Rural Roads 25 June 2021

Like a lot of places, in eastern North Carolina it's easy to see the layers of time and history if you pay attention. That pecan tree that towers over a house is easily two hundred and fifty years old. That row of loblollies all that remains of larger forests. People always complain here how easily they come down not realizing it's the fault of development, loblollies are incredibly strong and able to withstand high winds when together. It's only when the majority of them are clear cut that the lonely tree becomes a danger. 

How long did it take for that farmhouse to disappear into the green? Who lived there? What was their story? Looking around the surrounding land, did it really look that different? Did they also farm corn? Were their plots smaller? The house next to them architecturally loks like it was probably built in the 1950s, but it's disappeared faster than the farmhouse, and not just because it's shorter. The trumpet vines have taken over, the rest of the green seeming to crush it in its grip.

A search of the Bogues family cemetary reveals Walter Birvin Bogues is buried there, died at the age of 16 with his brother and cousin when their boat overturned. A tragedy, a whole life's story reduced to a webpage and a gravestone marker in a cemetary with a modest sign on the side of a country road in the middle of a field.

These types of cemetaries are common here, often seeming crammed next to houses that don't fit, sometimes protected by chain link fences, just as often an afterthought, an inconvenience to "progress" and development. A couple hours west there's a family cemetary in the middle of a mall parking lot.

It all seems wrong. People who mattered, who were loved, who had lives and stories, just left behind, forgotten, paved over. These people at least have these small monuments. How many Indigenous, enslaved people and stories were not even granted this? How many of these well maintained older houses hide bodies on their property? How many dead who were just left, unnamed, unmarked? How many families just never knew what happened to their loved ones?

It's easy to see the layers. It's also easy to look out on fields and flooded rivers and know that inherently not much has changed since that pecan tree was a sapling. It's a history that everyone knows, but like an inconveniently placed cemetary, too often people's eyes just slide by, dismissing as soon as noticed.

That doesn't make it any less real. Any less true.

Campus Folklore Project

The Haunting of Higher Ed: How Campus Folklore Is A Microcosm For the Ways in which America is Haunted by its Historical Sins

Horror and folklore both love origin stories. The idea that evil has a root cause, a single event you can point to, is a comforting thought because if there’s a clearcut origin then there must be a just as clear cut end. Yet in the world of sequels and franchises, the opposite proves true in horror. In both horror and folklore rather than a simple way to confront and exorcise evil, these origin stories most often reinforce the idea that if a place is haunted, it will continue to be haunted forever, that there is no exorcising evil. 

This project is interested in exploring several threads. How is campus folklore shared and how does it evolve over different years and generations? What historical context is there for the folklore? In what ways does the campus folklore build on or ignore and erase the foundations and history of the school---the Indigenous people whose land was stolen? The enslaved people who built the school’s structures? The enslaved people who were sold to pay for buildings and programs? Generally speaking, what is the campus haunted by and does their folklore purposely erase the horrors that enabled the structure and institution? Who is centered in the folklore and how is their story reflective of or dismissive of the local and native populations? How is campus folklore a reflection of, connected to, the local or regional folklore? What can we make of this when we consider the history of the town, city, region? Do students transmit any or all of this folklore back to their hometowns, what does that look like, what variants come out of this?

Here is what I am envisioning for this project:

• 12 chapters

• At least 9 of which will represent own voices

• I would like to contribute a chapter on my campus but if it becomes a choice between my work and a better representative chapter, I will choose that one

• A collective introduction

• Just what it says- an introduction we write collectively. So authors not only write their own chapter descriptions but we work together to ensure that we cite the scholarship we see as foundational.

• A collective conclusion

• Where each contributor drafts where they think the field goes from here informed by their work.

• Committed to pursuing a publisher who has proven they are ethical and representative,

• If this collection proposal goes to a publisher later found to be unethical we will pull the collection.

• This means that this will probably be a slow moving project as we take the time to getting it right, all of it.

