My first day at the homestead was eventful, but I didn't expect this. A limping, skinny cat meowed at me all day and wouldn't let me leave it's sights. I tried to approach it a couple times to see why it was limping, but it quickly darted under my truck. I didn't have any food to share with it, only water. After it got a good drink, it finally let me touch it and take a look at that paw.
There was an open wound on top of it's left front paw, and it avoided putting any weight on it. With a wet rag I tried to clean it up some and it didn't look like there was an infection. No puss oozing out or anything like that.
That first night I had to leave it there. Maybe it belonged to a neighbor and had just got injured and would go home that night. With how skinny it was, I doubted that was true, but you never know.
I came back the next day, and so did the cat. This time I was prepared with some cat food. Yep, gobbled it up like it hadn't eaten in a while. Again, the cat would not let me out of it's sight and followed me around as best as it could on three legs. When I was working inside the home, the cat sat right in the doorway to make sure I didn't leave without it seeing me.
I had planned on leaving the cat there that second night and bringing a cat carrier the next day if it was still around. When I went to leave I sat down in my truck and it followed me, meowing and looking up at me with longing wanting to hop up in the truck with me. Darnit, I'm a sucker.
Without permission from my relative where I'm staying, I decided to snatch it up and take it home that night. I'd let it spend the night in the cab on my truck if I had to. That was a Sunday night and I figured I'd get it checked out on Monday at a shelter or vet. Luckily the relative didn't mind me turning it loose in the garage. I put out bowls of food and water and some cat litter in a box hoping it would use that instead of making a mess in their garage. It chowed down and slept a lot that night, I took that as a good sign.
Here's my YouTube video of the cat from the two days I've spent at the homestead thus far. 6+ minutes of the cat saga, if you're a sucker like me. I'll certainly do updates on the cat as the story unfolds.
I noticed that I've used some of the exact same photos in my last two posts. I'll have to start paying better attention to that and not repeat myself. As @themerrylotus astutely noticed a couple days ago in comments, I'm mostly just running on adrenaline right now.
Honestly, I've lived a mostly sedentary lifestyle the last several years because physical activity often causes me pain and I'm wired to avoid to pain. That is all changing right now, and I'll have to remind myself regularly not to overdo it. I don't have to cross this ocean all in one day, I've got the rest of my life to clean up that property and leave it in better shape than I found it.
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