My cat catching comedy of the day:
So we've been trying to catch this cat who lives in the ditch along an interstate exchange. He couldn't give a rats butt about our efforts and would often hunt just a little ways from the trap while we watched him hunt mice in the weeds and snow. He covers an area about an acre big with many businesses, houses, roads, and fields so trapping has been a challenge. When the really cold temps came we set up a shelter and just insulated and tied open the traps we have out; keeping them stocked with food in hopes to get him used to them as a food source by the time it warmed up enough to trap again.
Today while I was running errands I went to check the food in the traps and the shelter. There had been no sign of the food being touched around the shelter or the trap near it. When I get down there I see clear cat prints and it was very windy and drifty Friday so I know it was recent. All the food is spilled all over the place by the trap, it was strange. I head over to shelter and the same thing food looks like it has been scooped out of the dish and there is actually at least a cup of it on top of the shelter. Weird. I look to see if the shelter looks used see cat tracks around it and a few pieces of straw in the snow. So I peak inside and see that some of the food in the first area has been eaten. I decide to peak into the inner shelter to see if the straw has been disturbed at all. BLACK FUR!!! I slam the lid back down and step back about 5 feet and call Carol who I am trapping with. She's like "do you have cardboard to block the hole". My car is parked in the turn lane almost a block away once you climb the huge hill back to the road, I don't have anything. I look at the trap, can I put that in front of the hole? Probably make too much noise to get it over there and active. All of a sudden, big piece of cardboard flapping in the wind caught in the brush - YAY!!

I open it back up and shove the cardboard in front of the hole on the outside tote. Take another peak- black fur, big eyes. Close both lids tight.
I wait for Carol to get there and we manage to wedge the inside tote up against the cardboard to seal it better and lug the whole shelter with cat inside up the hillside and into her truck to take back to the shelter.
Back at the shelter we open up the shelter and it is a little tiny ball with big eyes curled up in the straw. Carol reaches for him as he decides he's done with people peeking in at him and tries to run, so he chomps on her hand I am in the process of getting a glove on and he beats the tar out of the too. He's all of 3 or 4 pounds with a puffed out tail running around the room.

Carol keeps tossing a blanket on him but can't get a hold of him. Tells me to try the garage can so I am chasing the two of them with the garbage can. He finally runs under a bank of kennels and hides in the corner. I grab a carrier and cover it with a blanket in hopes he will try to hide in it. Carol steers him towards me with the broom. He makes it past me again. And jumps up to hides behind the litter box in the kennel we've been trying to put him into.
Now we've got him!! But we don't know for sure if this is the cat we have been trying to catch.

The first time I saw him, I am pretty sure this is who I saw, I thought is was the size of an older kitten. Then as we watched him hunt, he looked like a bigger cat, an adult. We've never gotten super close so we can't be certain of anything. So tomorrow we have to lug that dang shelter back into the ditch just in case we haven't caught our target. But tonight we got a wee one out of the cold regardless. And had a heck of a lot of laughs will doing it.