Darlene Phillips of Salem’s Community Cats is coming to the farm Sunday at 10 a.m. I wrote about her amazing group last night. A lot of you have reached out to help.

Darlene’s bringing Bubba, a lost or more likely, abandoned cat her group has been fostering for some months.

They advertised on social media and put up signs, but no one has come to claim him.

So he’s up for adoption, she says he is a sweet, very friendly cat. Bubba is not a feral cat, which is the focus of her remarkable group, which started up in 2019 and has helped more than 100 feral cats and a number of lost and abandoned ones.

If you’re interested in adopting Bubba, you can contact Darlene at [email protected].

This isn’t the kind of work I do, but this one touched my heart. I’ve followed the awful flight of feral cats ever since I moved here, and we have two living on the farm safely and happily – Minnie and Flo.

Minnie was a feral kitten who grew to love people. Flo likes me and Maria, up to a point. They come into the basement during snowstorms and bitterly cold winter winds.

Thanks to those of you who sent enough donations last night to fund the group for a month, they are hurting financially and looking for support outside of the small farming community where they are based.

The village of Salem is small, but the number of feral cats (lots of farms) is quite large. Although most of our work is focused on helping people, I felt the feral cat crisis is acute and worthy of our attention.

As with other problems, we can’t solve them all, but we can call attention to them by helping individual animals. Community cats perform Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR), a respected and growing program that involves trapping the cats humanely, spaying or neutering them, getting them their rabies and other shots, and then returning them to the places where they were trapped.

Some people capture these cats and leave them in closets, basements or cages for their whole lives, thinking this is humane. It isn’t. I would call it sanctioned animal abuse.

This seems especially cruel for cats that can’t live with humans.

At least with TNR, the cats get a fighting chance to live and don’t increase the feral cat population.

I’m meeting Darlene Sunday morning and will take a photo of my own of Bubba, perhaps someone out there would like to adopt him. I’m told he’s a love.

They have cats that can never be adopted and cats (and kittens) that can.

You can find out more about the group and donate if you wish here. It’s a very good cause, and as co-owner of a farm, I can testify to the plight of feral cats, left to die of sickness, or be killed by hunters or predators.

Thanks to you, the group has enough funds for a month, it would be great for them to have more. You can donate here.  Thanks for your support.  Cat people always rush to help cats.

The group has reached out to me and I have agreed to help. It’s a good fit.