Over $27,000 from the Rummage Sale

So here's a picture from the first day of the rummage sale! A horse and a greyhound (my favorite breed of dog) stopped by to drop off donations!

A Lovely Garden Faire

On Saturday Lynne and I went to the Scotts Valley Garden Faire. Our goal was to find homes for the cats that Project Purr rescues from the Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter. These cats are trapped or surrendered to the shelter, and could be feral or just very unfriendly to people, and are deemed "unadoptable" by the shelter staff and euthanized. If Project Purr has space and someone to foster, then they take as many healthy cats as they can and re-home them as "garden cats." The challenge is finding homes. After all, who wants an unsocial feral animal that will not even come in the house?

This is where the Garden Faire comes in. People who come are hardcore gardeners who hate gophers, and but who on the most part want to avoid poisons and other environmentally unfriendly ways to get rid of pests. Garden cats are the perfect solution for many gardeners, so Project Purr sets up booth at the Garden Faire to try to find those gardeners. Also, setting up a booth gets the word out to the community about what Project Purr does, and allows members of the community to learn and ask questions about feral cats.

On Saturday I arrived at Lynne's house on my bike at 7:30am, and then together we drove to Scotts Valley. The Faire took place on a field next to a nice dog park (sometime I would like to take the two dogs I walk to this park). There were small white tents (the booths) set up surrounding a large purple tent. People were already setting up when we got there, and there was a large group of 4-H kids of all ages helping out with the set up. By 9am everyone was pretty much set up. We were ready long before that, because we did not have a lot to set out.

The Project Purr booth was very nice, and well thought out. There were two tables with nice tablecloths, set up in an L shape. At the corner were some potted plants and a fish bowl turned donation container. Along one table there was literature to give out to people about garden cats and feral cats. There were two great posters we propped up- one had testimonies from happy garden cat owners, and the other had lots of pictures of feral cats and the words "We're not all the same- some of us are less social than others." The second poster really brought people into the booth, especially kids who wanted to show us which of the cats on the poster looked like their cats at home. The booth was strategically set up next to the gopher trap guy, so people could look at two ways of getting rid of garden pests.

The faire started out pretty chilly and foggy (although not cold compared to Vermont) but eventually ended up sunny. It was very relaxed and nice, with good food and nice people. There were beautiful plants for sale and adorable dogs walking around with their owners. (Whenever a dog walked by the booth, I always asked to pet him or her, so I made lots of new doggie friends!) Some of the booths were especially interesting to me. For example, one was "the bat lady"- a woman in Santa Cruz who fosters injured bats and releases them back into the wild. (When I was in kindergarden, she brought some of her fosters to my classroom to teach us not to fear bats.) Her goal was to educate and answer questions. Another great one was the 4-H booth. They had a bunny, some pullets (teenage chickens), and goats! The goats were all Nigerian dwarves, and there were six in all. There was a mom goat with two kids, and then two more kid siblings, and another tiny kid on a leash. The tiny kid was only 2 1/2 months old, and was wearing a little jacket. He apparently lived in the house and rang a doorbell when he needed to go outside to go to the bathroom!

It turned out that I knew a lot of people at the faire. I saw my former neighbors, my high school English teacher and his son, and my elementary Life Lab (garden) teacher with her husband and dog! It was really nice to see them all! I also met some new people- a longtime Project Purr volunteer "Belle" helped us run the booth. She and her husband moved to the U.S. from France years ago and now she has a lot of cats, including some fosters. We met another Project Purr foster parent,"Ella" who not only fosters kittens but also trains service dogs. Her own service dog was a big beautiful Great Pyrenees, who apparently mothers the kittens himself.

We found a lot of great potential homes for garden cats, about ten homes in all. And since three cats go to each home, we found homes for about thirty cats! Even better, a large commercial organic farm approached us, asking for cats, and they have so much space, they need more than three! Another great outcome were the donations. Let's just say that instead of putting 1's and 5's in, people were giving us 10's and 20's.

What a successful day, and isn't great that we got to help so many cats!!

Let's Get Spayed!

