I forgot to mention this less than happy surprise I found while doing my rounds yesterday morning.

One of our highbush cranberry trees has been eaten. Again! This is the one that has an old saw horse over it to protect it, yet it still got eaten! The other, unprotected one was ignored. Why are the deer so determined to eat this one cranberry bush??? It was left alone all summer, too. With the damage being done so late in the growing season, I doubt it will survive. We shall see in the spring, I guess.

I had another surprise when I headed out to feed the outside cats for the evening.

Butterscotch emerged from wherever she’s been hiding out and came running for pets and cuddles. She still wouldn’t go near the other cats, so I ended up leaving some food on the ground on a cat path near the storage house. She did eat some, but then other cats came to investigate, and she took off.

One of those cats was Sad Face (aka: Shop Towel).

Sad Face has been around a lot more often lately, and he has NOT been going after the other cats. In fact, I’ve seen him eating along with them. Nosencrantz doesn’t like him, though, and takes off when she sees him, and so does Butterscotch. He and the other cats seem to be starting to get along; still not sure about Judgement, but Judgement tends to stay in the sun room more often then not, curled up in a cat bed and covered in kittens.

Eventually, Butterscotch just left entirely, disappearing into the maple grove, which meant there was still kibble in the grass that Sad Face was very interested in. As he was eating, with his back to me, I slowly started to approach him.

I’m sure he’s at least partially deaf. Likely due to ear mites.

Then came the surprise.

When I reached out and put my hand on his back, he flinched a bit – then kept on eating!

So I started to pet him, and he still kept eating.

After a bit, with other cats coming over to see what was going on, he did move away and turned to face me – but didn’t run away. Instead, he started eating again, with me and 8 other curious cats around him. I moved forward and he backed off slightly, until I reached my hand out.

He came over to sniff it.

Then he came closer for pets.

And more pets!

He actually started purring, and rubbing around my legs!

We have never been able to approach him before, and have actually had to chase him away because of how aggressive he was to the other cats. I’m sure he’s the one that killed that poor long haired ginger I found in one of the old dog houses by the outhouse. I’ve broken up a number of fights between him and The Distinguished Guest, and TDG was usually on the loosing side. We don’t see him anymore, just as we don’t see any of the other visiting toms anymore. I’m pretty sure he’s why Gooby is gone, too.

And yet, when given the chance, he was incredibly friendly with me and loving the pets!

Also, that cat is a solid brick of muscle.

That was yesterday. What about this morning?

Well, as I brought the food out, Nosencrantz was in among the other cats, but – as usual – waited for kibble to be left in the bowls under the shrine. That was always her favourite spot to eat, before we brought her inside, and she doesn’t like eating closer to the house. By the time I was done putting food out, I saw Butterscotch come running from somewhere beyond the storage house, so I made sure to leave a bit of kibble on the path again, just for her. She was more interested in getting pets, though, which was fine.

I counted 36 cats, cattens and kittens. No Sad Face, at the time.

I did the rest of my rounds and when I got back to the house, there was Sad Face. He was milling around with the other cats, going into the old kitchen garden as I came closer. When he had his back to me, I was able to approach him again and start petting him. That was going well, until he spotted Butterscotch near the storage house. I tried pushing him around to face another direction, but he was utterly focused on Butterscotch.

Yeah. He went for her.

Butterscotch already saw him and went straight up a tree. I had to chase Sad Face out of the yard. Unfortunately, by the time I finished up and was ready to come inside, she was still up the tree.

I really want to bring her back inside, but even when I’ve been able to pick her up and carry her, she doesn’t want to go near the house. Not even for food.

Maybe as things change with the kittens, we can bring her back in. I’ve been chatting with the Cat Lady, about the discounted spay day next month. The vet really wants to do females, not males, if at all possible. Which makes sense for population reduction. Toni is booked for sure, which we will be paying for ourselves, and she will be coming home with us. The rescue would have paid for 2 yard cat males to be done, and they’d have come home with us, too. However, she has found a home for Ghosty, so she’s asked us to bring Ghosty to get fixed, along with the two males, and Ghosty would go home with her. Which makes a booking for four cats instead of three! And these bookings have to be used, or the clinic will be less likely to accept appointments from her on these discount days in the future.

