Minnie was a feral kitten born to a feral mother when we got her just in time,  more than ten years ago. She slept in the barn with our chickens, and I thought she believed she was a chicken, she often slept with them in their roost boxes.

When our great rooster Winston died, Minnie stayed by his side in the last days of his life and kept the other chickens from pecking at him.

Our hens often hang out with her on the porch, especially when it is raining, as it is today. If it gets heavy, they’ll all move together into the barn and hop up on some hay bales to stay warm and dry.

Feral kittens can often learn to love people, but Minnie is still only easy around me and Maria.

I’ve much enjoyed working on the new feral cat project the Army Of Good has picked up on and run with.

A local group called community cats is trying to expand its work with feral cats and to educate people all over the country on how to help them.

They were just about out of money – they helped more than 100 feral cats last year – and we’ve raised already close to $2,000 for their important work. Over the next few months, I’d like to raise $12,000 for the group, their operating costs are roughly $1,000 a month.

I’ve been fascinated with and worried about feral cats ever since I moved upstate, they lead hard lives and often have horrible deaths – starvation, exposure, predators, disease, hunters.

There are an estimated 70 million feral cats in the United States, most are unadoptable. Community Cats practices TNR (Trap-Neuter-Return), which involves humanely trapping feral cats, getting them spayed or neutered, and getting the cats a rabies shot.

They also rescue and foster lost and abandoned cats (check out Stripe and Bubba). You can donate to the group here, if you can and wish to.

Thanks for helping them. I see that cat people stick together.