Here is Sophie doing her balance beam demonstration over the chicken run. She is now almost completely an inside cat, but when she does go out, this is a favorite move. She was the original cat to figure out the path up there, and I’m fairly certain she kindly taught it to the neighborhood cats. Maybe she hosted a seminar: How to get the best chicken viewing.

We have our trail cam set up where we are trapping feral cats, to see who we aren’t seeing when we are out there looking. Our local cat shelter said to expect double the number of cats in a colony than are seen. I can see how that would be the case, as there are pictures of cats that I have not seen with my own eyes. What makes cataloging difficult is that there are at least two long haired torties, one or two (or more) short haired torties, several black both long and short haired, at least one tabby, at least one orange, as well as the neighbor’s cats that I know are fixed. The big flame point is easy to spot, and he seems to be unique in the colony. There are also cats that don’t show up on the trail cam. Different territories maybe?

My eldest and I set up the live traps to start catching the feral cats in the woods. Five of the cheeky things came and circled all around the traps, even managing to steal some tuna (in oil) without springing a trap. One even sat on top! We eventually caught one, and our neighbor caught one so we had two to take in for the TNR (Trap Neuter Return) program. We are only allowed two a day, so this was a good result.

Even better was that they were both tortoise shell and thus both female. I’d like to get the boys out of the baby making business too, but this was a definite reduction in the possibility of more kittens. The poor things were very scared. Neither one made a peep the entire time in our care. As instructed, we checked on them every hour, and we were able to change out pee pads without any attempted escape. In the morning, we set them free in their territory. It seems strange to let freshly neutered felines out into the woods, but they wouldn’t take any water from us, so most likely wouldn’t eat either. The shelter said they will probably hole up for a couple days before venturing out again.