In Memoriam

We've lost a lot of our stray cats around here the last year or more.  Several, unfortunately, have been hit by cars.  Some of the people in the mobile home park seem to think they live on a racetrack. And even though the speed limit through the park is a modest 10 miles an hour, once they get around the horseshoe corner the mad dash is on...to the stop sign at the end of the street.  Most of the kitties are street savvy since they have been there all their lives as far as we know.  However, a few seem to think it is THEIR street and sit in the middle of the road not even moving when the car stops and honks at them.  We lost Sarah and Juliet to folks who were either in too big a hurry to stop for a cat in the road or, for whatever reason, the cat was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Sarah

One of the favorite cats of the neighborhood was a very quirky cat we named Miss Kitty.  We're not sure exactly what happened to her, but I had noticed a few days earlier that she was walking kind of carefully and seemed to have pain getting up. She seemed to be getting better, but then one day she didn't show up to eat and we found her dead in the neighbor's yard looking like she was heading for a hole in the skirting of another neighbor's mobile home.

Miss Kitty

Then a few days ago Tang was found dead under a neighbor's house.  We had noticed that he seemed to be losing weight.  But we also thought he might have gotten into some herbicide.  It might have been a combination of things.  With stray cats when they are outside and you don't see them all the time it's so hard to know what happened.

Tang

He was best buddies with my next door neighbor's cat, Tigger, but he got along with all the cats in the neighborhood.  Here he is snuggling with Spot.

Tang loved other cats, but was not so fond of people.  He was one of the stray cats that I could never pet, much less invite inside.  He will be missed!

I would love to take in two other stray cats, Romeo and Van Gogh, at least for the winter.  They've been around forever and I would hate to lose them as well.  I need to take them BOTH in at the same time and whether that's possible or not is the issue.  How well they get along with my crew is also an issue.  Romeo especially is a sweetheart and would hate to see something happen to him.  But I can't take him in without Van Gogh because they are always together.  Van Gogh is another one of those cats that I've only managed to pet once or twice - always when he's either right next to Romeo when I'm petting Romeo and sneak in a stroke, or else when he's busy eating.  We'll see if I'm successful this winter.

Romeo and Van Gogh (on top)