We interrupt this blog for...

I was fully intending to write one or two posts today, but I when I got up at 5:50 a.m. I was greeted by one of our neighborhood mama feral cats having dropped off five kittens at our back door. So taking care of them became the priority.

Even though it's in no way our sole responsibility, we're under a lot of pressure from neighbors and the HOA administration to address the feral/community cat population. We have ongoing trap-neuter-return strategies, but part of that strategy depends on local agencies that have openings to handle the spay/neuter part of the equation. Appointments have been hard to find this summer. And we all have day jobs, too.

The other thing we can do to help keep the feral population from bursting at the seams is to bring kittens indoors, socialize them and adopt them out to forever homes where they will be loved and live longer, safer lives. That's our goal with this morning's batch. It's not an easy thing to take kittens from a mother (who we tried — are are still trying — to trap), but we believe it's actually the most humane course of action and the best thing for all parties. To be clear, it was 107° F here in Florence today with 30% humidity; not ideal long-term survivability conditions for kittens in the predator-filled desert. Maybe, just maybe, the mother cat was following an instinct that said her babies were best off with us moving forward. We'll do our damnedest not to let her down.