With all this in mind, if you’re interested in contributing, please reach out Karrȧ Shimabukuro khkshimabukuro@gmail.com

Share a paragraph about who you are, why you’re interested in this work and a paragraph about what your project/contribution would be.

Broken Lands: Scenes from Rural NC, an Introduction

I once spent a summer in the mountains of Vermont and went on a tour at a historic site and remember the leader saying that all the forests we saw were less than a hundred years old, that all of this land used to be cleared farms but that the forest reclaimed the land once it was no longer actively farmed. I drive a lot in the surrounding counties as part of my volunteering as a Guardian ad Litem and I always enjoy looking around. 

I have always been fascinated with the idea of the stories and histories of buildings. When we lived down on the Outer Banks it was a trek of a couple of hours to the airport for pickups and drop offs. I remember watching a single house on the side of the road go from abandoned to falling down, to just the chimney, to, when I drove past the area the last couple years, no trace at all remained. 

I am interested in how stories and histories can be read in the parcels of land, the houses built on them. A lot of the land here is close to water, sounds, rivers, creeks. Even if you can't see it you can smell it. Most of the land around here has spent the last three hundred years as farmland, although the changes of the last hundred years is clear in the plots, the houses that are now on them.

In some cases you can trace the decline of local farms plot by plot. It's pretty easy to spot the older (original) farmhouses. There are the smaller houses, less well built, spaced out, that are probably connected to sharecroppers, existing at the same time as the older houses, but in totally different universes. You can see the big sell offs during the 1940s and 1950s with the groups of brick ranches as farmers sold edges of land to pay taxes, make it to another year. The decades since of economic ups and downs are seen in the huge houses spread out, with lots of several acres, the smaller simpler wood homes, the rows of trailers. You can see which places were once communities, neighborhoods, but now are abandoned, slowly disappearing back into the woods.

Because so much of this land is still farmland, although not what it once was, you can tell a lot from the plots that remain. You can see the small plots that people have managed to hold onto, the smaller crops they manage, probably selling at smaller markets if not at the corner of their property, making what they can. It's also really easy to see just how precarious all of it is. The last week or so we've finally gotten some rain, and the corn is having a growth spurt, now about three feet high. But a couple of weeks ago the land was dusty, the precious soil blowing away, the corn barely six inches high and whole crops in danger of not making it.

Lots of places live on a razor's edge, I just think it's a little easier to see here, to be aware of it.

It's gorgeous country. It's rich in awful, buried, ignored history, both big events and small. The enslaved labor camps that while smaller here than most people see images of, are still awful sites that continue to be romanticized. The history of an area that depended so often through its history on unsustainable commodities- river transportation, rosewood harvesting, things that are overexploited, obsolete, leaving towns broke, empty, ghost towns. Here history is known by some, but rarely shared and known by all. History here is a lot of secrets everyone knows. And ignores.

Anyway, I think I might start taking my actual camera on trips and try not to risk my life stopping on narrow two lane country rows where people drive 60 plus mph and start documenting some of these things, writing things up, maybe researching some of the history of these plots, the people who lived here. Not big stories, but all the small stories.

Death as Disruption

 I can't get this image out of my head.

Thomas Rowlandson, The English Dance of Death, ca. 1815-1817.

All year, although it's more than a year now, I keep coming back to this image. Death sitting on the world, time running out, it's an image that has spoken to me outside of the original historical context. Death's Dance keeps on, while the current world just pretends it does not exist. Death's face- is it sad? Resigned? Disappointed? Just tired? 

I've been thinking a lot about death as disruption. 

I haven't heard from someone in a while, sent a card, never heard back, which is unusual. My paranoid, anxious brain has of course imagined they are dead. I'm well aware that I could just email or call and see. But it got me thinking- I'm not family, so maybe their actual family wouldn't know to call me. Maybe to them I'm just another name in the address book. Am I in the address book? If it's younger folks, maybe they lack ability to know how to track people down? If it was unexpected, as so much death is these days, maybe there was no will, no plan, no instructions for getting into digital accounts. 

