It's amazing that right now, as I'm typing this, it's raining very heavily. The weather was very hot and dry before the Hari Raya/school holidays. I heard that it rained almost everyday during the school holiday week. We were away for a rather spontaneous holiday in Bangkok then. It was very hot in Bangkok and we got sunburnt one afternoon after walking around on the streets of Bangkok. C had a hat on and her long hair also protected the back of her neck but I got slightly sunburnt around the neck, while E got burnt on more areas like his arms, neck and a little on the face. I guess my arms are 'stronger' because I drive around daily and as those who drive a lot would know, your arms get exposed to the sun a lot. And I haven't gotten used to the idea of wearing those arm 'protectors' that you see many women wear when they drive, to keep their arms fair.....
So, it's back to the grind this week and there are many things that need to be worked on, settled, looked into, considered, etc, etc -- a never-ending story.....
Updating this blog with our recent adventure in Bangkok will have to wait although I'm tempted to spend all my time writing and rambling here, instead of attending to more pressing and important matters which are boring like writing for supplementary income, paying bills, cleaning house, ironing (a huge pile is waiting!), cooking, giving Rusty a haircut and bath, and the list goes on.
Thankfully, Friday is another holiday -- our Independence Day -- so we will have a slightly longer weekend. However, C will still have her extra-curricular stuff and a classmate's birthday party to attend. In fact, this party is the first of a series of three weekend parties consecutively....Birthday parties seem such a big thing these days. Caught a glimpse of a tv programme called 'Most Outrageous Kid's Parties' while I was surfing channels recently. This seven-year-old American girl was going to have a country carnival party with 500 guests, a ferris wheel, SUV limo, and she'd make her entrance dressed like a cowgirl on a horse, according to the synopsis. A professional party planner and the works had to be engaged to make it happen. Most outrageous indeed. What are these parents thinking??
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Monday, August 13, 2012
Updates
Wow, it's been over three weeks since I wrote here.....ACE have been busy with daily routines and distractions.
Since the Justin Bieber fever (see previous post), the One Direction fever continues with daily doses of their hits in the car and in the shower by the young fan. Also, occasional sightings of another litter of four kittens at our back alley create distractions from homework, music practice or simply getting on with necessary daily functions like showering, eating, etc....This cat menace is not going to end as long as the neighbours keep feeding them.
A spate of break-ins in our 'taman' plus the efficient reporting of crime on a daily basis via social media networks has gotten the general public on the alert. Many snatch cases involving bikers riding up to your car window, smashing it and grabbing your valuables, hit-and-hijack cases where the perpetrators hit your car and when you get down to inspect the damage from the 'accident', they assault or kidnap you and hijack your car, and those who just rush up to you, put a knife to your throat and demand for your cash and valuables, etc, etc, etc.....
The fasting month of Ramadan is coming to an end. The Hari Raya holidays coincide with the one-week school holidays beginning 18th August. The capital city will very likely be deserted again with the 'balik kampung' exodus. The highways will surely be packed with crawling cars.
The London Olympics came to an end an hour ago. I caught the last half hour of the closing ceremony. This round, Malaysia bagged two medals -- a silver in badminton and a bronze in diving. Both wins were well-deserved and brought Malaysians together in the true muhibah spirit, much more than the lip-service 1Malaysia the ruling government has been harping about. Lee Chong Wei fought a good fight against Lin Dan in the badminton finals. ACE caught the entire game at home with C cheering her loudest for LCW and cursing Lin Dan when he scored. And she shed tears when he lost by two points. Didn't expect her to be so 'into' that game and reacting that way! We didn't watch Pandelela Rinong win her bronze in diving -- the first ever non-badminton medal and the first female to win one for the country. A great achievement.
On Saturday, ACE watched a homeschooled students' production of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice held at the PJ Live Arts theatre. It was a good debut performance by the Histrionia Acting Troupe. Once again, homeschoolers have proven that their 'system' is not inferior to the generally-preferred mass education system.
