Ever since Dice’s death last week the cats in my yard were not acting the same. Although Bouncy Bear was around constantly hoping for wet food, Dash and Funny Face disappeared for awhile. Funny Face was quite bonded to Dice so I worried about him.

This week the colony cats seem to have regrouped and are again around a lot more. Autumn always makes me a bit sad because it also means the end of the garden, but this year I decided to try to embrace the changing season more. The Feral Flowers are trimmed back, the tomatoes are harvested, and I added pumpkins and gourds for decoration.

I also placed an extra straw bale in the  garden. It has turned out to be a big hit – the cats love to lounge on it.

Bouncy Bear falls asleep on it regularly.

Dash is kind of exploring the whole yard again on his own.

Funny Face is definitely more skittish again. I still believe he has a secret life outside of my garden, but I’m glad he comes for dinner. 

I took Dice, one of the cats in my yard, to the vet today to be euthanized. We are heartbroken.

Dice was the quintessential feral tom cat. He showed up in my yard at the beginning of 2009, and I trapped him easily and quickly that January. Here he is right after his TNR surgery looking a little rough.

That rough look never quite left him, and he pretty much left my yard for awhile for a few years. I would see him randomly throughout the neighborhood, on other blocks.

Until the James Gang Colony started, a few years later in 2012, along with Dash, Funny Face, and Bouncy Bear, and slowly formed an alliance in my yard, as the cats learned to come to me daily for their dinner.

Then Dice flourished with the attention and companionship, and became a healthy, fat, tom cat. Just look at those cheeks.

He was always a bit solitary.

Dice seemed to appreciate the meals, accommodations, and companionship with the other colony cats.

But many times he preferred to be alone.

He was especially tight with Funny Face. The two were always together these past few years.

But this year, after the brutal winter, it was clear that Dice wasn’t the same. He had lost weight, and seemed tired. I re-trapped him and took him to a vet for treatment and a full dental in the spring.

He seemed to bounce back and had a good run this past summer, but he continued to lose weight. I prepared the traps to re-trap him again.

This turned out to be unnecessary. I went out of town last Sunday for work, and when I came back into town the following Friday, I found him laying in my garden, meowing, with black mucus all over his face.

For the first time, he allowed me to touch him. When I got him to the vet, they determined that he basically needed round-the-clock hospitalization. Since he was feral, that was not really an obvious, easy solution.

At this point Dice weighed four pounds. The vet administered fluids, vitamins and antibiotics. We waited to see if he would improve crated in my house. He ate a lot, but barely moved, even to go to the bathroom. I tried to make him comfortable and keep him clean, but it was clear that even though I think he knew I was trying to help him, my presence and being in my house was stressing him out.

Rather than putting him through a lengthy hospital stay and a bunch of invasive tests, we decided to euthanize Dice today. He was the quintessential tom cat again today. He hissed, and then relaxed, and showed us his feral nature, even though he was barely able to move. I think Dice appreciated the love, and he showed us true dignity in facing such a death. His rough face softened and was at peace finally. I’m glad he allowed me to get to know him a little bit these last six years, and I hope I was able to make his life a little bit better during this time.

Forget Me Knodt hosts sold out flower design classes all year at her shop. In celebration of National Feral Cat Day and our summer-long Feral Flowers Project, Janessa from Forget Me Knodt will teach a class on how to design with blooms specifically from our garden, including zinnias, cosmos, allium and solidago arranged in mason jars. Each student will learn all about design and go home with their own bouquets.

Afterwards, we’ll talk about TNR: Trap-Neuter-Return, and I’ll answer any questions you may have about cat rescue and caring for a feral cat colony in Chicago.

DESIGNING WITH BLOOMS FROM THE FERAL FLOWERS GARDEN

Forget Me Knodt, 1313 W. Wilson
Tuesday, October 14th, 2014
6:30 pm – 8:00 pm, BYOB Edition

Includes cheeses, meats and artisan breads from Baker & Nosh
$40 per student – limit 20 students

The majority of the proceeds will be used for food, shelter and medical care for managed feral cat colonies.

Call 773-944-1041 to sign up for your spot. $10 deposit required, and seats are first-come, first-served

I’m very excited about this event and I hope you can join us! It’s my way of being able to share the garden with you in person. I believe gardens and cats go hand in hand, and that feral cat colonies can be cared for in a beautiful way in our yards. The Feral Flowers Project would not exist without the help of the cats in my yard, including:

Bouncy Bear

Dash

Dice

Funny Face

And of course my very own pet cat Mooha, who was Chief Gardener, as she was chasing the butterflies and bees all summer long to make sure they pollinated every flower.

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…

Ever since the cat owners of the hoarder/drug house moved out at the end of June and dumped a bunch of cats outside I’ve been seeing the cats around the neighborhood. But it’s hard to keep track – some stayed near that house, and others roamed to find other feeders in our neighborhood.

I’m hoping some of those cats will find the cat cafe I’ve had set up in my front yard since last fall. Funny Face is absolutely obsessed with it.

Last week I started putting the food in a Tru-Catch trap zip-tied open to acclimate the cats to the trap. When I came home from my trip to Amsterdam last night, I decided to give it a shot. I took off the zip-ties and put the trap in the same position using the same dry food as I normally do to feed the cats, nothing different or fancy to avoid making them suspicious.

Funny Face came out again and again to look at it, as if he was warning the other cats to stay away. Either that, or he just really wanted the food, but knew better than to go in the trap again. And then it rained really hard for awhile. I was thinking my plan wouldn’t work at all.

I set my alarm and checked the trap throughout the night anyways.

At 7am there was finally a cat in a trap. He acted like a typical feral cat: growling and refusing to look at me. I took a few photos of him and started getting ready to take him to the clinic for his TNR treatment, until I looked a little more closely at the photos. And then I went out to look at him more closely again. And again. I was so jet lagged I did not see the ear tip, and then when I did, I was still confused. But at least I figured it out before I did anything else.

And also, I had to give myself a pat on the back if I’m re-trapping cats here that are already TNR’d. TNR works!

Here he is, very clearly ear tipped. Yup, pretty obvious, right? Being jet lagged is worse than being drunk sometimes.

I let him out and then put the trap in the back yard.

Funny Face came immediately to check it out.

He did a complete inspection. Maybe now he’ll leave the front yard alone.