THE FERAL CAT THAT LIVED IN MY YARD FOR 10 MONTHS

I recently started this crafting and cat blog. I have been working on setting it up, in hopes to give it a welcoming inviting design. Unfortunately I'm computer illiterate, so before I am finished there will probably be a lot of tweaking.

I have deep concern for abandoned abused animals. I have been feeding a black female cat since April 2011. In the month of January because of the frigid cold weather, this cat has been my number one priority. So for now the crafts will be put on the back burner, as I continue with the chronicles of a wayward cat I named Ezzabella.

Survival of domesticated animals, as well as wild animals can be very difficult up in Northern New Hampshire, during the winter months.

I live in a rural area, with no neighbors close by. I consider it my isolated little corner of forest, field, and fauna. I was first informed about this cat by a neighbor in early April 2010. She called to ask me if I owned a black cat. I informed her that my cat was multicolored, and she had been spayed years ago. Then she told me about this little black cat on the side of the road across from my mail box with a litter of dead kittens. My mail box is on a dirt road and not within view of any homes. She claimed she got out of her car and tried to approach it, but she ran off up the bank through the small patch of woods and shrubbery towards my home.(it was a perfect place for a heartless jerk to drop a cat off) I walked down the bank to look for it, but I was unable to find it, however I did see a bag of dried cat food dumped way back in the bushes. I called her back, told her no trace of the cat, just some dried cat food. She said "my sister and I felt bad for the poor thing so we left her some food"

Last year we had a snow storm, and a cold spell, I often thought about the poor kitty and wondered if it would survive. Alas one warm beautiful day in May I saw her running across my front yard. In-spite of being so bony she looked like an adorable little kitty, no more the 2 or 3 months old. First thing I thought was how could she have kittens at such a young age. When I called her (big mistake) yelling "here kitty kitty", she spooked and ran. Obviously this poor little critter had no trust of humans. Every evening I started putting food on my back deck for her, and I noticed it was always gone by morning. Considering she was so small, and perhaps had a very late start health wise, I felt she needed to put some meat on her bones so she could survive on her own. So I fed her plenty of cooked chicken and hamburg. As time went by eventually I was able to observe her sneaking up to the back deck. She was always very skittish so it took all the summer months for me to befriend her. Eventually she learned to trust me, and by fall she had grown to a healthy robust cat with a shiny thick coat of fur.

In my ongoing concern for this cat, was the nagging question 'was she a cat that was mistreated by humans, and abandoned on the side of the road. Or was she a feral cat, that ended up giving birth to a litter of kittens on the side of the road?' I have researched all the information online about catching feral cats to have them spayed/neutered. And their approach on feral cats is, If you don't have them spayed or neutered, don't feed them. Unfortunately there is no catch and release feral cat programs in my area. Possibly not in the whole state of New Hampshire? After calling around to local shelters and programs, I get the feeling that none of them want anything to do with feral cats. So if I were to trap her where would I take her?  And I don't go along with  "if you don't have them altered, don't feed them".  My only other option was to make an attempt to befriend her.