There he is! Hey Desmond, you handsome devil!

A little mix of good and bad news here, but he is well and has made some friends. Mildred, bless her, called me and told me the cat I had described to her to look out for was turning up where she feeds. I grabbed my sneakers and was out the door. Sure enough, its Desmond. I don't know why he is going over there to eat when I set up a feeding station and shelter where I relocated him. Maybe he is uncomfortable there or maybe he just likes the new spot he has chosen for himself around the corner. Who knows, one of the girls from the outside area of the Bakery likes hanging out over there and the bodega kids hang there too, maybe it's better. What is upsetting is that he is crossing the street to go eat. But, like I said, he's well and looks good. He's in good shape, healthy and had made some friends. I'll be investigating to find out exactly where he is spending the majority of his time and hope to move a shelter and feeding station there to keep him from crossing the street. So when I went to see him where Mildred feeds, he was hanging out with some new friends, an orange guy, a tortie and a calico (I didn't get a pic of her, but she's a beauty).

Desmond's new friend, I forget his name, but he's a typical fun and charming, orange guy.

And this is Ghost-Kitty, named by someone on the block, no, I don't know why. She's a hoot and a big old fatty girl! 

And over where Desmond seems to be spending his time are a couple of bodega cats you may remember, Bibi and Bo Dega! 

Here's Bibi, spayed January 2012 when someone from the neighborhood was moving and "couldn't take her" so the bodega owner took her in.

And here's Bo, neutered in May of 2011 after the former kitty, sadly was hit by a car who I had spayed back in 2009. (She was Beauty and Beast's sister, Shannon's litter)

So Des has made some friends and I really hope they are showing him the ropes over there where he can stay safe and warm. I'll be working on getting him set up, but it will take some more work. Hang in there Des, please.

Meanwhile, around the corner at the bakery, the girls are still doing very well and I see them every weekend. This is Hitch's routine:                  WHO IS IT?                                                  It's me Hitch.

OH, IT'S YOU, PUT THE WET FOOD DOWN AND BACK AWAY.                                      OK Hitch.

A LITTLE FURTHER PLEASE...                    OK Hitchy, just a second, but be nice to Grommet please. 

Then as Hitch eats like she's been starving to death (despite the CONSTANT supply of food), Grommet shows up all stealth-like and cute:) She waits somewhat patiently while Hitch eats because Hitch will just slap her around if she goes to eat before Hitch is done. I don't get it, there's plenty for everyone. Cats! On a good note, these two were not well before relocating, now both have good weight on them and Grommet has stopped wheezing!!! 

I ran past the Greasy Paws lots today and saw Beetle sun-bathing. He looks great, nice and full and healthy. Perhaps its easier to get a full meal now that it's just him and Hexbit and the drama of the summer has ended. The feeding area is now kept very clean, that is really nice to see considering it was one of the big points of contention. The other point was the cats eliminating on the lots, I see both lots are still utilizing the litter boxes I made for them, so I hope that is helping too.

On my way back home I passed by again and ran into the feeders that feed at the lot every day. It was so nice to see them. They tell me that Lucky, formerly Beep, who they took in from the lot is very happy in their home and LOVES his toys. I really enjoyed hearing how he was doing and all his fun stories of what he likes and dislikes. 

They say things have calmed down a bit over at the lots. The lot that worked with me on this project, he has not had any interaction with since the relocation. The guy at the other lot, who was trapping and dumping the cats in an unknown park and still denies it, still gives him some dirty looks, but the confrontations have ceased. We talked about some concern about winter now that the shed is closed off, but I hope these guys do OK. If anyone has any room for properly and safely relocating the last two, please feel free to contact me. I'll never forget about them and hope to do some outreach next summer when I am out of school to try to find them a place but for now they seem to be doing ok and I hope that with the small number, 2, there will be more tolerance and they can all coexist in a peaceful and compassionate manner.

Stay tuned!

3 colonies in LIC

First stop, the Bakery.

Well look who it is, Mama.

Let's get a close up of that crabby face.

When I see her I can't help but hum this tune

"Bad, bad, Mama cat, baddest cat in the whole damn town".

And now that I think about it, I probably could have named this guy Leroy Brown because after trying to bust out of a trap with his face "this guy looked like a jigsaw puzzle with a couple of pieces gone..."

He is not the black and white I had seen a few weeks ago, but he was there and did not have an ear tip, so he got trapped! My neighbor took a look at him and said he has come to her porch to eat, this is a couple of blocks away so he is roaming the neighborhood.

Over to the Greasy Paws lot.

Hemi, King of the concrete jungle!

Peek-a-boo, I see Hitchy poo!

She sat under the car watching me dish out the food waiting for me to serve her.

One more stop.

Another colony in LIC.

A friend asked me to pop by and check in on these guys.

At the first feeding station, I saw that one kitten my friend needs to catch.

So I set up the trap and went over to feed at the main feeding station, when I returned this is what I saw! Wow, they came out of nowhere just for 1 can of Friskies!

Instead of catching the kitten, that fat ass tom you see making his way to the front of the trap got trapped. I had to let him go, I'll be back when I am not lugging a trap on my bike!

Meanwhile over at the main feeding station,

Where's Waldo?

Can you find the cat supervising me?

2 cats in this photo

Snow Day

I stopped by the lot this morning to see how it looked after the big snow.

I see they were out and about.
This is the lot with the shelters.
The snow plow did not do them any favors...
Plywood saves the day!
We used it to keep the entrances and the area between the two shelters clear.

It looked like they had a little space, so I cleared a little more out of the way.

No-one was there, but I think we can thank the plow for that.

This is the area between the 2 shelters, the doors face each other here and the plywood stretches across the tops to keep the area clear.

Nice and clear under here, pretty amazing.

Lisa stocked them up with food the night before!

Checking in on the Greasy Paws

I was at the bakery setting up some traps, but the new guy was not around today, so I left food in the traps and secured the doors (with zip ties AND padlocks) so they remain open and the cats can go in and out to eat. Plan is that when I go back I can set the traps and hopefully the new guy, thinking this is a nice, safe, new feeding area, will walk right in and I get him/her. Well, in theory it works, we will see. So I passed by the greasy paws lot while I had my handy zip car and a few extra minutes.

Love that M-F feeder!

They were all lined up for the grub and hanging out. Was nice to see them all out with plenty of food for everyone!

The cats I saw were Hood, Hitch, Muffler, Hemi, Hexbit, Winch, Torque, Beetle and Grommet.

Muffler and Hitch took a couple of breaks to play tag with the birds (no birds were hurt and kept coming back for more). But otherwise no-one even looked up!

Room at the Inn

The last tasks to knock of the to do list were to build shelters and clean the traps

Here is one of the two shelters we built.

Shelters, traps, drop trap
Only one lot of the three allowed us to put out shelters for the cats.
There was a large metal container in the back of the parking lot and they told us we could put 2 shelters behind it.

It was perfect!

You could hardly notice they were there.

Shawn passed by the lot the other day and walked in to check on the shelters. As she picked up the board on top, a gray cat bolted out! They are being put to good use!

Good luck to all the Greasy Paws!