As we talked about the clinic wanting to do females, I mentioned that Tin Whistle and Mitsy could both be done. If they were done, she would be taking them to adopt out, as she has people wanting female cats. They’d take the adult yard cats, but we can’t get hold of them.

So we will have to figure that out as the time gets closer. We only have 3 carriers, with two of them soft sided carriers that a yard cat could probably tear out of pretty easily. With the kittens, we could easily put two, or even three, into one carrier without any issue, but there would be no sharing of carriers with the adult cats.

I’ve also shared photos of some of the yard kittens with her. She may have found a home for the little black puff ball – one of Soot Sprite’s, Pom Pom’s and Tiny’s siblings that we’ve been able to socialize quite thoroughly, just recently. There’s also a friendly black and white catten that looks so much like Decimus. Mostly by his permanently stunned expression. He would be a good one to adopt out, but I had to remember to let the Cat Lady know that he is probably not a well cat. His lungs rattle when he breathes. I made sure to tell her that this is probably a deal breaker, and not to feel she has to take him in. Some of the people who have adopted cats from her work in vet clinics, though, so I thought perhaps one of them would be willing to take him in, as they would be in a better position than most, to find what’s going on with him and give him the right care. She will pass his picture around and let people know.

As for Decimus and the others, I’m told that Decimus is getting quite fat from all the mice she’s catching, and is the best cat the woman has ever owned! Phantom, however, has no interest in the outdoors anymore, and is now an indoor cat. Turmeric (they all have new names now), on the other hand, is making strange. She’s staying outside, even at night (the woman keeps them indoors at night, but hasn’t been able to with Turmeric). She’s very sad about not being able to make friends with Turmeric, but at least Turmeric is staying there.

Meanwhile, it turns out she has a neighbour on a farm nearby who has no cats, and is interested in getting some. I am amazed by this, to be honest. I’m used to cats just showing up on the farm, but that isn’t happening where they are. The Cat Lady joked with her that she should move to our area; she’s have lots of cats show up!

If this neighbour wants outdoor cats, it would be nice if they would be willing to take some males. We have four of five adult males that we could bring over right now, and probably another 3 or 4 friendly kittens and cattens, if they wanted youngsters from this year. I’ve even been able to start petting Driver regularly while he eats on the cat house roof, and he’s only been back about a week.

I’m trying to think of ways to lure the female cats over and try to socialize them, but every idea I can come up with would lure in the friendly males even faster and they mill around so much, the females wouldn’t be able to come any closer. The only exception is Caramel, and she’s often even pushier than the males, while also trying to bit the hand that pets her! Trapping is always a possibility, too, but you just never know what cat would end up being trapped, with so many around. The friendly males would be more comfortable investigating the bait in a trap than the females! Of course, once I have a cat in a trap, I’d have to take it somewhere right away. With how we have the sun room set up as shelter this time of year, we can’t use it as an isolation room anymore, and we certainly couldn’t bring a mostly feral yard cat indoors until we could get it out. At least with the Egg Lady, if we catch a cat, we can bring it straight to her place. She has a chicken coop set aside for them to get used to their new home, and to stay in until she gets them to a vet to get fixed.

Normally, the Cat Lady doesn’t pass on personal information, like where people live, other than a general sense, but with the way things are… I wonder if we could work something out? From what I know, the lady that took in our three isn’t all that much further away than the Egg Lady, and has an isolation ward set up, too. If I could get the cats directly to her, where they could stay in isolation under they get fixed, that would also give her time to socialize them in a more controlled setting – something we just can’t manage with our set up.

Hhmm… I’ll run that idea by the Cat Lady.

If things work out – if we could just catch these cats! – we could potentially adopt out 6 or more outdoor females to homes where they would get spays and vet care right from the get-go. Plus, there is interest in some of the kittens, indoors and out. That would make a HUGE difference in our own population issues, and be much better for the cats, too.

We shall see.

Plus, if we can get friendly with Sad Face, we should be able to get him fixed, too! Hopefully, that would make him less aggressive with the other cats, and we could finally make him one of our own. I really hate having to chase him away.

The Re-Farmer