At the Feet of a Hero

Washington Gardener Magazine intern Josh Panepento recently visited Puerto Rico and took this pic of a feral cat resting at the feet of the Abraham Lincoln statue in old San Juan. Notice the pots of Foxtail Fern (Asparagus densiflorus 'Meyersii') and palms nearby adding a touch of greenery.

Snoopy Sleeps Under the Stars

Daniel Weil of Wintersweet House Gardens shared his photo and wrote, "His name is Snoopy. He was loose around here and let himself be adopted by a neighbor, who even put in heating in the garage for him. Does he use it? No, he likes to sleep outside. He is a sweetheart and a superb manager of the gardeners and photographer here."

Deck Dwellers

 

KC from DC shared this photo of stay cats napping on her deck garden. And yes, I said "cats" plural - there is a black cat in this photo, but you have to look really close to see it. (A close-up of the black cat is posted below.) 

KC writes, "I think there is a stray circuit in our general area. We have some regulars and some mornings we have newbies and infrequents that show up. Blondie, the bright one in the photos, is a relative newbie. The black one is a sibling of the kittens born on our deck year before last." She took this through her screen door, which is about how close she normally gets to these feral felines.

Dexter the Garden Answer Cat

I have featured social media cat stars before, but most of them were famous cats first, with the gardening connection being secondary. This cat was part of a famous online gardening family and became recognizable online as "the garden cat."

He was owned by Laura LeBoutillier, and her husband Aaron, of Ontario, Oregon, who are known to many as "Garden Answer" and you have likely watched some of Laura's how-to videos on Youtube or Facebook.

Here is what she had to say about Dexter, "Dexter is just the best cat! He showed up at our house about a week or two before we moved in. He's super-friendly and took to us quickly (the feeling was and is mutual). We never try to stage him in videos - he just seems to always wander in (he follows us all around the yard - even if we go on walks)."

Dexter passed away in 2017. Here is his farewell video. Laura and Aaron now have a "new" orange cat, Russell. You can meet Russell in this video.

Photos are courtesy of Spring Meadow Nursery.

Garden Patch

Patch is a very purr-suasive garden center cat. Who could resist buying some of his personally curated hydrangrea selections?

Patch Adams was adopted by GreenStreet Gardens in Lothian, MD, from the SPCA of Anne Arundel County. You can read his full adoption story here.

Stacy Greenstreet, Lothian, MD, shared that, "Patch is AWESOME! And he's also huge! We are hoping he'll slim down at least a little bit while cavorting with our customers. He's also super friendly.  

   "We've also learned that Patches likes to sit ON the plants we have growing, and it didn't take him long to find the catnip.  Whoops!"

Cats and Tomatoes

Blandine Galbreath shared this cute photo of cats asleep in the tomato and pepper seedling trays. She wrote: "The cats are litter mates and TNR. Born feral and they are now part of the menagerie at Simon Seed in Leesburg, Florida."

Oh Mama!

Shannon Ball of  Pensacola, Florida, shared this photo and story:

"Mama cat is a feral cat that has hung around our house for years. I managed to trap her. (I do the TNR for the feral cats around here.) When I released her back into the wild, I did not see her for approximately 6 months.  Then one day, I looked out of my kitchen window to see two birds bomb diving a cat. It was Mama cat. I went outside to see her, but her foot had been severely severed in one place and she was limping. I tried to catch her to bring her to the vet, but to no avail. All I could do was sit out water and food for her. This I did through the winter, and come spring she was hanging around on a daily basis. She still walks with a limp, but she now makes our front yard her home.  She does not like to be petted, but will come around so I can talk to her and she enjoys hanging around all our plants and in the summer the occasional cool bird bath.  I do not fill this bird bath, because I feed all the birds in our backyard with the dogs, and feed all animals that come from the woods in the front of our yard. She enjoys laying in the bath in the middle of summer with our Florida heat to cool herself." 

Piper the Beltline Cat

Lots of cats have their own Twitter or Instagram accounts, but there is one special cat whose story I recently came across who has his own snail-mail box as well!

Piper the Beltline Cat was a stray who lived in a drainpipe in the Atlanta Beltline -- a circle of urban parks around the city.

Passersby would leave him treats, water, food, toys, and love notes. He soon became a social media star and the face of local stray cats. He began a journey of adoption and adaption to a fur-ever home with John and Dana Craft. You can follow his journey here. His successful transition has inspired other strays to become indoor garden cats too.

Little Wizard

Eli in Southern Ohio shared these photos from her web site - http://elismeadows.themaplebookshelf.com/ - of Merlin.

She said, "My small wildlife garden attracts a lot of cats that aren't mine, it has bird feeders, a fish pond, catnip, and a heated box for strays in winter."

"Merlin is the sweet son of a stray 'garden cat' that we adopted, Curly Fry (pictured at right). She was very sick when I found her curled up in a box on the porch, she was skinny and suffered a respiratory infection that abscessed her throat causing her to lose part of her voice, and she had just miscarried. We didn't want to get her spayed until she was stronger, she didn't appear to go into heat, so the kittens were unexpected, but made her very happy and all were healthy. I named all of her kittens after plants, excluding Merlin... my cousin
instantly wanted him and has him now."  

