Hey, friends!! BOO!!! Did I scare you? LOL! It's finally Halloween Day, and I'm so excited. We've been up since 5 this morning, telling spooky stories, listening to our friends KJ, Smiley, and the Other Sue on WZPL, and putting the finishing touches on our costumes that we'll wear later tonight. You should see the kittens . . . WB is working on a Predator costume, and Watermelon is trying to find the perfect pair of shoes for her clown outfit. Flint is going to be Indiana Jones, and Lucas is going as a princess. I've tried to talk Lucas into going as a king, but he insists on being a princess with lots of pink lace, silver shoes, and a tiara. We wonder about Lucas . . . BUT, we're going to have a great time tonight! Just after dark, Miranda and I will take the kittens out to go trick or treating at all the feral colonies in the neighborhood. The feral families always have the best treats of chocolate-covered mice and warm catnip tea. After we all have a Halloween treat, we gather in one of the feral houses and hear stories about Halloween in the Old Country. I know I mentioned this story last year, but it bears repeating. Here goes . . .

Centuries ago, in ancient times in Europe, witches were known for their exceptional beauty and for their beer-brewing skills. At that time, beer was an herbal remedy for various ailments, and it was also considered "liquid bread." These young, strikingly gorgeous women, or Brewsters, as they were called, usually lived in small cottages on the outskirts of town and practiced their brewing art. Their beer was sold at crowded church fairs where hundreds vendors peddled their wares. To stand out in the crowd, the Brewsters would wear these very tall conical hats so buyers could easily find the beer stands. This is how the image of the witch's hat came to be. At their homes where the beer was brewed, the witches had large calderons in which they cooked the beer, and that's where the image of the witch's big black calderon came from. The witches, or Brewsters, would make different kinds of beers, and they'd let their buyers know what type they were selling by decorating brooms that they hung over their cottage doorways. If the broom was decorated with colored flowers, it indicated that a fruit beer was available for sale. White flowers on the brooms told that herbal or savory beers had been made. So that's where the witch's broom came from. But the most important thing that the witch had was her cat!!

Beers are made from grains, and the witch would have mounds of barley, wheat, and hops. The witch's cats had a very important job back then, and that was to keep her grains free from mice and rats! Without the cat, the grains could easily be spoiled by these rodents, so every witch had a cat or two who guarded and protected the beer-making grains. Without the cats, the witch could be out of business in very short order. So now you know where the pointy hat, the calderon, the broom, and the cat all came from in our modern image of the witch! At Halloween, we like to take the kittens back in time and get them in touch with their "roots" so they know they have a very lengthy and proud place in history. And then we eat more chocolate-covered mice, roll in fresh catnip, drink catnip tea, and celebrate our feline legacy!!! I can't wait for dark tonight, tell the story of the witch's cats, and see the kittens' faces when they realize how important cats have been over the centuries. It (sniff) brings a tear to my eye . . .

I've got a couple of other things to mention here before we get back to our morning kitten classes and our costumes. First, congratulations to the three kitties who went from the shelter to their forever homes this week!! Two kitties (now named Barbara Bush and Mary Todd Lincoln) have taken full-time jobs as organic mouse traps at a farm north of Indianapolis. How exciting for them, and I'm so happy that our career placement program continues to work! AND be sure to mark your calendar for November 5th through the 9th when we'll be at the Christmas Gift and Hobby Show at the Indiana State Fairgrounds! We'll have all kinds of fun stuff for sale in our booth, and we'll also have adoptable kittens and cats there every day! Marco Polo and Annie Sullivan will be there from 2:00 until 9:00 on Saturday the 8th, so be sure and come by to say Hi to them! Just click the Marco Polo and Annie Sulivan link on our website to read their story. We've got a couple of other special events planned for early December, but I'll tell you about them next time.

For now, I really need to get back to the kittens. They just finished their special Halloween breakfast, but they're starting to take a little too much interest in the candy corn. Time to teach them the fine art of begging for treats and then we need to get our costumes finished. Lucas is playing with Barb's eye shadow and hair glitter . . . we wonder about him . . .    Later, all! - Raspberry

Hi, friends. It's me . . . shelter manager Raspberry! 'Got a couple of things to tell you guys so while Miranda is off with the kittens at The Children's Museum, I thought I'd take a break and blog. Yes, Miranda took all the kittens to the Museum this morning because they wanted to see the big dinosaurs. We had quite a time of it, getting them all in the Cats Haven van with their seat belts fastened. Miranda took a ton of juice boxes to keep them quiet on the way home. They should be back around noon . . . just in time for lunch and their naps. But I digress.

First of all, thank you to everyone who came out to our Fall Frolic!! We had a great time and raised over $1,000 dollars! My friend Tag got his forever home that day, too, so the Fall Frolic was a tremendous success. Thank you to all the artists and vendors, too. Several of them have already signed up for our Spring Fling next year. But to everyone who came out and shopped til they dropped, thank you. With the money we raised, we can get more kitties spayed, neutered, vaccinated, and into their forever homes. Thank you to Helen, Diane, Marietta, Sue, David, April and Muata, Loyce, James, Sonny, Linda, and all the others who made the Fall Frolic such a wonderful success!!!

