Two exciting things happened this week, the fifty-fourth of the lockdown. The first was the fog, which settled in on Thursday morning. Fog adds depth to the landscape as the mist shifts back and forth to highlight and obscure things I pass all the time but usually take for granted. It also appeals to my inner Dungeons and Dragons adolescent, which on some level is always craving the existence of magic and parallel dimensions filled with strange, beautiful creatures. Somehow the existence of such worlds bleeding into our own feel more plausible in the fog.
The second source of excitement involved cats, which in a way is another world filled with strange and beautiful creatures. On Monday afternoon, in our backyard, I found a feral cat having kittens. I had seen the cat over the past few weeks and we had looked at each other, but she was not domesticated in the way other cats we've found in the backyard have been (Clio, Elektra, and Dante, along with a few others we found homes for). Stephen posted a message on NextDoor asking for advice, and within a few hours, we had two Trap Neuter Release (TNR) experts at the house -- two women who lived only a few blocks away and were part of a larger TNR network in Upper Manhattan, which is ground zero for abandoned and feral cats (at least in Manhattan).
I imagined that that they would whisk in like a 'special ops' unit and leave with the mother and kittens within a few minutes. They had traps and backpacks filled with food and other things that I learned can be useful in this kind of situation, such as a sock filled with rice that can to be heated in the microwave and kept close to the kittens if they need warmth.
Unfortunately, the situation was more complicated than I had anticipated, mostly because of the question of how to trap the mother without frightening her, which can lead cats to move the kittens somewhere else or abandon them completely. It was also about to get dark and cold, which meant the kittens could freeze if they were away from the mother for more than a few minutes. One of the TNR women called a friend who recommended scruffing the mother, which didn't seem realistic, given that the mother was positioned in a corner behind an azalea, and that she had already made clear (via hisses) that she wasn't comfortable with being picked up. Wanting to assess the situation herself, this third TNR woman soon arrived, and within minutes was followed by a fourth. It was by far the most people Stephen and I had been around in more than a year. We knew that underground raves and nightclubs were being shut down, but what about gatherings of TNR cat ladies? At least everyone was masked. Ultimately, after a LOT of debate, they tried to capture the mother by throwing a blanket over her, which didn't work. Having escaped, the mother was now separated from the kittens, who we had to bring inside to keep warm in between putting them back outside with the hope to lure the mother back by putting a trap (like a tunnel) in front of a carrier where the kittens were nestled in a blanket. But now the mother was too nervous. There were also other stray cats milling around, which made it hard to tell if the cat pacing back and forth was the mother or someone else. It was dark and chaotic. Around midnight, we gave up. One of the women took the kittens home to bottle feed but left a trap so that Stephen and I could try to capture the mother the next day. It was a disheartening result; I felt like we had failed the mother and, possibly, the kittens.
The next morning, I saw no sign of the mother, but Stephen and I set the trap. To entice her, we put in one of the placentas that the mother hadn't eaten. We also put a recording of the kittens we made the night before next to the trap with the hope that the mother would hear it and come over to investigate. Which she soon did! Except this time -- urgh -- the trap failed to close, which meant that she walked in, picked up the placenta, and walked right out. Stephen and I reset the trap with some food and, finally, we caught her. Not long after, two of the TNR women arrived, congratulated us on our first trap, and took the mother away to be reunited with the kittens at a shelter they maintain. The next morning, we learned that the mother was nursing the kittens and everyone is doing well. Here is some footage. (If anyone's looking for kittens, get in touch!)
In another unrelated development, I also finished recording a new song this week, which reflects my ongoing interest in fuzzy shoegaze, which I suppose represents another kind of fog.
Link.
Everyone agreed: it was a pretty good week. Rescuing a mother cat and her kittens was not how I expected to be re-introduced to society, but it turned out to be a nice way to do it.
Omg!! The video of the kittens! This is a thrilling and excellent installment (also beautiful photos as usual). I would to love to know what's running through the mom cat's head there in the video...
Posted by: Edith Zimmerman | 03/29/2021 at 04:28 PM