I haven't posted in a while: we have been through all the fun and games of a failed state that cannot run its electricity supply company efficiently enough to give us all consistent power so we have had a lot of rolling blackouts. Add to that decaying infrastructure which has caused electrical substations to burn down, I had to prioritise my paying work. I've been building ecommerce websites and had to relearn everything I ever knew about the CMS I like using - Drupal - and that learning curve wasn't small. Now, the worst of that workload is in the past and I can get back to talking about the other interests in my life.
Sweet little baby Simba
The cats have been keeping me busy: for over a year, there's been one of the usual tomcat visitors that I always have an that I finally managed to catch and neuter but once his hormones subsided, he's decided to remain living in my yard, because he was either dumped or strayed so far that he doesn't know where he previously lived, even though my cats hate him a lot. Although he bit me when I caught him, he's actually a very sweet boy that just wants cuddles, regular meals and a roof over his head. I'm trying to see what can be done about the roof over his head part, since it can't be at my place. He got named the Hungry/Hangry cat and though he's no longer aggressive my cats haven't forgiven him.
Mr Hangry
One of the Hangry cat's enduring actions was to make the man down the road's 6 month old kitten pregnant. Said man is extremely financially vulnerable aka poor as they come and when I heard that his skinny teenage cat Milo had given birth to 5 kittens, I knew it was time to act if there was to be any hope of her and the kittens surviving. Many bags of kitten food and 3 months later, Milo had 5 fat babies, looked ok herself and it was time to spay her before daddy Hangry did a repeat performance because he hadn't been caught and neutered yet.
Of course Milo returned from the vet determined to rip her stitches out so it was off to my bathroom with the cone of shame for Milo. I had to fetch her kittens before she became utterly miserable and yowled the place down. I learned then that Milo's owner had homed the nicest kitten, Simba. I was a little worried but well, it's not my cat and I respected his wishes. I managed to home another 2 of the cuties to what seemed to be ok homes, kept the black kitten because I liked him and nobody else would have taken him, it's a fact that black cats don't easily get homes. The last kitten, Bebe was supposed to go to a relative of Milo's owner and Milo and Bebe went back home.
Milo, Bubbles and Bebe. Who's yer daddy, Bubbles?
Milo's daughter Bebe always had a fearful personality and she turned out to be impossible to rehome so she stayed with Milo and I tapped my shelter connection again to get her spayed so that there wouldn't be a kitten farm down the road. She went completely crazy when she got back from the vet and had to be medicated and coned and Milo was fetched to keep her company. More strange cats in my bathroom for a week and my own cats weren't happy, especially Wookie, who had initially accepted Batman but now hisses at him. In between all this, Mr Hangry was also making my cats uneasy with his constant presence and Wookie has started vanishing for hours on end, making me feel extremely bad for causing all this chaos in my cats' lives.
Irresistible little Batcat
Milo and Bebe went back home and two weeks ago, I heard that Simba had been returned, with claims that the child was allergic to him. Milo's owner said that he would keep him, since he was such a friendly cat. It was noticeable that after 3 months away, Milo no longer recognised her son and she and Bebe regarded him as an intruder. I hoped that they would get used to him but on Wednesday, when I went to check on their food levels, I noticed that Simba couldn't use his back leg. I took him back to my place to monitor and give painkillers but he didn't improve so I took him to the vet for x-rays.
Milo's owner confirmed that he'd seen her fighting with Simba on the carport roof and that he'd fallen badly... So now I have to get Simba's leg pinned. I'm waiting on my vet to refer me to an orthopedic surgeon that we both know and trying to keep poor Simba as pain-free as possible under the circumstances. I didn't have the heart to ask the vet to euthanize this lovely six-month-old cat and somehow, priorities will be reassessed and the money to do this will be found.
I keep thinking about this entire saga and concluding that I really do have a chaos magnet inside me