The ups and downs

Every job has its ups and downs and pros and cons.  I'm loving my new life, spending almost all my time taking care of cats in some way, but it's certainly a financial challenge.  My income has dropped substantially, and I have a lot of mouths to feed.  I no longer have the Sunday night panic attacks that I used to have though. 

This week there's been a couple of sad situations.  A colony I feed at regularly is being evicted from the yard they've been living in for the past year.  This is a colony that I TNRed two years ago, a lovely woman named Gloria was feeding almost 20 cats in her back yard.  I TNRed them all, and pulled out 25 kittens.  Last year she sold her house and thankfully the man next door let us move shelters and feeding stations into his yard, and the dozen or so cats have been very happy there but now he's moving and the cats have nowhere to go, and nobody else wants them.  They may just end up being fed in the laneway but that's not secure or protected and without shelters and a reliable food source their hard lives will just be even harder and ultimately shorter.  It breaks my heart.

Another horrible situation had to be dealt with by friends of mine at their colony.  One of neighbours started trapped the ferals and dumping them somewhere or they said they were, there was a trap on the roof and two cats missing.  There's been a flurry of activity and I think it will settle down and be OK but what I learned from that is that feral cats have no protection, they are neither pets nor wildlife.  Sometimes I'm grateful that my main colony is in an industrial site, rather than a neighbourhood.  People's cruelty and hatred towards animals, any animals, just amazes and saddens me.  You can see why people get discouraged and burn out.  I can't allow that to happen to me, the cats need me.

There is good news that came out of this week.  Cassie, one of the shy older kittens Joanne has been fostering, got adopted and her sister may have a home too!  And if you remember the lovely mom and her three kittens from mid-March, the kittens all have been adopted and hopefully mom soon too.