The Wayfaring Wordhack

 Did you automatically read that subject line with a sarcastic tone?  You should have.

Last year, I was on the look out for a kitten or cat or adopt to help deal with the rodent invasion we were having, an invasion that had been brought into our house. I could not sleep because of the scrabbling in the walls and ceiling of our bedroom, and traps were just not cutting it. I finally got a handle on things though and stopped asking around.

Well, just after Christmas, some kind soul decided to dump three cats out in our little hamlet of three houses. Aside from our three-legged rescue cat from Mayotte, there are no cats here. No one at the other two farms wants cats around, and because a) I had wanted a cat to help with rodents, b) I don't like to think of abandoned animals trying to fend for themselves, we set out food.

Yes, I would have been happy to have a cat or two; on a farm they can be really useful.  It would have been nice had they not been feral and if we would have been ASKED first.

So, one of the three is completely wild, a big black tom, and we hardly catch a glimpse of him, thinking he has disappeared only to see him again. The second is a young male, who with lots of coaxing has finally become friendly enough that we will be able to take him and get him fixed (gotta call the vet!). The third was a pregnant female! And of course she is still wild and fearful and will not let us near her. We were planning on catching her and fixing her, too, but now she is pregnant AGAIN.

So now we have Bengali, the nice male, and three little kittens who have been abandoned so the mom (Grisou) can eat for her next litter. Oy oy oy. Naturally, since Grisou is afraid of us, her kittens are little wild things, too. :(

We cannot financially see to castrating and spaying all of them, even if we can catch them. I have no idea what we are going to do. :-/

Here is a crappy phone photo of them that I was able to get before they realized I was there and fled to the four corners of the hamlet:


The mom is the gray and white blob on the left with a black kitten hiding her face, then two black and white kittens, far right, with Bengali almost front and center.

aka Luna.

Remember the little rescue kitten?

She was still in pitiful shape before we left for the summer, but three months and many doses of ringworm meds have done her wonders.

Then:




Now:


N'Djema has come around, and the two play together, but Luna, six months old--give or take a few weeks--can already pin her.  N'Djema has lost weight. We don't know if it is the heat, the extra exercise, or stress. She looks well, in any case. 

A sucker may be born every minute, but some of us get to practice our suckerhood every other minute. Or something like that.

Once again, our hearts have softened and we have committed rescue.

Meet Luna:


She must be 4-6 weeks old, a Persian* or Persian mix. She was on the road outside our home, covered, literally, in fleas.** In fact, we thought she was scabby, but no, it was just the mass of fleas around her eyes, in the crevices around her nose and mouth.  All these photos are post-bath, tedious tweezing, and brushing because she is too young and weak to use any flea products on.  She was missing all the fur before, not because of our clean-up, rest assured.


Sprout loves her, scruffiness and all, and she is the one who named Luna--on the spot--because, "I just like the name." J is already calling her Luna Lunatic, through no fault or antics of the kitten's, but it seems like a foretelling. :P

* No offense intended to any lovers of this breed, but I'm not really a fan. Just to make clear that we didn't relent and save her because she looks like something other than a street cat. I can't stand suffering, though, not when I can do something about it, no matter who or what it is happening to.

**Actually, she was under a car and came waddling out to us when she heard us talking, as if sensing soft-hearted marks saviors nearby.

declares N'Djema.

This morning, I felt her gums were paler and her stomach felt a bit hard. She still hadn't passed stools, so I couldn't judge that and she doesn't want me taking her temperature. So I asked J to take her to the vet.

The vet says she has a sprain* in her front left leg (the back left is the one that was amputated when we saved her), but other than that, he says her internal organs seem to be fine. He told J that if she had internal bleeding, she would have died within a few hours, but I'm not in agreement with that since I know it can take longer, as it did for Tiboy.

Anyhow, she is on painkillers and is taking it easy.

Thank you so much to everyone for your good thoughts.  *hugs*

____________
*It could be a small fracture instead and we'll know in a few days if she continues to limp.

Thank you to all of those who expressed condolences after the death of Tiboy.

I appreciate your concern and well wishes very much.

I'll be back online soon, but for now, I just need time to zone out...

Yesterday at the garden store, Julien was carrying Soëlie on his shoulders--Soëlie who was wearing a pink* turtleneck, with pink-striped tennis shoes and pink-striped socks--and a lady said to us:

Lady:  Aw, baby boys are so cute, aren't they? 
J and I exchanged looks and agreed that indeed they are.
Lady: Sadly I only had one boy.  Girls can be cute, too, but then they grow up and become brats.

Didn't we have a good laugh in the car...

After two water-n-vinegar baths, two afternoons of sitting out in the sunshine, and an entire spray bottle of odor "destroyer" from the local pet store,  the couch STILL reeks of cat urine.  :-< 
_______________
 
*No, I'm not saying boys can't and don't wear pink, but this lady was not being open-minded; she was making a silly assumption that lead to her putting her foot in her mouth, even if she didn't realize it.

