HOW TO SAVE KITTENS & work with them to have them grow into REALLY WONDERFUL, GENTLE, REASONABLE, SMART, KIND AND LOVING AND SUPER PLAYFUL CATS. And what we can learn about HUMANS from watching the differences in generations.

ALSO some REASONS why we MUST NEUTER YARD CATS !

by Hollywood cat lady ANITA SANDS astrology at earthlink dot net

Today I discovered something I'd long suspected: that minds which make a career out of being EVIL, PARANOID and SUSPICIOUS are also incredibly  dumb minds.

I have a very dumb yard cat named BAD TWINKIE to thank for this lesson. She's a “won’t come near Humans-type” who has a baleful glowering hatred in her eyes that none of the other yard cats or even house cats have. She won't come in the house no matter what food's in the dishes.. not if she sees me.

SHE LOATHES me. Here I'm the lady who's fed her for 8 years. She doesn't care. Reality means nothing to her. IN HER MIND I'm Dracula Bad T’s twin sister, GOOD TWINKIE was normal but she did have a short life. And this crud lives to breed? Is God blind?

I once tried to grab Bad T. to put her in the cat carrier to go to the vet, she nearly took off my arm and face. I think that that's why she hates me,-- my daring to grab her neck scruff. That's also why til this day she's unneutered.

My other yard cat, Laurel, thought enough of me that after years of birthing in my Brazilian jungle of a yard, she had enough of this outdoor thing and lay her last litter in guest bedroom so that I could play with the kitties daily and they’re now like playful puppies, if not humans, smart, speak English, read signals, come when called, the whole nine yards. (God wanted those children to be born. I know cuz Laurel was at the vet with 15 other cats, came home, her ear had been tagged, meaning post surgery. Yet she got pregnant a few more times!) Result: Beavis (Craig Newmark,) the Kign of cats, and Princess Pixie, Wally and Carlos Eduardo who have the IQ's of first graders. So God makes miracles when he likes a good breeder who will advance the race!

But back to Bad Twinkie. A few months ago, kitten season, I thought I heard a kitten crying. Apparently the mother came to it, because the bleating stopped and did not continue. So I went back in the house. Nonetheless, I woke next morning with a dream or a verbal message saying there was a little kitten who needed me in my garden. There was an emergency and my unconscious knew it as I don’t believe in ghosts.

So I ran outside after coffee and sprayed once thoroughly, and maybe a cat cried out but then silence, meaning the mother was with it. But a few hours later, I sprayed everything down again, even tops of trees, 40 feet high (Actually I do this to make a refrigeration grid to chill the entire garden, front and back, and help AC’s to cool the boiling hot Southern California air.) Again I heard the cry and this time went to look for the nest and I located a wee orphaned kitty -- with placenta still attached. His fur was covered with one thousand hair like fly maggots which mean at least 24 hours of being ignored by his DUMB PARANOID mother who had laid her baby in a nook so confoundingly obscure and vine crossed that she couldn't get into it easily, herself, or out, what with vines crisscrossing, so she left the baby there! Uncared for. (I googled fly maggots to find that in 24 hours, they hatch.) As I water everything multiple times a day, a good squirt of water shakes even a hungry kitten into loud complaint, so I located a squeal and made an effort on hands and knees and found a black boy kittie in a nook webbed heavily in viney overgrowth covering a RUT between two raised flower beds.

I washed the little fellow with real lemon juice to make those larvae let go, then warm water in a basin, soap and water, then Q-tipped the larvae with straight lemon again as these maggots don't let go easily. The white larvae are like miniature bananas or hairs in the first 24 hours after they are laid. Three baths got most of the thousand larvae out of the black fur.

