volunteer – Little Did She Know

I got my start with fostering kittens in 2018. I lived in Columbus, Ohio, at the time, and on Mother’s Day weekend I was out on a run when I came across five six-week-old kittens. I had never fostered before. I had never had a kitten that small before. I don’t think I had ever done a flea bath before, and I had definitely never used kitten formula before.

I had also never had kids, although I always thought I would. Mother’s Day could be kind of a sad day when I let the absence of motherhood get to me, and I believe that Mother’s Day weekend God opened a door for healing by showing me a different kind of motherhood He had planned for me.

Fast forward to fall 2024: We lovingly call our home Weasley Meowtain Lodge in honor of Molly, Charlie and Percy Weasley (yes, named for #HarryPotter characters) that we rescued from a local gas station after we moved back home to West Virginia. Weasley Meowtain is what we call our fostering operation (visit our Facebook page!). We are not a 501(c)3; we just foster. But we foster a lot. And through Weasley Mountain we partner with and support other rescues and operations like Operation Fancy Free LLC, Itty Bitty Kitty Committee, and Fix ‘Em Clinic.

When we started fostering at Weasley Meowtain, I had to set very clear boundaries about the fact that we would not be foster failing any cats. (Foster Fail: to adopt the cat or cats you are fostering.) And it was hard because you do love all the cats and kittens you take in, and saying goodbye when they get adopted is hard even when that is the goal. But if you adopt your fosters, it’s hard to help other cats, and there are always other cats that need a foster home. Besides, we already had 5: the Weasleys, free-range felines that patrol our five acres, and Jovie and Miles, indoor adult cats.

In 2024, we had a constant flow of cats and kittens in foster care at our house. Come September, we took in #TeamHogwarts, five eight-week-old kittens rescued during a TNR operation in our county. Then we added Hermione, who was trapped on a riverbank and brought into the fold (see Hermione’s story here). All the kittens got adopted – all except Harry Potter. He was living in the kitten room by himself, and I was afraid he would miss his siblings, so I asked the rescue for a friend for him while we waited for him to get adopted. I got a call on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving about a four-week-old black little fluffball that had come in as TNR and was too small to fix and too small to go back outside. She was missing hair on her tail, and she had a deformed right eye. The day before Thanksgiving, we brought her home to Weasley Meowtain.

I named her Luna Lovegood because the intention was for her to be a good friend to Harry Potter.

Little did I know how good of a friend she would become.

Luna was very small, and at first I was worried about her being with Harry, who was a good three months older than her. I was so worried, in fact, that I was sure we would have to keep them separated. Luna desperately needed to be socialized, though, so I reached out to the rescue again for a friend for Luna. That’s when I ended up with #TeamFrosty.

Team Frosty is the litter that was abandoned in a box out in a snow storm, and by the time a good Samaritan delivered them to the rescue, they were critically ill, especially #JackFrost. They also had ringworm, which is a long kitten rescue story for another time.

Anna in front with Jack Frost behind her.

Since Team Frosty was so sick, I had to quarantine them. That meant Luna had to stay with Harry. Under supervision, Harry learned to play carefully with Luna, and it turned out beautifully – until Luna was diagnosed with ringworm. It made its way from Team Frosty’s quarantine room to her, likely through me. Ringworm is a nasty beast, and I don’t recommend it.

Anyway, she needed to be quarantined from Harry so he didn’t get it too. When I tried to introduce her to Team Frosty so they could quarantine together, Luna threw a holy fit. I made the introductions in a gated-off area of the hallway, and Harry was in the kitten room with the door closed. When I put Luna with Team Frosty, Luna hissed and growled. Harry stuck his arms under the door to get near Luna, and Luna went over and stood next to his arms. They did not want to be separated.

Now, listen. We don’t make decisions based on what the cats like necessarily because they definitely don’t like flea baths and Clavamox and ringworm treatment, but those things have to be done. But I did have a decision to make: force Luna into the other litter or let Luna and Harry quarantine together, knowing Harry had already been exposed and may or may not get ringworm. Luna won. We had two quarantine rooms for ringworm kittens for four months.

And no, Harry, by some miracle, did not get ringworm.

After the ringworm was cleared, we were able to have a procedure done on Luna’s eyes to alleviate any discomfort. The eye did not have to be removed because it was not causing her any issues, but her eyelid was rolling in, causing hair to irritate her eye. She had a little cosmetic procedure to address that. Her coat also went through a crazy transformation: at one point, so much of her hair had turned gray, it looked like she was wearing a vest. Now, she has tufts of gray behind her ears, under her chin, and on the backs of her legs. She’s pretty adorable.

In the time we quarantined them, Harry and Luna fully bonded. There was no separating them. When the ringworm was gone, we had to make another decision: do we try to get Luna and Harry adopted together, or do we foster fail them both?

Harry Albus Sirius Severus Potter and Luna Bellatrix Mad-Eye Moody Lovegood were, in fact, foster fails in Spring 2025.

I never intended to keep any foster kittens. I never intended to have seven cats. But motherhood doesn’t always look the way we think it will.

Happy 1st birthday to my Halloween-born black beauty, Luny Tunes. Momma loves you, you crazy, spastic, sassy, chatterbox who loves Harry, likes candy and never misses an opportunity to throw paws at Miles and Jovie.

