What I Take With Me to the Feeding Stations

 

 



My car loaded up for the feeding station rounds



I thought you might like to see what I take with me when I go to the feeding stations.  I take a lot more with me than I used to. 


I bring several bottles filled with water.  I fill them from my home drinking tap (there are two taps in Cyprus).  The cats drink so much water I cannot believe it.  The kittens drink a lot, too.  When the water bowls are empty, and I fill them, that is the first thing the kittens run to get.  It's especially important in the summer in Cyprus to supply water because there is no rain.  I do provide it all year round.



Lots of large water filled plastic bottles go with me

I used to take the kibble in separate, doubled plastic bags - doubled because one tiny cat claw and it is over for the kibble in the bag.  It was convenient because I knew how many scoops to put in each bag for each station.  But now it would ridiculous.  I would be scooping all day.  Now I put the whole 15 kilo bag of kibble in the back seat and a scooper, and fill and refill a plastic bag as I go from one station to the next.

The whole 15 kilo bag of kibble goes with me in the back seat

I take another tote bag for canned food, plates, tissues to wipe the bowls, and extra plastic bags for trash and dishes.  This tote bag came with me from America, it's from LLBean.  It's sturdy and great with all the pockets for organizing smaller stuff.

Plastic plates, tissues, canned food, plastic bags, a scooper for the kibble

I occasionally switch out the bowls at the feeding stations and bring them home for a good cleaning, so I carry some extra bowls with me, too, in case some look very dirty.

Large clean bowls for swapping out dirty ones

Also, when they are not both occupied, I keep a small carrier in the car for emergencies.  I only have two small carriers.  I could really use a couple more.  My other carriers are enormous and are for dogs, too big for the car or to actually carry.

A small carrier and a soft blanky

I often take my camera. 

My Camera

And at night I take a flashlight.  This one uses no batteries and is a wind up.  It fits perfectly between my inside upper arm and ribcage for hands free.  I have used lots of different flashlights and lanterns and this is the best.  Batteries fail at the worst times, and so do bulbs. 

A wind up flashlight for hands free at night

And I usually keep a trap in the boot of my car, a couple of beach towels large enough to cover the trap, and a peepee pad.  I keep a can of trapping bait in my camera case.

A trap

Canned fish for trapping bait

Sometimes for an occasional treat I will bring a big bottle of milk.  They like that.  I have also taken them yogurt before.  Most like it, some don't. 

A big plastic tote is best to actually carry from the car, because they are easy to clean, waterproof, and strong.  The one I use now is from IKEA and it is giant. 

So there you have it. That's what I take with me to the feeding stations. 

Oh, and this doesn't go:

Lulu

I try to make sure all the cats are out of the car before I leave the house!  Sometimes I have been surprised halfway down my home road, and have had to turn back to drop off a cat or two. 

Sometime I forget stuff, or run out of kibble, that's a bummer, but I am never very far from home. 

There's No Place Like Home

It has been slow going getting settled in our new home.  We had to move quickly when the last house we were renting was sold.  It was just as we had perfected our living space to make it super efficient for living with multiple cats that we got the news.  We had sold furniture that was not cat friendly and replaced it with tougher stuff.  We had gotten as much as we could up off floors and onto walls.  It was a creative exercise.  IKEA was our friend. In fact I am pretty sure it is a new religion. 

The new house is bigger, with three bedrooms as opposed to two.  And although they are smaller, we can now entirely devote one bedroom to litterboxes. This is a gift.  No longer are there cat litter granules on the floor of every room and in the crevice of every seating area. Hallelujah.

At my age, change is jolting, and it takes a long time for me to adjust.

One of the hardest changes of my life was when we sold our family home after our parents died.  Here is a painting I did at the time called My Father's Backyard:

My Father's Backyard

I had three dogs then, I was soon to add a fourth, little Gracie, who was eventually poisoned here in Cyprus by a neighbor. She was sixteen years old.  The tree in the painting is where I used to feed the birds.  Sandy, the white and brown dog, used to eat the seeds that fell on the ground. 

I crave stability.  And I get very attached to my surroundings. What I miss most about America are places, geography.  I miss the river where I used to take my dogs.  I miss the tree on the corner of I-75 and Northside Drive.  I miss my little yellow house, my grocery store, my post office, my church. I don't miss but a couple of my neighbors. 

Places don't go away.

And as I write this and Twigs sits on my lap nibbling on my hair, I think about all the changes we have put the cats through, too, moving and all.  It was hard for them.  Especially the disabled ones.