I fed the little boy milk with an eyedropper, til he was full and, as I refuse to give a singleton back to Bad Twinkie, (if there were four, she could have them, she'd probably mother them adequately, but not ONE.) I gave the little guy to CAROLINA who has three lovely sons, three weeks old.. Carolina barely noticed that now she had a fourth, way smaller. I did. I knew the dangers. Being aced out at the pump and smothercated by fat siblings. So, a.) I'll be feeding the three older guys hourly so they leave more for junior. B.) Watching for rollovers. The danger is not insufficent food, it’s weight compressing small lungs.

I can pasteurize an egg yolk in nearly boiling water, count to ten then lift it with a spoon big enough to encompass it without ‘hangover’ and lift yolk into ¼ cup of milk, stir and serve to all of them even the three older kittens, with an eyedropper. The danger is crushing of the smaller newborn, not starvation but food frenzies and pushing and shoving can occur if there are serious munchies. (Also forgetting to wash eyedropper In soapy water immediately and setting in saucer in window to dry in sun!)

I figure if 24 hours this SOLO kitty survived --24 hours of flies walking on him, with the kitten just eating off his placenta, (which was whole and attached,) alone in a ditch with a dead brother under him, he is SUPERMAN and can survive anything. But three fat step brothers on top of you would be kitty kryptonite. However, little Clark Kent seems to be very very ecstatic with his "mother and brothers" in Carolina’s covey in the office. But the question was: Can happy get you thru it?

If Bad Twinkie had a nest somewhere with other babies, I'd add this little superman to it, but she doesn't appear to. have a nest of other litter mates. The nest was what I found. ill made, ill placed, inacessible to her even. I mean, I checked. I went around with a hose full blast and got every corner of the garden, every hedge, high and low, seeing if squeals emerged. None did.

LATE AT NIGHT, Carolina came into my room and got into her usual  place on my stomach, but meowing unhappily with confusion and upset. I massaged the back of her skull hard, rolfing the lower brain until she relaxed and then I told her how noble she was and I knew it was hard work but ....hey, somebody had to do it. After ten minutes, she thought she was called, got up and returned to her labors and she raised this baby, but it was never the same as a baby that had NO disturbances from birth. It was triggery, hectic, alarmed, tense. That cat can never have a good immune system or a happy mind.

I went to wash dishes with the FM radio on to KPFK an all spirit/ reformist political station (IMPEACH its call letters,) you can listen to right now, online. (Ram Das, Noam Chomsky, Peter Dale Scott, Dave Emory, Alan Watts,) A song came on and I didn’t believe the synchronicity of the lyric. "Anita, death is bliss, don't be afraid of it, Anita, it is the same as life. " This song went on and on with many different choruses. What serendipity EERIE. MY NAME AND EVERYTHING. Just what I'm fighting....death. Dishes washed, I go to sleep.

NEXT DAY, LIGHTNING strikes twice or even THREE TIMES in the same place. I go outside and see Moonbeam Morgana has a baby bird. a mockingbird. A mother cat will NOT KILL when she shows it to her kittens (Morgana has three kitties who are 3 mos old, run around, a lotta fun. She's teaching them the KILL. I take it, see no blood, feed it fresh squished mulberries, cage it, in cotton bedding, hang it where the mockingbird mother flies with her fledglings, she loves the mulberries, can pick one, I've seen her do it. So I feed the baby this fruit when I bring it in for night. Lay down and read mysteries, (SPENSER) all night long, so I'm amused as I have to stay up, all night….reading so that I can set birdie out at dawn so mother can see it, after feeding it. 

Finally, I HIT THE SHEEETS but....Can only sleep six hours as I'm really worried about it, so I wake exhausted, anxious, it's NOON and the bird is FRYING, maybe, i'm not sure where the shadow falls on that tree outside...so I run out there, he's in the shadow of this big hanging watercup I put in there, dappled shade everywhere else in the cage. I bring it inside, feed and water the birdie. Mind you the Cage door was open, all day...hoping maybe mom would feed him --I'm not sure if he ate, but heck,  I feed it again, walnuts masticated with dried fig. (Later corn tortilla mixed with chicken.)