Weekends come and go so quickly. It feels like we keep playing catch-up with all the things we need and want to do. I find this cycle hard to break, and it's very tiring. It's gone beyond burnout....ashes, maybe! Amidst the frustrations (dealing with a strong-willed pre-teen especially), complaints, tantrums, anger fits, I guess ACE do appreciate what we have, although C needs to be reminded ever so often how fortunate and blessed she is, compared to less fortunate children. I find that daily spiritual reflection helps. Breaking the routine once in a while like going shopping or watching tv helps a little although it is merely a temporary distraction.
On the house front, after 4.5 years in this home, some things need to be re-looked, but the extra cash for such projects is not readily available. Some problems with our kitchen cabinet drawer and door are being fixed, a minor renovation in our wet kitchen and backyard for better ventilation and security would be good, plus some wallpaper to brighten up our rather dark and dull living/dining area would be nice, the grass patch needs weeding and more TLC, and reliable part-time cleaners can never be found!
We're looking forward to the coming one-week Raya and school holiday break for a change in routine :)
Since the Justin Bieber fever (see previous post), the One Direction fever continues with daily doses of their hits in the car and in the shower by the young fan. Also, occasional sightings of another litter of four kittens at our back alley create distractions from homework, music practice or simply getting on with necessary daily functions like showering, eating, etc....This cat menace is not going to end as long as the neighbours keep feeding them.
A spate of break-ins in our 'taman' plus the efficient reporting of crime on a daily basis via social media networks has gotten the general public on the alert. Many snatch cases involving bikers riding up to your car window, smashing it and grabbing your valuables, hit-and-hijack cases where the perpetrators hit your car and when you get down to inspect the damage from the 'accident', they assault or kidnap you and hijack your car, and those who just rush up to you, put a knife to your throat and demand for your cash and valuables, etc, etc, etc.....
The fasting month of Ramadan is coming to an end. The Hari Raya holidays coincide with the one-week school holidays beginning 18th August. The capital city will very likely be deserted again with the 'balik kampung' exodus. The highways will surely be packed with crawling cars.
The London Olympics came to an end an hour ago. I caught the last half hour of the closing ceremony. This round, Malaysia bagged two medals -- a silver in badminton and a bronze in diving. Both wins were well-deserved and brought Malaysians together in the true muhibah spirit, much more than the lip-service 1Malaysia the ruling government has been harping about. Lee Chong Wei fought a good fight against Lin Dan in the badminton finals. ACE caught the entire game at home with C cheering her loudest for LCW and cursing Lin Dan when he scored. And she shed tears when he lost by two points. Didn't expect her to be so 'into' that game and reacting that way! We didn't watch Pandelela Rinong win her bronze in diving -- the first ever non-badminton medal and the first female to win one for the country. A great achievement.
On Saturday, ACE watched a homeschooled students' production of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice held at the PJ Live Arts theatre. It was a good debut performance by the Histrionia Acting Troupe. Once again, homeschoolers have proven that their 'system' is not inferior to the generally-preferred mass education system.
Weekends come and go so quickly. It feels like we keep playing catch-up with all the things we need and want to do. I find this cycle hard to break, and it's very tiring. It's gone beyond burnout....ashes, maybe! Amidst the frustrations (dealing with a strong-willed pre-teen especially), complaints, tantrums, anger fits, I guess ACE do appreciate what we have, although C needs to be reminded ever so often how fortunate and blessed she is, compared to less fortunate children. I find that daily spiritual reflection helps. Breaking the routine once in a while like going shopping or watching tv helps a little although it is merely a temporary distraction.
On the house front, after 4.5 years in this home, some things need to be re-looked, but the extra cash for such projects is not readily available. Some problems with our kitchen cabinet drawer and door are being fixed, a minor renovation in our wet kitchen and backyard for better ventilation and security would be good, plus some wallpaper to brighten up our rather dark and dull living/dining area would be nice, the grass patch needs weeding and more TLC, and reliable part-time cleaners can never be found!
