My Ferals

The frustration in me is growing and I can’t begin to describe how sad I feel inside.

For years, since I moved into this house, I have been caring for a Momma cat and her babies. I’ve plotted on how to take care of her fertility issues, but she is a sly one. She shows up pregnant, has her babies nearby somewhere and when they are old enough to start eating on their own, she brings them to the woodpile beside my garage, where I have been supplying her with cat food for all these years. I’ve found homes for 4 of her babies, and have brought 2 indoors myself and luckily have inadvertently prevented any female offspring from procreating.

 When they are weaned and no longer dependant on her, she seems to disappear again, just when the opportunity to catch her and have her altered would be perfect. It’s a little game we have been playing for 6 years now.

 Recently I have discovered my neighbor behind me has been doing exactly the same thing. And so between the 2 of us now we have been trying to figure a way to reduce the population humanely.

 Well it seems a mute cause now. For 6 years my neighbors beside me have been working and living in the city and have only shown up occasionally for weekends and vacations. Last year they retired and sold their house in the city and moved up here full time and since then my blissfully peaceful and lovely home has never been the same. They have intruded on almost ever aspect of what I hold dear to the rural life.

 They began construction on an extension of their small house last summer and for an entire season it was noise and chaos. He began chopping away at the cedars between our homes because they were too tall and getting in the way of the workmen. When it was time to put the siding on, he began chopping away at the cedars extending down between our properties. At this point I couldn’t not say anything. I asked him to not cut them so short. He grumbled something about me being the one who said he could take them all out, and promptly stopped. I explained that the cedars were protection for the birds in the winter from the harsh winds and cold. I’m guessing he didn’t really care or think about that. Clearly these people are not nature lovers.

 Which begs the question why live in a rural area if you cannot tolerate the rural way of life?

 In the beginning I was happy when I found out they were retiring and moving up here full time. I thought it would be nice to have neighbors to chat with now and again. And for the most part I thought they were very nice people. That is all slowly changing.

Unfortunately they are systematically destroying everything I hold dear about my rural lifestyle. If I could have bought a country home I would have, but this is as close as I could get. I absolutely love that I can look out my front window and witness a myriad of wildlife in the wooded area. These little pleasures keep me sane.

 Okay—I could sort of tolerate the construction zone last summer, it is all done now and the only reminder is the side of their house blatantly staring at me when I go to my backyard, and thankfully he has not cut any more cedars down which would have wiped out any semblance of privacy I wish to maintain.

 During the winter which was relatively mild, their septic bed kept partial spots of ground open, which of course as everyone knows is where cats love to do their business. And so for the entire winter, Momma and her 5 babies from last year were using this to their advantage.

 Our spring came early and revealed to my next door neighbors the “treasures” left behind by the kitties.

 One morning, as per my usual routine, I was sitting at my back window with my coffee, I watched as the neighbor started to clean up the “treasures” with his shovel and wheelbarrow. Grant it, I’m sure it was not the most fun thing to do, but this is a fact of rural life, animals. A thing which city people find somewhat less appealing unless they are the groomed indoor type of animal—trained to go when and where the humans want them to.

So it was not a surprise to me at all when a day or 2 later she shows up on my doorstep, late at night, with glasses of wine in hand, ready to woo me into seeing things her way—quite the subtle bullying tactic I think. I suspected what was coming and that this was not a social call and sure enough there was not even any real friendly chit chat involved–she cut right to the chase. Her daughter has children one of which has an allergy to cats and apparently had been playing in the backyard when all the “treasures” were discovered. So as a result the daughter states that she, her husband, and the kids will not come back up again because of this. She states her son-in-law dislikes cats as well. She tells me she has talked to the SPCA and they tell her not to feed them. Now she gets to the meat of it all, and wants ME to stop feeding them.

 OMG—really hate to use this expletive here, but OMG.

 So I try to maintain my composure in order to try to help us come to an agreeable solution to this problem instead of throwing her out on her up tight anal ass as I so wished I could. I understand to a very small degree about the cat “treasures” that must have built up over the winter—I would gladly have come over and cleaned it for them. Now the spring is here, I highly doubt that many cats, if any at all, are using their back yard. My yard is frequently used as well as my good neighbor’s by the cats, and I have no issues with it. I scoop it up and put it somewhere useful—like I said before—part of rural life.

   As we attempted to come to a viable solution, I explained to her the ramifications of trapping any animal and releasing them to other areas, such as the illegalness of it and the consequences such as “large fines”—I emphasized this, not to mention the cruelty of it. I relayed the story of the neighbor on the corner who received a huge fine for doing the same. I told her the SPCA was reluctant to get involved with feral cats as their mandate is the prevention of cruelty to animals, not housing ferals. She told me she would start trapping them and release them exactly the 1 mile radius allowed in some woods if she had to. I could feel my blood boiling, but maintained composure in order to keep a working relationship with her. I told her the SPCA would euthanize them because they were feral. None of what I said made any difference as she was bound to do what she wanted to do in the end.

 My neighbor reveals to me yet a day or so later that she has gone to the OSPCA and they will take the feral cats in if she traps them. I cannot stop her from doing this if they venture onto her property, so we come to an agreement that she will show me which ones she has trapped before they take them in, so I can determine which of the cats they trap are the ferals and which are neighboring cats. She assures me the SPCA has assured her they will try to do whatever they can to find homes before they are euthanized. Is she that naïve?

 Obviously she is on a mission to get rid of all the cats in the neighborhood, because she has reneged on our agreement. I know for a fact that there have been many trapped and taken in. I’ve watched them do it on several occasions without coming to me first. Most of the cats are gone now and I have no way of determining which ones she has gotten and which ones are left. They told me earlier I could have all the wood in their wood pile, but they have since backed out on that agreement. Her excuse is that it’s too close to their place and the cats will still use the wood pile for their home.

Here we go again OMG !! I’m sorry—in what universe does that make sense?

 Well it’s sad for me to say that I no longer view them as good people. They have clearly shown me that they can no longer be trusted to keep their end of any bargain and I will not cooperate any more in their trap/SPCA/kill plan.

 I believe at this point they are just being extremely selfish, petty, mean and small minded.

 Why do people from cities want to move to rural areas if they do not wish to embrace rural life. Why do they feel it is their right to move to a rural area and change things to suit their needs, ignoring the people who actually enjoy the rural aspect of life in the country, along with all its wildness and freedom from restraints of city life.

 I feel so sad that these people have single handedly destroyed the beautiful feeling I have every morning while I sip my coffee watching the cats play in my backyard. They have taken it away and I despise them so much for it. And the most disturbing aspect is that it is a family who don’t even reside in this village that have caused all this to happen and are controlling this issue—their daughter and her husband.

 The neighborly feeling has been vanquished and has been forever replaced with loathing and a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that the neighborhood is no longer safe to maintain it’s rural atmosphere.

 I have a new despise for city people and their ignorance, arrogance and bulliness.

 My wish for them is that they get what’s coming to them and/or move back to the city where they clearly belong. What will be next on their agenda?

 As I watch her daily try to eradicate the dandelions and crabgrass from her lawn one piece at a time, I’m guessing it will be to report me for the dandelion and crabgrass in my lawn spilling over into her perfectly coiffed yard After all when someone is that determined—and anal, one little annoyance is no different than the next. Hmmmm—I wonder if they could embrace the naturalization of my front yard.