Petapalooza - Sunday - June 1st

I'll be at Petapalooza in Holland on Sunday educating the attendees of this "pet expo" type event about TNR and how they can help feral and stray cats.

I'll have Christy, my volunteer in a trap to raise money for my rescue!

Should be a fun day!

For those of you who want to spend $4 a gallon on gas to come out and see us, we'll be there from noon - 4pm.

Harbor Lights Middle School
1024 136th Ave
Holland, MI 49424

My favorite story

a man was walking down a deserted beach at sunset.

off in the distance, he noticed a stranger bending down, picking things up and throwing them into the ocean.

as he walked, getting closer to the stranger, he noticed that the man was picking up star fish that had washed up onto the beach and throwing them back into the water.

he asked the stranger what he was doing. the stranger replied. "i'm picking up these starfish that have washed up onto the shore. if i don't throw them back into the water they will perish."

the man said "but surely you can see that this beach stretches for miles and miles. and starfish are washed up on beaches all over the world, you can't possibly make a difference".

just then, the stranger bent down, picked up another starfish and threw it out into the ocean. he simply said "made a difference to THAT one."

Pearl and Midget need your help!!!

Help Pearl and Midget find forever homes!

What started as 9.....are now two!

You can help find the last of the cats formerly known as "Sink Room Cats", "The Great 8", "The Six Pack", "The Foxxy Five", "The Fantastic Four", and sorry but I can't remember what we called them when there were three.

Pearl and Midget are now dubbed "The Dynamic Duo".

Go to this website page, print off a flier and post it somewhere that cat loving people might frequent.

Your church, coffee shop, vet's office, gym, business, or breakroom perhaps!

Whom ever's flier gets these cats adopted will get something special from me!

http://carolsferals.com/Documents/Midget_Pearl1%5B1%5D.pdf

Thanks!!!
C

PS Thanks Michelle for making yet another flier. I hope it's the last!
PSS Look for Pearl and Midget featured in the June issue of Cats & Dogs Magazine.

Totally Unrelated!

Last night I checked the monitor and found the trap door was down. When I checked the trap, I found a big brown tabby. Oh boy! I'd never seen that one before. Thus the title of this blog entry "Totally Unrelated". I immediately started to wonder....."how many cats do I actually feed here on my porch?"

He was meowing which indicated that he's a "friendly" and not a feral. Ferals typically don't meow! Betcha didn't know that. It surprised me too. But he was talking so I figured he was. So now the question.....what do I do with him?

Rather than drive out to Langlois' office at midnight, I set him up in a cage at Brooknelle. I'll let Christy work with him a bit and if he's friendly, I guess I'll be working to find him a home. I'm not wanting to release any cats here in my complex since I won't be able to feed them.

Hopefully I get Scaredy Fluffy tonight. I hate that she's the only one left out there on her own. Her three siblings are in my garage awaiting transport to the huge cage at Brooknelle. I set a trap in my garage as well. I left the door up a bit hoping she'd smell her brothers and sister and go inside to check them out. Alas, she didn't even venture inside. I know this cuz my baby monitor camera didn't beep to show motion. Bummer!
She was however spotted in the complex by Debra who is my dear friend who walks her sweet boy dog LuLu and keeps me posted whenever she sees her.

Tonight.......SHE'S MINE!!!!!

More to come!
C

Three down - - 0ne to go!!

My baby monitor alarm went off at 5am. From the monitors view from my bed, I saw that Tippy was outside of one of the traps on my porch sniffing at the food. Within 60 seconds he was IN!

I reunited him with Tilty Head and Brave Fluffy who have been in captivity since Friday nite. He made a run for it and almost slipped the cage before I could remove the trap from the doorway. But he didn't succeed. This morning he was sitting atop the in-cage carrier with Tilty Head. Brave Fluffy was inside the carrier (aka: in the lower bunk).

Tonight I will bait the final trap with mackeral and try for Scaredy Fluffy who is no doubt hungry as hell!

Wish me luck! Will post details and pix once they are all captured and safe.

Have a beautiful Memorial Day. In memory of those who have given their lives for our personal freedom and for those loved ones who left us early who we will meet again someday! May their spirits be eternal!

: ) C

Neighborhood Feral Update

Trapped two last night. As sweet as they seem when I'm feeding them night after night, they reminded me they are indeed feral once they got into the traps! Bless their little feral hearts!

I am very, Very, VERY happy to report that the one I've not seen for a while did show up last night. Thanks to my video baby monitor (donated to me by Kim and Joel Blount), I was able to spy him. I still have two more to catch.

I will be housing them at Brooknelle until I can find a proper barn home or I buy a feral sanctuary....whichever comes first.

Just wanted you all to know that my boy is fine and that I'm making progress in OPERATION RID WINDCREST CONDOS of it's pesky feral cat problem. Now, we will have lots of mice, moles and chipmunks. Take that IDIOTS!!!!

: ) C

Thanks for sticking by me!

It's a wonder to me that anyone is even reading this blog anymore. I've been just awful about updating it lately. Suffice it to say....I SUCK! But for those of you who still read this thing despite my not blogging for days on end, I will get better......I PROMISE!