We're looking forward to the coming one-week Raya and school holiday break for a change in routine :)
Friday, July 20, 2012
Bieber fever
However, when MTV held their MTV World Stage 2012 concert here in KL on July 14 with JB as the opening act, the 'Belieber' (his latest album is 'Believe' and popular hit is 'Boyfriend' -- that's as much as I know), she said she wanted to go to the concert. She was lucky as E managed to get passes (no tickets sold) as his company was one of the sponsors.
The concert was a standing-room only type at the Sunway Lagoon Surf Beach.
We got there on time and the place was super-crowded. The weather was good but being Malaysia, it was terribly humid, and out in the open, with thousands of bodies inches away from each other, you can imagine how much heat and sweat were produced. E had to piggyback C on his shoulders most of the time for her to see the stage or large screen on either side.
The crowd, as expected in popular concerts, were hyper with their cheers and screams, and there were many carrying posters bearing crazy-fan messages like "I love you Justin", "Will you marry me, Justin?" etc etc. Being among the crowd made me feel old .....and I had to resist rolling my eyes (at least my hairs didn't stand!) with all the young girls screaming everytime JB said something cool like "swag" or flipped his hair.....
JB sang for quite some time, then the other performers, K-pop girl group Kara, Korean singer Jay Park and our own Mizz Nina, took over. After two hours watching JB and Kara, C said she had enough so we left the concert and headed over to the mall for dinner. C was happy :)
And this is what I meant about all the crazy screaming fans....found this (there's many more) on YouTube.
And this is the 10-year-old crazy fan:
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Remembering grandparents
There are things I remember about my grandparents, mainly of my maternal and paternal grandmas, and my paternal grandpa. I can't remember much of my maternal grandpa as he passed away when I was just about to turn four in 1972, but I remember what he looked like and the house that he lived in. I remember the year because my mum said it was when she was pregnant with my younger brother who was born later in December.
In two days' time on 14 July, it will be my maternal grandma's fourth death anniversary. She left us in 2008 after three weeks in hospital and two surgeries. My paternal grandma died as the world was celebrating the turn of a new decade, between 31 December 1989 and 1 January 1990 while my paternal grandpa died in the early 90s. I don't know why I don't remember the year, but I know I had just started my first few years of working life.
I have good memories of all my grandparents. I lived with my paternal grandparents from the age of five or six in our hometown, when I started one year of kindergarten before going to primary school. My parents were in another state because of my dad's work posting in a plantation so when I had to start school, my grandparents took care of me until I was 11 when my younger brother had to start school. Then, he and my mum came back to our hometown to be with us. My older brother was studying in Singapore then.
For a whole year when I was 10 however, I went to live with my maternal grandma. It was because my other grandma had to go to Singapore to help my uncle look after his family as his wife was very ill.
My paternal grandma was very good in sewing. She sewed many nice dresses, school uniforms and pyjamas for me with her old, traditional sewing machine, the kind which you use both legs to pedal to get it going. She also made quite a number of patchwork blankets, floor rugs, and little cloth bags for me to carry my tumbler and food container to school using cloth scraps she got from her friends and tailors. She was a Teochew who came from China as a young girl, but she could also speak Hakka, Mandarin, a smattering of colloquial Malay and some English words. She could read and write in Mandarin. Every weekend, I would ask her to translate the comic pages of her Sin Chew Jit Poh Mandarin newspaper to me and she would do so patiently. She also listened to Chinese dramas on the radio in the afternoons in the kitchen while going about her work.