Twigs, the sweet nibbler

We wanted to  bring all the outdoor ferals and street cats we were feeding at our old house with us, but it turned out not to be what we did.  We also wanted to bring some of the park cats here, but that turned out not to be the thing either. Here's what happened.

First we brought Amber.  That was a no brainer.  Amber had been left more times than a train station.  She was a domestic cat.  She had been altered by someone previously.  Amber is sensitive and has never made friends easily, always being prone to bullying by other cats. 

Sylvia and Amber, friends

Sylvia was Amber's only friend.  Sylvia was a feral cat who I made friends with over the past year and a half.  The two female cats slept together in a basket at night on our front doorstep.  They greeted eachother happily. Sylvia rarely spent the days with us like Amber did, but came at sunset. Sylvia probably had other human friends.  I think someone was occasionally giving her souvlaki or leftover fish from the local fish taverns, because sometimes I wouldn't see her and she started turning her nose up at our soft food.  Sylvia is a good egg, and whoever her feline Mom was should be proud.

Sylvia

So we brought Sylvia, too.  The next plan was to trap Jazzy and bring him, because he has only one eye, and we worry about him.  We were on the fence about bringing Big Van, because he scares the other cats.

Jazzy

After that, I picked up Strike from the park during a terrible rainstorm and brought her here.

Sylvia was here for one night.  Then, she disappeared.  I felt sick. 

Strike took off almost immediately.  Again, I was sick.

For days I worried about them.  I prayed they would find some kind soul to feed them and give them shelter. I reprimanded myself for being so foolhardy and presumptuous.

Days later, I can't remember how many, I drove up to the park to find Strike here, under her tree:

Knock me over with a feather, Strike was under her tree

A couple of weeks later, I found Sylvia greeting me at Sammy's, which is two doors down from our old house, and which is still one of our feeding stations.

Sylvia, too, had found her way back home

From our new house to the park, as the crow flies, it's nearly 1.5 miles or 2 kilometers.  That is the journey Strike made at least. 

From our new house to our old neighborhood, once again, as the crow flies, it's nearly 2 miles or 3 kilometers.  That's how far Sylvia walked. 

If they took the scenic route and walked along the roads, they walked even farther.  Either way they had to cross roads. 

After that we gave up the idea of trapping and bringing Jazzy. 

I guess it is true for even some cats.  There's no place like home.

Amber

Amber, on the other hand, never left. 


 

The Feeding Stations Updated

It's time to update our map. I mentioned in the last post that we added a new feeding station this past summer.  It is located behind an apartment building on the seafront road not far down from the Park. We call it "Sandra's" after our friend Sandra who has a seasonal apartment there and who led us to the struggling cats who live back there.

We have also moved homes since our last map so the new map reflects better our new distance from the feeding stations.

So the new feeding stations are as follows:

1.  The Maisonettes
2.  Sammy's
3.  The Fields
4.  The Apartments
5.  The Park
6.  Sandra's
7.  Our House

 



 

Orangini

Remember this little kitten? 

Mikey's Sibling - One of the Missing Kittens

This was Mikey's once missing sibling who we found and were feeding up under a pile of lumber at the maisonettes.

Soon after we started feeding him, I was able to pick him up and place him in a carrier before he knew what happened, and bring him home to reunite him with Mikey Tyson. It was a glorious day.  We were so relieved because we were really worried about him. 

We thought he was a girl for a long time, and named him Orangini - oops - which we shortened to Gini - now that we know he's a guy, we still call him Gini. 

Here is Gini now:

Orangini

Gini loves to play in this laundry basket from IKEA

Cute, round Gini -wini

Gini is in front, brother Mikey is behind

a little muffin

Actually, he's grown quite a bit since these pictures, and so has Mikey.  Thay are fabulous playmates and the best of friends.

Hundreds of Felines Take Over Park

Here is a link to a story on Fox News where a cat population at a park in the USA is getting out of hand.  I commend the volunteers in Hawaii who are working very hard out of pocket to manage the population and solve the problem humanely.  I also commend the patience of the community who are not particularly happy about the problem.

http://video.foxnews.com/v/1926808543001/hundreds-of-feral-felines-take-over-park/?playlist_id=903226511001

Here also is a story of another community in the United States who has come together to solve a similar problem.  The kudos here go to KittyFixers and the wonderful residents of community of Southfield, Michigan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFR9b5LCSpg

We need people to come together like this in Cyprus, and we need to educate our communities and ask for their help in solving and managing the problem.  I know there are isolated individuals doing what they can in their villages, but we need to come together in a more coordinated manner with manpower and a vision all over the island so we garner more support, both on the ground and financially .  Nik and I are quite overwhelmed at the moment and estimate we are feeding about 100 cats daily.  We are in desperate need of funds for spaying and neutering and veterinarians who will help us with reduced rates, or we could easily end up with a similar situation at our own park.

many of the new young cats
at the park are nearing adulthood

some of the cats from
 our park feeding station

Wanda, an unaltered female from the park

If you have any ideas, and/or can offer help please contact us. If you live in our area and would like to offer help on the ground, please contact us. If you would like to donate food, cans and kibble, please contact us. If you know of any veterinarians who can help us with reduced rates, please contact us. Thank you.

