yella fella..

back in the summer, i was taking pics of some birds in the neighborhood

and spotted this little yellow cat stalking the birdfeeder...

at first glance, i thought one of our cats got outside.

he looked just like spitty (below), same color, same shape of his face... 

i knew our cats were inside but this definitely looked like a relative of our gang.  we had spent a couple of years trying to catch and spay a neighborhood stray, named cyco, who had litter after litter.  we finally caught her in 2008, but that was after finding homes for 30+ kittens. seven ended up living with us and two were adopted by my neighbor.  this outside yellow boy seemed to look like a cyco-boy but we couldn't figure out, after 4 yrs, how we could have missed him all this time. but wherever he came from and whoever he was, he was very skinny and stalking birds.  i went into rescue mode - not only to save the cat but the birds too.

my neighbor who had adopted 2 of cyco's kittens - gracie and lucky - joined in the effort. lucky had wandered off two years earlier and we were hopeful, at first, that lucky had finally come home.     but after comparing pics of lucky (left) to this new guy, we determined they were not the same cat. 

soon, others were spotting the little yellow cat and we were all feeding him at the plant nursery behind the stretch of woods.  he now had a name - dutch :)

 

dutch was friendly and was easy to pet and cuddle. 

this made us all think that this little boy was not a cyco-boy because they are all very skittish.  we ultimately captured him, and lucky's mom adopted him. 

 

 

after a visit to the vet

to get him checked out,

dutch became duchess - he was a she :)

so duchess was a girl, she was healthy
and she had a home. 

HUGE relief... i did not want to spend another winter worrying about the yellow he-she, out in the weather. 

Sunday night, as we prepared for Hurricane Sandy to hit, both joey and i rested easier, knowing we had done our part to get all the stray cats in the neighborhood into good homes. not having to worry about them being outside in the 'storm of the century' was such a relief.

 

yesterday, at first light, i took a quick walk around our end of the condo unit to see if trees had fallen on our cars or anything. i was almost back to the house and there was nothing bad anywhere to be seen :)

 

and then...i saw it.

 

over stalking birds at the neighbor's birdfeeder was a skinny little yellow cat.

the yellow cat that i had spotted a few months ago, and who i thought we'd rescued was still out there???

 

yes.

yes he was.

the good news is that it was AFTER the hurricane and he was in one piece.

the bad news is that winter is closing in fast.

i put out a bowl of food and operation rescue began.

 

after a very long day at work and with hurricane clean-up,

i checked the bowl of food and it was all still there.

at 5am this morning, i checked again and the entire bowl was gone from the deck.

i figured the windy rainy night could have the reason,

so i just laid on the couch for a bit, watching the hurricane recap on television.

and then i saw him. 

he came up to sliding doors,

put his feet on the threshold like outside guy used to do and looked in. 

i froze - he was not my imagination.

he was real, he was looking at me and it was heart-wrenching.

 

so i went into action, got some wet food

and put it outside where the bowl of dry food had been. 

and it wasn't long - 10 minutes? - before somebody was eating it. 

the problem was, it was a possum.  eeek. 

we used to feed outside guy and a gang of possums and raccoons so we're used to wildlife on the deck. but it has been a while. the possum must've been lying in wait since feb 2011 when we caught outside guy. i suspect he ate the dry food too. 

 

so now we watch and worry over another outside guy. 

this one is birdfeeder boy :)

we are hoping it takes less than the 3 yrs it took to snag cyco mom, or the 18 months it took to grab outside guy.  based on the 4wk success story of duchess-the-he/she, maybe it can happen....