I really ought to catch this up ...

Way too long between posts!

OK, so I am lazy/forgetful/etc.

Nine months since my last post and I am embarrassed, to say the least. Plenty has happened since the last entry and I just never got around to writing about any of it. Some things will be left out because I have forgotten them, but ... so it goes.



Popular place when Judy is there

First off, when I said "we are definitely NOT keeping
these two" (referring to Ginger and Marcus) I was not
aware of their plans. 

How cute is that?






 Suffice it to say, they did not get adopted and, in fact, were never even offered up.









New Kids in a box

It just never really seemed an option and they have become permanent residents like so many others before them.



Marcus and Ollie



Willow, Ginger and Jasmine

Although Ginger is a sweetie and loves to snuggle, Marcus is an odd one it must be on his terms only.

He has his moments though.









Them staying is not a huge problem, since they are sweet and get along with most of the others nicely.





However, it is now official. I am fairly sure we spend more on cat food than people food!

Classic cool

Casa Del Gatos has gained a couple of new non-feline residents as well. About the time of my last post I started car-shopping as my beloved 10th Anniversary Miata began needing increasingly more costly repairs that I simply couldn't justify with its market value. I really loved this car, but it was about to become a pain.




Not much of a trunk for sure

I looked at only a few specific potential replacements, since I knew I wanted another convertible, but with a bit more power and space than the Miata had.




The short list of replacements included the Saab Aero, Volvo C70,  BMW 3-series, Mercedes SLK and Chrysler Sebring. Saabs became orphans last year with the company closing its doors. The Bimmers just didn't feel right. The Benz was too small and the Sebrings were few and far between with the features I wanted.

Silver GT 'Vert

The Volvo was starting to be my top choice, but as my preferred choices dwindled, I started looking more at American steel and the Mustang jumped to the top of the list. Specifically, the GT Convertible with the 4.6L V-8 in silver or blue.






I drove a similar one at a dealer and immediately fell in love so I began my search in earnest. Craig's List, e-Bay and Cars.com, among many other vehicle search services yielded a few good candidates but nothing that was "just right." One Saturday morning, I found a listing for a beautiful C70 in Silver that was for sale a few miles down the road and something told me I needed to go see that car.

First look at her (Volvo is beyond)

As I pulled into the lot, I saw the Volvo and it looked very nice. However, parked next to it was an (unadvertised) Mustang Convertible, in Vista Blue and my pulse accelerated with excitement. I parked the Miata next to it and got out to check it out. Holy shit! It was not just a GT, it was the California Special and it had a custom two-tone Blue/Black leather interior. Before I had even driven it, I knew I had to have this car.

Home at last!

Long story (somewhat) short, I bought it a week later,
forcing them to take the Miata, and paying considerably
less than they thought they should get for it.









As advertised on CL

  We also got a boat. Not much of a boat really, but good for what we wanted. It is an Ultranautics JetStar - a 12.5-foot jet boat that has room for me, Judy and maybe one more person.

It is easy to tow and gets plenty of comments from people who see it.

As she sits today

I actually found it listed for sale near Columbus, GA and I just happen to have  brother living there so ...

I got Scott to drive out and take a look and then go ahead and buy it for me. Then I drove up a couple of weeks later to pick it up and bring it home.

 
It's not very big (obviously) and leaves little room to do anything but ride in it so I am looking at something slightly larger in the future.


Maybe something kind of like this: 

Apparently, our retirement from fostering was wishful thinking!

Randy's last picture with Bobby

Just a couple of weeks before we had to euthanize Randy, our kitten fostering "business" had to be started up again and the guest room became a nursery once more.





I was off from work for Wednesday, Thanksgiving and Black Friday.
 
On Friday, I was coming home from Dollar General just before dusk. As I neared our driveway I saw something running across the road in front of the mayor's house, I thought it was probably a squirrel. However, as I got closer I saw it was a tiny grey tabby kitten - only 6 weeks old or so!

I pulled over and walked toward the driveway and saw a large box on its side next to his garbage can and the kitten was walking from it towards the front porch. Then I saw the other one, a small calico, crying piteously just outside the mayor's door. I saw that Tim (Silverhill's Mayor) was not home and thought "Jeez these kittens are too young to go outside, they are barely a mouthful for any roving predator!"

I scooped them up and put them back in the box that was so conveniently clean and available and put them in the back of the Kia. I then spent just a couple of minutes looking for any other litter-mates that might be around. Not finding any, I pulled up our driveway across the street and carried them inside, yelling "Judy - I've got kittens!" I gave Judy the Reader's Digest condensed version and went back out to search the vicinity for any other kittens or maybe their mother - as I am now thinking these could have been dumped and not belong to Tim at all.

I drove all around the area in the golf cart, peering under bushes and such and asking the evening walkers in the neighborhood if they had seen or knew anything. I spotted one cat that I thought might be the mother, but she was not in nursing condition and these babies were definitely still on the teat, they were so small. It turns out she is a non-feral stray that is taken care of by various neighbors.

