The first step in my conversion was when a stray cat adopted me. I had always considered myself a dog lover, and had not grown up with cats. This cat, who I named Stella, jumped in my lap one day while I was taking a break in the science center’s environmental park. I couldn’t help myself, I fell in love. I moved to an apartment that allowed cats and was soon dangling feather toys, researching the best cat litter brands, and taking her for walks on a harness as I converted her to indoor life.

Fast-forward several years, and I moved with my now-husband Jeff and Stella to a farm in rural Surry County. I began to see a black cat around the barnyard. Thinking that I might find a home for him, I tried coaxing him to me with food, but he was feral. I caught glimpses of him occasionally and would find signs that he’d been around.

A couple years later, while walking our dogs, I found our black cat friend in the road, dead. Even though I had never touched him, I had grown used to seeing him around and I mourned for him. I mistakenly thought, that’s the end of the feral cats around here. Although I didn’t know what it was called, the vacuum-effect was already at work. A tiny white and calico cat began appearing around our barns, like a little furry ghost, she was so elusive. She didn’t have a tail, and was so small, I thought that she would not be able to have kittens. Two tomcats also began to visit, leaving their ‘calling card’. I should have listened to my friend Pam, who is involved with Forgotten Felines of Forsyth. She told me to trap the little calico cat and bring it in to one of the clinics for spaying. But I waited too long and last fall, not one, not two, but three little kittens emerged from under the barn.

Pam got me on the TNR (Trap-Neuter-Return) list with FFF, loaned me a couple of humane traps, and educated me about TNR. I also learned how to be a colony caretaker. During my first trapping event I caught two of the kittens, which were then three or four months old. Over the next several months, I trapped the other kitten and finally the mother cat. Two tomcats that show up periodically also have been TNR’d. In the years that we’ve shared our home with feral cats, I have found a dead fledgling bird or two in the yard, but the birds seemed to be holding their own. I have learned that by trapping these cats, neutering and vaccinating them, and returning them to their home, I will eventually cut down on the feral cat population. I have stopped putting my bird feeders near the cats’ main hangouts and moved a birdhouse away from the barns. I love watching the feral cats playing when they don’t know that I see them. Our indoor cats like to watch them from the windows too, and our dogs have finally accepted the feral cats as residents of our farm and no longer bark every time they see the cats.