cats can go on into loving homes with people who have been screened and home-checked beforehand. Can’t get much better than that.

The vet just called and Mackie is doing better. However, the barium is now just still in her colon and she needs to pass this before they release her. They are giving her injectable drugs right now, but need to put her on oral meds. Her gut is still so full of gas and other stuff that the drugs will not be absorbed so they are keeping her. But, she is climbing the bars of the cage and begging to be held- which sounds more like the old Mackie than the one I saw yesterday who could barely move.

3:47 p.m. Mack is back! First thing we did is give her a bath because she could have given the skunks a run for their money! Then she inhaled her food, got lots of pets and skritches from her adoring fans and is now fast asleep with her siblings. The I/e I ordered won’t be here until the 2nd so I just got creative with her canned kitten food and added probiotics, prebiotics and extra virgin olive oil. She is expelling watery diarrhea but the barium is still in there. Dr. is hoping that tonight will be the big reveal! LOL  I am just so glad to see her feeling more like herself.

This little girl showed up recently to feeders, scared of me and her own shadow. I would see her intermittingly hiding in the berry bushes that run along our fence line. This morning, when I went out to feed, I smelled something horrible. It was not the skunks. It was necrotic tissue and it was strong. I couldn’t find the source, so I put food out and went back in the house by our bay window and waited.

When I first saw her, I did not recognize her. She was moving slowly like a possum and her body was misshapen. I slipped outside and as I got closer, it wasn’t a possum it was Shy, the name I gave her. She has been attacked by a Tom and now is suffering from being neglected, ignored with no vet care. The side of her face is not wet- it is vanishing under the bitewound/abcess that now claims half her face.

Although she is so much in pain she moves slowly, she still eluded me and my heart broke. So many people have tormented her, she trusts no one. Please pray that I can somehow get her captured and get her help.

Warning- Graphic Photo Below

By the way, the bottle next to her does not contain poison. It is a mixture of water/vinegar that I have been spraying around one of the feeders. Appears the skunks don’t like the smell of vinegar.