February 11, 2003

We're still here. My book, Raising Cats Naturally: How to care for your cat the way nature intended, has gone through its first printing and is available at the Raising Cats Naturally site. I never thought writing and publishing a book was going to be as scary as it has been. I'm glad it's to the point where it is now. I'm still waiting on the forward from Jean Hofve, DVM and comments from Arthur Young, DVM. I'm resting easy now knowing I've done the best I could with this book and the information is out there for whomever wants to read it.

I drove down to North Carolina with ten adult cats and two kittens. Today I have eight adult cats and one kitten. I know the move to North Carolina was a good one for me and for the most part for my cats. My move did directly contribute to the loss of one adult cat and a kitten.

Let's suffice to say not everyone keeps their cattery in the same condition I do. Not everyone cares for their cats like I do. There are many breeders who keep their cats in less-than-humane conditions. I guess I've always known that, I just haven't seen it first hand. The kitten caught an upper respiratory infection that lead to a very bad eye ulcer. I elected to have her put to sleep. I think if I had more control over the environment she was living in the eye ulcer would not have got as bad as it did.

My male cat, Sun, fell to his death in the cattery he was born in. It was an accident, but probably a preventable one.

I hate to say I have a favorite cat, I love all my cats, but it was hard not to hold Wiley, my Bombay, in a special place in my heart. I lost him November 1. His kidneys failed suddenly, without warning. I can't say whether it was due to true organ failure due to age or if he was exposed or got into something over the summer when we were staying at another cattery.

I can't say anymore about Wiley and the specifics surrounding his death. It upsets me far too much. A day doesn't go by that I don't think of him, many days I cry from thinking of him. I miss him so very much. He died on a Friday and every Friday I light a candle for him. I have an alter set up with his picture and a candle. The other cats are trying to fill his place, but they come short. There will never be another Wiley. Not ever.

To make matters more difficult after Wiley's death, my house got broken into on December 19. I lived for over ten years in the City of Boston and my apartment was never broken into. I move to the country and it happens. I think it was somebody who knew the guy who lived in the house before me and that they were looking for guns. They didn't find any guns, but they did find one of my laptop computers and my cameras. Luckily, they missed the laptop that had my book on it, but the one they took had most of the images for the book stored on it.

Lesson learned, back up your documents!

My friend John let me borrow his camera until my insurance settled on the loss and was kind enough to lend me money to get a new desktop computer - which is quite wonderful! I've been doing web work and editing photos on a 15" laptop screen. Now I have an 18" flattop monitor with more computer power than I know what to do with. It's nice, but I still want my old stuff back! I knew where everything was and how everything worked. I'm getting used to the new computer and the cameras I got to replace the stolen ones are even better than the original, but I'm a creature of habit.

I'm darned lucky none of my cats were harmed. Except for Rooney, none of them were at all traumatized. That says a lot for their even temperaments. Even Rooney recovered after a few days. Now, my two dogs run lose during the day. Perhaps if they had been lose the day of the break-in it would have never happened, but then again, they could have been shot.

A week before my house was broke in I fell in the backyard and did some serious damage to my ankle. It was really scary to fall as hard as I did in the dark in the middle of no-where. Luckily I was able to get back up and make it into the house. My poor ankle swelled to about three times its size and remained that way for several days. It still isn't quite right. Of course I have no health insurance either. When it rains it pours.

So far, 2003 has been far better than 2002 ended. I'm doing a lot of photography and have taken some magnificent photos, many of them included in my book. The cats are all doing really well and enjoying their almost daily excursions out into the North Carolina wilderness that is now their home. It is the dogs' job to keep an eye on them and keep predators away. I understand dogs need to have jobs. My cats don't want to have jobs, they don't even want me to have a job, but I need to make money somehow, otherwise none of us eat.

I apologize for not updating NRN for so long, but as you can see, my life has been very stressful. After Wiley's death, I buckled down and vowed to finish that darned book and finish it I did and I'm darned proud of it. I cried when I picked up the first proof. It looked so good. The title is Raising Cats Naturally: How to care for your cat the way nature intended. It's available in short supply in spiral bound form. It will be going to print in book format in the next few months. The image I'm using for the front cover was on the laptop that was stolen. Luckily I had a .pdf version of the original draft of the book cover on a zip drive. I opened it in Photoshop and cut out the image. It looked okay, but it looks even better since a man I met on an Internet mailing list, Hugh, took it upon himself to clean it up for me. The coloring in the background was very lush (the photo was taken in the fall), but Yukon was a bit washed out and out of focus in places. Hugh warmed up Yukon to his real color and sharpened up the image were necessary. He also softened the edges of the photograph for the book cover. It looks fabulous. Yukon is the most stunning of cats.

Tangle and Hermione have been quite the little shutter-cats. Most of the images in the book are of Tangle the little ham. One of my favore images is below, click on the image for a larger copy. Tangle and Hermione follow me out to one of my many outside "photo studios" for a picture taking session. It's a good walk to some of them, but the two cats run along behind me, happy as can be, tails puffed out like bottle brushes. Sometimes Yukon or Tippy can be convinced to come along, but usually it's Tangle and Hermione.

It's difficult photographing a black cat and getting the exposure right. Tangle, on the other hand, is a blue tabby so the photos of her come out really nice. I have some beautifully composed images of Tangle. I call her a "little shit" and she is a little shit, but she's brave, sweet and confident as can be, unless of course you try to do something she doesn't want you to do like clip her claws, then she turns into a blue pill like her grandmother.

These cats really light up my life. I don't know what I'd do without them.

Until later ...

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