In mid-August, after two months of trying, I finally caught the mother cat (Lucy) who brought her five kittens under my porch in June.
I had caught the five kittens in June, and catching their mom had become sort of a neighborhood project. People kept coming up with new ideas on how to catch her, but she outsmarted us all. People I didn't even know would call out as they jogged or walked by my front porch, "Did you catch the mom cat yet?" And people were calling me almost daily with Lucy sightings.
No matter what traps we set, or what kind of treats or food we tried to entice her into a humane trap, Lucy never fell for any of it. Once or twice, she would go partially into a trap, but would get back out before the door shut.
We had even gone so far as to put one of her kittens in a small carrier, then set the small carrier inside a large dog crate the neighbors used for their Dalmatian. We then tied a string to the front door of the dog crate, and took turns sitting and waiting for Lucy to enter the crate to see her kitten so we could pull the string to shut the door.
It was a good idea (thanks, Julie), but Lucy was still too smart for us. When the kitten started meowing, Lucy came running and went inside the dog crate ... all but one back leg, which she kept firmly planted on the ground outside the crate. When I pulled the door shut, she managed to keep her leg in the way, which kept the door from closing completely, and she backed out in a flash.
The funny thing was, on the day in mid-August when I finally caught Lucy, it didn't involve any traps, contraptions or sneaky plans.
At this point, she was extremely pregnant again, and looked like she was ready to give birth any day. I was desperate to catch her before she had another litter outside.
When she showed up that day, I tossed a few cat treats on the ground in front of her. She LOVES Friskies Party Mix. While she was eating them, I brought out the top-loading cat carrier and set it on the ground nearby. She looked up, checking to see what I was up to. (She didn't trust me at all after seeing me capture all her kittens.)
I tossed another handful of treats on the ground and, while she was eating those, I just reached down and picked her up, bracing for the shredding I expected to get from claws and teeth. (Lucy was known to swat and even bite occasionally when you tried to touch her.) But to my surprise, all she did was make a small grunt; kind of sounded like "Urk."
I turned around, plopped her in the carrier and shut the lid, and she never even tried to swat at me. I took her inside and got her set up in the former "kitten room," since her first litter of kittens had now moved into the general cat population.
As it turns out, I caught her just in time. A week later, she had another litter of five kittens!
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