Post Six

Meet Odessa. Odessa is the love of my life. Okay, so I have a few of those. Anyway, Odessa lives in a colony comprised solely of herself and her real-life mother, Octavia. Recently, an older black cat has joined them but he isn't really too into making himself known to any of us.

Odessa is the only remaining kitten to her mom, Octavia. Because my fiance and I are newer to this, this is really all we know. Octavia and Odessa were spayed a couple of years ago and have decided to stick around and live life happily with one another. Odessa is sweet. She trusts us completely and will let us old her and pet her. She is blind in one eye and a little, well, daft. She is sweet but she isn't the brightest cat in the universe!

Whenever we pull up, she is hiding in the tops of a tree and jumps down to greet us. She has the most monotone, gravely "meow!" that doesn't match her petite and sweet persona. I love to care for Odessa like I do whenever something cute, furry and helpless comes along. Unfortunately, she isn't as responsible as her mama, who is always present so that I don't worry, and she often leaves right when we come to look for her. Odessa keeps these few homeless men company, and they live in the woods with her and her mother. She has made them fall in love with her, too, and I know that she is in good hands. Everyone watches out for Odessa.

I'm always captivated by her sheer beauty and her desire for life. She doesn't let anything get in her way. Another feral success story? Indeed.

Post Five

So, what I should explain in further detail is: why. Why I have chosen Alley Cat Allies to blog for for one of my blogs (I'm also blogging over at Blogging For Hadley). Why I love spending all of my time with feral cats. Why this is so important to me.

I knew nothing about feral cats as, unfortunately, most people do. All I knew was that my fiance and I had two beautiful cats who decided they wanted to come to our patio and check things out. We fed them and gave them water and they became used to this, always returning back. It got cold and so we put out boxes and blankets -- Fonzie, as seen above, loved his box and blanket. Rufus, "our" other feral cat, loved the patio furniture. Like most people, we did not know a difference between "stray" or "feral." In our own idealistic way, we thought Fonzie and Rufus could walk inside and be a part of our homes, or get adopted by a nice family.

A Google search lead us to Alley Cat Allies, and suddenly we understood. From that moment, feral cat care became so important to us. After all, we loved Fonzie and Rufus just like all of our inside cats. They were just as much a part of our family. Rufus has been gone for over a year. One day he just...left. We're unsure if this was colony relocation or he just decided to move on. It hurt, and it still hurts, but this is feral cat life. They aren't homeless, but they are free to roam. Fonzie, however, was FIV+. My other blog, Blogging For Hadley, is to benefit a foundation for FIV+ and FeLV+ cats. These diseases are obviously ones that have changed my life in the worst of ways.

Losing Fonzie was just as hard as losing a family member because he WAS part of our family. He was everything to us and the world stole him away in the cruelest of ways. Immunodeficiency viruses have defeated me twice but we can't give up...

And, this is why I decided to devote everything in me to feral cat care. Fonzie would want me to. He would want the world to treat feral cats as we did, and for them all to get to live life as nicely as he did. Caring properly for feral cats is so important and I won't stop until the world knows this.

Again, this is why I'm blogging on behalf of Alley Cat Allies: in memory of a handsome boy, Fonzie. He sleeps eternally under a beautiful tree at my parents lake house, next to his feline sister, Hadley. We miss him with our whole hearts every moment of the day. I do see him in the faces of all of the feral cats we care for and he is my reasoning for never, ever giving up.

Thank you to ACA for all you do to protect others like Fonzie. It is my pleasure to be raising money for such a great foundation.

Post Four

First raffle winner...



Alley Cat Allies ribbon magnet, Alley Cat Allies button pin, Alley Cat Allies window sticker/in case of emergency sticker and feral cat fact sheet.

And the winner is...

far2beautiful4u


(Each raffle winner will be announced by their Blog-A-Thon usernames and address requests/e-mail notifications will go to e-mail address you've registered with at blogathon.org.)

I'm so excited that Alley Cat Allies gave us so many great prizes to raffle off to all of you amazing sponsors.



So far, so good. Time is moving quickly! Meet "Little Tortie Cat", as seen above. Okay, I'm guilty: she doesn't have a name yet, and that's just what we refer to her as for clarification sake. Somehow "Little Tortie Cat" just sort of stuck, as in "look, there is the little Tortie cat!" She's a beautiful girl and getting braver and braver. She recognizes my fiance and I as the "food bringers." She pals around with "the little gray cat" (okay, really, we'll redeem ourselves -- most of them do have names!) and they're simply adorable together. They're the smaller cats in the colony and stick together. The colony they are a part of is filled with old cats who have been there for years and so they're the younger generation. Without sounding like a broken record: thanks to TNR, they'll have long lives, too.

Post Three

Caring for feral colonies can be stressful. There are times when you won't see a certain cat and worry (I do this as if it's my job, this worrying). There are times when a cat is limping or you notice a bout of mange spreading. There are times when it's raining and the cats won't be there and you worry. There are times when you see kittens and know that a (formerly) pregnant cat has joined a colony and now there are kittens and a fertile female to worry about.

But it can be so rewarding. When that mange infested cat heals, when those kittens are still friendly enough to be adopted out, when that female is no longer fertile, when you form a relationship with these beautiful creatures. It can be so rewarding. I look forward to the days when my fiance and I can make our way to the most rough and tumble areas of Orlando that I have ever been to and look into the faces of these beautiful cats. Just pouring the food into their bowls and watching them run up and eat: happy, carefree. It makes everything worth it.

There are so many misconceptions about feral cats, from "aren't they rabid?" to "but they're wild! They're not like house cats." Oh, but these things are so untrue. These cats are feral, but they aren't homeless. The outdoors is their home and thanks to groups like Alley Cat Allies, they are able to live their full lives happily.

Being a feral friend with Alley Cat Allies has changed my life. I have learned so much and in turn, I have loved so much. Each little cat scampering through the woods or the back alleys of Orlando has a piece of me with them always.

Post Two

Meet Grumpy Gus (as seen above). He's a member of one of the feral cat colonies that my fiance and I feed each weekend. Gus is a sweetheart of an older cat who has made the back of the gas station on Colonial Drive a home for quite some time now.

Thanks to programs like TNR (trap, neuter, return) cats like Gus are able to live out their full and happy lives in the homes they've chosen, along with their other feline friends and family members. TNR is something that Alley Cat Allies strives for: a non-lethal way to control the population of feral cats and, as I've mentioned, giving them a shot at life.

Post One: And It Begins!

...And it begins! Post one is underway. Aaron and I have been to Publix for necessary caffeine products and snacks -- and, of course, to Barnies for my first Cool Cafe Blues coffee cooler of the day. (First of many, I'm sure.)

I'm pretty excited to blog for Alley Cat Allies and over the course of these next 24 hours, you'll surely understand why. Plus, I'll be picking winners to win all of the great prizes donated by ACA all day (night, and morning!) long so check back to see if and what you win!

Good luck to all of my fellow bloggers! Let the madness (and fun!) begin!

It's Almost Time!

You can still pledge your donations here!