Worms

I just counted 18 cats in the semi-feral "family" at our farm. Goodness Gracious, how will we ever catch up. The activity of the day was to rescue them from certain death by starvation. The method was to de-worm them. They are emaciated because roundworms in their tummies are eating up their food. Not very nice. Not usually like that. So, armed with a bottle of liquid de-worming medicine and a couple of cans of soft cat food, I went to work. I divided the cat food into individual snacks and laced each portion with the proper dose of medicine, adjusted according to the size of the target cat. With 5 portions at a time on a dinner plate, I entered the fray: those few cats who are not terrified of humans attacked the plate immediately. My grandma and I used a spatula to keep one cat to one portion, as much as possible. That was interesting, and left approximately 2 doses on the plate. Apparently only 3 of the cats were not too terrified to approach the plate. Now, grandma used whatever she could find (metal pans, her feet) to fend off those bold kitties while I coaxed some of their terrified but desperately hungry siblings to eat their portions while I stood at arm's length. 5 down, 12 to go (one is too young for medicine). We repeated this process with another plate of 5 portions, but the less-terrified cats, having tasted the yummy treats now, were only slightly cautious as they approached for seconds. We swatted and kicked (gently of course) while mewing and cajoling the next set of fearful felines. Cali, a beautiful calico who never lets me pet her, came back again and again and didn't seem to notice my hand on her back at all. Ramses, who has never been touched by a human in all his two years, remains untouched but managed to get at least his fair share off the plate. And so it went, until finally I'd administered 13 doses of de-wormer, one each to Cali, Mama, Buffy, Tiger, Peanut, Ramses, Heidi, George, Tommy, Tommy II, Blue Monster, Fancy (aka Mona Lisa), and Goldie. I could not get the black kitty to come near, and I never saw Toby or Toby II or Hilda. These cats, by the way, have names not because they are pets but because we need ways to refer to them other than "you know, the one that looks like the mama cat but doesn't have the white mark" and "that light orange one that looks egyptian" and "that stupid blue-grey tomcat that's beating up all the others." So far this year I've found homes for Blue Kitty (offspring of the Blue Monster) and Toby III, and I've had Heidi spayed and Ivan neutered (and he moved to my house) and now Peanut is going to a new home, and I have vouchers to get Mama cat and Cali spayed next. I have to admit that we do have a special fondness for George (he's fixed, so not a problem), and Heidi and Goldie and Buffy and Mama. We would like Fancy if we could catch her and tame her, but we can't. But she's awfully pretty.