What I remember about my maternal grandma was her gentleness and soft-spoken nature. She was a good cook and could whip up many authentic Hakka dishes for the entire family (children and their spouses, and grandchildren) during Sunday lunch. Her red rice wine pork, steamed stuffed squid, and yong tau foo were most memorable. She had nine children. She was a Hakka who was born and bred in Mauritius but later came to this country. She could also read and write in Mandarin and understood some Malay and English. I guess those days, you can't avoid not knowing Malay and English having to live in colonial Malaya. I remember she used to read the Nanyang Siang Pau Mandarin newspaper and also listened to the radio in the kitchen, but I remember her listening to the news, and not dramas like my paternal grandma. When I was older, already working and married here in KL, she was always glad to see us when we visited her and she would take my hand and kiss it.
Meanwhile, my paternal grandfather was a man of his time. He too, was a Hakka, and came from China as a young man. With his brother and cousin, they set up a pawn shop which I believe did pretty well considering those days. I remember a black and white portrait of him looking rather dapper in a suit and hat (was there a cane?). He went around in a rickshaw (according to my mum, probably that was before I was born), and later he paid someone with a car to send him home from work. He was quite strict with his grandchildren, me in particular since I was the only one who lived with him before my younger brother joined us. No talking at all while eating was what I remember most clearly. And if we misbehaved, a quick knock on our heads with his knuckles did the job in jolting us out of our mischief! But come Chinese New Year, he would buy lots and lots of firecrackers for us to play with every night. He was also a rather heavy smoker, having started smoking from his teens or early 20s, right up to his 70s, afterwhich he developed chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in his later years which was the cause of his death. He had smoker's cough and coughed up lots of phlegm all day. He also drank a lot of Chinese tea. My grandma made Chinese tea in a big teapot, about 2-litre in size at least, and the teapot was kept warm in a wooden box lined with thick padded fabric, on the kitchen counter. He was an avid gardener and our garden was filled with orchid plants everywhere. I used to bring huge bouquets of assorted orchids for my teachers on Teachers' Day. Imagine how much a bunch of such flowers would cost these days.
According to my mum, my paternal grandfather was in the police force. I think he was an inspector and he used to be out of town quite a lot, leaving my grandmother to hold the fort at home with all her children. It is an amazing feat, to say the least, doing all the household chores and caring for so many kids. Compared to nowadays, how many women, even if they are housewives, would have that many kids, and be able to do everything without the help of at least one foreign maid? The memory of my paternal grandfather is rather foggy except for the image I have of the double story link house he lived in along a main road called Jalan Kubu. I remember him lying in a bed downstairs, in the area behind the living room. My older brother, who was about five or six then, and I would play on the wooden staircase and also explore the rooms upstairs. We would sit on the steps of the staircase and descend by shuffling down on our bum-bums step by step. One of the rooms upstairs had a peep-hole on the wooden floor and we would peep through it to spy on what was happening in the living room downstairs.
There's more I could say about my grandparents but for now, I guess that's all. I was prompted to write this post in the advent of my maternal grandmother's death anniversary, as her death marked the end of my life with grandparents.
In two days' time on 14 July, it will be my maternal grandma's fourth death anniversary. She left us in 2008 after three weeks in hospital and two surgeries. My paternal grandma died as the world was celebrating the turn of a new decade, between 31 December 1989 and 1 January 1990 while my paternal grandpa died in the early 90s. I don't know why I don't remember the year, but I know I had just started my first few years of working life.
I have good memories of all my grandparents. I lived with my paternal grandparents from the age of five or six in our hometown, when I started one year of kindergarten before going to primary school. My parents were in another state because of my dad's work posting in a plantation so when I had to start school, my grandparents took care of me until I was 11 when my younger brother had to start school. Then, he and my mum came back to our hometown to be with us. My older brother was studying in Singapore then.
For a whole year when I was 10 however, I went to live with my maternal grandma. It was because my other grandma had to go to Singapore to help my uncle look after his family as his wife was very ill.