Ants and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails or What Summer Feedings Are Made Of

OK, well, not exactly.  But it rhymed.  Summer feedings are actually made of ants and slugs and puppy dog tails... and hedgehogs.  Winter feedings are made of rain, snails, and more ants.

Ants are people, too, so we don't like to kill them

We used to fight the ants vigorously by trying to outsmart them.  We fought them with particular gusto outside at our house and over at Sammy's (where there is paving) with chalk lines.  They worked for a time, but we had to keep drawing them because the cats unintentionally would wipe them away with their paws.  Being an artist, I eventually ended up drawing elaborate and sometimes seasonal pictures around the bowls.  I graduated to a box of colored chalk and grew in discrimination until I became a connoisseur of different brands of colored chalks.  The best chalks were the softest ones and became stubs quickly.  I bought a lot of chalk, a lot of chalk, but, no worries, chalk, like talk, is cheap and one of the last great deals on earth along with potatoes.

Sylvia with one of my faded chalk masterpieces ;)
 

But then there was this great revolt.  Suddenly the ants didn't care about our chalk lines anymore.  They started storming right over them.  They were like bacteria that mutated and developed a stubborn resistance to our antibiotics.  It made us crazy. We've tried many things since then: cinnamon, lemons, towels, little towers and moats, and they have overcome them every time.

The slugs are gross and leave their trail over the food and bowl.  They are very determined and not as slow as you think.  We have seen some seriously fat ones.  They will hang out all summer if there is a sprinkler nearby.

That huge thing on the bottom right is a slug.  Even Amber, pictured here over at Sammy's, is grossed out.

Snails are a winter problem.  They are fast little creatures when they know where they are going and think no one is around.  As soon as we go outside after the first fall rain (Cyprus is dry all summer), they will be everywhere.  It will be hard to walk our dog Muji without stepping on one if not fifty if not a hundred.  It's a horrible feeling to step on a snail.  We try to walk around them.

There is no shortage of snails in Cyprus.  This guy will be waking up soon.

Soon the snails will be a mighty force to contend with at the feeding stations.  They will have to be plucked out and un-suctioned off when we are wiping and filling the bowls, and they will hide under the rims where they think we will never find them.

Hedgehogs hibernate in winter but often come to the feeding stations in summer.  They are cute and don't eat very much, and don't come in in armies, so we don't mind them very much - just when they poop in the bowl, because they stand in it when they eat. Sometimes we have to pluck a stunned hedgehog out of a bowl, but that is rare.  More often it is their poop.

Dogs are another matter.  They are a real problem in summer.  There is a surge in stray dogs right after hunting season ends, just before spring, when the hunters dump their no longer needed dogs on the streets and in the mountains.  Some of these stray dogs find our feeding stations.  They eat all the food we leave for the cats and drink all the water we put out.  While we are happy that they get to eat, it can become a big problem as it was this summer at the park where dogs came regularly and scarfed all the food.

Puppy dog tails
 Dogs which we love, can sometimes feel like the enemy when trying to feed street cats

I can always tell when a dog has been at the park because, 1) the cats are not around when I drive up, and 2) the bowls are licked absolutely spotless and are usually a good distance from where they were left (and sometimes they are also mangled).  The cats occasionally do eat all the kibble we leave out, (though we try to make sure we leave enough so they don't), but when they do, they ususally leave traces of kibble, just like they do in our home.  Little bits fall out of their mouths when they are crunching and are unworthy for another go unless there is absolutely no other alternative.  At the very least when cats at the feeding stations eat all the food, there is usually a little kibble dust left.  Not so if a dog has been there. There's nothing but a spotless bowl.

So these are the things summer feeding are made of, and about which we complained to one another all summer like little whiners, along with the unbearable heat and the summer visitors from Nicosia who narrow our feeding hours.  "Winter will be here in no time," we reassured one another.  But soon we will be complaining about rains and soggy kibble, cold weather and cat flu, and of course, snails, and, no doubt, more ants, and we will say to one another, "Summer will be here in no time!" :)

Hamlet

Hamlet is a cat that originates from over at the maisonettes.  Nik got this photo just before Hamlet  started showing up at our house.  He thought this might have been Mikey's Mom, but when I took a good look at the picture, I was pretty sure this was a Tomcat.  There is a possibility he is Mikey's Dad though.

