It’s a touch after 1200 and I’m tired. It’s been a busy week with two trips to the vet and more than a few hours spent working on financial reports for the El Paso Foundation grant. This is my first time submitting for a grant which requires our financial history and I’m not sure what goes where. I’m also wondering how in the hell can I project Vet costs over the rest of the year. Averages will bite your behind when it comes to vet bills. Last year we spent over three times our monthly average in one month when panleukopenia entered the Retreat with one on the kittens. Any way, doing this stuff for the first time always has a bit of a learning curve, though this one is a bit steep.

Back to this Saturday. Saturdays are fill the litter boxes with litter day. Normally cleaning the boxes and adding small amounts of litter takes only 40 minutes or so. On Saturday’s it’s at least an hour and a half. This is the day the pails holding clean litter by the litter boxes are refilled from the stock in the garage. Lugging 40 pound boxes around creates a lot of sweat. And, in today’s heat, sweating was underway big time. Such is the life of a Cat Wrangler.

In our our modest grant request, we are seeking to replace all our litter boxes with very high sided plastic boxes which keep the litter overflow to a minimum. Some of our cats love to dig in earnest, sending litter flying all over the place. We learned of the high sided litter boxes from another rescue. We conducted a proof of concept experiment with our isolation kennel in the office. Our problem was trying to work with flying litter — the isolation kennel rests on the desk behind our principle work area. The litter box sitting about 30 inches off the floor gave the interned cat a great platform for sending litter down our necks and on to our work spaces. The high sided litter box worked like a charm and we want to get more.

Another item in our grant request is to purchase three high quality cat trees. High quality cat trees are expensive. High quality also means durability when the tree is made of solid wood instead of particle board. The company we found in North Carolina makes this type of high quality tree. These trees also have the capability to replace damaged parts without buying a new tree. Another plus is that they are gorgeous. The trees are furniture within our home, so looking nice makes a nicer environment for us. Cats get durability and we get sturdy and good looking.

One other thing we hope to purchase with the grant is grant management software. Trying to find a grant that fits the Retreat is tougher than filling out the grant forms. The software pulls from an updated grant database and helps us make better requests. This is a very non-sexy request but a much needed addition to the Retreat’s tool box.

The final item in our grant request may possibly be the most important. We’re requesting seed money for a fund to treat sick and injured feral cats that our TNR partners trap. This fund would allow us to treat the kitties, nurse them back to health and release them back into their clowder or colony. We also want to used this fund to helps needy oldsters care for their sick kitties. Our vet often lets us know if someone needs help, but most of the time we have no capability to help. This fund would be a start. Again this is just seed money for starting the fund; the Retreat and its gracious partners would have to support this fund with more money in the future. I would expect to see a separate donation/project fund widget in the future to help grow this little fund.

In closing today, we need to name the new kitten. He’s been too long without a name. I’m inclined to name him, Geralt after Geralt, the Witcher of books, games and TV fame. Our kitten is gray, feisty and doesn’t speak much unless hungry. The name seems a good fit but it’ll have to be approved by Mrs H. What say you?