A) What variety of tree is it - evergreen or deciduous? B) Where do you live? C) Is the cat alright? If you live somewhere that the trees (and this tree in particular) lose leaves for the winter anyway, it will probably leaf out next spring just fine - it just lost its leaves a bit early this year. Don't let it dry out until then, esp. if in a pot - keep watering it when the soil is dry down an inch or so. If you are somewhere that gets HARD freezes, then protect the pot and roots from freezing over the winter by burying the pot in the ground, surrounding it with dry leaves, or the like. Whatever you do, protect it from mice or bunnies chewing on the bark over the winter.

my thingking... I'm inventive and handy with a ships auger and masonary bit! Add it as you need it. My wifi with 100% signal is actually moving around 5 mbyte/s across the room to/from the router. When I get fios I'm not going to be happy if I dont have at least one wired computer for large downloads. Probably wont be happy with my laptop wifi speeds. Takes it a long time now to move even a CD from the Desktop to laptop with wifi. Network cable is like WoW speed after using wifi. I keep a 100 foot network cable coiled at ready and stretch it out to my laptop for things like the soon coming xp sp3 upgrade (350mb) & also for that occasional DVD I want to download and watch. Wifi just is too slow for bigger byte stuff. Wifi DVD downloads and sending movies to set-top media center on wifi, sucks. Other than that kind of stuff, you're right. Don't really need a built in wired local LAN .. networking with all the wifi and other plug instant connect doohickeys is pretty simple, but definitely much slower. Someday you're going to find yourself with a 10 - 30 megaByte internet connection with fios or cable and you;ll not be able to utilize that connection to its potential with wifi though.

Oh cat mom funny story that you can relate to.. I was desperate to make pizza since I hadn't had it in 2 years !! during this escavation, I mean renovation. I put the (heavy)pizza stone on the counter(Soapstone). BIG MISTAKE. My cat has discovered how to climb from a windowsill to this counter. I never had a windowsill before so this is a big adventure for her (when I close the blinds/window and she has no interest so it's not like she's on the counter all the time). Well I went out and came back to find the pizza stone in 4 pieces on the floor. She must have flew through the air like on a snow sled as the stone slid across the smooth SS counter. She denied it of course. I made the pizza on a baking sheet, it came out delicious and all were happy. But she did have a guilty look all night. I wish I had a video of it. What a sight that must have been.

A cattery. Do you have a door or a window that you can build a fenced enclosure for your cats outside of? You build a big cube with 2x4s and have a secure tunnel going from the window to a loft in the cattery. Cover the structure with chicken wire on all sides and the top. Put a roof over top of part of it and they can even go out and enjoy watching the rain. I would have some more chicken wire sewed to the bottom of the fence that folds inward and is buried underground to make sure that nothing can dig in or out. Stake it in place well, plant things the cats like inside it and have things to climb on and places for you to sit with them outside (if you put a door in it). No attacks from stray cats or coyotes, no birds killed by your cats, and they can run through the tunnel back inside when threatened. Make it into a pleasant garden. I also agree that seeing as your cat suffered injuries from one of the strays, you are justified in getting a trap for them. The animal control officer in your county may have traps to borrow. Catch, spay, neuter, release far away. Maybe the neighborhood could take up a collection for getting them neutered. I bet they bother others, too.