Ginger

Marcus

I regret that I didn't take any pictures of them then, but they were in good condition - clean and well-fed so I suspect that someone was just too stupid, lazy and irresponsible to find homes for them and did the cowardly thing by dumping them.

I also suspect that they somehow heard about the "cat lady" who rescues cats and kittens in our area (Judy of course) and made a half-assed attempt to get them to us.


I shudder to think what would have happened to them if I had not made that trip to the store.

New kits on the block

That night was the coldest night up to that point this season and I think it might have even gotten to freezing.

At any rate, I ran back out to get kitten milk and Judy fixed them up in the guest room and the process began yet again. Marcus and Ginger (Judy's names) are growing fast and developing real personalities and have just had their shots and gotten their little operations to get them ready for Forever Homes.

They use ALL the cat furniture

Although they still sleep in the Kitten Room, they have been unleashed upon the rest of the house and are learning how to get along in a MULTI-cat household.

Fearless as most of them are at that age, they keep the activity level high around the house.

The older, mostly-outside cats are tolerating them more now that they are learning some manners.

Reggie loves having youngsters around

 As seems to be the case in the past, the youngest of our permanent residents pretty much adopt the kittens and play with them almost constantly, much to our delight. However, the job is spread around considerably now, with Cee-Cee being the primary "nanny cat" and Jasmine, Reggie, Willow and even Ollie a bit, pitching in at playtime.





Playtime is, as you can imagine, pretty much anytime and all the time. Interestingly, the youngsters adapted to the cat door that opens to the porch VERY quickly. Believe me, they take advantage of the extra running, climbing, sliding and chasing room available to them.

They are quite a handful and won't slow down much for pictures so I shot some video too.

So now we are back up to 14 in residence. With Randy gone, the permanent number is back down to 12 and I will be posting ads on Craig's List in a few days. We are NOT KEEPING THESE TWO.

Randy has gone to the Rainbow Bridge

Randy

Randy was one of our "broken" fosters that stayed on. He was generally a really sweet cat but really never was a normal cat after we had to put Gypsy down a few years ago. For the past several years he has suffered from megacolon, which is a painful and unpleasant intestinal condition.

As a kitten, he was visually impaired and may have had some neural issues since he had a very stiff walk and acted almost like he was mentally compromised at times.

Randy with Gypsy

But when Gypsy adopted him, they became best buddies and were together most of the time. They would groom each other (mostly Gypsy doing the work) and sleep together every night.

Randy was never really the same after we had to put Gypsy to sleep and he stopped grroming himself and just became listless and unenthusiastic about anything.  The megacolon problem started becoming apparent about a year later. It was regularly painful for him and extremely costly to treat with drugs and therapy.


He had really been declining lately and seemed to have essentially given up the fight so we made the final, kind decision to euthanize him a couple of days ago. I took him in to save Judy the heartbreaking experience. She has been through this a few times for the others who went before him and it was just too much. When I took him to the vet's office, he was very calm and quiet and seemed almost thankful - like he knew exactly what was happening.

It hurts every time we have to do this and we will miss Randy, but we are relieved that he is finally out of pain and can rest.

Everybody got homes! Kind of.



Ce-Ce and Olive with Milo

Well, it took a good while and several iterations of the Craig's List ad, but everybody got adopted. Sort of.


Actually they all did, but imagine my surprise to have two of them returned after 2 weeks at their new home.


Can you imagine someone growing to adulthood and not knowing that they are allergic to cats? Well, neither can I but that is the story from the guy who adopted Ce-Ce and Olive.


He called one day while I was at work and told Judy that his wife had been "sick" since the kittens got there and they finally "discovered" that she was allergic. I call bullshit but what are you gonna do?


Anyway, the girls were back at our house when I got home and it was like they had never left. Completely comfortable and getting along (mostly) with all the regulars - they acted very much "at home" and that is where they have remained with no indications of adoption efforts whatsoever. They are sweetie-pies and really cause no trouble so I have accepted it. So yes, that's right - Casa Del Gatos now has thirteen feline residents!

My concept of "maximum feline density" is apparently flexible.



Jezebel

Olive needed a new name since hers sounded so much like Ollie, so she became Jasmine. Jasmine and Ce-Ce have not slowed down a bit and in fact have a number of the older cats acting kittenish again - especially Reggie, who pretty much considers them his kittens and spends just about every waking hour with them (particularly Ce-Ce).

The much older cats generally tolerate them well with a warning hiss or swat of a paw to keep them in line. But they are such good girls they rarely cause much of an uproar.

They are still sleeping separately from the rest of the group in the "Foster Room," but I expect that to end any day now. Feedings of wet food are usually broken up into shifts anyway with the senior cats going outside for a quick break before breakfast. So, the logistics are ok so far.



The Rescues need forever homes!

Well, the 8 dirty and pitiful kittens we rescued at the end of May are now wonderfully healthy and happy kittens and their number is down to 6 since two have been adopted already but the rest are ready for adoption now. Nearly four months old now, they have all been neutered/spayed, gotten their first shots and they have developed very distinct personalities.