I know many of us have lost people, continue to needlessly lose people, have heard of colleagues or acquaintances who are gone. I wonder how many others we just have not heard about yet. I wonder at how grief is lurking, waiting for us. I wonder how this all gets stretched out, delayed, even as so many people continue to die. 

I wonder about people who are not important enough, famous enough, for anyone even to know. A thought I've had quite a lot the last five years is how little I matter in the grand scheme of things. I could die today and no one would know. Eventually the SPCA would probably get a welfare check done in a few weeks when I didn't communicate about the foster kittehs. The head of summer school might check in if I didn't make my class live in a couple of weeks. I have a will, a lawyer to settle all my accounts, distribute money to mushing charities. But who else would know? Nobody. The real kicker? Who would notice or care? Again, nobody. I've spent a good chunk of the last five years making my peace with that.

8 June was my five year semi-colon anniversary. It was ten years on Valentine's Day since Mom died. I've spent most of those ten years thinking about death. At first my thoughts about death were odd, disjointed. I spent weeks, months, sobbing uncontrollably, the littlest thing setting me off. Desperately wanting her to come back. I still have dreams where she has come back to life and I don't know how to tell anyone. Immediately after her death people were kind, they reached out. But I learned there's a short shelf life before people move on. The world moved on and I was just stuck. Frozen. Unable to do anything. What few casual friends I had stopped checking in. Calling. Anything. Many made contact months and years later and just ignored that she had died, not even mentioning it, or mentioning it casually, oh I heard, I'm sorry.

Yet her death continued to disrupt my life.

My life was disrupted when it was decided that everything of hers had to go. Boxed up, cleaned up, given away. She was a pack rat so it was a lot. But it was also things I wasn't ready for.

Still people kept moving. And I was still not. The easiest way I could explain it is that life stopped that day. Everything hit pause. Then in like one of those weird movie scenes, I stayed still, in place, and everything else gradually (and not so gradually) sped up around me, kept moving, leaving me behind. I moved, I finished my PhD, I changed jobs, I moved again, I changed jobs again, and yet, still stuck.

I read Swedish Death Cleaning, I pared down most of what I owned to the minimum I could get by on (mostly, my graphic tee collection is still a lot), not wanting to leave behind a mess for others. I don't set emergency contacts. I have a lawyer as my executor, they will donate house contents to Goodwill, sell the house, consolidate goods, give lump sums to charities, close accounts. There will nothing for anyone not paid for it to deal with. I've made it all as easy as I can.

I look at the Christmas decorations Mom loved, that I no longer put out, they just sit in the garage, and I wonder what the point is. I am not married. I have no one to pass them down to. There is no one to remember, to know the stories behind the chubby cheeked chipmunk, or the brass 1st year ornaments. There is no one to show these things to, share them with. They just sit there. They will sit in those Tupperware, and when others open them it will be totally devoid of their context.

The photos in bins have all been digitized, as the photo albums fell apart years ago. But I don't know who most of the people are in them. I don't know when they were taken. I don't know what the event was, who the party was for, why we were there, if they matter. There is no longer anyone left to tell me. For the stories I do know, there is no one for me to tell. They're just-there. 

I think a lot of people who die by suicide do it because they just don't see the point anymore. At some point it just becomes too much, there's a tipping point, and even if they were able to NOT for days, years, before, it seems like sometimes the energy supply just runs out and you just stop one day. Maybe there's a finite amount of energy, of fight we can hold. Maybe some people have that amount restored by outside things, I think many probably don't.