Today my sister reminded me of two amusing and appropriate videos she found a while ago. They're commercials by some animal shelter, entitled "Let's Get Spayed" and "Let's Get Neutered." Not only are they effective, they are also hilarious and very catchy. (Copy these links into your browser.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0v52gY0FHU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfiG7AOufvU

Tuna > Trap

I was contacted recently by a local ranch about trapping a cat. The cat had been abandoned at the ranch in December, and no one knew if he or she had been fixed yet. Since the cat looked like a cat the ranch used to have named Barney, the cat was named Barney Jr. (although the gender is still not known). Since December, Barney Jr. has lived under the barn, coming out only when people are not around to eat the food that is left out for the Blossom and Buttercup, the two barn cats. The ranch animal manager asked that I trap Barney Jr. so that he/she could be spayed or neutered. Although the ranch does not usually keep cats that are abandoned there, Barney Jr. has gotten along very well with Blossom and Buttercup, so after surgery, he/she will be released back.

This morning I set the trap at the usual feeding spot at 8am. I was greeted the moment I walked into the barn by Buttercup. She decided that she absolutely had to have some of the delicious tuna that I was using as bait, so as soon as I set the trap, she went in. I figured this was good, she would learn her lesson and stay out. After all, cats are never trapped twice. Shortly after, Buttercup's sister Blossom showed up and also wanted some of the tempting tuna. She also immediately got trapped, but she didn't even mind when the trap closed on her. She just kept eating, and in the interest of the tuna, I had to pull her out. I reset the trap, and continued getting it ready. Of course, Blossom quickly went back and got trapped again! This time she acted a little scared, so I thought she had learned her lesson. Then I went home and continued with my day.

In the afternoon, I got a call from the ranch's animal manager. Apparently, Blossom and Buttercup had both been trapped several more times throughout the day, and had eaten all of the tuna! We decided to try trapping again on Wednesday, but this time we are going to use regular canned food. Hopefully, it will be less tempting than the tuna. If not, Blossom and Buttercup are going to spend the day hunting mice in the chicken shed.

I took some pictures of the trap, just so I could explain how to trap a cat well. Traps have a metal rectangle that stands up when the trap is set, and acts like a trigger. When the cat steps on it to get to the food behind it, then the door snaps shut. Many cats see the trigger and step around it, so they get the food but the trapper does not get them. In order to hide the trigger, a piece of newspaper or a towel is put inside the trap, covering the trigger. The food is placed at the very end of the trap, past the trigger, so the cat has to go all the way inside the trap to get food. A trail of food is sometimes placed in the front of the trap, to lure the cat inside. A towel is placed over the trap, to make it look like a safe place to be, and to calm the cat once he or she is trapped. Those are the basics for cat trapping.

Screening a Home

Yesterday Lynne invited me to observe the screening of a potential home for feral cats. Before I talk about the trip, I have to clarify some thing just so that the story is understandable.

Project Purr does not have colonies of cats around the county, and they do not add feral cats to existing colonies. Project Purr also does not trap cats from colonies and find new homes for them (except in extreme conditions where the cats can absolutely not be returned to where they were trapped). Sometimes cats are brought into the Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter, and are deemed unadoptable because they are feral or just too scared in the shelter to show affection towards people. Those cats are euthanized. Whenever possible, Project Purr rescues these cats and finds new homes for them as "garden cats." Members of the community will contact Project Purr asking for these cats for various reasons, the most common being that having a predator on the property to kill gophers, rats, and mice is a more natural and environmentally friendly way of controlling a rodents population than, say, poison. These members of the community will receive three rescue cats. The cats live in a hutch for three weeks on the property, and then are let out and live the rest of their lives outside. The community members provide food, water, and shelter, and the cats keep the rodents away. Most of the time these cats remain afraid of people, but every once in a while one will warm up, and then the community members are lucky enough to have a gardening companion.

Ok, now back to yesterday!

Recently Lynne received an email from a couple, Alfons and Alida, hoping to obtain some garden cats. Apparently Alfons and Alida, who live up in redwood country, had quite a rat problem. It had started out with Alida, who loves animals, feeding birds. The spilled bird food had attracted unwanted visitors, and then the rats moved into their heating system. After over $12,000 worth of damage and still more rats, a neighbor had recommended Project Purr. (The neighbor had also just received his own hutch of three cats, and was very enthusiastic about the program.) Alfons and Alida thought that using cats to fix the rat problem would be a much more effective and environmentally friendly solution than anything else. (After all, you can spend so much time and effort to kill all the rats in the house, but then a few months later, they come back. Cats will continually keep a population down.) Before giving cats to anyone, Lynne and Margaret like to screen the house, just to make sure the cats are going to a safe home, where they will have places to hide from predators, no aggressive dogs, etc. Lynne invited me to come along, so I could see how the process goes.