"The pic below is of Merlin's sibling, Juniper.  She is very affectionate and energetic. All of Curly's litter are doing fine."

The Promiscuous Miss Kitty

Joe Luebke of Hyattsville, MD, and is Director of Horticulture and Grounds at the Washington National Cathedral posted this cat photo to his Facebook profile.

He writes, "Miss Kitty really shows up in the new foliage. She showed up at our house in Baltimore about 15 years ago, so skinny and terrified. That spring, we discovered a litter of kittens under our wood pile. We ended up keeping her thinking she'd be an outside cat. Our dog had recently died and we had dog doors, so yes, she figured out the doors and started coming in the house. So we are many years later with a cat we never intended to keep, but couldn't imagine not having now."

Trouble Waiting To Happen

Sue, a gardener in north-central Connecticut, shared these kitty pics on her Instagram feed: https://www.instagram.com/musabasjoosue/. We met recently at the Garden Bloggers Fling 2017. She is a big Warren Zevon fan, hence the name of this post from a song of his.

She writes of the kitty above that he was a stray and "since he didn't appear to be going anywhere soon, I figured he needed a name.  Introducing The Twerpster (aka The Twerpinator)." You can read more about her garden and her cats at her blog: http://idyllhaven.blogspot.com.

Roman Cat Sanctuary

Planning a trip to Rome anytime soon? Cat lovers should add the Torre Argentina (Roman Cat Sanctuary) to their must-see bucket list. As profiled on Atlas Obscura (http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/torre-argentina-roman-cat-sanctuary), "this archaeological wonder was excavated as part of Mussolini’s rebuilding efforts in 1929, revealing extensive multilevel temples that lie sunken 20 feet below modern street level. Besides several different temples, Torre Argentina also contains part of the famous Theater of Pompey, upon whose steps dictator Julius Caesar was betrayed and killed in 44 BCE. Today, volunteers at Torre Argentina care for approximately 250 cats."

The location has its own web site here: http://www.romancats.com/torreargentina/en/introduction.php, where you can donate or "adopt" one of the felines. Many of the cats are disabled or are from abusive households.

Photo at top by Jakub Hałun (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Photo at bottom by Wknight94 (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons.

A Warm Batch of Cookies

Zweetie Zuzie shared these adorable kitten photos. She wrote, "In the fall of 2012, one small calico cat was hanging around my house  I fed her and called her "Cookie" and, after that, this was her home. In winter, she lived in my garage. It was very cold (about minus 30c) and I made a bed for her with an electric heat pad and heated bowl."

"Then in the spring (about May 2013),  she gave me four kittens.  They are good helpers in the garden. She taught the babies how to catch the mice."

 

"But I was heart-broken late that summer when someone came and stolen all the babies. (I have a security camera, but at night-time it is impossible to ID who it is.) I was very sorry for Cookie, the mother as morning and evening she waited for her babies at our front step and cried to tell the babies it was food time  ... It makes me tear-up .. every time when I look at pictures."

You can view more cat photos from Zweetie Zuzie at her Picasa album here: https://picasaweb.google.com/104154037305555726266 or at her Google+ page here: https://plus.google.com/+ZweetieZuzieAngel/about.

Home on the Range

John Liz Dodson of Boise, Idaho, wrote:

"Homer was about 18 years old when he died. He was in fact a stray. We had just lost our sweet cat Phoebe to diabetes. We were heart broken. On July 4th, after fun with friends, we were laying in bed and heard this loud, but young, meow. It went on and on and Liz finally got out of bed and went out to find this tiny little kitten in the middle of the street. She scooped him up, fed him, and then put him outside in the backyard hoping he would go back home. The next morning when we got up we opened the back door, no kitty. Good, we were both still pretty traumatized by the death of Phoebe. But as Liz went to close the door the sweet little kitty crawled out from the shelf of the BBQ. At that moment we knew he was home and so did he."

"Our neighbor who had goats, pigs, dogs and chickens told us that Homer guarded all his animals. He would stroll through his yard like he owned it! First time we ever had a male cat. He was so smart and sweet. When I would be out digging in the garden, Homer always insisted on getting in the hole to help!"

"One thing that stands out was he was a hunter and when he caught a mouse he would bring it home, but he would eat the whole thing except for the liver. Somehow he ate around the liver. So we would find these little mouse livers around the garage and patio. And, Homer loved our friend Mary Ann Newcomer's dog, Lily. Homer followed Lily around our yard and would rub his head on Lily like cats do when you are filling the bowl of food! It was amazing"

Mixing It Up!

Deborah Hardwick in Powell, Ohio, shared this handsome kitty.

 

"Here's Mixer ( the cat thrown from a car who ended up on our property)... He's a big cat with a big personality ... He has been here 5 months now, he was 12 weeks old then, per the vet , so he is 8 months old now. Is he full grown now or perhaps will he grow more."

