sakon76 | Entries tagged with feral cats

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There are at least two kittens. I have dubbed them Squeak Toy and Pipes. They are right under the master bathroom. Their voices are rather distinguishable. They started up at 5am and haven't stopped yet....

ETA: Wonderful Husband's coworker thinks they may've been abandoned. Reading online, that begins to sound increasingly likely. And it's way too cold under the house for them. F*CK. If they're still alive when we get home, under the house we likely go, and Wonderful Husband's coworker will be bringing in a trap tomorrow for him to use to try to catch Basement. Ittybitty kittens require constant care, and we're leaving for four days on Thursday. DBLF*CK.

Wonderful Husband and his father fixed our dryer. Yay!

And a bit later I noticed the kitten mewing was coming from a different area of the house. Curious, I donned overalls and went down, thinking perhaps this meant the bitty felines were old enough to be moving around on their own.

Well, looks like they aren't. Looks like they were probably born this week, in fact. Way too young to be separated from their mama. Looks like Basement is their mama and has moved them to a different area, probably to get them away from the dryer repair noise.

Did not go very near. Not even near enough to count them. Retreated. Hoping she won't move them elsewhere.

To water my kitchen garden today, I went to the faucet and stopped.

The faucet which is right by the house. Specifically right by one of the crawlspace vents.

A shrill piping "mew! mew! mew!" greeted my ear.

We can't get to that corner of the house via the crawlspace; access is blocked off by underhouse pipes, so we cannot crawl down there with a basket and pop kittens into it. And we obviously can't attempt to block off the remaining access by the water heater until the kittens are big enough to either leave or be trapped.

And we have another litter of feral kittens to somehow deal with, dammit.

Despite our best efforts re-screening all the vents when we bought Greenwood, apparently there's still an entrance to the crawlspace under the house, either below or behind the water heater in the side yard. It's in our plans to eventually replace it with a flash heater or something, and we'll evict our downstairs tenants at that point.

In the meantime, the main resident appears to be a fluffy black cat, gender unknown. Wonderful Husband dubbed him/her/it "Basement" for obvious reasons. And apparently as of today Basement has seen me often enough that I am no longer a threat. He/she didn't sniff my hand or let me pet him/her, but neither did he/she run. Until Wonderful Husband came out into the side yard as well.

My sister called me during my drive to work to let me know that one of her classmates would like to take one of the kittens. The little black one in the last picture here.

(Yes, kitten pictures.) ^_^

EDIT: Frackin'.... The mama cat moved them again between yesterday evening and noonish today and I can't find them. They're not between the two fences so either they're gone from our property entirely or are up in one of the trees or under the house.

Current Mood: cheerful

So about twenty feet down the fence from the demon bougainvilla is a patch of asparagus fern. Not having much use for asparagus fern, it like the bougainvilla is eventually slated to come out. Yesterday evening, however, I discovered that it is where Greystoke moved her kittens.

Hooray they're not under the house!!! That means this weekend we can scare out the cats that are under the house (probably Bond and Ninja) and fix that wonky grate and not have to worry about kittens being left in there and not have to worry about critters under our house! Huzzah!

Current Mood: cheerful

Hmm. Well, at some point between this morning and now Greystoke moved her kittens, so they are no longer where I can find them.

Except for the fact that I have this lingering nasty suspcion she's moved them under the house....

Current Mood: blank
Current Location: home

The "laundry room" in our new house is located between the kitchen and garage and likely was originally an open breezeway when the house was originally built fifty-some years ago. It has a door that opens out into the side yard, eventually to become my vegetable garden. This door is not a solid door but rather a heavy-duty screen door with lock and deadbolt. The (indoor) cats quite like lounging around on the inside of it, catching some sun and watching the world go by.

This becomes a problem because one of the outdoor (feral) kitties tends to lounge on the other side of the door. This one's a long-haired black and white tuxedo cat with a milk mustache; I've dubbed him/her/it "Bond" and am pretty sure that he/she/it is living under the house, getting in through the one vent we weren't able to get through to rescreen. Bond is, afaik, the only one of the ferals that Paris really doesn't like.

This tends to result in cat feces appearing on the walkway outside that door as Bond marks his/her/its territory... at times like this morning when I went out to check on and water seedlings. Still wet, in fact. Luckily I didn't step in any of it, but still. Scrubbing and hosing this evening. Anyone have any ideas for how to deter recurrances? (And we need to somehow make sure there are no cats under the house and then rescreen that vent from the outside.)

Current Mood: blah
Current Location: work

Weather has finally cooled off. Thank god. I checked my potted plants this morning and though some of them definitely show signs of "crisping" I think the ones who've survived until now will recover. I took the time to plant seeds to replace those that didn't make it... or in some cases never sprouted. Hopefully the habeneros will come up because I now have no more of those seeds! But the corn and melons and cucumbers are sprouting, and the basil and dill surprised me by also starting to poke their heads aboveground.

...Just gotta start prepping beds to put all this bounty in, eventually.

Kittens continue to number six. They're bigger now and more active and I think eyes are starting to open, but I didn't really get a chance to check that this morning as Greystoke was there glaring at me. (The mama has finally developed a defend-the-kittens instinct. Not that I've ever been fool enough to touch her babies and leave my scent on them; I look and admire only.)

Since it was finally cool enough to try on my dress mockup last night and make some alterations, I'd much rather be at home sewing (or digging up a garden) right now. ;_; But we can't always have what we want, can we....

Current Mood: wistful
Current Location: work

Hooray! It looks like the neighbor's dogs did not get Ninja after all, as I just saw him/her/it.

Current Mood: jubilant
Current Location: home, office

In talking with the neighbors today, I learned that their guard dogs had killed one of the feral cats in the last few days. Since they mentioned it was one of the younger ones, and the one that they thought was quite pretty, I'm guessing this means Ninja (whom I haven't seen in 2-3 days) is dead. And since I haven't seen Pirate in about a week, I'm guessing a similar fate befell both siblings. So I guess I'm down to two ferals at the moment: Bond and Greystoke. And Greystoke's squirmy brood.

At least my reaction to this proves that I'm not getting as attached to the ferals as Wonderful Husband feared I might. I'm sad, of course; they were quite pretty and I enjoyed feeding them and watching them, but I'm not destroyed the way I was when we had to put Jack down, or even when wee little Ash died.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Location: home, heading toward bed

Watching Greystoke and her contortions into what I would find awkward angles in order to feed her brood of six squirmy little offspring, I find a new appreciation for the term "catnaps." Because damn but I'm sure that's all she's getting.

(This almost makes me feel sympathy for Nadya Suleman, but not really.)

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Location: work

Got home today and looked out the sliding glass door into the backyard, where one of the feral kitties (gray/white tuxedo one I've dubbed "Greystoke") has been lying in the leaves under the bougainvilla for the past few days. I'd thought she'd maybe just been feeling sick and hoping she'd get better. I should have remembered that cats never show they're sick if they can help it. Because now I have confirmation that Greystoke is a she.

Yes, kittens.

Six black-and-white day-old kittens in her little budoir under the bougainvilla.

I can kidnap them from her easily enough, that's not a problem. She skedaddles once I get within five feet of her. The problem is that I can't take care of kittens that young. I have a day job, and my heating pad's with a coworker for the kittens she's fostering anyway.

So I guess I start calling around about fostering organizations tomorrow... and hope Greystoke gets her feral behind back to that puddle of kittens before they get too cold.

At least she didn't have them under the house.

Current Mood: indescribable
Current Location: home, office