i moved into my house two years ago. it's in an old, economically diverse neighborhood near the middle of town. the first day i lived here, i met a stray cat. this cat was very friendly (and skinny and dirty). she played with the neighbors' chiweenie all the time. they would frolic in my yard, the street, pretty much everywhere. this being an economically diverse neighborhood, sometimes residents move out in the dead of night, right around the first of the month. this cat's dog was among those disappearing residents. the cat was not invited to their next residence.

i began feeding the cat when the weather turned cold. when the weather turned colder, i fashioned a porch bed for the cat from some ratty old beach towels. when the weather turned REALLY cold (as cold as it ever gets here in south-central texas), i began bringing the cat inside for the night. pretty soon the cat had a name: olive. not long after that, olive had been to the vet. immediately after that, olive no longer went outside. olive was converted into an indoor-only cat. my neighborhood is full of cats related to olive. for all i know, olive is related to herself many times over.

i would like the stray cat population to stabilize and hopefully decline someday . i also do not want the existing cat population to starve to death. conundrum: how does one keep the local cat population from starving and, at the same time, not attract every cat for miles?

simple: trap. neuter. release.

this past august, me and the girl began putting a dish of cat food in a humane trap. after several weeks of putting food in without setting the trap, several cats had grown comfortable with eating in the trap. then came t-day.

on t-day, we successfully trapped our first cat. it was really really easy. in fact, when the door closed behind her, she looked back, looked around and then decided to finish her breakfast. we covered the trap with a blanket and took her to the vet. later that day, on the ride back home, we noticed that she had a cold. we put her in the back bathroom with a complete set of kitty supplies. for the next two weeks we nursed her through a cold, an eye infection and a false pregnancy. i named her beckah. we released her and began planning the next trapping.

the trap mechanism never again worked as well as the first time. we've since outfitted the mechanism with a string that extends into the bathroom window so we can trap 'em ourselves when the time is just right. altogether, we've trapped six since august. there are about three regulars that are on our list to trap, but for the most part the population has stabilized. we don't have nearly as many new faces rotate through the back yard. we feed them every day which keeps them from starving and has cut down on the number of dead bird parts we find in the yard. in general, the regulars all look healthier; not as dirty, not as skinny and not as beat-up-looking.

i'm trying to get the girl to start a stray cat blog for the budding cat rancher, but for the time being here's the line-up: beckah (f), diego (m), tom tom club (m), bobbi (f - previously spayed), meatball (m - previously neutered), zorro (m - not previously neutered, but completely infested with lice!).