Usually it is the deaths of others that are the disruption to our lives. How the grief, the loss, comes in waves, hitting you even when you think you're fine, how it comes out of nowhere, and all of a sudden you're stuck again. How the disruption affects everything, your ability to do day to day things, shower, dress, eat, function. How the idea of the global death, the ignorant, senseless, uncaring attitudes have resulted in so much needless death, living with the knowledge about the kind of careless, easy evil that takes. How does anyone move forward after all of this? How do we forgive so many people who enabled this? How do we look at them? Work with them? How do we make space for the ongoing greif and loss that will define us for the rest of our lives?

I used to believe that there was something after this life. I wasn't sure what, but I believed in something. I stopped believing after Mom died. I just can't believe that there's a world where I would not have felt anything. The thing I have come to realize the last ten years is that death is meaningless. Death is nothing. There is no greater purpose, there is no good death, lives do not matter because people miss you or you did something. Lives matter. That's it. I have had a reason to make my life matter, to keep breathing every day with no external reason. I have had to decide to keep going each day in the face of the reality that it does not matter in a single instance whether or not I do.

I've been reading a lot about premodern desert Ammas. I've always loved the idea of strong, educated, dedicated women just saying "fuck this shit" to institutions and frameworks that don't have a space for them, and just leave. To make and forge new lives. One thing that strikes me again and again when reading about early Church Ammas and Abbas is that so many of the nuns, the monks, had to acknowledge their insignificance. The role pride plays in so much of our lives. That we think we're special, that we matter, that we're important. But the simple truth is most of us are not. Most of us live lives that don't matter at all, or matter to a very small circle of others. Surprisingly, I find this knowledge comforting. I don't have to find a big reason every day to keep going. The small work, the little tasks, the insignificant to just about everyone things, these are my contributions. They don't add up to anything. They're not anything that will have major influences on anything or anyone. They just are. They're daily work. It's work that if I didn't tell anyone, no one would ever know about it. There are no ripples in the pond, there is no collective impact.

Somehow, this is easier for me. I no longer fight to make my mark, matter, be noticed. The more time that goes by, the more I retreat, pare down, step away. It makes it really easy to say no to things. No, I don't have to waste time making someone I knew in high school feel better. No, I don't have to internalize your characyerization of me. No, I don't have to silently accept your racist, misogyny, bigotry. No, I don't have to try, to exert energy, to waste time. The phrase "I don't care" does not always mean you are incapable of caring, sometimes it is just that you have chosen not to care about that thing. Because there is finite energy. A finite amount of stuff. And I choose not to waste it.

I think a lot about what I'd leave behind. Notebooks that have occupied so much time and energy will just be binned. So now I write just for me. Photos I spent time scanning, caring for, sit in boxes. The few that are out are out because it means something for me to see them every day. The toys, the knick knacks in my office, are fun, but they serve no other purpose outside of me, my daily life and use. My teaching is not big, flashy, known outside of the small communities I've taught in. My scholarship is not fancy, noticed, big. It is huymbling and empowering to know that my life does not matter except for how it matters to me. To build a life with no external encouragement, importance is not easy. Our world is designed for families, couples, groups, collectives. Everything is harder if you are not part of these things. From small things like food portions at the store, to big things like no one to take you home from the hospital. But it is possible. It's harder. Western Anglo culture doesn't except lone figures. But it can be done.

We may collectively lose, grieve, experience the disruptions of death. We may collectively make space for dealing with these things. We may collectively acknowledge them. I hope we do, but I don't know how we deal with the sheer scope of it. I don't know what comes next. Maybe we're all just traumatized for the rest of our natural lives. Maybe we all individually have to just find a way through in order to be able to GET through. Maybe everyone has to find a way to construct their lives to expect, accept, and survive the continuous disruptions because there is never going to be an end.

I don't know.

I don't believe in the after anymore. Just this.