My paternal grandma was very good in sewing. She sewed many nice dresses, school uniforms and pyjamas for me with her old, traditional sewing machine, the kind which you use both legs to pedal to get it going. She also made quite a number of patchwork blankets, floor rugs, and little cloth bags for me to carry my tumbler and food container to school using cloth scraps she got from her friends and tailors. She was a Teochew who came from China as a young girl, but she could also speak Hakka, Mandarin, a smattering of colloquial Malay and some English words. She could read and write in Mandarin. Every weekend, I would ask her to translate the comic pages of her Sin Chew Jit Poh Mandarin newspaper to me and she would do so patiently. She also listened to Chinese dramas on the radio in the afternoons in the kitchen while going about her work.
What I remember about my maternal grandma was her gentleness and soft-spoken nature. She was a good cook and could whip up many authentic Hakka dishes for the entire family (children and their spouses, and grandchildren) during Sunday lunch. Her red rice wine pork, steamed stuffed squid, and yong tau foo were most memorable. She had nine children. She was a Hakka who was born and bred in Mauritius but later came to this country. She could also read and write in Mandarin and understood some Malay and English. I guess those days, you can't avoid not knowing Malay and English having to live in colonial Malaya. I remember she used to read the Nanyang Siang Pau Mandarin newspaper and also listened to the radio in the kitchen, but I remember her listening to the news, and not dramas like my paternal grandma. When I was older, already working and married here in KL, she was always glad to see us when we visited her and she would take my hand and kiss it.
Meanwhile, my paternal grandfather was a man of his time. He too, was a Hakka, and came from China as a young man. With his brother and cousin, they set up a pawn shop which I believe did pretty well considering those days. I remember a black and white portrait of him looking rather dapper in a suit and hat (was there a cane?). He went around in a rickshaw (according to my mum, probably that was before I was born), and later he paid someone with a car to send him home from work. He was quite strict with his grandchildren, me in particular since I was the only one who lived with him before my younger brother joined us. No talking at all while eating was what I remember most clearly. And if we misbehaved, a quick knock on our heads with his knuckles did the job in jolting us out of our mischief! But come Chinese New Year, he would buy lots and lots of firecrackers for us to play with every night. He was also a rather heavy smoker, having started smoking from his teens or early 20s, right up to his 70s, afterwhich he developed chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in his later years which was the cause of his death. He had smoker's cough and coughed up lots of phlegm all day. He also drank a lot of Chinese tea. My grandma made Chinese tea in a big teapot, about 2-litre in size at least, and the teapot was kept warm in a wooden box lined with thick padded fabric, on the kitchen counter. He was an avid gardener and our garden was filled with orchid plants everywhere. I used to bring huge bouquets of assorted orchids for my teachers on Teachers' Day. Imagine how much a bunch of such flowers would cost these days.
According to my mum, my paternal grandfather was in the police force. I think he was an inspector and he used to be out of town quite a lot, leaving my grandmother to hold the fort at home with all her children. It is an amazing feat, to say the least, doing all the household chores and caring for so many kids. Compared to nowadays, how many women, even if they are housewives, would have that many kids, and be able to do everything without the help of at least one foreign maid? The memory of my paternal grandfather is rather foggy except for the image I have of the double story link house he lived in along a main road called Jalan Kubu. I remember him lying in a bed downstairs, in the area behind the living room. My older brother, who was about five or six then, and I would play on the wooden staircase and also explore the rooms upstairs. We would sit on the steps of the staircase and descend by shuffling down on our bum-bums step by step. One of the rooms upstairs had a peep-hole on the wooden floor and we would peep through it to spy on what was happening in the living room downstairs.
There's more I could say about my grandparents but for now, I guess that's all. I was prompted to write this post in the advent of my maternal grandmother's death anniversary, as her death marked the end of my life with grandparents.
