I hesitate to talk about this because stray cats can be so heartbreaking. We adopted one in the past and had a great two years with her before she disappeared without a trace. We had to capture her and her three kittens, take them all in and get them fixed, etc. It was…beyond challenging.

Lately there’s been another mom cat scurrying through our yard. We started the long process of trying to feed her because it was pretty obvious she wasn’t getting enough food. Within a week, her kitten completely disappeared. It’s a dangerous world out there for feral cats trying to survive on the leftover scraps of other pets. At any rate, we continued to feed the mom and have gotten her used to stopping in the yard to look for food. We’ve even gotten the three days worth of dewormer down her…a bit off schedule, but you don’t really get to schedule regular cats, never mind feral strays that may or may not pass through.

Here’s a picture–not a very good one. We’ve gotten closer to her than this picture. She came over near the garden to see what I was doing one morning and she sat and watched me for about an hour. She runs only about 3 yards away now when we come out with food–unless something spooks her. So we’ll see how the process goes. She may disappear without a trace. I know that trapping her is going to be very difficult. Cats are quite smart and they don’t like entering the trap. We never would have caught the other cat except her kittens went in the trap. We then used them to get her. She was mad at us for weeks over that trick…

Time for an update on Project Cat. Scamp is doing quite well. She’s been dewormed via secretly inserting dewormer into a tuna treat. She is now appearing on a regular basis for food and is even taking her meals on the porch.

She scampers off at the least perceived threat which still includes any movement by the humans, a loud noise from the neighbor’s yard, too many things happening at once or just for the hell of it. She will allow the humans to sit quietly on the porch, but does scamper off now and then to test the humans to see if they will give chase. She will pretend to approach the humans, sit just a few feet out of reach and then scamper off even though no threat is posed. She still does not spend significant time in the yard. A very busy cat, she runs off to do errands right after she eats.

On at least two occasions now, she picked my cantaloupe for me and rolled them around the garden. You would think they were too big to be toys to such a small cat, but apparently she finds it great fun. I haven’t seen that she is the actual perpetrator of these crimes, but there are tiny claw marks on the evidence in question and even a rather healthy gouge that could be teeth marks or claws that got stuck while playing.

The goal is to catch her and have her fixed and then release her again. Once she has been fixed and defleaed, the problems are minimized. Of course, we’re quite a long ways from catching her, I think.