Caturday.

 We woke up this morning to find that the temperatures had dropped down overnight to single digits once again. We were not expecting that. It was supposed to be 31 degrees today (fahrenheit), which is far warmer than it has been for a while, so it never occurred to us that it would get so cold over night. But, there it was 6 degrees/-14 degrees celcius. 

It is interesting with this 'arctic blast'. It has been cold, but not nearly as cold as the midwest or up in Red Deer (I never knew that Red took his name from the place he lived...I just figured he was a ginger). But anyways, it's been cold and we've had wind, snow, freezing cold. Houdi has been pretty much an indoor cat since he was sick, but after the New Year, he began venturing out. He normally patrols the perimeter, and is back inside within a half hour. I guess that I'm comfortable with that. 

Now that it has gotten cold, though, he's discovered the joy of our bed. Now, I don't mind that, really. It's not a bad thing to have a cat curled up at the foot of the bed. Tim, however, does not like it. You know what that means, right? We get comfortable and curled up, and then the cat jumps on the bed. After a bit of pacing, he jumps on Tim, and walks his leg to his hip. Tim tried to gently shift him off which causes Houdi to jump on his stomach, which raises all manner of squawking. I try to scoop him up and deposit him on my side of the bed, but before long, he's climbing over top of me to get back to Tim.

Why do cats always gravitate most strongly to the non-cat people? 

Before long, he's deposited off the bed all together. He has a cat bed on the floor, and sometimes he will shuffle off to that. Maybe he'll go out to sleep by the wood stove, or curl up on the couch. But. The one thing we can count on is that between 4 and 5 am, he will begin to pace the house meowing loudly. We don't know why. He's got food. He's got water. I personally think he gets lonesome. He really has turned into quite a people cat, a far cry from the first few months we had him. 

So that's Houdi, the disrupter of sleep and the aggravator of husbands. 

But on the subject of cats, a great thing has happened. 

I think that I told you about Houdi's beginnings. His mother (street name: Tigger) is a wiley feral. One of our tenants put a house for her on the back deck and feeds them, but Tigger has litter after litter of kittens. Paula tries her best to capture Tigger, but has never been able to. She tries hard to catch those kittens, once they are weaned, and she finds homes for them. The last kitten she caught went to a Ukrainian immigrant who has been living a solitary life in a new country, struggling with the language. He was so anxious to get that kitten! 

She caught another one from this litter, in bad shape, weak, with a serious eye infection and pneumonia. She finds homes for as many as she can. Others get hit in the street, or disappear from the creek bank (we have eagles who fish that section of the water, from a dead sycamore). Some, unfortunately, succumb to disease. 

Paula has been trying to get the mother trapped for months now. We provided a live trap. She pays for the neutering, which I didn't realize she was doing. Our area does not have a trap, neuter, release (TNR) program. My vet agreed to spay her if we could trap her, but it would have cost over $400. We were willing to chip in on it, but that's a lot of money. It did not seem as if we had much of a choice. 

I found a TNR program over the state line and I e-mailed them on Friday. I got a response back today from a very nice woman who says that when things are slow (as they are now), they do accept animals from other counties. Cost: $40. She says that she will schedule any cat we catch. What a huge, huge difference that will make in keeping that population under control! She sent paperwork for the sick kitty and said they will schedule spaying as soon as she is cleared by the vet. She seems as anxious to spay Tigger as we are! My hat is off to that organization. We are glad to do our part in tending the cats as they recuperate, and we will continue to feed them as they show up, but they lead miserable lives and it would be so wonderful to do something to make their situation better. 

The vets in our own county have not been very interested in assisting in this. My own vet thinks that it is our own fault for feeding them, that if they weren't fed, they'd die off or at least be less likely to breed. She claims that she is practical. That may well be, but I hope that I never get to the point that I turn my back on a suffering animal. 

Anyways, so that was the good news for the day. We can't really start trying to trap Tigger until we locate the other two kittens or the weather eases. They are calling for a January thaw...right after tomorrow's ice storm. 

It was a good day, spent inside keeping the fire fed, doing the laundry, talking to cat people, passing along good news. Making plans with friends. mopping, vacuuming. 

So. That was today.