Oh the things you'll see.........

My work site is at about 4200 feet in the mountains, surrounded by farmland and small ranches; some passed down through many generations as evidenced by an old family cemetery tucked away in a hidden corner just off State property. 

The mountainsides are covered with forests of ancient, gnarled scrub oaks and tall pine trees that reach for our clear blue skies.  Our firing range is bordered by craggy rock hills, covered with sage and tall, wind-whipped grasses which must hide a variety of local wildlife that  probably pay no mind to the humans shooting at paper silhouettes, several days a month.  If it gets too noisy, there's plenty of other similar areas to settle in comfortably on the property.  We won't bother them, and they know it, because we've got some serious work to do. 

Our job is to keep the bad-guy clientel inside the safe confines of the fences, with armed towers and electrified perimeters that no one has dared tried to scale.  While the job is often interesting, it's equally  negative and not the type of job that gives you a great deal of personal gratification.  So we find our simple pleasures when we can get them; a well-executed drug bust, finding weapons before they end up stuck in someone's ribs, saving a life by being first on the scene in an emergency, sometimes it's just being a positive, professional role model.  

When it comes to animals, even the biggest tough guy convict can be reduced to a quivering mass of jello. While not policy, nor condoned by management, many feral cats have been lovingly tamed and cared for by our local felons.  With staff assistance they've managed to find adoptive homes for countless kittens and helped end the cycle of reproduction by assisting us in trapping the unruly ferals so we can get them spayed and neutered before returning them to their happy home.  The tame adult cats are simply placed in cat carriers and staff haul them off to be sterilized and returned to their happy "owners."  

I am happy to say that there are no more kittens awaiting adoption in my facility.  

(This entry wasn't meant to be about the kittens, but it turned out that way.  I really intended to write about the fact that I saw a Bobcat on grounds yesterday.  What an amazing sight!)  More later.