Alfons and Alida live in a beautiful home in the middle of the redwood forest. They also have two small dogs- a Basenji mix and a purebred miniature poodle, so I was obviously happy. Alfons and Alida gave us a tour of their backyard, which was actually a fenced in large deck. The dogs were obviously well-loved (and in good shape too), and had even had a little doggie door with a ramp! The bird feeders were set up in the best way, so that they were not accessible to any predator, and there was a tarp underneath so that the rats could no longer eat the seeds that fell. Alfons and Alida then showed us where they thought the cats could live. Instead of on the deck where the dogs lived, the cats would be able to go underneath it. Most of the deck was fenced in, except for several cat-sized holes. It would be a good place to get away from the elements and safe from predators. Alfons and Alida then showed us where they wanted to put the hutch, but Lynne had to make a slight adjustment so that the hutch could be on flatter ground. All in all, Alfons and Alida impressed us with their obvious love of animals and commitment to the environment. We all agreed that their future three cats will love living at their house as much as we enjoyed visiting.

When we got back to Lynne's house (after several detours, including a local home turned plant sale) Lynne introduced me to her newest shelter rescues. We talked about a hutch that contained two new torbies (tortoiseshell tabbies) and the younger black male I had helped Lynne pick up from the shelter a while back. Although the torbies had only been rescued the day before, they were obviously settling in very well, and got along wonderfully with the little black cat. Since the two torbies both had pink noses (which means more prone to skin cancer), Lynne thought Alfons and Alida might have the perfect home for them. After all, the cats would mostly be under the deck, which is away from the sun. Also, all three of the cats' colorings would be able to camouflage well in the surroundings.

Hopefully everything works out and I'll be able to help Lynne and Margaret take the cats in their hutch out to their new home. But as for tomorrow, well let's just say I have some trapping adventures very early in the morning.

Silver's Story

I decided that every once in a while, I would share how I got my one of my kitties, starting here with Silver. Their stories are a variety of examples of what can happen to a cat or kitten after trapping.

I trapped Silver myself, in my neighbor's backyard. I also trapped her two brothers, James and Sylvester. (Named because Silver and Sylvester looked almost identical, while James was mostly white.) They were about nine weeks old, and already pretty feral. After Silver was spayed and her brothers neutered, we decided to keep Silver to see if we could foster and re-home her. She showed much more potential than her brothers for becoming more tame. We also kept James to foster and re-home, because he was so white, he would not be able to camouflage or hide from predators. Sylvester was released back into the colony, where I can report he is still living happily.

Unfortunately, nine weeks is a little too old to tame a kitten successfully. It can be done, but the chances are not as good as if you had started at six weeks. When we started trying to find a home for Silver and James, we quickly realized that no one wanted a pair of semi-feral older kittens. They would run and hide when someone walked into a room, and James spent most of his time under the couch. After about four months of looking for the right home, we gave up. We were too attached, anyway.

Silver is now almost five years old, and has warmed up to people a little bit. I discovered that she has a strong "food drive" which means she will do just about anything for food, and eats like she has a bottomless pit for a stomach. Somehow, she never gains any weight, either. I used Silver's food drive to desensitize her to people- a.k.a., I bribed her. If she sat on my lap and let me pet her, then I would let her eat my left over eggs. If she came in the house for the night, I would give her a little extra wet food. Now she is the most overly affectionate cat I know, who loves nothing more than sitting on my lap for hours on end. She comes in every night when I call her name, and sleeps in a bed I knitted for her (see picture). Although she likes me much more than anyone else in the family, she is slowly coming around to my mom and sister. Life for her, an ex-feral, is very good.

Standing Up For Beliefs

Yesterday Lynne called me and asked if I wanted to see a meeting of the Board of Supervisors of the Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter. Of course I said yes.

In Santa Cruz, the county animal shelter is run by a shelter manager along with a group of high-ranking officials in the county. It's not the most efficient way of doing this, especially because these politicians and police chiefs don't know very much about animals or running a shelter. It's not their fault- they've dedicated their lives to helping people, not animals. How are they supposed to run something they know nothing about?

In any case, Lynne, Margaret, and I went to the meeting to protest the fee on cat traps. Lynne went up and spoke about why we shouldn't have a fee, and another woman also protested it. Then, while it was being discussed, several issues came up, so Lynne told me to go up and speak. I talked about my own trapping experiences and how my family could not have afforded $10 every 10 days over several months while I was trapping a colony.

While the discussion was going on, we learned that the new manager of the Animal Shelter wasn't actually clear on what Project Purr actually does. She knew that Project Purr tries to take as many feral cats from the shelter as they can (in order to prevent the cats from being put down), but she thought that the cats were released into colonies that Project Purr maintained throughout Santa Cruz. This is obviously quite false. I think what really needs to happen is for Project Purr and the Animal Shelter to sit down at a meeting and have Project Purr explain what exactly they do, so that everyone will be on the same page.

