It's Official

... I'm the crazy cat lady.

The latest count in 19, eight of them are kittens.

What happened? 

We discovered this lovely lady with four of her own kittens. But before we could trap them we were trying to get my other four kitties tame and to their forever homes. 

But nature isn't always kind. 

Friday night we found new mama cat (whom we were calling Raggedy Ann) under the house with a serious eye problem. 

We immediately set out the traps and caught this family of five. 

At the same time I started constructing a cage made from wire cube shelving and zip-ties. We had to get creative! We are even using an old bird aviary. 17 feral cats is all we can handle and we need to nip this in the bud!

Unfortunately mama cat ended up having to have surgery to remove her eye. So sad because she was a gorgeous cat as you an see in the top photos. She had beautiful peridot green eyes.

After this tragedy, she will be an inside cat. I can't seriously let this poor cat fend for herself with only one eye! Not to mention all the $$$$ it cost to help her. I'm pretty sure the emergency vet saw us coming and thought they needed to fund a luxury vacation! 

If you are looking for a new career that makes lots of cash, might I recommend going into the vet business?

I'm just a bit hot under the collar after this experience. I still feel I did the right thing by this poor cat but my future of luxury vacations isn't anywhere near the horizon. I'm not saying they shouldn't be paid for their services.  I'm saying don't charge double what my local vet does and don't play on people's emotions and inflate your estimate.

Anyway, these are Raggedy Ann's kitties and now they are in queue for taming. Step one is getting use to people being near and feeding them. 

Step two is handling them as much as possible. 

Raggedy Ann (who may become Leela, like from Futurama) is allowing us to pet her. In fact we suspect that she was once someone's kitty. 

She's severely malnourished but loves moist food. Anything to get her healthy again even if that stuff stinks and makes me want to vomit!

These four are my littlest ones and they are almost ready to find homes. I'm hoping someone will love them and give them safe forever homes.

This little sweetie came wandering into the yard a couple of weeks ago. She was trying to get into my kitties mamas cage. She wanted so much to be part of a family. Little Nala is a sweetheart! She hasn't taken long to tame. She's a quick convert, it's that stinky moist food!

Speaking of my kitties mama, she won't leave! We planned on letting her go back to her corner of our yard but she doesn't seem to want to leave her cage. It's the moist food! 

So there is my story of how I've become the crazy cat lady. I'm just a push over and our yard attracts cats. But boy am I hoping this is it!  19 it enough!

This is where I should put in a service announcement about spaying and nurturing your animals. Please do,there isn't  any more room in my yard or pocketbook. 

Take care, Brandie