Touch me! It's so easy to leave me...all alone with the memory of my day in the sun.....

I don't think I've mentioned my new purpose in life.  I can hardly believe it myself.

There are too many feral cats here.  And they are all adorable in one way or another.

Well, someone had kittens several months ago..about the time my daughter was here in late March and early April.  Three little kittens.  Two gray and one all black.  Sweet babies.  The neighbor across the street pointed them out to me...and she would drop...literally drop...some kind of food into the street from her window two stories up, for them to eat.

With that, I started noticing them more...and identifying them.  It became apparent that one had a badly injured eye...just a wee baby....it was very upsetting. I was not even sure an eye was still there.

Gradually, somehow, the idea ...the grain of compassion grew....and we decided to get some cat food and start feeding them, too.

Once that started....well...names followed...because you get to identify who is who.  There was the injured one with a bad eye...so he/she was "Pirate."  The little gray who looked sort of unkempt all the time..he was "Scruff."  The black one who was freaking fierce about protecting food...like a nightmare...became "Incubo"  which means "nightmare" in Italian...but now she..(Yes, I think she is a she) is just "Ink."

After those babies became accustomed to being fed at a regular time every day, Mamma and Sib came along.  I remember Mamma.  No, not the TV series...I remember this cat....running around last winter with her baby...who is Sib...short for Sibling...maybe half sibling, maybe full...who knows?  But, they are all family and they know it and now, so do I.

As the summer wore on, we found a wonderful veterinarian...he speaks a bit of English...just enough so we can communicate with our broken Italian....because Harry had a mole on his arm decide to grow and it had to be removed.   I asked the doctor if he would cooperate with me to neuter these feral cats, not matter what their sex.  He said he would. (Machismo runs deep here and most MALE dogs are not neutered.)

So, at this point...my mission was to make sure the kittens became strong enough to undergo minor surgery.  First, naturally, would have to be Pirate, with the awful eye.  Awful, awful eye...bulging out of its head...looking bloody..whatever beast did this should have just finished the job.  This little kitty needed help.

I scooped her up in the middle of eating (sorry, baby) and we marched her to the vet. Yes, she was a she....I was able to check.  Little Pirate was very weak and the vet was not hopeful.  "The eye is lost" and also..."Malato"..."sick."  Yeah, I kind of knew that....but what I didn't count on was that her little life was lost.  We brought her back...she had had a shot....and I had been given a prescription for two kinds of eye drops....

That evening she ate a little and sat on our mat in our courtyard and just gazed out at the piazza.  I sat with her.  I never got a chance to use the eyedrops on her...I never saw her again.  I believe that was her last night...most likely.  Little Pirate.

I still had eyedrops for Scruff, whose eyes were sometimes glued shut from the goo they oozed.  I scooped him up and wrapped him in a towel and brought him into the courtyard where we have a bench.  He panicked and was fiercely fighting to escape but I managed to get drops in both eyes and to clean them both off...before I put him down and let him go like a bat out of hell.  He forgave me rather quickly, though.  His eyes looked one hell of a lot better.

His eyes looked better for days.  Then..not so great.  The next time I just lifted up his little head while he was eating and got some drops in.  He wasn't happy but he put up with me.

Each time I got drops in, his eyes got exponentially better.  It was amazing.  Then the right eye was totally normal...so I just had one eye to concentrate on...now he looks all bright and wide eyed, like a regular cat.

Scruff and Ink are the only two I can handle very much.  Mamma and Sib are still wary, although I have managed to lightly pet each of them from time to time.  They don't like it!  Scruff, however, leans into pets and wiggles his butt and is beginning to look forward to and love his pets.

Tonight, I was warrior woman.  After a thunderstorm, I went to feed the usual gang and there was an interloper....an orange boy with a collar.....who causes trouble whenever he comes around.  Mamma is clearly afraid of this one.. Sib is too but Sib becomes protective and screeches to the high heavens.  It can be blood curdling.  So..I put the food down and then went about discouraging the interloper.

BTW, I think this guy is the one who delivered the mortal blow my little Pirate...I have little compassion for this particular cat and it would give me great pleasure to capture and neuter this bastard.

There was a supermarket flyer in someone's mailbox so I took it and started brandishing it like a weapon at this cat...he was sneaky and trying to find other ways to get at the food but I was there to stop him.  His next tactic was to pretend that he was retreating....going down this alley...bye, I'm gone.....yeah...only to reappear down the road, having come up the next alley.  I'm no fool, cat.  I got your number.

I managed to protect "the family"...they watched, too...and Scruff, I swear, had "the look of love" in his eyes....they ate and I took the tin in when they were done.  Bastard cat came back to nothing.  Not feeding you...bud.  If you were nice, I would, but you cause problems wherever you go.

So...this is my new purpose in life..to try and control the feral population of cats in this little hill town in nowhere, Italy.  Wish me luck.  I need it.