Unfortunately we lost. Apparently this happens a lot. One of the board members suggested that the shelter have a suggested donation, but even that didn't pass. The only slight victory we had was that it would only be put in place for four months.

It was interesting to see the process and learn more about government with animals. Lynne made two very good points though- 1. animals and government should never mix, and 2. animals and money should never mix. Unfortunately, sometimes they have to.

Rummage Sale Reflections

First of all, I would like to announce that the rummage sale was a huge success! The change still has to be counted, and there are still some things that are going to be put up on the charitable section of Ebay, but so far the count is at $24,500!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just want to talk here about the general observations I made over the three days.

The volunteers were great. Project Purr is not only a non-profit, but it is also completely volunteer based. That means no one who was working there was getting any money at all out of it, not even Lynne or Margaret. (This is true though with everything Project Purr related.) The volunteers all worked extremely hard, often spending hours in the sun obtaining nasty sunburns, lifting furniture and boxes that were too heavy, dealing with nasty clients, and all the while smiling away. I was very impressed with the commitment and dedication from everyone, especially the people who had been doing the rummage sale twice a year for 15 years.

The food was also great. There were several vegans and vegetarians, and so I was thrilled that there were always excellent sandwiches, combined with chips, cookies, water, soda, cake, and coffee, that I could eat! For a vegetarian like me, finding food I can eat is difficult in the first place, but finding good food is even harder. What was even more amazing, was that all of the food was donated from local businesses!

Looking at all of the donated stuff, and seeing an entire dumpster filled with trash, I could not stop thinking about my own impact on the environment. It really brought home for me the connection between my own items at home and the landfill. In one ironic twist, I found the book "Garbage Land"- it had been donated and was for sale. I had read this book a few summers ago, and most of the connections and thoughts about landfills came directly from what I had learned in this book. (I recommended this book to my new friend, and she gladly took it home. I also recommend it to anyone else. It's a thought provoking and eye-opening book, and it's also hilarious.) Finding "Garbage Land" made me think- won't all of the books I buy eventually end up at a garage sale like this? And eventually in a landfill? It is possible they'll end up recycled, but nothing can be recycled forever. And even more than books I buy- what about my knitting? Here I am, making clothing, so what's going to happen to it? For example, a pink beanie I knitted a couple years ago is already starting to wear out. It's possible that if the beanie is so worn down that it has holes, then I'll take the whole thing out and use the yarn in another project. Eventually, though, that project will wear out too. So in bits and pieces, the yarn will end up in a landfill. Another option is that the beanie will go to a yard sale (although in reality I would never give up one of my own projects like that, so I guess in this scenario I must have died). Whoever buys the beanie might wear it, or use the yarn in another project. Either way, once the yarn gets too worn out or re-used, then again it will end up in the landfill. Another option is that the beanie for some unknown reason is unsalvageable, and has to be put directly into the garbage and landfill. This case would obviously be the worst, as none of the yarn would get to be re-used. I guess my point here is that everything always ends up in the landfill, so I want to be more conscious of what I buy and think about where it will go after I buy it.

Rummage Sale Day 3

Today was the best day of the three. I got to sleep in until 6am, which compared to yesterday felt like a luxury. I biked over again (which some people think is dangerous or crazy, but they don't understand that I am a very good and safe bicyclist), and then jumped right into the mess. I felt like I had finally gotten the hang of things, and knew for the most part what I was doing.

I spent the morning organizing the artwork and cleaning up the garden stuff section. Things became unorganized so quickly. For example, I found a vacuum, fabric, paintings, and three boxes of unpacked stuff where there should have just been ceramic pots and garden tools. It made a lot of what was supposed to be organizing into putting the stuff back to its place. It reminded me of the law of chaos.

In the late morning, my new friend (who had volunteered the past both days as well) arrived and then together we tackled the books. We went through boxes and boxes of books, making sure that the spines were readable, and condensing as much as possible.

After the books, we moved to the clothing. We looked for warm clothes to donate to the homeless shelter. It was fun finding crazy things people wear, and thinking about how to make awesome Halloween costumes. As a knitter, it was also fun to look at all of the knitted stuff to see how it was made. We eventually expanded our search to clothing for women and children (for another non-profit), and velvet (for an animal rescue non-profit). It felt good to know that this sale was helping so many other non-profits.