 

Samantha, a calico with tabby markings, and Charlie, a charismatic grey tabby who was the original "Alpha" of the group, have already been adopted by some very nice people and we are seeking more people to take more of the "brood."








Judy performs a pretty in-depth interview of the prospective new "parents" before letting any of her babies go and several potential adopters were not quite up to snuff and were not allowed to adopt.








These pictures were taken a couple of weeks ago and they are all growing fast. I even placed a humorous ad on Craig's List to see if we can accelerate the process of getting them all into forever homes. The ad can be seen here for a while: Craig's List Ad

 

 All healthy and normal (for kittens) they are now allowed free run of the whole house several times a day to get them more acclimated to a (more) normal household life. Some of the adult cats were a little put out at first, but a good number of them are outside most of the time anyway so it really is not a big problem.



 No issues with releasing them, except that Shiloh was very hesitant at first to come out of the bedroom that she knew as her safe world. However, she is now quite well-adjusted and bounces off the walls with the rest of them.

Nothing is safe and EVERYTHING is a toy so you can imagine how "interesting" things can get at times!








 Milo is by far the most extroverted and curious of the bunch. He quickly took over the mantle of "Alpha Kitten" after Charlie was adopted. That also means he is the main troublemaker and instigates most of the "issues" that we encounter.







All in all, they are turning out to be happy, playful and (mostly) well-behaved little monsters. If I thought our household could survive, I would love to keep them all - but I know our current colony is already pretty stable and they really do need to go.
 
However, I do not, by any means, have the final say on the matter so nothing is written in stone.

Anyone reading in South Alabama can adopt one (or more) of these cuties by emailing us or calling (251) 943-MEOW.

Updates in several areas

Much too long since the last entry and a good bit has happened at Casa Del Gatos.


Our screen porch/Lanai was completed, thanks to our amazing handyman Tom Carpenter, and now the inside kitties get to experience a more direct contact with the outside world with nice safe aluminum screen walls keeping them in. Two exterior doors - one on each wall and a very nice pet door in the door leading into the house

The construction was intended to be more sturdy and permanent from the beginning since the plan is to eventually replace the screen with actual windows. It will then become the family room and will be air conditioned and heated along with the rest of the house. I guess by that time I will have built the enclosed cat run I have been threatening for years.

We had to replace our 7-year-old yard tractor since the mechanic said a new engine was needed ($1500!) and I decided that the money would be best put towards a new and better one. So the Craftsman DYT4000 was replaced with a brand-spanking-new Toro Timecutter SS5000. It is a 50-inch, triple blade zero-turn mower and it is a very different ride than the previous one.

This makes my job easier since what used to take about 4 hours to cut now takes less than half that. Quite a different experience driving it, but boy does it cut well - even at full speed. No bagger or mulching attachments are needed either because this thing cuts the grass so cleanly and disperses it so well.


We also acquired another vehicle - one I have been promising to Judy since we bought this place. A golf cart (Club Car with a Kawasaki gas engine) was found for a killer deal and is perfect  for getting from one end of the property to the other ... or just out to the street for the mail. Top speed is about 13.5 MPH, but I plan to remedy that shortly!

It is not street legal, but I have seen our neighbors who have them drive all over town so I have too. It even has a cargo bed so it is handy for carrying gardening tools and supplies out to the farthest reaches of the property - or carrying purchases home from the Dollar General store.

But of course, since it is Spring and that IS kitten season, the Casa Del Gatos Kitten Academy got a delivery of new cadets about 3 weeks ago. Filthy, hungry and covered with fleas, they were found abandoned at a nearby fishing hole by a local family's little boy and brought to us. The phone rang on the morning of May 5 and a woman said "Is this the place that rescues cats?" I hesitated about a half a second before handing the phone to Judy.

The woman and her husband and the little boy who found the kittens  brought them to us in a laundry basket and we put them in a temporary kennel cage on the porch for a few minutes while Judy thanked the family and blessed them and sent them on their way. Eight dirty crying kittens and no mother and Judy definitely had her work cut out for her.

Judy got her bathing supplies together in the kitchen and got ready to clean 'em up and get 'em fed while I ran to the Robertsdale Feed Store for some Kitten Milk Replacer. It has been close to a year since the last batch so we had none around. Of course, there really is no such thing as "leftover" KMR.

We've seen worse, but these little critters were looking pretty rough and a couple seemed like they might not make it at all. We had no idea how long the kittens had been alone, but it couldn't have been long or they would have been even worse off than they were when we got them.

So Judy began the feeding. Every 4 hours or so, she would mix up a batch of kitten milk and feed them. Even the ones who refused to suckle were fed with a syringe. A couple of them took a good bit of work to feed them, but Judy made it happen. She fed them before bed and got up in the middle of the night and came home from the office on the days she worked so the kittens got their regular feeding.

As soon as they had grown enough that the feedings could be spread out more, Judy started mixing solid food in with the formula and most of them really started to thrive. They are now eating from bowls and even have dry kitten chow to nibble on between feedings.

Current pictures coming soon.