"As you see in this photo, he is very agile with the paws ... And plants ..."

Always with you in the garden

and here he is almost all grown up now

Here Comes Trouble

Gin Kilgore of Chicago, IL, wrote, "We adopted a feral cat last spring as a last ditch effort to keep rats out of our yard. Total success and I love him so much, even though he won't let me get hear him and hisses at me when I bring him food. He's holding out fine in the cat cave beneath our stairs in this frigid Chicago weather. His name is Trouble, He came with the name and it is apt."

Smoke Signals

Stephanie Thompson Fleming of Behnke Nurseries in Beltsville, MD., (see her other cat posts).

She write, "Smokey... Our tomcat that showed up as a tiny runt. We had him for 18 years. What a cat. Use to have a caution sign on his cage at the vets. He pretty much hated all of us except my daughter Jaimie when he was young. As he got older he calmed down. We miss him so much. What a guy. Always thought he was a hunter.. NOT. would sneak up on everything and pounce,  but what a klutz Here he is getting a sip of water and Smokey thinking he was hiding it."


 

A Man's Cat

Stephanie Thompson Fleming of Behnke Nurseries in Beltsville, MD., shared these pictutes of her grandson, Aaron, and her cat, Gabby, at their home garden.

Stephanie said, "I have always planned to write a book called the cats that have found us ... 36 years and 3 cats all whom just showed up and gave us love and joy. This is our current cat, Gabby, she found us one day about two years before our cat Smokey died. I think cats have a way of knowing things like that. She was already fixed and is such a nice cat. She is a man's cat as she follows my husband around like a dog. Pictured here is Gabby with a rabbit she caught. She is one of our best hunters. She is also pictured with Aaron saying 'hello' to the chickens."

A True Garden Companion

 Rob Chambon of Bicknell, Indiana, USA, recently posted this lovely essay about his late cat to his Facebook page and agreed to share it here as well.

Rob wrote: "Cabbie Girl, my faithful and loving companion, is gone. She has left me today to pass into another realm where, in the words of a beloved friend, she is now running freely amidst butterflies and fields of beautiful wildflowers, forever without end. She came to me in the fall of 2007, abandoned by her previous owners. I don't know if I found her, or she found me, but either way, she touched me deeply. Cabbie filled a void in my life for all those glorious years she stayed here with me, often times running out to greet my car as it turned into the driveway. I could always count on her being near at all times, sleeping as she usually did, on my deck beneath the lights of my tree.

"Countless times over the years, Cabbie would follow me into my woodland garden, waiting patiently for me, while I toiled away at building another section or adding more plants. She was there almost from the very beginning, seeing for herself how the garden was expanding, and often times giving her a new place to roam. I'd turn and see here there, lying on a rotting log, or resting on a cut up tree stump watching me and waiting to once again follow me out of the woods when I was through. I shall miss those moments forever.

"It's truly amazing how much we can be so touched by loving animals like this. They give us unconditional love and fill voids in our lives like nothing else can. Cabbie, I am so very blessed with your presence these past nine years, but it was time to let you go, dear girl. And so, with that said, I finish this message, with tears in my eyes, saying goodbye one last time to the finest pet a guy like me could ever have. Goodbye dear girl, my beloved Cabbie. I love you so much and miss you terribly. You are free now."

A Gentle Giant

Daryl Pulis of America's Home Grown Veggies weekly radio show writes: "Alex first showed up a few years ago wanting nothing but food. He gradually decided that we were okay and I was able to get him into a crate, checked for a chip (none) and get him vetted. He wanted no part of being inside, despite our best efforts. Even when he was drugged after neutering, he tried to dig out of the greenhouse. A couple of years ago, he decided that sleeping on our screened porch in bad weather was okay -- as long as we didn't close the screen door. When the door was closed, he tore through a screen and jumped 8-feet or so to the ground to escape. We learned to keep the door open.  
   "We made him a specially insulated box and put a heating pad in it for him for the winter before last, and that was ok. He was content to sleep on the porch with the open door and he eventually followed me in and out of the utility room when I was washing clothes and gardening out front.
   "This past winter in Georgia, it was just too cold, with temps below zero. I brought him and his bedding into the utility room and we toughed it out. He hated having the doors closed. He tore the curtains, shredded the carpeting by the doors and otherwise expressed his disapproval . It was rough on both of us, but he came back in every night if coaxed. 
   "There's more to the saga, but the big news is that he likes it here with us and is getting used to the other cats (he's number 9) and no longer considers them an automatic threat. It took a couple of years, but now Alex is now happy to be inside and snuggle."
    Daryl adds: "He always listens to me when I record America's Home Grown Veggies. He's the only one who doesn't try to get in front of my monitor or bounce a (loud) ball to get my attention as some of the other cats do. He waits quietly until I'm done and then makes a beeline for my desk for a cuddle. It was certainly worth the work it took to tame him."