My beautiful big Wild Family

 "Beware of people who dislike cats." Irish Proverb  "Without tolerance our world turns into hell.  Humor is the mask of wisdom.  Who sows fear, reaps weapons.  Nothing that    has been thought, can be taken back.  The world is bad, but not without hope. It is only hopeless from an ideal viewpoint."   Friedrich Dürrenmatt.                                                       My first worry in the morning, are all my adopted feral kids of various ages (from 3 weeks to 11 years) okay? Due to a usual poor immune system especially the young kittens are endangered. A sudden death is always a shock. For two years now Calcivirus is a big and often deadly problem. It effects the gum (red, bleeding) and teeth (brown, starting to decay) and gives a bad smell from the mouth. So it is not just blocked noses but a. o. also the Calcivirus that makes a cat /dog stop eating. Those infected need a veterinarian, dental treatment, and injections etc. as soon as possible. The best preventing is always vaccination, but unfortunately I can not pay for 30 cats getting vaccinated. Ignorant folks who keep dumping their unwanted kittens in front of my doors (and those of other animal supporting citizens) don't think of this or just don't care. Seeing the plight of innocent animals and being unable to help is difficult to take and terribly depressing. For unknown reasons even women (usually) driving big expensive cars, kick out cats and dogs, either secretly or saying they haven't got enough space /an animal that fights with this one, etc., the mother of the kittens/puppies disappeared/ died, or they found these animals outside. All very strange. I would suspect that they have more space than me, most probably even got a garden, unlike me. Those citizens know a lot of Fairytales. Nevertheless, I love my big feral family, children of all colours:  golden-orange with white bits, black/white, all black, grey, cream/white, all white, 3 colours (always female my vet advised) orange/black/white (Chiquita, Esperanza, Celine) mixed dark colours, light yellow, golden yellow, long or short hair, expensive breed e. g. Persian, Siamese ( Amelie, Minusa) or not, mixed with Persian breed thus long hair (Melanie, Maruth, James) dainty (Paulinchen, Chiquita, Daisy) or overweight (Riccardo) , more or less handicapped: only one eye (Tareka, Myriam) half blind (Malek and Mary), fully blind, ( sweet Lulu), young black beauty with complicated broken bones near back leg that cannot be operated here (amazing Johnny decided to ignore his handicap, one can feel one of his bones almost sticking out), one baby of Madonna paralyzed back legs (born that way). Those with one colour plus white often have a white bib, tummy and socks. Some are easy to care for, love to cuddle and get along with everybody, others dislike certain cats (for unknown reasons, wrong perfume?), some kitten orphans that arrived without a mother teaching them, recognize straight away their toilets as such, some mothers gave birth in my absence without leaving any blood stains. My big boy Riccardo doesn't get on with all of my other children, but he is never aggressive with me, not even when I end a verbal or actual fight and carry him downstairs from the roof, or give him some kind of medicine - which usually is the moment when other feral family members hate me (briefly). Malek, my daily "masseur" and cuddle champion, unfortunately suffers liver problems, as the blood test brought to light. The prescribed special croquettes appear to be very delicious and are at the same time quite expensive. Luckily (for my purse) he should only have 40 grams, maximum 50 per day. Malek finds this okay as an hors-d'oeuvre, yet he doesn't understand why the main meal isn't serviced. How can a big boy live on a kid's portion? Does his mummy no longer love him? It is those questions I fear and I try my best to convince him of the opposite. In addition his expensive medicine doesn't seem to agree with him. I have decided to split his daily (liquid) medication into 3 portions. In order to prevent Malek helping himself to the usual croquettes that I feed to my other little treasures, or them "stealing" his, I have to seperate Malek at feeding times. Soon after he starts to complain about his plight, poor boy. All not easy. The croquettes for kittens are difficult to find. Tunisians rarely buy them, unlike those for puppies. I guess it's because they prefer to take very young puppies, (often too young to be seperated from the bitch) and they value kittens less high as one can find them all too often forced by ignorant persons from their loving mother's paws and thrown out on the street, with good chances to starve, die of invections or abuse, get run over by vehicles etc. or are just too young to survive without their mother's milk plus having to cope with a rough world. Anyhow, not only my kittens love their croquettes, the adults too show great interest, so I here too have to interfere. My very special darling Madonna allows me to work as her waitress (she would look me straight in my eyes and declare that she is hungry and I must serve her some delicious food), assist her with her babies (if one climbed out off the basket she calls me to find and return it for feeding and cuddling with her), do the toilets - but not touch her as I am only a human and not a cat! I respect her attitude and I am prowd of having her in my house. My husband said: " We have so many children, pity they can't help us with the work in the house, or at least the shopping (we appear to be constantly buying mineral water as that from the tap is not recommended as drinking water)." As long as my wild family is reasonably health I shan't complain. Why wild? You should see them first thing in the morning, when nearly 30 cats rush into my small kitchen and demand to be fed first....