Let me introduce you to Hermione, aka Cliffy.

Hermione was a black female kitten dumped at a riverside park outside of Charleston, WV, last fall.

On September 18, 2024, my friend, Tara, texted me a picture of soon-to-be Hermione and said, “Jenn, there is a two-month kitty at the (park). Do you think you could take him in?” Tara had already named the kitten Cliffy, and I would come to find out just how fully invested Tara was in Cliffy’s rescue.

By that point, I had already fostered about 20 cats in the calendar year and about 24 the year before. Fostering had become a full-time volunteer gig because the need for help never stops.

The 21 cats #WeasleyMeowtain fostered in 2024.

I had heard of this kitten. I had seen posts about it on a local Facebook page. This park was about an hour away from where I live and a good 15-20 minutes from my office. I knew how hard this was going to be: trapping in a public area, finding time to get to the park on a regular basis to get the kitten on a feeding schedule before trapping, getting the playful and oblivious-to-danger kitten into the trap. So, that same day Tara texted me, I went to the park to check out the situation and take the kitten some food. Despite my best hopes, the kitten was not socialized and would not come near me. It confirmed my theory that this was going to be a challenge.

With trapping, you really need the cat to be on a feeding schedule. You need the only food to come from you and for it to come at a certain time every day so the cat develops a schedule and understands the food is coming from you. Sometimes you can establish this routine in a few days; sometimes it takes a while. There was no way I was going to be able to go to the park every evening to establish that routine, but thankfully Tara was more than willing to do that part.

More than just the kitten’s skittishness working against us was well-meaning adults who were bringing the kitten cheeseburgers and other tasty human morsels that are 1) bad for the kitten’s tummy and 2) a deterrent for the kitten to eat our food if they are full and if the human food tastes better. Several adults had made mention on the Facebook page that they were going to go try to catch him. People chasing him was also not helpful, and add to that the human food that smells and tastes better than Kitten Chow, and we had an issue.

So, I made a sign. I posted notice at the riverfront area where the kitten was commonly seen frolicking in the weeds on the bank between the river and the parking lot. “Please DO NOT Feed Kitten! Rescue In Progress!” This was also the area where food scraps and empty containers had been left by those well-meaning humans with their greasy leftovers, and I was really hoping they would look up from the kitten in the weeds, read the sign, and respect what we were trying to do.

Yep, that’s Hermione playing in the background while I put out my sign.

I went back several times and set the trap, but the kitten never even went close to it. Yep, I tried all the things, including making a trail of food toward and into the trap and using smelly food like tuna. Kitten was not interested, and I was fading quickly to stress and #IdiopathicHypersomnia. Living so far away made it feel impossible. At work, we were dealing with disaster response for Hurricanes Helene and Milton. At home, I had my own five cats plus a foster litter of five: #TeamHogwarts.

#TeamHogwarts: Draco, Ron, Fred, George and there in the bottom right corner under the pile is Harry Potter.

Tara never let me quit, though. Every time I would try and fail, she would say, “Okay, what do we do next?”

On October 12, I worked late at the office, preparing volunteers to deploy to North Carolina for Helene disaster response. When I left the office, I headed over to the park, ready to set the trap with dinner but afraid it would fail again. I prayed so hard on the car ride over: God, please put that kitten in the trap as only You can.

You see, He had done it for me before. He put Molly Weasley in the trap when we rescued her from the gas station where she was dumped, and He put Rory Gilmore in the trap after multiple failed attempts. He could do it again, I knew it. I needed that kitten to be safe. Halloween was approaching, which isn’t good for a black cat, and the weather would be turning soon.

At the park, I set up the trap and put a small trail of tuna into the trap. I sat on a nearby bench and watched. The kitten showed up right on queue, and it went toward the trap. I had never seen it go toward the trap before. I couldn’t believe it when the kitten sniffed around the trap and then stuck its head in. I remained perfectly still, but inside, I was on the edge of my seat, cheering for it to go all the way in.

Y’all, I’m not even kidding. When that trap slammed shut with the kitten inside, I jumped up on my feet in a cheer and then cried and thanked God. He made it look so easy to trap a cat. If you knew how many times the cat had run from me, hid from the trap, or refused to get near the food I put out or the number of times Tara and her boyfriend had been within arms’ length of the kitten only for the kitten to run way into the weeds, you would understand. That evening in 20 minutes it was done.

At the time, I was on the board of a local rescue. The rescue was aware of the kitten, and it had agreed ahead of time that if I could trap the kitten, they would intake it as one of the rescue’s kittens and I could foster it till adoption. Having a rescue to work with is pivotal because this rescue was willing to cover all vet expenses. I provided the safe space, food, litter, transportation to the vet, and socialization.

I brought the kitten home to #WeasleyMeowtainLodge and quarantined it until it could be treated for fleas and worms and get its first round of vaccines. Turns out the kitten was a she, so I named her Hermione. After about a week of quarantine, she was added to #TeamHogwarts. The boys welcomed her with open paws, and soon it was like she had always been part of the litter.

Cliffy, formerly Hermione, now lives with her mom who never gave up on her and a sibling to keep her company in a home where she’ll never have to worry about cold weather or going hungry again.

Tag: volunteer

…Luna’s Foster Fail Story

Hermione’s Rescue Story