Writers Workshop - Neighborhood Cats

We live in a great, quiet neighborhood and we've always had equally great neighbors.  Until one of them decided to start feeding strays within a 10 mile radius, there were never any major complaints.  It started with the pregnant ones and I swear that they told all their cat friends about the never ending food that this nice lady puts out, so more came.  I think the total now is between 11 and 15, but who's counting! Now, I'm really fine with cats as long as 1)  they're not mine 2) I don't have to touch them and 3) they don't use my yard as their over sized litter box!  Cats are cute, and I have several series that have a cat as a main character that I enjoy reading, but since I'm highly allergic to them, I'm not too fond of the real thing.  Back to the litter box issue, for whatever reason, their crew and my other neighbors five have picked my back yard as their personal hangout spot.  I can't get on my treadmill in the garage and open the back door for air without being hit with an overwhelming smell that only comes from one place.  They like the flower beds, but seem to enjoy the areas near the house that don't have a lot of grass and even the grassiest spots to do their business.  So, what's a girls do do?  Short of catching them and hauling them away...hey, before you get too upset, I wouldn't hurt them and I would be doing them a favor of sorts...I'm going with river rock! I've tried it in small beds, and the cats don't seem to want to mess with the larger rocks.  My husband made me a new bed to remove their favorite area, and that's getting the first load.

While we're adding river rock to this bed, we're going to rake up all the mulch from the front and those beds will get the river rock treatment as well!  I'm a little bummed out because the front has pretty black mulch that matches the pretty black shutters, but to remove the attraction to the cats, it will be worth it.  We'll still have the issue of them just strolling through the yard and relieving themselves as they pass through, but one step at at time towards fixing something that makes me mad.

This was written for Mama Kat's Weekly Writing Workshop, I chose the third prompt, "What makes you mad and what are you going to do about it?"

Mandy