I woke up today and it felt like fall. The animals felt it also.

My senior lady indoor cats Mini and Mooha put aside their lifelong feud of matriarchal jealousy and territorial domination, and snuggled up together on the bed.

Seriously. This is how they snuggle. If they got any closer they’d be hissing and clawing at each other. Here they’re actually warming themselves with the heat of their intense hatred for each other.

The outside animals were a little bit more obvious.

The finches flocked together on the sunflowers.

The James’ Gang Colony cats in my yard were too cute. They snuggled on top of the Feral Villa. Bouncy Bear watched carefully over the boys, Funny Face and Dice, while they napped.

Today’s weather was a great reminder that winter is coming, and this is the perfect time of year to start cleaning out the outdoor cat shelters.

Earlier this summer my TNR friends Anna, Ellen and Alex donated a truck-load of straw that’s been in my garage ever since. Straw is the ultimate insulator to keep colony cats warm during winter. The cats can snuggle together in it. It repels moisture and retains body heat. There’s way more straw than I need, so I asked if anyone wanted some on my Cats In My Yard Facebook page. People have already showed up for it, including my friend and neighbor Annamarie, who is currently fostering Indy, a very sick and friendly cat that was dumped outside on her block. Please visit her gofundme page to learn more how she is helping this local cat. And if you’re in the Chicago area, please let me know if you’d like some straw.

Once the garden started growing, there was no stopping it.

I was very excited. This was my first attempt at being a Flower Farmer and I did not know what to expect. These Feral Flowers were grown specifically to be cut and available for purchase at my friend Janessa’s Forget Me Knodt flower shop. All proceeds are going to the care for colony cats. This project is also a great way to raise awareness of colony cats and Trap-Neuter-Return, TNR, the humane way to control their population.

I also wanted to show that you can have a beautiful yard and garden with cats in it. In fact, I think the cats make it even more beautiful.

First the perennial plants came back with a flourish. It’s as if they were also celebrating the end of winter as much as I was.

The hostas in the front yard were HUGE.

And there was lots of yellows and purples.

We planted annual cutting flower seeds for the Feral Flowers project. The first seeds to grow were the sunflowers, especially this lemon yellow variety.

Not to be outdone, the other flowers started growing.

And growing.

There was cosmos, forget me nots, larkspur, snapdragons, dill, basil, catmint, magnolias, and zinnias.

Lots and lot of zinnias.

Zillions of zinnias.

This was my favorite view all summer.

This was Dash’s favorite view.

It was fun to see the cats in my yard enjoying the garden. After all, this is THEIR yard. Bouncy Bear really likes to sit on this round table.

Funny Face prefers the shade.

Dice likes to hang out on the stepping stones. And Mooha is chief gardener.

Mooha is my indoor cat, but she comes out with me while I’m in the garden.

She loves chasing bugs, and you can usually find her on the “hunt” right by the catmint.

Or hanging out on the cat path in-between the flowers.

Once I planted the Feral Flowers Garden it was time to hurry up and wait.

The perennial plants around the Feral Villa were already growing strong.

The cutting flowers garden is all organic and planted straight in the ground from seed. All it took was lots of spring rain, careful weeding and transplanting, and time. So much time that I was pretty impatient.

The colony cats were enjoying the new spring weather and the bare garden didn’t seem to faze them at all.  And then, finally, you could see little plants.

Amaranth!

Zinnias!

Sunflowers!

And more!

A LOT more.

The Feral Flowers Garden was well on its way to success.

Blogging in my garden today is pure bliss. I’d like to share the Feral Flowers Project from the beginning.

Summer is my favorite season, especially since we converted the backyard into a full garden. Every year I like to change it up and experiment. You can see the different garden configurations we’ve tried on my Flickr page.

This past winter was brutal. B-R-U-T-A-L. The polar vortex gave me the worst case of seasonal depression. I worried about the outdoor cats all of the time, despite the heating pads we installed in their outdoor shelters.

Spring was also slow to start, and some of the colony cats were showing up sick. The vet bills were racking up.

During this dark time, I started planning my garden to cheer myself up. And decided to focus on flowers this year. My friend Janessa owns her own flower shop in Uptown called Forget Me Knodt, and we talked about cutting flower gardens. Somewhere in that conversation, we agreed to plant a garden here, and sell the flowers at her shop to help raise money and awareness for the colony cats.

The Feral Flowers Project was born. And has been growing ever since.

We had to wait until almost June, but as soon as we could, we bought cutting flower seeds.

It was clear from the very beginning that my cat Mooha was in charge. Which makes sense. She was born in my co-worker’s flower pot in 1999, and has been with me ever since.

Time to start planting!

So we did.

This is what the garden looked like when I prepped it in June.

JUNE.

No wonder I was depressed.

Anyways, Janessa started digging.

And dug some more.

I helped.

And Mooha helped.

What’s with all of the sticks?

To start plotting out the garden of course.

This is what it looked like on paper.

Ok, so Mooha doesn’t want you to see it. Let’s take a closer look. Ok, forget it.

Anyways, put down the sticks.

And some more.

Mooha inspects the whole thing.

And here’s what it looked from my deck like all planned out.

We planted all of the seeds, including these awesome Chinese Forget Me Not seeds.

I have no idea what makes them “Chinese.”

Mooha didn’t help us plant seeds at all. She found the tiny bit of catmint growing out of the ground, and decided she was in love with the garden hose. Like, REALLY in love.

After we finished messing with their yard, the colony cats came to take a look.

Dash was first.

Janessa and I celebrated with cocktails, and have been watching the garden grow all summer.

To be continued…

The colony cats skipped dinner last night because of the rain. Dash could hardly wait for breakfast today and is wondering why this bowl is still empty.