The Biggest Problems Are yet to Come

This year's round of shelter repairs is currently well underway. Paving of the sheltered area under the eaves is finally finished and we’ve already undertaken our next challenge - fixing the only cat room in the front yard. Not until the workers began to

rip out the ceiling were we aware of its true condition and the real reason why that huge bump had formed in it months ago. The old saying “You never know what lies beneath” takes on a whole new meaning during repairs at Felix shelter.

Like all of the other auxiliary rooms, the one in question has originally been made of reeds and rammed earth, with random bricks scattered here and there. The ceiling sagged down because the roof was leaking water and not only that, the rammed earth and reeds

became wet and heavy, which has caused one of the beams carrying the weight of the roof to frighteningly bend down in the middle. That particular beam lies on top of the walls and supports the structural roof beams so it can't be replaced, as the entire structure

would fall down otherwise. Nevertheless, it can stay as it is without causing any additional problems. OSB sheathing has already been placed above, and an insulating layer of Styrofoam will be attached beneath. After that, special nets will be adhered to

both the inner walls and the ceiling and Bavalit, which is a kind of mortar, will be applied afterwards. New electrical installations of cables, plugs and wall sockets will replace the old ones and the best news is that all of the costs of renovating that room in the front

yard are covered. Unfortunately, this is just the beginning…

The biggest problem is the roof of the auxiliary rooms itself – half-rotten and cracked in places, it must be replaced entirely, not a single part of it is worth saving. The

only cat room in good shape is the last and the biggest one in the backyard, as it was built out of normal building materials just before I moved in a few years ago, so it’s still quite new. Raising enough money to replace the roof sounds like science fiction at the moment,

but if we miraculously succeed, there will be plenty of hard work ahead. Additional layers of bricks will be added onto the existing walls and after that, the wooden frame will be placed on top of the bricks to allow the concrete to be poured into it. Once the concrete

frame is finished, it will be ready to carry the new roofing. Roof beams and rafters will be set in place to make a new roof structure, which will then be covered with an insulation layer and the final step will be putting up new roof tiles. With this new roofing, all of the

auxiliary rooms will be ready for next winter.

However, if the lack of funds prevents us from accomplishing what we have planned, Felix kitties will be facing an extremely uncertain future. We can try and put a nylon cover under the old roof

that is already leaking in multiple places, hoping that the water won’t continue soaking the ceilings of the auxiliary rooms, but this patched up roof can’t reasonably be expected to endure another snow. The longer we wait, the greater the risk we run that this rotten

roofing will collapse in on the cats and everything will fall apart. It’s been said a long time ago that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure…

Please, help us if you possibly can! Felix kitties look pampered and happy, without a

care in the world, but their lives will change dramatically if the roof above the rooms they eat and sleep in caves in. Some of them are very old or chronically ill, while others are very young, they have all been through a lot before they arrived here, and now the

question is just how many hardships these delicate, brave little creatures can endure in their lifetime. After all of the misery, fear, violence and hopelessness they were forced to experience, they have found their safe haven that gave their lives a completely new

dimension. It would be so unfair to let anything shatter their hope again…

Together, we can make their fairy tale last! Every little bit helps!

Still at the Beginning

Everything always takes longer than expected, and even the best-planned project usually takes at least twice as long as one thinks it will. In short, the sheltered area under the eaves that was supposed to be paved weeks ago is not finished yet; first the bad weather and

then the holidays caused a delay in accomplishing the goal. Until this new sheltered place is completely fixed, everything else will have to wait. There's so much more to be done and time is passing by way too fast!

Renovating the only cat room in the front yard will be a big challenge, as all of the furniture needs to be moved into the sheltered area under the eaves that the workers are currently working on, and all of the kitties are supposed to move there as well. It will

probably turn out to be much harder than we now imagine, in light of the fact that cats are not easily organized and most of them certainly won’t be delighted with the idea. However, despite all of the inconveniences, what needs to be done will be done.

