feral thoughts

We can all get along here.
That quote has been on my mind lately, but it might surprise you why. That was Rodney King in 1992 appealing for peace after days of riots in Los Angeles.
So, why have I been thinking about that quote lately – here in 2010 in Humboldt County, while feeding feral cats. OK, stay with me.
I volunteer with a group of dedicated people who take turns feeding feral cats all over our community. I feed on Sundays and Mondays. I am joined by my wife, Susan, and Carole and Cynthia and Tammy and there are many others and those that I named do so much more – with Bless the Beasts, the Humane Society, Miranda’s and other organizations that help with animals that are lost, abandoned, injured, mistreated or in other ways require assistance. While feeding, we also attempt to trap so that the cats can be spayed and neutered and some may even be adopted.
Susan and I feed at the tracks off of Commercial Street near the waterfront where the trains are. We have been doing it for years now and have gotten to know the cats and we know the newcomers and have given them names. Fluffy is a regular. We notice that Fluffy has a regular companion and they are almost always together, living and eating under one set of train cars, while on the other side, another set of cats appear to have taken up residence and prefer to eat on what I have taken to calling the Mezzanine. These two sets of cats seldom mix. Recently, two new cats have appeared on the Mezzanine – a very small coal black kitten I have yet to name and a tabby with what appears to be a bad left eye that has been very protective of the black kitten. I call the tabby Hissy because he hisses ferociously at me even while I am presenting him with his food. Hissy and the black kitten are always together. Not all the cats show up every time I feed and Hissy and the black kitten have gone missing entire weekends only to show up the following weekend. The most I have seen in one day is eight cats.
And then there are the visitors. Raccoons. Many times only one will appear. A few times there have been three and several times there have been two. I will try to divert the raccoons with a small pile of dry cat food so they will leave the cats alone. There have been times when the raccoons have appeared and the cats on the ground level have scattered across the way and joined the cats on the Mezzanine level.
The cats have a lot of train cars to hide under and in and around and I often see them as I drive in. They see the car come in and they run to follow it to the spot where I usually feed. They know the chow wagon has arrived. One time, as I drove in, I looked in the rearview mirror and three cats were running behind me.
Oh, yeah, the quote.
One day, as I drove in, I looked in the rearview mirror, and there were two cats following me, running alongside a raccoon – the three of them, running together behind the car to get to the chow wagon.
Another day, as I was feeding the cats, the raccoon appeared. He saw me and I motioned to him to go to the spot where I usually dropped a pile of dry food for him and then went to the car to scoop up a bunch. I dropped it beside the train and the raccoon came up from under the train, looked up at me and started pawing the food into his mouth, all the while watching me. I checked on the cats on the ground and they went back to eating. I crossed the way and gave food to the cats on the mezzanine. When I turned around I saw three cats and one raccoon all eating together. The raccoon had left his pile of dry food and joined the cats with their food and the cats just moved over one dish and continued eating.
And I thought about Rodney King’s quote: “We can all get along here.” And I thought about the rest of what he said that day: “We can get along here … we’re all stuck here … let’s try to work it out.”