June 5, 2025
If you're still reading, I'm flattered, and happy to keep you entertained. Welcome to Part II: Kittens!!
Also, if you're local, I hope I invited you to our open house on Jun 14th! Come check out all the fuss and our little ecosystem/unending project.
On May 23rd I was at my dad's house in North Carolina and received a text from our upstairs tenant: They noticed kittens underneath the rear cabin on the property! I congratulated Andrew from afar that he had been awarded a litter for his birthday and reminded him to please wear a glove while extracting them.
This was not as simple as we'd thought, since the cats had made a home far underneath the structure and he couldn't just reach in and snatch them out. Plus, they're smart enough to not come too close to people wearing gloves and offering them things.
A crate was acquired from the local shelter ... we were told Animal Control was on a long weekend ... I made my way home ... we went about a work week ... and 8-9 days went by before I realized that our tenants and the neighbors were feeding and watering the litter that was quite happily still living in an insulation-wrapped, rat-poo-infested hole.
Ever have that moment when you realize you're the one who's going to handle the thing?
Touché, Andrew was now out of town so it was also my turn.
On a Tuesday I left a message for Liz, the Animal Control for Portsmouth RI, who called me back and agreed to meet me at 2:00 on Wed to catch these cats. Completely legitimized by this excuse to leave work early, I rushed home and met a sweet 20-something who'd stumbled across her life's work through old fashioned nepotism (not judging; she knows her stuff!).
Liz had something in a squeeze-yogurt tubed she called "Kitty Crack", got right down on the ground outside the hole, put some Crack on a brick and waited for the cats to come out. First out of the hole was a little calico whom Liz didn't hesitate to snatch vertically and toss in a crate, complete with surprised kitten sound effect.
Total gangster.
Unfortunately, the gig was quickly up. The two orange kittens ran back in the hole following the abduction and were kept inside by a skeptical Mama who kept peeking out at us.
Liz, with a patience I've never even had for my own children, baited and waited and tried a few things for the better part of two hours. What we ended up working with was a humane trap that closes shut behind a critter when they walk in to get the food. I hung out nearby trying not to add or subtract from the situation but learning what I could, since this was a team sport from the get-go.
Liz got lucky one more time before her shift was up and nabbed orange kitty #1. These two were off to the shelter post-haste.
I was left instructions to check the trap before bedtime and then maybe close it, because leaving it open overnight I might trap a critter I wasn't looking for. (There is enough legal skunk in Rhode Island; I'm not interested in adding actual skunk to our tenant roster.)
I decided this was a rare 2-glass Chardonnay weeknight, thinking this adventure was on pause for the day and I was satisfied with its progress.
Right after the 2nd glass kicked in but right before I took a bite of food, our tenant texted from her window vantage point, "There's a kitten in the trap!" I grabbed gloves, my 2 boys and my buzz and we went to check things out.
The trap is a long rectangular prism-type cage, and at this moment it contained a terrified little kitty and some ant-covered food at one end. I figured out how to open it and put on an awkward show in front of my audience (tenant included) of trying to get the cat out. (In my defense, no one else was trying to get the cat out!) My arm just wasn't quite long enough to get to the other end, where kitty was hissing, so there was some weird rocking of the trap trying to get him to come closer to the end where I could reach him. I finally nabbed that sucker and threw him in the crate the boys were holding open. He did not move out of the corner behind the beach towel for at least 12 hours.
Carl the Kitten (later named by the shelter) spent a quiet night in the crate in a corner of our kitchen where he surely had no clue the conversations we were having about keeping him. Lending truth to the wisdom of "sleeping on it", by morning he was hissing and mewing his dissatisfaction, and it was apparent that this potential long-term animal behavior project was not something we needed to take on this week (we know nothing about cats!).
With Pucci (our dog) now alerted to the presence of an alien in our kitchen, things started to get a little tense inside so I moved Carl's crate out to the porch while I got ready for the day. Liz was going to check back with me at 8:00 so I drug my heels a bit, hoping for another excuse to pursue the action on our property over the endless talking at my workplace (this is a theme of my life right now).
Not ten minutes went by when I cruised past the screen door to peek on Carl and jumped back when I noticed Mama! She hadn't come out of her hole since the first kitten was scooped up but had heard her remaining baby across the yard (50-60 yards away), and was now pacing around the crate and looking at me: "What. The. Hell. Lady?!?!" I probably would have been doing the same thing.
Tactical detour: the habitat under the cabin was finally empty!
I snuck out the front door, around the back of the property, and sealed up the hole with cardboard, nails and bricks. #feelingclever
Mama didn't leave the porch area nor let the carrier out of eyesight in our remaining hours together. I took the carrier away from the house, in to the shade, and set up the cage the way I'd seen Liz do, using the kitten to lure the mom in. About this time, Liz arrived and told me I'd done a good job. :) I offered her some coffee, we watched for a while from the kitchen window, then I set her up with a camping chair and good wishes and headed to work.
Around lunch time I checked in with Drew, who was home from school. He said Liz had taken the kitten and left the trap, and now Mama was in the trap. From the photos I could tell that Liz had cleverly used the towel Carl had snuggled in overnight to lure the mom in to the cage with his smell. Her turn for #feelingclever .
By the time I got home, we had no more cats. I was happy they were safe and getting medical attention, but kind of deflated over the side quest being complete. Liz left me a nice voicemail and I dropped her off a thank-you note. I cleaned the bowl and the water dispenser the neighbor and her grandkids had provided during their weekend afternoons playing outside, also with a note about the kittens' fate.
A couple of days later we stopped by the Potter League shelter after church, explained who we were, and asked if we could visit the litter. At first we were told no, since they were still in Intake, so we wandered around the heartbreaking puppy hallways before leaving. A sweet volunteer caught us on the way out and urged us to come with him, where he led us to Intake and we got to visit Carl, Mango and Princess Donut. He had been working with them for three days and gave us a full update. PD, the calico, was ready for humans and mewed at us until he took her out and we passed her around for snuggles. Carl and Mango hissed from the back corner like ferocious tigers. The plan was to leave the three together for a few weeks, hoping to socialize the orange beasts. Poor Mama wasn't doing well. Her cage was covered with a towel and a Caution sign. We left our number and our interest in offering up our property for a spay & release option for her. We haven't written off making Princess Donut a Kissell, but we heard there is a waiting list for kittens... 
Perhaps the most fulfilling side effect of Property Project is the expansion of our local community. My soul loves knowing the people in all the circles that surround us, and I believe to my core that we are put on this earth to support each other. From meeting the animal lovers in my neighborhood and those who work for our town, to coworkers jumping in to help us move, to lending out stuff we discovered when we transferred one garage to another -- this is the platinum lining of staying in one community and continuing to dig in. (Ironically, if we'd stayed in one house we would have missed a lot of this in our quiet, perfect neighborhood.) I'm here for all of it.
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