Raising funds for shelter repairs never goes smoothly. I am well aware that only heartbreaking images of starving and mangled animals attract attention and that the rule “the worse, the better” is crucial to successful fundraising, but in a

very old-fashioned way, I don’t want to make things more dramatic than they really are. I won’t tell stories that Felix cats are dying of hunger, as they are not. I won’t tell stories that I finance them out of my retirement pension only, as I don’t. I would never

ever talk about giving up on them as I consider it utterly irresponsible and unthinkable. Telling the truth may not always be clever in a world full of sharks, but there’s no such thing as a half-truth, or a white lie or a justified lie, a lie is a lie is a lie.

Shelter repairs may seem boring and unexciting, there are no heroic actions or saving lives in a literal sense, Felix kitties are chubby and relaxed, so the conclusion drawn is that there’s no emergency here. But there is! Just a small part of the roof

was renovated last year. The ceiling of the cat room mentioned above is sagging, the outdoor fence posts are crumbling, the entire chain link fence is barely holding up and almost all of the walls on the property, which were originally made of bricks and

rammed earth, are soaking wet inside. Damp patches are forming both on ceilings and walls in the house and pretty much everything is falling apart. If the building starts to collapse in on us, no one here will be happy and relaxed anymore and we'll be in serious

 trouble.

Please, take a look at our project! We have accomplished a lot already, but more needs to be done; it's not only risky, but it’s dangerous to stop halfway through. Once we're over these hurdles and everything's been

repaired, the shelter will just need to be maintained in the years to come and the Felix kitties will be safe forever and we can continue saving lives.

Worth supporting, don't you think?

The Untouchable

It is commonly believed that purebred cats live better and happier lives than mixed breeds but it does seem questionable at times. There’s no doubt that purebreds are beautiful as they have been selectively bred to get the appearance and characteristics the

breeders desire and even moggies which strongly resemble one breed are deemed highly popular. Unfortunately, there’s no guarantee that they will all find loving owners; if they fall into the wrong hands, their physical traits may just decide their destiny…

With her short blue grey fur with silver tipping and vivid, almost always green eyes, Falsika is the very picture of a true Russian Blue, with an overall dose of good looks. Other than that, I don’t know much about her since she was given to me

instead of my own grey cat two years ago, after maybe the worst adoption of the Felix kitties that one could’ve ever imagined.

Looking back, I still can’t believe how naïve and trusting I was at the time. Not that I didn’t have a

lurking sense of unease about the woman who wanted to adopt four of my cats together, but she was willing to sign the adoption contract and to give all of her personal data, she even sounded quite nice… With a heavy heart, I gave them up, only to face a terrible

reality some ten days later – instead of keeping them as pets, she was planning to sell them all! After a couple of nerve wracking, dramatic weeks and countless phone calls, I managed to get them back, only to find out that a skinny grey cat which was last to

arrive at the shelter was not the same one I gave up a month earlier.

She was malnourished and terrified upon arrival, the very personification of pure despair. She’d been cowering in the back of her cage for days and whenever I tried

to pet her she would just freeze, totally indifferent to a touch, as if the fear shut her down. The second I let her out, she fled in panic, disappeared in the yard and I literally didn’t see her for months, I would just catch fleeting glimpses of her sometimes, as if she

were a ghost. The Russian Blue mixes are supposed to be lively, playful and curious but she was anything but and there was no way to know if she would ever change.

Two years have passed, Falsika’s gained weight and

recovered physically long ago, but the scars in her mind have remained. Although she’s mellowed a little, she is still very cautious and shy and may never learn to trust; I don’t even want to think about everything she’s been through and only time will tell if she will ever

be willing and brave enough to accept a human into her life. However, it’s a good sign that a grey shadow with sparkling green eyes, which is usually approaching hesitantly and surreptitiously, keeps getting closer with each passing day…

No Friends Needed

There’s a saying about ferals which goes “Just because you can’t touch them, doesn’t mean you can’t love them” and that phrase can rightly be applied to my Tigar macka (her name means Tiger cat). Unapproachable and uncatchable, she’s

been living with me for more than 16 years and yet, up to these days, she still has remained the very definition of distrustful cautiousness.