I have my coffee and go see that the first little baby kitten I found was nursing happily, he fit right into Carolina's litter of three, although GOLIATH the lead kitten weighed what the OTHER TWO real brothers weigh put together. AND GOLIATH weighs SIXTIMES which this new infant weighs and when he shoulders into the trough, he is like a suckling pig that  there was danger of a fatal suffocation rollover, but I monitored the three older kitties, feeding them by hand yesterday and today so they don't get into a furious scrimmage at the pump and plaster  SUPERMAN kitty who's size and weight of your thumb.

Five PM or so I Hang birdie back in tree, so mother can visit, leave door of cage open. Go inside. Work a bit. I'm in garden near sunset &  hear my worst nightmare. Another newborn, shrill kitten call in the back yard. DAMNIT! Twinkie lays them like easter eggs. What this means is there's a cat who is TWO DAYS OLD, ignored, hanging somewhere by his umbilical! I go up and down the hedge trying to scout the area. scream comes from. Hedge is exactly 55 yrs old, as is the house BIG LEAF IVY, HELIX, and honeysuckle on top of it, but stems go down into ground....very very old plants. HEDGE itself is head high (why I can walk nude in back garden on very hot days. This ivy mass is embedded in  an old chainlink fence I think. Not sure. Not only 5 or 6 feet high, amazingly about four feet deep/wide. If you were on the sidewalk, and stuck a yardstick into the hedge, maybe the tip would make it out on garden side.

I crawled into this hedge after the sound, hearing the squeak.I felt around in dark (SUN WAS NIGH SETTING.) & worked over lowest levels, ground first, sound was over my head  Ran for an old flashlite you have to POUND to get to go on..... Went back with some light....stuck my head and shoulders into any dent in this mass, there’s no real crawl space, arms pulling at roots and stems. There's this cat sized crawl space below where no ivy leaf has appeared for 55 years, ivy is now on top. AND HONEYSUCKLE mixed in equally near the ground, roots, lotsa roots.  I began to break stems with my arms, and I DID THIS FOR A SOLID HOUR. The squeal moved.

NOW ---NO way a ONE DAY old or two day old kitten can move, even in a condominium maze of these stems, but the sound did seem to move. So as it moved high low, left right, I THOUGHT wait a minute, one kitten dead, one in there with carolina, tops there's two kitties out here who survived birth TWO ENTIRE DAYS ........either multiple kittens or I AM HALLUCINATING. THICK DUST, fifty year old moldy dust (laden with mycoplasma spores, I’d soon find as I got massive conjunctivitis,) showering down with every move of breaking masses of dry, fifty year old stems.

Now there’s one other possibility I'm delusional or a fourth possibliity this is the dark forces are playing with my head or trying to kill me as my heartbeat was 130, just pounding away, my arms are bleeding, thorns in my knees as i'm kneeling on a six month old baby rose bush. thorns and all, black widows like crazy in the bushes and my head is in there, my butt is all that's emerging into back yard. and two feet.

After what seemed to be an hour of moving up and down the hedge, listening for the squeal, which was occasional, I honed in and found the kitten trapped. at about HIP HEIGHT or WAIST HEIGHT in this 4 foot wide tangle, and I could only get in there by breaking stems right and left with my hands, harsh, dry, old stems.. Cyclone fence was bent by weight of vines, kitty was in a wire basket of fencing. I felt its body, dry not wet so no fly eggs. I lifted, but the kitten wouldn't come.. Something was holding its leg, was it umbilical and placenta? or a stem?  Or its leg? Pinned by a vine? Whatever it was, I clipped it with my fingernails, It felt like an ivy stem but I suspect this two day old creature had been living with its placenta, the feeding tube entangled and on a very tight rein. The reason they don’t cry much or often, (and I’m in the yard a lot) is the placenta is intact, ergo no hunger. So they just sleep that first day

I brought baby Superman two in. put eyedropper, milk in its mouth, it had a lot of milk,  put the new baby orphan with Carolina and set her own three kits on my bed while I quickly took off spidery/ leaf covered clothing, my hair was a bush of leaves, got in tub, washed hair, wondering what wild life was going to be floating around me. Tub emptied, and left a solid layer of black litter on porcelain.

