Miche Faust started Queen City Cats in February 2022, and she has since rescued 90 stray, lost and feral felines and rehomed 61 of them. She had years of experience volunteering with cats at shelters in Florida before she moved to Burlington in 2019. Miche was dismayed by the number of homeless cats in the area, and she founded QCC to provide cat-specific resources to the public.

In November, Miche began helping Linda Hill deal with a feral cat colony at the Hillcrest resident-owned mobile home park in Colchester. Linda and her neighbor Dick Charles were feeding a large population of cats and providing them with warm winter shelters. The neighbors did not approve of the colony, so the cats needed to find new homes, including a litter of kittens. Miche trapped 12 of the cats, had them spayed and neutered, and put them into foster care. Miche has a network of about 20 volunteers who host the cats and help transport them to their vet appointments. Linda adopted two of the felines, named them Monique and Blue Eyes, and began socializing them.

Eva met up with Miche and Linda early in the New Year to watch Miche put out traps for the three remaining feral cats on a frigid January day. Later in the evening, three females were successfully caught, and they were transported to Middlebury the next day to be spayed. They are currently being fostered, and, if they can be socialized, they will hopefully find forever homes. Eva visited Miche’s home in Burlington to meet nine of the shy feral cats from Hillcrest that she is currently fostering.

Eva also met up with Miche at Marge and Pete Serisky’s home in Shelburne to meet Cheese and Alaura, two of the foster kittens from the feral cat colony in Colchester. The couple are carrying on the legacy of their daughter, Kira Jaye, who was a foster mom for 40 kittens, many of which were neonatal babies requiring frequent feedings and care. Kira died in 2021, at the age of 17, from complications of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. Since then, her parents have fostered about 20 kittens with some help from Kira’s cat Arminius and her rabbit Maple. You can follow their adventures on Kira’s Instagram @krazykittens802 and contribute to Kira’s Fund here.

Read a behind-the-scenes interview with Eva about the making of this video.

Shooting dates: 1/4/23, 1/19/23 & 1/23/23

Music:

• Dyalla, “Cats and Gats”
• Esther Abrami, “No.10, A New Beginning”
• Steve Adams, “Highway One”

This episode of Stuck in Vermont was supported by New England Federal Credit Union.