The garden has long attracted cats and kittens looking for shelter; our arrangement did not become what we might call a formal one until a few feral cat “caretakers” came looking for a place where they could re-locate a colony which had been booted out of another garden. Maintaining a feral colony isn’t exactly difficult but it does require great diligence, knowledge, wisdom and skill on the part of the feral caretakers. These days, people more and more realize that feral cats are really the only deterrent to rodents in urban areas where rats often outnumber the human population.