I went & checked the THREE babies on bed, and then the two babies born 48 hours ago. Carolina's making like a momma. I ran to RALPHS supermarket, got two chickens on sale 88c lb, two turkey burger rolls, buck each there, quick cooked the liver, gizzard & carried the food & the two babies out to back yard, found one of the REALLY OK SANCTIONED pre-used nests Twinkie has used in past yrs, lay table cloth and cotton flannel in there, the two babies, and the plate of livers gizards as TWINKIE is NOT in the mothering mode. Lay the plate deep inside the choice space, beyond the bedding. And now I am praying that Twinkie goes in there and feeds the two Men of Steel survivors.

I go away. Come back with the “pound-it and it works” FLASHLIGHT ready for a look see. it's ll pm. The two babies were in that bed I made, but not Twinkie and when they heard me, they started screaming for attention. I brought them back to Carolina. 

Cats birds spiders no sleep. my eye got injured in the hedge and the whole orb hurts and there's some weird pus secretion, so I recognize it as Conjunctivitis. MYCOPLASMA PNEUMONIA a frequent cat illness is a spore like a fern, not bacteria or virus. It resides in nature. All animals get it. And the eye always reflects it. Often the lungs do as well, as it creates pneumonia

I put neosporin anti-bacterial ointment in the entire orb which a vet showed me once. He did it with a mini tube of anti-B ointment he sold me that cost more than NEOSPORIN and was a tenth of Ne’s weight. Infecting agent must have been the debris in the hedge. My lungs and sinuses are exhaling black dust. I sprained my neck, it’s cricked from jaw to shoulder tip. I realize I will only sleep a few hours tonight for worry the two babies are getting walloped by Carolina's three older children. Smothercated. I wake four hours later to find them fine. The older three are now capable of playing, being ambulatory so they have other things to do besides lie on top of infants, but I’m facing weeks of worry now. This is a typical pair of days lost out of one’s life if one lets stupid yard cats remain unneutered. It is hellish and it ain’t over.

SATURDAY – Anticipating hunger in the flock of five. I wake them and feed them three hours after last feeding so there won’t be a scrimmage at the pump. Not to say there isn’t one as, when all are tanked up, they still want the teat, but the fight is softened. Am putting Neosporin in my eye every few hours. ORIGINAL FORMULA. Gotta go get more meat as one chicken gets us through 24 hours,the second chicken is good til late tonight. I am a slave to cats, and not very good ones. Twinkie is dumb as a stump, her babies are orphaned and traumatized. They will never be relaxed, loving and playful.

The moral of this story is: We neuter garden cats where we cannot have regular access to kittens to accustom them to humans. If you want to breed amazing cats, they have to be house cats or patio cats. We neuter them so these anxious wack job cats will never be born. We use easy breezy VERMICIDES to heal them, rather than carrying them to VET for harsh chemical worming.

But here’s what one deduces from watching the stress. An human infant should be with the mother from birth on, no hospital nursery ever. In the room of the mother.That’s Law Numero Uno. Next, extraordinary efforts should be made to see that its first days are delightful, breast feeding is a bonding experience and the baby’s early training in learning to sleep, eat, evacuate are all non traumatic. There should be no separation for nanny or maid daycare until the baby is …….here is where there is discussion. I’d say FULL TIME SCHOOL AGE. And to cats that translates to running the length of the house, away from the mother and falling asleep in odd places well away from her. That is independence that has been self-chosen.

Want to argue otherwise? Write: astrology at earthlink net.

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