Fundraiser Ideas?

Hello to all my Forest Critters viewers!  Hope you’re having a good day today!  I have a favour to ask of you all.  In my high school I'm going to start doing fundraisers soon to help raise money for my local organization that helps to spay/neuter and adopt out feral cats, "Allies for Alley Cats."  You can help me by coming up with some ideas that rowdy high school students might enjoy but are simple and cheap to achieve.  Here are some ideas I have so far and please comment if you think of anything else or have any ideas to add on or to improve my current ones.

Possible School Fundraisers

• Pet photo contest, must donate at least $1 to enter photo.  Photos will be judged, winner gets a gift card (Tim Hortons?).
• Battle of the genders, see if girls or boys can bring in more money.  Winning gender gets jolly ranchers at lunch.
• Beanie bag for a day in class.  Raffle tickets cost a) $0.50 and 5 for $2 or b) $1 each and 5 for $3 (haven't decided which price to use yet).
• Survival game in forest near school on a Friday after school.  To enter you must pay $5 at school (registration fee).  Last survivor gets a gift card (Tim Horton’s?).  After each person is caught (little flags on the belts so no one can cheat and say they weren’t caught?) they must come back and tell us so we can scratch them off the list.  Then they must continue as a predator.

Oh Deer, Another Deer!

Today I had the fortune to waking up to a wonderful sight in my backyard.  My older sister woke me up today (much to my displeasure) and once my eyes opened and I could put together a cognitive sentence she left my room.  Half awake but quickly slipping back under into my dream state, she begins loudly whispering "Hannah there's a deer outside!"  Sure enough I look out my window and there is the most beautiful deer I have seen.  Big, yet surprisingly graceful the creature drifts across our yard gingerly placing her hooves in the snow as she walks.  Her large, ebony eyes were calm and her ears twitched ever so slightly as she approached a cedar and munched on a twig.  At this point my sister is telling the cats not to move or meow and once again whispering loudly for my dad to wake.  Of course though, once my dad wakes up and gets to the window, the deer has disappeared as quietly as she came back into the forest.  I consider myself to be extremely fortunate to be able to wake up to a sight such as that!

Wily Coyote

 For the last couple days, there has been a plethora of prints trailing through my backyard near the tree line.  My suspicions were that it was either a fox or coyote.  It was hard to tell from the prints because they weren’t very clear in the fluffy snow.  

So one night, out of mild curiosity to see if I could catch the culprit, I looked out one of windows behind the house into the forest.  I wasn’t expecting to see anything so when a flash of eyes reflecting outdoors lights and a coyote shaped shadow slinked off into the forest greeted my sights, I was startled.  From that point I became even surer it was a coyote because the coat look more molted instead of a solid colour like on a fox.

It took a couple tries, but finally my trail camera, when it wasn’t covered in snow, got some pictures of the trespasser.  Indeed, it was a coyote!  Really though, it's not such a surprise seeing as the coyote population in my area has exploded.  You can’t go anywhere without seeing one or hearing about one. They’ve even taken to wondering our downtown area.

A warning to those of you with small dogs or cats: if you live near a forest, or anywhere with coyote sightings, keep your pet inside or at least escort it outside.  I'm sick of hearing that coyotes kill people’s pets and it's all the coyotes fault.  This is my opinion: the coyote is a predator, was here first, and hunting is in its nature and any small animals left unguarded are unfortunately fair game in the scheme of nature.  That’s how nature works.  SO KEEP YOUR SMALL PETS INSIDE IF YOU KNOW COYOTES ARE NEAR YOU!

Little Tia Found a Home

T.T. has now had her name changed to something more charming -- Tia.  She’s been moved to her forever home, which just so happens to be with her sister Shylo!  Thank you +Lynn Bos for giving these creatures the home they deserve and for being so patient with these shy-at-first feral cats.

Tia was very snuggly, but once moved she became shy again just from the shock of moving to a new pace.  Her and Shylo play together though and Tia is coming out of her shell nicely.  When her and Shylo are beside each other, Tia dwarfs Shylo incredibly!  Tia definitely still loves her food.

Remember, if you have a chance to adopt or foster a stray or feral cat, do it!  It makes you feel great and it's good to know your doing something to help your community, not to mention giving a deserving animal a wonderful that it deserves.  

Success!

Yesterday we got T.T. back.  Her surgery was successful, she had a more fluid than what they usually find inside, but the vet said that could've been because she was in heat, it's just how she normally is or something else.   She was extremely afraid when she got home -- I don’t think being drugged earlier helped.  But she's doing much better tonight and I even got her to purr and rub against me for a while.  I'll get pictures tomorrow (I didn't today or yesterday because she was still fairly freaked out) and then post them!

T.T. Is On Her Way

Today I called the vet and asked about their spay and neuter program.  Thankfully they have one and it only costs approximately $150 to get a female spayed!  Seeing as my neighbourhood has generously already covered $100 of the cost, we're doing good!  I've caught T.T. and she's currently in a dog kennel in the spare bedroom until tomorrow when she goes in for her surgery.  I'll let you all know how it goes tomorrow evening!  Maybe I'll get a picture of two as well of her for all of you.

Gender Dilema

Today while I was feeding Kitten and T.T. (I got a large donation of cat food and I would like send a HUGE thanks to Liz who donated all of it!) I discovered some shocking news.  All parents want to know the gender of their baby, and with T.T. sort of being my like my child of course I wanted to know the gender!  Hoping for a boy though because then it would cost less to fix, I was somewhat disappointed to find that she was a girl.  Girls are great of course, except for the fact they can cost twice to triple the cost of a male to get fixed because it’s a major invasive surgery.  Luckily, I still have that hundred dollars from fundraising in my neighbourhood to use and hopefully one of the vet clinics around can give me a discount again.  It'll take some phone calls all around town to arrange everything but I swear I will get this last kitty spayed and end the overpopulation in my neighbourhood!

Wish me luck and remember to vote (look to the sidebar on the right) :)