There’s really not much I could say about her. She appeared in front of

the building I lived in as a half-grown kitten, maybe six or seven months old, extremely wary, vigilant and always on guard. Although she never befriended any of my kitties and wasn’t social at all, she kept coming and was always around, in their close proximity,

perhaps just taking comfort in being near her own kind. Nevertheless, when the time had come for her to be spayed, I had no other choice but to trap her in order to take her to the vet’s, where she was given general anesthesia through the bars and taken out

only when she was already in a deep sleep. No one was willing to take a risk - had she been awake, she would’ve most certainly fought with all her might and nothing would’ve stopped her from escaping.

Our next close

encounter took place many years later, when we were all getting ready to move to the shelter. I somehow succeeded in luring her into a big crate in my garage and it was probably the last time she was within my reach; as soon as she got out she disappeared into

the yard, not to be touched ever again. She does approach me at feeding time, but maintains a safe distance and keeps a watchful eye on every move I make…

She is in great shape and looks a lot younger than her age, but photos always fail

to show her real self, as she feels uncomfortable in the presence of humans. Viewed from afar, she is a beautiful little cat, a gorgeous tabby with stunningly bright emerald eyes, an independent and solitary creature retaining and enjoying her freedom. She

doesn’t need anyone to find joy in her life; she set her boundaries a long time ago and the least I can do is respect them.

A New Round of Repairs Is Already in High Gear

This winter has been entirely too long, spring should’ve been here weeks ago but we’re still having cold, wet and demoralizing weather that makes everyone tired and reluctant to go outside. However, what must be done, must be done and now that winter

seems to be finally giving up, this year’s round of shelter repairs has begun. With the dismal, overcast, windy and rainy days we’ve been having lately, it’s not possible to work outdoors , but the sheltered area under the eaves needed to be paved in order to

become more durable, less slippery and easier to maintain, so we’re currently working on it. The paving tiles had been bought months ago, so we just needed to purchase the glue and paving is now in full swing. It may not seem like very much, but when

it comes to repairing the shelter with not enough money raised, every little bit counts!

The next step, and a big one too, will be fixing the only cat room in the front yard. As all of you probably know by now, that cat room is in the worst shape of

all, with a huge bulge caused by moisture that has formed in the ceiling and countless cracks in all of the walls. The roof over the room hasn’t been repaired in time and like the rest of the house's roof, (except for the section that was fixed last year), it’s totally worn out,

with partially cracked roof beams, rotten rafters and sagging tiles. If enough of the ceiling gets waterlogged, it will become too heavy to support itself and the entire structure will be on the verge of collapse! We can't allow the ceiling to crash down on my

cats, so it’s imperative that the room is renovated as soon as possible.

The concrete path that leads from the side entrance into the yard to the cat’s indoor facility wasn’t even touched last year as we didn’t have enough money to

make a new path, but we’ll have to do it this spring. The biggest problem with the old path is that heavy rains always leave it covered with standing water, so the existing deteriorated concrete will have to be removed, and the top layer of the ground stripped away to get

the path leveled. After that, steel frames will be set in place to provide a welded framework that's ready to receive the poured concrete; that’s exactly what was done last year with the path between the house and the main entrance gate.

We can only hope that the outdoor perimeter fence holds on a little longer, although I fear that the coming sun and heat will cause additional damage to the already crumbled fence posts and then the whole fence will be at serious risk of falling down. If these rotten

posts fall apart, there’ll be nothing left to hold the iron fence up and fixing it is becoming an emergency as chunks of mortar are already falling off…

Not until these urgent repairs are done can we proceed with replacing the roof and

repairing the auxiliary rooms in the backyard, both of which must be finished before the cold weather sets in again. The roof of the auxiliary rooms has already begun to leak and it’s crystal clear that it can’t possibly endure another winter. We’ve been

lucky so far, as this last winter wasn’t a very severe and snowy one (even though it had its moments), but we can't count on luck forever. We must find a way to prepare the shelter for the next cold season at any cost!

As soon as real spring comes, winter's ordeals will be forgotten by many, but if we’ve learnt anything from our own mistakes, then we know there’s no time to waste. Day by day, step by step we are getting closer to the goal, which is to make the shelter a

safer, more secure and more comfortable place for the Felix kitties to live in. Will you help us?