The Tuna Trail

Sometime this summer, the Mama feral cat who wandered through my garden for over a year from time to time had three babies.  Two black and white along with one grey tabby.  Sweet.

She hid them under the huge aloe vera  at the back of the garden.  It is much taller then I and has thorns that could cause severe damage.

Hence, I did not attempt to retrieve them so they would not be feral.  I waited for the mama to bring them out to me.  Well, she did not exactly do that.  Common sense told me I did not want FOUR cats anyway,  therefore I did not feed them.  I called the animal shelter to see if they could help me catch them and the bottom line was no.

Now, before you get upset with me, I also knew that there were enough locusts and varmints on the edge of the canyon and in the canyon to feed a herd.  Add to that all the garbage that is strewn daily in the fenced in area of the primary school daily........

But, at some point, recently, I began feeding them with the thought that I could catch one or two and have them fixed and, if like Velcro the Cat, would no longer be feral, but would turn into lap cats.
I have failed in the last two months at that endeavor.

However, week before last I returned Scout the Dog to his rightful owner,k my son and grandchildren on a Thursday afternoon. Whew.  No pets.

Au contraire, while I was over visiting with the people in the guest house, ALL the cats came in the house, looked around and were about to leave when I returned home.  Oops.  There was the Mama
and only two of the kids - the grey tabby and one of the black and white ones.

The one STILL in the house, hiding, is the black and white one that has been following me around.

When I go up on the roof terrace, she climbs the tree and sits up there watching me.  She is an
acrobat and loves to zoom up the tree by the bird bath.  She is the one with the most personality.
One, I thought, I would love to have for a pet.

That is, until I tried for two days to catch her inside the house to put her outside!  "Hide and seek"
took on a whole new meaning.  She "hid" and I was "seeking".

It was hard to believe that there are so many hiding places, even in one room.  The living room.
She would get behind the sectional sofa and with my cane, I would try to herd her out.  Then she would run somewhere else before I could catch her.

At one point, I thought she had gone out since I was leaving the door by the kitchen open near her food bowl.  But, she left me a "gift" which told me that she indeed was still in the house.

The night before I finally did get her out of the house, I heard crashing and banging and all kinds of  commotion.  With all the windows, she was seeing her brother and sister and mama outside.  She was running at the door and window trying to get out.  BUT when she saw me, she would run and hide.
It was aggravating.

Then, my daughter Julie said, "tuna".  Ahh ha, why had I not thought of that?  That morning I put a little bitty pile near the long built in bench and walked into the dining room.  Zip, she got it. Then I put a little bitty pile near the end of the sectional and the stairwell, closer to the door.  Zip, darn that cat is FAST!  I was on to a solution.  Little bitty piles of tuna led to the open door and her outside
food bowl.

Voila!  After almost 48 hours, she was outside.  Yippee.  All the time she was IN the house, her family never left.  They were in the garden, where they could see the windows and her.  Very interesting............

Needless to say, I do not want a replay of this again.  Now I'm very, very careful to close that door behind me.  She is always sitting there when I go out. I don't have a cage to catch her.  After seeing her with her whole family, the conundrum is..........."Do I keep feeding them or catch one or two or what?"

Here is a photo of her yesterday when I was downstairs in my bedroom and she came down to see if I was there.  Isn't she beautiful?

 Life is ALWAYS an adventure!