The lady,in charge of selling food pellets for feeding the fish at the pier, told me that she didn’t see the lady on motorbike for months. She would feed these stray cats a few times per week so these cats used to look quite strong and healthy. I noticed their legs weren’t so stable and they lacked muscles to carry themselves much sturdier. So, I tended to give weaker cats and kittens extra portins of wet food. I could see that they were starving for several days. I just wished some monks or novices living nearby would give some leftover food to these cats.
The other group of cats stayed around the car park. There’s a rubbish yard in the corner so some cats could try to search for some food there. Fortunately, I noticed a car stopped briefly in the car park once a week. A lady placed bowls of dry food and fresh water for stray cats around the rubbish corner. So, these cats wouldn’t go without food the whole week. But these cats were addicted to my mixture of wet and dry food. So, they have become a bit picky.
The skinny monk liked to spoil his cats by giving them lots of wet food. I had to suggest to him that cats needed both dry and wet food for their digestion and good health. Sometimes I ran out of wet food, the skinny monk would give me three or four wet food sachets as I was often feeding his cats too. His sister lived and worked in America, she sent him pocket money from time to time. So, he had a limited budget to spend on cat food. As he spent so much money on taking the kittens to the vet, I had asked my rich friend to donate some money for cat food. So, I could offer boxes of wet food to the skinny monk sometimes.
These days the cost of cat food has risen by about 20% so far. The cost of energy, oil and gas, had inflated prices of everything in supermarkets. I just hoped the price of cat food wouldn’t become so expensive that we couldn’t afford to purchase them. The worst thing would be the broken supply chain which could happen next year when oil prices could explode to over $120. God forbid! I hoped the anslysts were very wrong in their pessimistic forecasts.
So, I have to start thinking about preparing alternative cat food, whether I could prepare cat food myself. I wish cats were vegetarians, that would make it much easier on me. However we have to live in the present and just hope & pray that things won’t turn out so bad and that powerful people would suddenly become more compassionate. I used to pray for more kind people to feed the temple cats while I was away, and it did work. Two ladies came to feed them some time; a lady in white car and an elderly Chinese grandmother.
Prayers work in mysterious ways! I just have to be still and pray for assistance in time of needs. I would only ask for help when I couldn’t find any solution to the situation. Temple cats and my cats have turned me into regular prayer. I wish more kind visitors to the temple would return with cat food some days.
Wishing you peace, good health and prosperity.
Stay strong and cheerful.
