Caring for the kitties

I called Advocats, as promised, where a representative referred me to a woman in Mountain View, who in turn referred me to another woman in Volcano. This woman's name, if you can believe it, is Cat Killum. No lie. Anyway, Cat is a very compassionate person who cares for the critters. She runs a cat shelter at her house. This woman know all about the cat family at the transfer station. She was elated with my call, because she's never gotten a message regarding the cats in which the caller actually offered to help her. She told me she is already feeding the cats. There are, in fact 12 living there that she knows of at this particular dump, along with two very shy dogs. She does not feed them near the dumpsters where people can see her, the food or the animals. She asked me not to feed them there, either. She had very good reasons. Cat explained that if people see food, they know that some one's feeding the animals and view it as a good place to dump their own unwanted felines. Or, if people see the animals around the dumpsters, they leave food, like leftover French fries or sandwiches or Cheetos or even cat food, like I did. These people mean well, but it makes her mission more difficult. She is trying to earn the animal's trust so she can capture them. If the kitties are not hungry when she comes to feed them, they don't come around and she can't get close. If she can't get close, she can't catch them. Sometimes, she actually posts signs asking people not to feed the cats. She explains that they are already being fed and that she is trying to trap them. Cat feeds this brood in a more discrete spot nearby, at the base of a knoll below the main dumpster. Doing so allows her to get slowly close to the animals, earning their trust. She says that she removes about a dozen cats from that transfer station every year. Some are introduced to the other cats at her refuge where they live happily ever after. Some of the kittens are socialized if possible and put up for adoption. All are spayed and neutered. Some cats are too wild and do not adapt well to the cat refuge and cannot be socialized well enough to be adopted. So they are released back at the transfer station after they've been fixed. At least that way they can't make any more babies and they are well fed. There is also some pretty good natural shelter in the area. So Cat actually asked me to stop feeding the kitties, but wondered if I would be willing to give her a break now and then if she needs one, stepping in to feed them in her place on occasion. Yeah, I'll do that.

The writing assignments are coming fast and furious from my professor. I think I've cranked out more copy in the past week than I have in the past two years, including this blog.
My feet are always simply killing me after a day at the winery. It was actually busy today with a steady stream of customers all afternoon, so there was little time to take a load off. The weather has returned to normal. Rain. So since I don't have to worry about my water supply, I opted tonight for a good soak in the bathtub. Feet feel better now.

A hui hou. Aloha!