After 3pm (when sales stopped), we started cleaning up with a vengeance. It usually takes them about 45 minutes to clean up, but since there was so much more stuff and fewer volunteers, this time it took about 4 hours.

Just about everything left over went to Salvation Army. Everything else we kept to sell next time or threw out. It was wonderful when the Salvation Army truck showed up. The truck was huge, and we filled up the entire thing, from floor to ceiling. There was even left over stuff, so we had to throw some of it out.

Lynne had rented a huge dumpster (and when I say huge, I mean this thing was bigger than a small apartment) and today we filled it up completely. There were also more cardboard boxes than an entire dorm building would need on move out day, and the ones we didn't put stuff in we broke down to be recycled. The whole thing was quite a feat.

Now I'm just tired. I think tomorrow I'm going to post a "reflection" of sorts, and talk more about the bigger picture and my thoughts all of this.

Rummage Sale Day 2

All that "overwhelmed" feeling went away this morning. It was replaced by tiredness.

I got up at 5am to get to the field by 6:30.

Today was the first day of the sale. The sale opened at 7am, but people had started lining up well before that. I happened to be on the field at 6:59, and had to run for cover because of the mass of people running at me.

Lynne started me out being a human cash register for her. We ran the antique section- she would price items, and I would collect money.

After a while Lynne called me out to do field work with her. She had me do easy tasks, like labeling furniture that had been sold, and carrying stuff to cars.

For a while after that I had to sit and guard the silent auction items, to make sure no one accidentally walked away with them. I felt very fidgety and wanted to help, but for once I was forced to stay sitting.

I spent a lot of the day moving tables, and then putting boxes of books on the tables. Also condensing the books into the boxes, so that they would all fit on the tables. It seemed like a never ending job, but it was very satisfying.

The end of the day I spent moving the paintings across the field to where the books had been. I was happy to have a big cart to help me, because there sure were a lot of heavy paintings.

During the day, I saw a lot of dogs. My favorite was a two-month old Chihuahua named Frijol, who was so little! I saw a lot of Chihuahuas, some adorable, some not very friendly. Most of the dogs were small, but one big dog that I loved was a female Boxer. She was jumping and licking, and just the friendliest dog you ever met!

The same friend who came yesterday came again today for a little while, and this time she even brought her boyfriend. We spent a lot of the time working with the books and tables, which was fun.

There were a lot of interesting things I observed about people and consumerism in general, but I'm too tired to write it all down. Plus, I feel like I'll learn a lot more tomorrow, so it would be better to save it all for then.

Rummage Sale Day 1

You know how when you go to a planetarium and see a movie about stars, and you feel all overwhelmed and insignificant? And usually that day you've spent walking around the museum and the city, so you feel pretty tired by the time you sit down?

That's a pretty close to how I feel right now.

It makes writing about it somewhat difficult.

I'll just start from the beginning I guess.

I woke up this morning at 6am, got ready to go, and biked over to the field where the rummage sale was already beginning. I arrived at 8am, but plenty of people had beaten me there and had already put a bunch of tarps on the ground for the stuff to go on. Lynne handed me over to the woman managing the field, and I pretty much followed her around the entire day. (It's a good thing we had a lot in common, or else I'm sure she would have gotten sick of me following her like a duck very quickly.)

We spent most of the morning switching between unloading unending truck-fulls of stuff, and unpacking all of the stuff from boxes, just to sort it into more boxes. At lunch there were delicious vegan sandwiches and Newman-O's, so I was happy. It was also nice to sit for a while.

Most of the stuff had been collected this entire year and stored, but some of the stuff was dropped off as a donation today. People came all throughout the day, cars packed full with the far corners of the garage, and in return received a neon-green tax-return slip. Then of course, the volunteers got to sort it all.

Some of the highlights of the day were the animals that stopped by to say hello. There was a sweet weimaraner pit bull mix, and an adorable pomeranian. Plus, there was a greyhound (my favorite breed, and a rescue on top of that). There was even a horse! Also a moth laid her eggs on me.

It turned out that my friend's mom was volunteering, so when she saw me she called up her daughter with orders to come out to the field right away. It was great to see my friend, even though it was just for a little while. Her little brother also came for a while, which was fun because he's only a little kid.

I spent most of the day sorting. Going through boxes and moving stuff from one box to another, finding things that made me laugh, or that confused me. There were more books than anything else, mostly because a guy dropped off a trailer-full that had been in storage for a while. There was also a lot of clothes. So much that the clothes were put in these huge, colorful piles, that required quite a lot of digging to get through. I think this rummage sale has more clothes than any clothing store, and more books than any book store.