Hamlet is from the maisonettes

 The maisonettes are circled in red

Could Hamlet be Mikey's Dad? 

For a Tomcat in the summer season, he was awfully nice to the other cats who come to our garden to eat, which is highly unusual.  When we coupled that with how poorly he looked, we started thinking he might be sick.

Our friend Ron, who helped us build our balcony pet enclosure, told us about a friendly Tomcat he and his wife Ann named Tiger, who started coming to his house and was very sick.  When he got Tiger to the vet, they found he had feline pneumonia.  From the way Ron described Tiger's symptoms to us, they sound a lot like Hamlet's.

Hamlet is quite ill

We are going to try and trap Hamlet so we can get him to a vet and get him some medicine.  He is eating (he loves full fat yogurt), but it is a struggle for him because of his labored breathing, and he is awfully thin.  We are concerned about him, because feline pneumonia is a life threatening disease that can progress quickly.  We had hoped to trap him this morning but he didn't show up, so we will try again tonight. 

Please keep Hamlet in your prayers.  He is terrified of us, quite ill, and probably quite young.

Thank you. 

Mikey's Sibling - One of the Missing Kittens

The first day we heard Mikey's cries, we heard other siblings crying as well.  One voice originally came from across the dangerous seafront road we live on; one we could hear was farther down the neighborhood, along the same road, but getting smaller and smaller.  We don't know what happened to that kitten.  Then we heard one coming from under my car.  This could have been the same one who we heard across the road, and it crossed the road (whoa!).  Or it could have been a fourth kitten.  We don't know.  But the kitten that was under our car we do know is now living in a lumber pile over at the maisonettes, and though we have seen it, and have been feeding it, we have not been able to catch it. 

The kitten that was under our car

Mikey's sibling now living under a pile of lumber alone

These pictures we took the other night.

This little kitten is awfully young to be on its own and alone for so long.  Little Mikey is so needy, it is hard to imagine how this kitten is coping with all its stress and no comfort of a mother, or the nutrients of its mother's milk. 

Too young to be alone

and likely very afraid

On a more positive note, this kitten has been eating the food we have been putting out for it and that is good. The other positive thing is that it is staying put and not wandering around in dangerous places like the road, also enabling us to know where to put the food.   (Also please know, I am referring to the kitten as "it" because we have no idea at this point if it is a he or a she, not because we think of it as an it.)

What a Night - Looking for the Siblings

Last night we awoke to an ear splitting chorus of kitten mews and  yelping.  Our new little friend was outside in his carrier, isolated from the other cats because of his ringworm, awaiting his morning visit with George and Christina, our vets.  We have no idea who started the heavy metal chorus, but apparently this kitten has two, perhaps three or more, very tiny vocal siblings wandering the neighborhood looking for their mom.

The one with the teeth

It was so loud I was sure our neighbors would come out to complain. 

We could hear one of the kittens getting farther and farther down the road with his cries.  Another sounded like it was across the road.  As we went searching and unintentionally made noise with our big clumsy feet, they would become deathly quiet.  At one point, when we returned, we found one had made it to our yard, maybe because he was attracted to the mewing of his sibling in the carrier, and he had gone up under my car, somewhere in the engine or wheel well.

Kitten #2 was under here somewhere

We got food and a trap and pulled the crated sibling up close to the car.  We sat for ages.  Finally, how, we don't know, the sibling disappeared and we could then hear him at the maisonettes next door.  We have been trying to capture him/her ever since.  He is now the only one we can hear aside from our biting fighter in the crate.

We sat for ages

Tonight, we were creeping around the maisonettes with a flashlight totally trespassing, and we saw the sibling, and got it to eat some food, but we could not catch it.  It has wedged itself between two wooden fences.  Our best bet now is to gain its trust with food and keep going back hoping it will come to us.

Nik thinks he knows who the mother might have been.  He has not seen her since yesterday morning.  She lived around the maisonettes.  Obviously something has happened to her, or she would be with her young kittens and they wouldn't have scattered like this. I believe he has a picture of her, but right now he is getting some much needed sleep. 

As we sat outside last night with Sylvia and Amber, we had a visit from Sundance.  Today we had a visit from Big Van.

Sylvia kept us company last night and has been following us to the maisonettes

Right now I will leave you with  more  pictures of the kitten from yesterday.  We are able to handle him now.  A day with our vets, George and Christina,  seems to have done the trick, as he was handled all day.  Now he is rather docile and cries whenever we leave the side of his carrier.