Next, I want to let you all know about the CAT SHOW this weekend! The Indy Cat Club is holding its annual show in the Farm Bureau Building at the Fairgrounds, and we'll be there. (Thank you, Rebecca, for filling in Saturday afternoon!)  After talking it over with Barb, we decided to enter our friend Cranberry in the Household Division competition. Way to go, Cranberry!!! So like Miranda did a couple of years ago, Cranberry will be vying for all kinds of really cool ribbons. Marco Polo and Annie Sullivan will be out there on Saturday, and on Sunday we'll have a new crop of adoptables who will spend the day with us. So come out to the cat show and check out all the cats and really cool cat-related items! We'll have the 2009 IndyFeral calendar for sale, too . . . it's the perfect stocking stuffer or Secret Santa gift!!! Hey, come to think of it, our kittens are the perfect stocking stuffers, too. Hmmmm. I'll have to give that more thought . . . Anyway, the show is from 11 til 4 on Saturday, and 10 til 3 on Sunday. Admission is $5 per person, $3 for kids and seniors, of $10 for the whole family!! I thought I could go this year, but I've got to stay at the shelter and help the kittens with their Halloween costumes.

BIG congratulations go out to Loki, Audry, Twinkie, Flower, and others whose families have found them over the past week.  And a big THANK YOU goes out to my good friends Gigi, Faith, and Craig for offering to foster a momma kitty and her nine kittens from Animal Care and Control. Faith is such a special little girl, and she has named the momma kitty Cinderella! Craig and I need to get together and watch a Colts game one of these Sundays. And Gigi? What a babe. If she wasn't married, I'd clean her ears! Meerrrrrr-ooowwwww! 

Back to work for me. I need to get afternoon lesson plans done for the kittens, and have their lunches and naptime graham crackers ready for when they get back from the Museum. Today the kittens are going to learn the proper way to pretend to be sleeping and then jump up and run out of the room for no reason. There's quite an art to this . . .   Raspberry

Hey, guys! It's me again, Raspberry . . . shelter manager for Cats Haven!! It sure is quiet here at 2:30 in the morning. The kittens and cats have all finally gone to bed, and I've got a few minutes of peace and quiet. This afternoon, we had a lesson in kitty singing, and the kittens have been singing songs all night long. I thought "99 Bunches of Nip on the Wall" would never end. Sheeeesh. But it's finally quiet here with Barb and the other shelter residents safely tucked into their beds, and I can blog.

Just two more days until the Cats Haven Fall Frolic! Woo Hoo!!! This is gonna be so much fun, I can hardly wait! Thanks to my good friend April Tchiguka, we've got over a dozen different artists coming with all their really cool stuff that you guys can buy.  We've got a tent full of baked goods! We've also got our friend Diane and her scented candles. We've got Katherine Kidd who will be reading Tarot cards. We've got TWO flea market tents filled with everything from Christmas and Holiday stuff to all kinds of things that you just can't live without . . . and we've priced it all really really cheap!!! We've got a face-painting clown, and we've got a deeee-lish lunch menu planned of burgers (veggie and beef) or all-beef hot dogs, chips, and a drink for just FOUR BUCKS! And even now, we're adding more booths and fun to the festivities. Admission to the Fall Frolic is free, but if you want to bring some cat food, cat litter, or some cleaning supplies (like trash bags or bottles of vinegar or bleach), we'll gladly accept these donations. Oh, and I'm hosting this event, too. Yup, I'll be front and center for the whole day, so come and visit with me on the front lawn! All proceeds go to help the kitties of Cats Haven, so you can have a lot of fun, buy some majorly cool stuff, and support the shelter. The weather will be gorgeous, so there is no excuse for you to not come by, even for a little while!

In other shelter news, I want to congratulate Tom for finding his forever home! Way to go, buddy! And I'd like to welcome back Skittles and Lucy Diamond, at least for a little while. Their mom had an unexpected change in her housing situation, so Skittles and Lucy are back with us for a bit. It's nice to see them again. On a very sad note, I regret having to say that we lost Spaz recently. Spaz was a long-time resident, a cerebellum hyperplasia fellow who wanted nothing more than to be loved. He was a good friend to all the cats here, as well as to Barb. He and Barb spent many a happy hour napping in the sun together. Rest in peace, my friend Spaz. The shelter isn't the same without you. And to my good friend Smiley, I am sorry to hear about the passing of your grandmother.

We have some good news about our fence! Thanks to Tim and Teresa Eversole (Teresa is such a babe . . . if she wasn't married to Tim, I think I'd have a chance with her . . .) as well as a few other supporters, we've raised enough money to get a fence around the property! Next Spring, we'll hopefully be able to put up the garage, but the fence will make our shelter home more secure and let us install our central air conditioning units. Thank you everyone who donated so we can make this fence happen! 

I want to thank Linda, Sonya, Dzana, Kylee, Elizabeth, and everyone who has come by the shelter to help on a regular basis. Having you guys here has made it much easier to keep the place cleaner and neater. I'm speaking for all the kittens and cats when I say THANK YOU FOR ALL YOU DO!

Oh, one last thing to report. Cats Haven now has a Sister Shelter in Venice, Italy!!! In the coming weeks, be sure to check out our website for information about this international partnership we're starting with Dingo Venezia, a no-kill cat shelter in Venice. We're gonna be sharing ideas and stories, so we can learn how kitties in Venice live, and they can learn about us!  Right now, their website is in Italian (go figure), but they'll soon have it translated. You can check them out at www.dingovenezia.it. And if you want to see a video of them, go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOUHyrkoVA. Our new friend Nadia made this video, and it's really cool! I think I've got a couple of cousins at this shelter!

Okay, it's now after 3 in the morning, and Dzana will be here in a few hours. I better get some sleep so we can start on the morning chores.  We have lots to do before we can get the kittens bathed and dressed for the day. And Miranda hates it when any of us are late for breakfast! So I hope to see everyone on Saturday. Be prepared to have a great time! Later, gators! - Raspberry