I could go on and on about the stuff, all the types and cool things I found, but I would really rather go to sleep. I have to get up at 5am tomorrow.

I didn't leave until 9pm today, which was when we had finally finished unpacking and sorting all the boxes. So after a full day of setup, we get two days to sell it all. It's going to be crazy and exciting and tiring and hot and lots of fun.

First kitty caught!

Well there have been lots of exciting things today!

Yesterday I called a man I'm going to call "John Smith" who lives across from Lighthouse Field, and has done most of the trapping for the cats there. John Smith and his daughter have done a great job feeding and working with a lot of the cats in that area, and know most of the cats by name. I called them to ask if they'd seen the female with kittens, but John Smith let me know that there are actually quite a few unaltered community cats living there, and then he invited me over so he could give me a "tour" of sorts.

This evening I met John Smith and his daughter in person at their house, and even got to see the cats they trapped a while ago who've now become friendly enough to pet. All the cats they feed looked happy and healthy, and were living a good life. After he fed them, John Smith and I walked along the edge of the field and he showed me some of the other feeding stations. Apparently one of his neighbors, "Ariel" feeds the cats all along the field. John Smith told me that Ariel doesn't trap the cats, but apparently her daughter does every once in a while.

We walked to one of his other neighbor's house and he introduced me to a nice woman, "Giselle," who lets Ariel feed the cats on her porch. Giselle was hoping that I could find new homes for all of the cats so that they would not be on her porch. Unfortunately no one really wants these cats, so finding new homes is almost impossible. However, I can definitely talk to Ariel about moving the feeding stations.

John Smith explained the cat situation at the field to the best of his knowledge, so between his information and mine, this is what I have gathered:

• There are enough cats in the field that they have gone from just one colony to many sub-colonies.
• There is one grey and white female who keeps having litters of kittens. If she is spayed, the amount of new kittens will decrease significantly.
• No one actually knows how many cats need to be caught, or even how many cats in total there are.
• There are at least three long-haired black cats, and two have been caught.

What I think I need to do is first of all to start trapping. Have a trap open in the morning and the evening (when cats come out to eat) at a feeding station, and see what I get. At the same time, I need to contact Ariel and get her opinion on this. If anyone knows if there are kittens right now, it will be her.

Now to end with the best part.

When John Smith and I were walking past a feeding station, he noticed a little calico (all calicos are female, so I knew she was a girl). She was a little skinny, but also probably only about a year old. John Smith said he had not seen her before, and it was obvious that she had not been trapped yet. Since he had his own trap, he suggested we set it right there and try to catch her. So we did. He even had some Fancy Feast as bait on hand. We left the trap open and I went home to go out to dinner with my family. I was planning on going back to check the trap and close it if it was empty after dinner, but after only about an hour of the trap being open, I got a call from John Smith saying that the we had caught the little calico!

This little girl is one of the lucky ones. Tomorrow morning she'll be spayed, vaccinated, tested, and ear-tipped, thanks to Project Purr's program with the Animal Hospital of Soquel. She'll then spend the night in recovery, and Friday morning she'll be released back into the field. For her entire life she'll have food and water provided for her, and she will never have to go through the stress of having kittens. She'll live a long, healthy life, and who knows? Maybe she'll warm up to people someday, and someone will take her home. But either option is good, and she'll be happy either way. And this makes me very, very happy.

The Return of the Mysterious Black Cat

Yesterday I went to pick my little brother and his friend up from school, which happens to be right next to Lighthouse Field. We took the long way home, and walked very quietly (well, as quiet as two fifth-grade boys can be) along the edge of the field, looking for cats. Right near the kitty-watering hole I had discovered the day before, my brother spotted the same black cat. This time he was hunting, and he mostly ignored us. My brother tried to get a little closer to get a better look, but then his friend tried to follow, and the cat ran away. However, the fact that we saw this cat out hunting in broad daylight means that he's had some time to get used to people. He's obviously been living there for some time, and most likely is fed by someone. In fact, I bet he has a name. Anyway, since I saw him twice in that same area, I know I have found the prime cat territory.

A Black Cat Crossed My Path

This morning I biked over to Lighthouse Field and started looking for kittens. I was hoping to find the mom and siblings of the kitten someone found and took to Companion Animal Hospital, and while I didn't end up finding them, it still was a successful day.

