Return to the Big Kitty Round Up Phase 2
14 June 2018 | Marina Puerto Escondido
Oscar's Hole in the Ground
We enjoyed the month of May free of kitty duties down here in Puerto Escondido as we traveled north to Washington to take care of other critters!
We house-sat for our daughter & son-in-law as they traveled to Europe for a couple weeks in the middle of the month and that left us in charge of their 2 dogs, 1 cat, 3 chickens and 3 ducks!
It was a delightful time and we got a little visiting in with family and a few friends, but location and chores kept us pretty busy in North Bend so as always we didn't get to see everyone we would have liked to.
The drive up and back down Baja was also delightful and we were happy to get back home aboard Cetus a week ago, on June 7th. And its been busy busy since then!
Between putting the boat back together, resuming the Kitty Round Up, catching up with friends and preparing for Hurricane Bud (more on that on later!) the days have flown by.
First: The Kitty Round Up.
Barbara & George of Dream Catcher (our partners in crime on this big venture) were fostering the 1st batch of 3 kitties when we left and we found homes for all of them! One stayed with its new family in Loreto and the other 2 flew up to Washington with Barbara to their new home with her granddaughter!! A perfect match!
They also continued to feed all of the cats and continue the search for Oscar's 4 babies -- much more difficult than it had been to find Mama's (the first litter). This was because Oscar chose to keep them in an underground tunnel system! There would be occasional sightings but never more than one kitten at a time, so we thought for sure most had been lost. Finally George & Barbara spotted all 4 again! So attempts at getting close to them continued hoping to catch them before they got too old to be properly socialized.
It was an emotional roller coaster! We could see them through the cracks in the concrete, but the hole was too deep to reach them. And twice the marina filled in the holes with concrete!! The first time was while we were gone and we thought they were all lost, including Oscar. But then another hole was found (that's the picture at the head of this post -- to give some perspective to our challenge).
George & Barbara caught the 1st kitty the day before we got back and then the next night we all caught the 2nd kitty by laying a net at the bottom of the hole (that's why the black lines are running out of the hole in the picture).
We had more trouble catching the 3rd & 4th kitties -- they were on to us! As we were working on plans for the next try some friends came out to the boat to tell us the marina had cemented in the hole!! So Terry dashed in and removed the still soft cement and George poured some gravel into the hole to bring the floor up for what we hoped would be easier catching. And it worked! We soon had kitty #3 and the following morning Oscar was able to bring #4 out of the hole since it wasn't as deep. Then kitty#4 was able to join his brothers and sister in their foster home aboard Dream Catcher! Success!
Now the search for forever homes for these 4 darlings will begin. Not to mention the catching and neutering of the 2 mama's!
We certainly don't want to go through this again!
Later I will do a separate post about Hurricane Bud's early start to the hurricane season down here and the amazing jumping Mobula Rays