Monday, July 2, 2012
Adopting a kitten
There's a lot of 'wildlife' in my neighbourhood and its surroundings -- birds, snakes, rats, monkeys, iguanas, feral dogs and cats. Those are the ones that I've come across so far. This is partly because our housing development is nearby some forests and undeveloped land. I will talk about cats because they happen to be the most annoying to me at this point in time.
Birds fly away after stealing Rusty's food pellets, while the monkeys, iguanas and dogs are outside the perimeter fencing of our 'taman'. But the cats, they have invaded our roads and back alleys. They defecate in your garden, and reproduce. They also create a ruckus with their loud fights and mating calls which lead to all the dogs in the neighbourhood barking non-stop. They continue to populate the neighbourhood and back alleys of our homes because some neighbours like to feed them. They may think they are being kind but they don't realise that they are making the situation worse. They also say that it is good to have them around so that the snakes and rats can be controlled. I think that there other more effective ways to control snakes and rats.
Some neighbours have adopted the cats as their pets. Some know how to care for them responsibly by spaying or neutering them, providing them proper living arrangements, healthcare, food and litter boxes. Some, however, do not know or care so much. They leave them roaming outside to defecate in neighbours' compounds leaving a foul stench, and don't spay or neuter them, which then leads to these pets mating among themselves and with the ferals/strays.
Recently two cats gave birth and the kittens have been roaming around my back alley with their mamas. Over the past two months, some of the kittens have disappeared. They either died, moved away or have been taken by people I believe.
C is an animal lover and in the past year, she has developed a strong interest in cats. When she goes out cycling on some evenings, her main purpose is to look for cats, observe and try to play with them. So of course when she discovered two kittens hanging around behind our house, she went on a mission to 'rescue' them. For two weeks, she was always on the lookout for them but never succeeded in catching any.
Last Thursday, one kitten was deep in slumber and she managed to creep up behind it and caught it with her bare hands. The mama cat was not around. She has the intention of keeping it as her pet but she knows we've always 'forbidden' it, so she made up the excuse that she's rescuing it so that we can put it up for adoption to give it a better home. We are concerned because she has allergies. She once got into a sneezing fit and had teary eyes and some welts after playing with a cat outside on the road, came home with fur all over her clothes.... Furthermore, we have Rusty and that's enough of pets at home. We can't afford to feed another mouth and even if C takes full responsibility in caring for the cat, I'd still have to be the 'assistant' while she's at school, help shop for supplies or drive it to the vet if it's sick!
According to this website, feral cats are hard to tame and if we need to control their population, the Trap, Neuter and Release (TNR) method should be employed. "TNR helps the community by stabilizing the population of the feral colony and, over time, reducing it. At the same time, nuisance behaviors such as spraying, excessive noisemaking and fighting are largely eliminated, and no more kittens are born." However, I think it will be difficult to employ this TNR method here unless it becomes a serious problem. I also wonder if the local authorities or SPCA or other animal welfare group will have the resources to do it....
The female kitten is about two months old and is able to eat solid food. However, the mama cat hangs around our backyard every morning and evening and a mewing 'conversation' between mother and offspring ensues.... I don't like the idea of separating the poor kitty from the mama but of course, letting it loose back out there is also not an option since C has already got it, and also it would then grow up to be another reproducing cat. I've got some word out to get it adopted but so far these few days there are no takers. I'm hoping that it can get adopted soon by a loving and responsible person who will care for it and spay it. It would be good too if we can get the mama cat and also spay it and let it out in the 'wild' like TNR but it's very hard to 'catch' a feral cat without the proper tools/trap.
So for now, we're doing what's necessary to shelter and feed the cat and keep it within a small confined space at the back of the house so that it doesn't run loose and mess up our home, or cross path with Rusty....
I'm still undecided if I should spay it. A check in several websites give different information about how old the cat has to be before it can go under the knife. Some say two months, others six months.....and I'm unwilling to spend too much money on what is currently a temporary arrangement. However, C is of course secretly hoping that she gets to keep it....