I know Lighthouse Field very well, since I went to school from Kindergarten to 8th grade at Gateway School, which is right across the street. I had a vague idea of where the cats would live, so I started my search by walking quietly along the edge of the field. I found some great potential kitty homes, and also figured out where they came for water. At one point, I was standing on a little foot bridge that crossed a little creek, and was looking for cat footprints in the mud, when I looked up and a cat had appeared in front of me. It was a male black longhair with an ear tip. The ear tip means that the cat had already been neutered, so although this cat didn't need to be trapped, I knew that I was in the right place. The cat and I stared at each other for a while, and then he got up and walked away. I followed him until he disappeared into the bushes, but I was glad to have seen him at all.

I also went around and knocked on doors to see if anyone was feeding cats or knew about the mommy cat and kittens, but no one was home. Then, finally, I talked to a very friendly neighbor who said she hadn't seen any kittens and that she knew all of her neighbors and only one feeds cats. She pointed the house out to me, and sure enough, there were a bunch of silver food bowls in the front yard. Unfortunately, no one was home, but at least I have a lead there.

I went back to where I had seen the black cat, and right where he had been sitting I discovered a small passage. It was partially overgrown, but I followed it through to an opening where I disturbed three crows who yelled at me for quite a while. The opening had two giant trees and a nice clear area where the creek ran through. By the creek I discovered lots of cat tracks. I decided to come back to this spot if I needed to watch for cats. I could easily climb a tree and wait for cats to come get a drink of water. It would also be a good spot to set up a feeding area and a trap, because it is not somewhere most people will go when walking through Lighthouse Field, and it is very out-of-sight.

I think it was a promising and successful first day working with the cats at Lighthouse Field, and hopefully I'll be able to find that mommy cat and her kittens!

All caught up on blog posts!

Ok, now I've put up all of the previous journal entries! Hopefully I'll be able to post entries the day they happen now.

6/4-A fee for cat traps

When I was over shadowing Lynne the other day, she explained a situation to me and invited my to write a letter to the shelter manager about it. Here's my letter:

Dear Animal Services Director,

I recently heard about your new policy of charging the public for borrowing a Have-a-Heart trap. This greatly disappoints me because I know that this will discourage people from trapping feral cats. I know that the economy is tough, and making money now is absolutely necessary, but I wonder if there is another way to make it. For anyone in the general public to take the step to try to catch a cat in need is huge, especially because so few people will even think about it in the first place. The few people who even try to trap should be encouraged in any ways possible, and never charged. This is especially true because your shelter does not have a TNR program at all. And as I mentioned before and you know, the economy is bad right now, so many possible trappers will not be able to pay for the trap in the first place. The most important point, however, is that if fewer people trap feral cats, then the cats whose lives could have been changed for the better will not be changed at all. As a cat lover, a member of the Santa Cruz community, and a big supporter of your shelter, I am asking that you please retract the fee for borrowing a trap.

Thank you,

Amelia Erickson

6/1- A Day With Lynne

This winter was unusually rainy, and the rain has continued through the spring. Apparently the rummage sale had to moved to the weekend of the 11th-12th because of the rain predicted for this weekend! That means all those fliers now have the wrong dates... sigh. Well hopefully people will be able to figure it out by themselves.

This morning I was going to go look for kittens and talk to neighbors at Lighthouse Field, but as I was getting ready to go, I got an email from Lynne asking if I would want to come with her to pick up some feral cats from the shelter. I ended up spending the day with Lynne, helping her out as much as possible and observing what she does. We started out with a tour of her house and yard- it’s a pretty incredible place, and almost exactly how I would like to have my house be one day. She has some cats that are her own, all ferals or ex-ferals, and she has a bunch more foster cats, all ferals that live in hutches in her backyard. She even has a mother feral cat with three three-week old kittens! After the tour, we set up a new hutch in preparation for the new cats from the shelter. Compared to the shelter, the cats in the hutches are living in luxury: The bottom of the hutch is covered with blankets and towels, with a extra blankets on one side for them to sleep and hide in, the hutch has one or two doorless cat carriers with blankets inside for hiding and sleeping as well, and then there are the usual things like food, water, and a litterbox. The litterbox is clipped to the side of the hutch, because some feral cats will freak out and knock it over. The water is also conveniently placed at the one spot where the towels and blankets don’t reach, so that if a cat spills, then the water just drips right out of the hutch. Three sides of the hutch are covered by a quilt in order to regulate the temperature and keep the sun off. On top of the quilt is a tarp that is pinned down so that it won’t blow in the wind and scare the cats. If it rains, then the tarp and quilt are pulled over the entire hutch, which keeps the cats warm and dry. My favorite thing about the whole hutch set-up is that the cats are not isolated. There are usually three cats in one hutch, and the three cats are usually placed together on a farm or in a garden. Anyway, Lynne and I went to the shelter and picked up five feral cats. They were put in side-loaders, which are essentially traps without the triggers. We took them back to her house and put three that had been caught from the same street into the newly assembled hutch. The other two went into another hutch that already had one feral cat. After that, we went inside and checked Project Purr’s phone messages, and Lynne responded to some of the calls. Then, a woman stopped by to pick up a trap to borrow, and I watched as Lynne explained how to use a trap. Finally, we took two of the side-loaders back to the shelter since we had borrowed them.

