More Concrete Improvement

We’ve been needing to lay concrete on the space between the two enclosures, as the dirt gets smelly and attracts flies in the summer heat. Misato’s uncle’s construction company is just down the street, and they had a sudden opening, so we went ahead and had it done before the rainy season gets started. It looks great and will make cleanup much more efficient. For one day after they put the concrete down, we had to use a plank bridge to get from the front door to the street! Quite the balancing act, while carrying a case of cat food to take down to the school for the TNR cats!

We met with volunteers yesterday to take a look at the requests for help with TNR projects, and some rehoming of kittens. I’ll be going out tomorrow with a volunteer to check one, and someone else is going out to check another. We have our fingers crossed that we’ll be able to get animal control to do some spay/neuter for us in the near future, but for the time being we’ll have to scramble to get appointments as close and as cheap as possible. Concerned about taking on more rehoming, because without more volunteer support, we won’t be able to move as many kittens out. We did amazingly well last year, and in many ways we are in a better position this year–two new enclosures, and 2 volunteers coming out once or twice a week to help with cleaning. However we’ve lost the folks we had on the ground in Tokyo, as well as the person listing cats on the main Japanese rehoming site for us. We’ll have to put some time into finding replacements, and with a few people to meet with over the next couple of weeks, I think we’ll be OK.

It’s gotten hotter outside recently, and though we hadn’t intended using the kitten enclosure for the small kittens, we need to give them some space to cool off in or we’ll have to turn on the air conditioner in the kitten room. So far we’ve had them out for short bursts, to have a little run around, but the bars are spaced wide enough apart for the more ingenious among them to squeeze right out. Mipple made it out and into the Adult enclosure before we knew it! I’m going out to the home center after our field trip tomorrow, to see if I can find something that I can attach to the fencing, to discourage escape by the little ones. The challenge is to find something that doesn’t make the outside look less attractive, or stop airflow.