A summer hijacked by cats

This was supposed to be the summer I worked on the house and got it ready for sale. It ended up being a a flurry of TNR starting in August, plus a bucket of kittens. I finally made a contact -- and a friend or two -- at a barn I've been wanting to address, and once I had a a paw in that door, I didn't want to  put it off. 

Then a bunch of kittens were born on Debra's street in Waverly, and mom cat was due to pop out a second litter and refused to be caught. Litter #1 was too feral and too teenaged for socialization, so I had to warehouse them until the second litter and mom could be caught. For 81 days 10 teenaged ferals hissed at me from their big (thankfully) double level Ferret Nation cages. Then a couple who are close friends had a feral show up on their porch, who needed an extra long stay when his tail needed to be amputated due to an old wound. And I drove by a house in the village of Spencer where cats were basked in flowerpots on her front porch. Her veterinarian had told her (???!!!) that they likely had feline leukemia because the probably mother cat tested positive and that they wouldn't survive being fixed. She was lovely, but she took a little convincing when I knocked on her door uninvited. We got her batch fixed and they all survived nicely. I doubt a single one has leukemia -- they all seemed quite healthy as they glared at me from their traps and recovery cages. 

At any rate, my summer fixing the house was a bust, and the peeling paint is still peeling, the cellar stairs still need fixing, the back barn roof is still collapsed, but at least there are a lot less feral kittens in the world.  Luckily a lot of the spay/neuter was free or low-cost, and with some donations from landowners, an unexpected donation from a local credit union, and a birthday fundraiser on Facebook, at least the cost didn't come entirely out of my paycheck.

The light of my life has been my new heart cat Wiki. I've been training him to travel, so that we can move on to the next phase of our lives in a few years. I have only three pet cats now, and little Coraline will soon be leaving to live with close friends of mine, and then I'll have only two. I'm about to embark on a big adoption push for the adoptables I have here -- about eight adults and six cute kittens.  It would be nice to just have one cat room open for the winter, so I wasn't pouring money into electricity over the winter. I think things are going to be hard for everyone this winter.

So that's the update, before I dive into detailed topics. I haven't been good about staying in touch with the wider friends of Wildrun. I'll do a better. job.