5/31- Lots of Fliering!

I finished fliering the Westside and then went downtown and put up fliers until I ran out. It was a long day, so I’m just going to mention some of the highlights. First of all, people were really, really nice- only one store (a bike shop) turned me away, but they had a good reason and they were very nice about it too. Plus, they had an adorable dog. I’d say that’s pretty good results for putting up about 60 fliers. I learned that some companies can’t put up fliers in their windows “because they’re corporate” but are always happy to put them up in their staff room. Some stores let me put up the fliers myself, but most took the flier to be looked over by the manager. The library was especially nice- I happened to ask the woman who was in charge of all the advertisements for all of the branches of the library, and she knew and loved Project Purr. She offered to send out the fliers to all of the branches in the county! I had one especially interesting experience- I was walking past a man a couple years older than myself who was selling food outside of a restaurant, and he looked over my shoulder and asked what Project Purr was. I explained how Project Purr takes cats living without homes in the community, and spays or neuters them, etc. Strangely, he didn’t know what spaying or neutering was. So we got into a very interesting conversation about how fixing cats helps them live longer and healthier lives, how cats aren’t native animals, and how Project Purr’s work is very eco-friendly. He wasn’t sure at first that he agreed with taking an animal’s ability to reproduce, but I’m pretty sure I was able to convince him. He also mentioned to me that he was trying to help the homeless people in the community, so we ended the conversation with high-fiving for helping the homeless cats and people in the community. I was glad to be able to use all of the concepts I’ve learned from Project Purr in order to educate someone who was curious. (I would also like to add that this man was definitely a hippie, but he was not homeless, drunk, or high, and was very sane as far as I could tell.)

5/30- More Fliering

I spent a few hours covering the rest of the Westside, and was almost done when my dad called me to come home.

5/27- Fliering!

I put up fliers around the Westside, for about an hour and a half, out until it got dark. I realized I probably should have started earlier, but I did get a good amount of fliers up.

5/26-First Day!

My first assignment is to put up about 60 fliers for the upcoming rummage sale. I have the entire Westside and downtown to cover, so it's going to mean lots of walking! (Good thing I love to walk!) The rummage sale is going to be next weekend (June 4-5), and is Project Purr's biggest fundraiser event for the year, so it's huge and a lot of work, but critical.

Today I put up a flier at Companion Animal Hospital, where I used to volunteer and work. I chatted with the new office manager, and found out that someone had just brought in a little feral kitten they had found wandering alone in Lighthouse Field. This means that there are more unaltered cats that have joined the colony there. I also put up a flier at Wilder Ranch State Park, when I went there for the docent meeting.

A Little Farm Kitty in Vermont

I figured I should put up a picture of myself, so here I am with a little kitten. I went on a field trip (at school, in Vermont) to a farm that had about 50 feral cats. Some of them were friendly, especially this little girl. I carried her around for about 2 hours, and she never stopped purring. I really wanted to keep her, the farm owner even told me to take her home, but unfortunately a dorm is no place for a kitty. Poor girl, she even tried to follow me onto the bus! I hope she's still alive and doing well.

Welcome to My Blog!

Hello, and welcome! I'm a student at the University of Vermont, and this summer I'm interning for Project Purr (http://www.projectpurr.org/). I was born and grew up in Santa Cruz, and have had cats my entire life. I have six cats: Violet, Silver, James, Cloudy, Zuko, and Fuzzbutt/Maui. I got Violet from the Santa Cruz SPCA, and all of the other cats are from a colony that was overpopulating my neighborhood before Project Purr helped me Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) all of the cats there. I actually trapped Silver, James, and Zuko myself, while my dad caught Cloudy and Fuzzbutt.

I have trapped and fostered feral cats a little bit, but hopefully this summer I will get more experience with both, while also learning what it takes to run a successful TNR all-volunteer run non-profit. Of course, I also want to help Project Purr out as much as possible!!