So much to tell you. I'm going to first start in on what's new with me.

I'm trapping up my neighborhood ferals because one of them has mysteriously disappeared and I am not putting it past anyone to do some improper re-homing of these cats (aka: take them for a little ride out to the country).

My goal is to move out of this condo and find a nice piece of property with a decent house where I can do my TNR work, feral rehab, foster/adoption, and have a feral sanctuary ON MY OWN PROPERTY WHERE THERE IS NO CONDO GESTAPO!

I have many cats to report about. I'll try to do this over the weekend. I'll have to tell you about Matisse, the white adult male that Vic Cabot rescued from sure death. And I have a bunch of people to thank for donations and helping me. And I need to tell you about Pecan the super fractious spitting lunging feral who is now going to go live with my volunteer Christy. And I have to tell you all about her! And I have to report on all the cats that Vicky is saving from the shelter due to your generous purchases of cat food during the food drive in March.

I'll be in touch soon!

Have a groovy holiday weekend!
Carol

PS No trapping Sunday, May 25th. No surgeries on Monday (Memorial Day) except for emergency spays!!!

Cat Mountain

Hello Feral Friends-

Last month at the Pet Expo, I won this fabulous Cat Mountain. Here are pix of my babies enjoying this amazing masterpiece created by Jim DeVormer.

If you are interested in purchasing a Cat Mountain for your feline family, contact Jim at jdvcatmountain@gmail.com or 616 863-8185.

Monkey is first on the scene to check out the Cat Mountain
even before it's put in its permanent place.

Good for scratching thinks Monkey!

"Manly Yes! But I like it too." says Morgan.

Toby wants to check it out a little more closely!
He needs to be sure it's OK!

Everything checked out fine!
Buzzby is always on the thing!!

Yeah, that about sums it up!

Thank you, Katie Berning for this little gem!

I promise to write more soon

I had a great Mother's Day weekend. My college roomie, Tracy took me to see the Police and Elvis Costello last night. 4th row! Amazing! I blew out my tennis shoes jumping up and down. I need a new pair of shoes now!!! So much fun. I felt like I was in college again.

I did manage to get a few things crossed off my list that have been there for a long time. I've still got a ton of blogging to do. I will be working on that tomorrow! Seems, I just can't get a handle on things these days.

Won't go into huge detail at this point, but my personal life is spilling over and keeping me from thinking CAT RESCUE every second of the day. However, I must maintain focus on the cats. So rest assured, I'll be back to my old blogging soon.

In the mean time, I'm running cats, trying to keep up on all the phone calls, and putting out little fires here and there with regard to kittens and cats EVERYWHERE!

Hope you are all having an enjoyable Spring! Summer's almost here! Yeah!!!

: ) C

No trapping on Sunday, May 11th

Hey Gang!

For those of you with traps who read my blog...NO TRAPPING THIS SUNDAY, May 11th.

My college bud, Tracy is taking me to see The Police and Elvis Costello in concert that night.
She bought premium seats!

So excited!

So.....hold off trapping till Monday!

: ) C

Check it out! TNR in USA Today

Today Christy, the feral cat whisperer (who you will learn more about as soon as I do a bio blog entry on her), brought me the greatest article I've seen in a long time! TNR made it into USA Today! And all the talk about ferals is favorable!!! Made my day! Here's the online USA Today link:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-05-06-feral-cats_N.htm

Thanks Christy for bringing me the newspaper article.

PS Probably the only newspaper article I could see that would top this would be one reporting that Ted Nugent was shot in his backside in a hunting accident.

LIFE HAPPENS......when you're busy doing cat rescue

Hello to all my wonderful feral friends!

I've been getting emails of concern from you. "Where are you? Are you OK? Are you in prison for carrying out your homicidal daydreams on your neighbors?" Stuff like that!

Rest assured, I'm fine. But in the course of cat rescue....LIFE HAPPENS! I've just been tending to some personal things. In time, I'll share this with you all, but for now, just know, I'm groovy!

I'll be better about blogging....I PROMISE!

Since I got on the topic of neighbors.....I am feeding my cats off site currently. Not going to mess with these condo types. Will explain the details of this to anyone who wants to hear about it in a not so public forum. Suffice it to say, condo living is not much different than living in a police state! Rights are not something we have. While I'm happy not to have a neighbor with thier car on blocks to spoil my view, I'm sorry to have to live next door to people who think that controlling every living thing that enters their airspace is anything other than playing God!

This from the girl who traps unwitting cats and has their testicles removed! Yeah....I know.....I play God every day! But it's for the good of the animals, and it's why God put me here on earth. Not like some people who are looking to have their "perfect little world" kept intact. Don't even get me started!

OK. Gotta run. Will blog soon with details about Vicky's latest "save" from the shelter, my new awesome volunteer Christy (the feral cat whisperer), other details and giving thanks.

But first, thank you Stu Mackenzie for spending 4 hours breaking your back to scrub each tine of the massive cage donated to us by HS. You picked the first hot day of the year and didn't complain on bit. You're a trooper! Thank you so much!

: ) C