Anyone out there can provide advice, suggestions for solutions or interested to adopt this little kitty? Check it out here.
Birds fly away after stealing Rusty's food pellets, while the monkeys, iguanas and dogs are outside the perimeter fencing of our 'taman'. But the cats, they have invaded our roads and back alleys. They defecate in your garden, and reproduce. They also create a ruckus with their loud fights and mating calls which lead to all the dogs in the neighbourhood barking non-stop. They continue to populate the neighbourhood and back alleys of our homes because some neighbours like to feed them. They may think they are being kind but they don't realise that they are making the situation worse. They also say that it is good to have them around so that the snakes and rats can be controlled. I think that there other more effective ways to control snakes and rats.
Some neighbours have adopted the cats as their pets. Some know how to care for them responsibly by spaying or neutering them, providing them proper living arrangements, healthcare, food and litter boxes. Some, however, do not know or care so much. They leave them roaming outside to defecate in neighbours' compounds leaving a foul stench, and don't spay or neuter them, which then leads to these pets mating among themselves and with the ferals/strays.
Recently two cats gave birth and the kittens have been roaming around my back alley with their mamas. Over the past two months, some of the kittens have disappeared. They either died, moved away or have been taken by people I believe.
C is an animal lover and in the past year, she has developed a strong interest in cats. When she goes out cycling on some evenings, her main purpose is to look for cats, observe and try to play with them. So of course when she discovered two kittens hanging around behind our house, she went on a mission to 'rescue' them. For two weeks, she was always on the lookout for them but never succeeded in catching any.
Last Thursday, one kitten was deep in slumber and she managed to creep up behind it and caught it with her bare hands. The mama cat was not around. She has the intention of keeping it as her pet but she knows we've always 'forbidden' it, so she made up the excuse that she's rescuing it so that we can put it up for adoption to give it a better home. We are concerned because she has allergies. She once got into a sneezing fit and had teary eyes and some welts after playing with a cat outside on the road, came home with fur all over her clothes.... Furthermore, we have Rusty and that's enough of pets at home. We can't afford to feed another mouth and even if C takes full responsibility in caring for the cat, I'd still have to be the 'assistant' while she's at school, help shop for supplies or drive it to the vet if it's sick!
According to this website, feral cats are hard to tame and if we need to control their population, the Trap, Neuter and Release (TNR) method should be employed. "TNR helps the community by stabilizing the population of the feral colony and, over time, reducing it. At the same time, nuisance behaviors such as spraying, excessive noisemaking and fighting are largely eliminated, and no more kittens are born." However, I think it will be difficult to employ this TNR method here unless it becomes a serious problem. I also wonder if the local authorities or SPCA or other animal welfare group will have the resources to do it....
The female kitten is about two months old and is able to eat solid food. However, the mama cat hangs around our backyard every morning and evening and a mewing 'conversation' between mother and offspring ensues.... I don't like the idea of separating the poor kitty from the mama but of course, letting it loose back out there is also not an option since C has already got it, and also it would then grow up to be another reproducing cat. I've got some word out to get it adopted but so far these few days there are no takers. I'm hoping that it can get adopted soon by a loving and responsible person who will care for it and spay it. It would be good too if we can get the mama cat and also spay it and let it out in the 'wild' like TNR but it's very hard to 'catch' a feral cat without the proper tools/trap.
So for now, we're doing what's necessary to shelter and feed the cat and keep it within a small confined space at the back of the house so that it doesn't run loose and mess up our home, or cross path with Rusty....
I'm still undecided if I should spay it. A check in several websites give different information about how old the cat has to be before it can go under the knife. Some say two months, others six months.....and I'm unwilling to spend too much money on what is currently a temporary arrangement. However, C is of course secretly hoping that she gets to keep it....
Anyone out there can provide advice, suggestions for solutions or interested to adopt this little kitty? Check it out here.
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