For purposes of transcribing the conversation, I'm going to call the woman who "rescued" N'djema "Catlady" or CL for short:

7:20 p.m. I'm lying in bed, nursing Soëlie and trying to get her to fall asleep; Julien is with us.  The weather is quite warm, so we leave our door open for air as well as for our cats to come and go as they please. We don't hear the gate open, nor steps on the wooden stairs, but suddenly:

CL: Is anybody home?

J jumps out of bed and goes to the door; recognizing her, he says: Thank you for coming!* 

CL:  Oh, you shouldn't have worried. The cat is at my house.

J: That's good news. We were really worried something bad had happened to her.  We put up lost posters this afternoon--

CL: Oh, you shouldn't have done that. He's been at my house the past few days. I started letting him sleep inside.

I go to the door, happy to hear N'djema is safe, looking around, expecting to see her on the stairs or landing.  I say:  So glad to hear you have our cat! We put up posters and asked all the neighbors...

CL looks at me, shocked: There was no need to worry.  She (CL points at the nearest house, where the shutters are closed and have been since we got home) knew I had the cat at my house.

I:  Well, it's the other lady across the street who was feeding the cats for us, and she told us N'djema disappeared Monday.  That was five days ago.

CL: I was thinking that i need to ask you some questions.  I need to know what his name is, how old he is, and how he lost his leg in case I have to take him to the veterinarian.

J and I exchange a startled look. 

CL, oblivious, continues: If I adopt him, I'll definitely need to know those things.

Another startled look between us, and J says: Well, her name is N'djema.

CL: Oh, it's a female.

J: Yes, and we aren't sure of the age, but when we lived in Mayotte, we rescued her and the vet believed at the time she was 9 months old, which would make her about five.  We had to amputate her leg because she had eaten off her foot to escape being tied up.  We also spayed her and had the vet give her a microchip--

CL's shoulders sag: Oh, she has a microchip...

Apparently, she knew the cat was "ours" but was thinking that we hadn't bothered to tattoo her, so fair game?

CL:  She sure likes it at my house. (she then begins to list all the things N'djema can do like get on the furniture, sleep inside, eat all the paté she wants--not good for any animal to get fat, but especially not one with only 3 legs--and she told us about N'djema likes to be with their dog and how she and her husband kiss both dog and cat before going to bed...in short, pretty much making us feel like we are the worst cat owners in the world.)

J:  Well thank you for taking such good care of her. If you don't mind, I'll bring her home now....

CL mentions adopting again, but I say I need to put S to bed and J repeats that he should go and get the kitty now...

Tiboy was thrilled to see N'djema back home and insisted on PLAY, PLAY, PLAYING with her.

On a related note, I mentioned that Tiboy was traumatized, but I didn't mention how the other humans reacted.  J wasn't unduly worried because he thought she had gone walkabout and would be back any day.  I had a bad feeling since we lost Max and couldn't quite shake the fear that tragedy had befallen her.  I was on the verge of tears most of the afternoon, which had a striking effect on Soëlie. She is usually such a smiley, flirty baby; strangers and her doctor are always commenting on that.  But yesterday, she was so sad and serious.  It wasn't until I made an effort to hide my fears over the kitty that she gave me some halfhearted smiles.  It was a trial getting her to go to sleep last night...until CL came around.  Once we had N'djema back at the house, I must have relaxed greatly because Soëlie was asleep soon after despite appearing to be wired for sound but a minute before.

 

______________

* As I said in my last post, we asked someone to speak to her on our behalf.

Poor Soëlie spent yesterday afternoon throwing up.  Not just spit up, but serious spewing that continued until she was throwing up only the water we were giving her to keep her hydrated.  She was fine otherwise--no fever and was smiley and playing--so we didn't call the doctor.  She seems to be fine today, just a little tired.

And now the news that has tears not far from falling and my stomach in knots. Our little kitty, N'djema, whom we rescued in Mayotte, is missing.  The neighbor who fed our cats while we were gone on holidays hasn't seen her since Monday.  I called the two local vets, and neither has had anyone bring her in.  There is an elderly lady who lives down the street whom N'djema likes to visit, and Julien has passed by her house three times now to see if maybe she our kitty with her, but so far he hasn't been able to find the lady home.

This afternoon, we'll go asking up and down the street and put up a Missing poster at the city hall and bakery (if they let us).  It is a tiny village where we live, and most people know the three-legged mite belongs to us.  Now that we are home, I'm hoping that, if someone has her, they will let her come back to us.

I hope nothing bad happened to her....

ETA:

"Lost" posters up at the school, bakery, city hall, and on our mailbox.  Spoke to several villagers; no one has seen her... I'm hoping, though, that people will talk or the posters will do their work and we'll hear something soon.

In the meantime, poor Tiboy, our only remaining cat, is traumatized. He insists on being beside us and wails when we leave his sight.

says N'djema.  "What's up with all these updates?  Work updates, word counts!  What about an update on me?!?"

Because I cannot stand up against the menace of Miss Barrel Belly for long, here are some