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!!
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