Building Online Composition Classes in Blackboard Ultra: Intentionality and Reflection

One thing I always really liked about online teaching (not the triage of the last year and change, ongoing, but intentional online teaching) is the intentionality and reflection it can focus. I also like that we talk about building classes, constructing them. Now, I don't think that any class online or not should be totally constructed by professors. What I tend to do is build my module blocks in my Google Docs syllabus first. Then I build module folders to match those blocks in the LMS (my school uses Blackboard and has recently moved to Blackboard Ultra).  Ultra has more built in accessibility and is more restrictive and stripped down. You can't copy and past embed code anyone. You can attach items, and attached images appear in line. The alt-text is hit and miss. So differentiating items visually, which I have found really helps students, is not really an option. If you click on the module folders they open to reveal the contents. The icons for document, assignment, discussion boards are different, but it is still a lot of plain text to scroll through. 

The alt-text is not the default, so that's an issue.

Adding items are more restrictive, if it's not what they list as media, you have to attach, and that adds another layer, which is often a complaint of students.

Once I start building my class I try to think roughly in the "read this" to provide background, notes, mini-lessons that students need, then "practice" whatever skills they're focusing on, get feedback on, then they build up to the "major assignment" where they demonstrate what they have learned. When I build online classes I tend to cut a lot as I start actually building the pieces. I stop and consider whether that reading, that extra practice, is needed. One thing I may do (if I can figure out how best to design it) would be to add a piece between the practice and the major assignment, of "extra" readings or practices if students want/need them. Ideally I could add a folder within the module folder but currently Ultra won't let me do that.

The combination of ugly navigating and paring down led to me not just cutting things but also rethinking how I present them. So rather than separate chunks for read this, mini-lesson, practice, practice again, which would have been several different elements, I had to rethink them.

So, these were the original steps:

Read and annotate a reading. 

• James Baldwin’s “A Talk to Teachers”

Read and ask questions of a reading

• Brent Staples “Black Men in Public Space”

Identify the stance, how they support that stance/argument. Ask analytical questions of the text

Resources:

• How to annotate

• Asking questions, vocabulary for asking good questions

I cut the Staples (which I hated, but also, summer school is 5 weeks. I want to add it back for semester). One thing I do tend to do in semester classes is have more practice, more chances to see growth through feedback.

With the Baldwin, I wanted students to read and annotate. So I gave them guidelines for how to annotate, and included the instructions in the assignment. So that's one chunk. Then I asked them to ask questions in a discussion board, but for the Baldwin. Then the demonstrate skills assignment was to use those activities to write a response paragraph.

This module 1 expansion is still a bit long, mainly because it has all the "getting started" stuff too.

You can compare with the module 2 expansion, which is also what module 3 and 4 look like. Notice there's not a lot here. The first assignment (shown below) has the list of topics, students choose. In my classes students always choose. I set loose parameters, but they choose. Next are the hyperlinked resources for help, and additional help if they need it as they work. The final assignment is just their submitted research, with no real parameters, they submit how they work.

I was able to reconstruct these because my focus is on the practice, feedback I'll give, and how they'll apply that. It's still skill based, just less work. In my face to face class I don't grade the in-class practice, just the major assignments, but this past year online composition students struggled with that, so for module practice they used to get just a complete, incomplete. I made their practice 75% of the final grade so even if they struggled with content, if they worked they could earn a "C" and then the major assignments were additions. I mostly ungrade in all my classes, but with the online composition classes I've struggled with how best to do this. What I'm trying this summer and the fall is that there are five modules, each is 20% and the practice and major assignments all go in that 20%. The practice is still complete/incomplete, but major assignments they write reflections for their own grades which I (except for rare instances) accept without debate. Ultra got rid of that grading schema (green check marks) so I had to figure out what to do. The solution sucks but it's the best I can do. My school does A-F grades, no plus or minuses, so I created a Letter Schema for A-F. I made "A" 90-95. I made "F" 55-59. Then I added an INC that went in as a 50 and a COM that went in as 96-100. 

Because my school just moved to Ultra (we soft launches the navigation this past year), a lot of my reflection and consideration is about what to build for my summer class with an eye for what I can use in the fall. I created a Writing Help folder that will be part of the template for all classes on campus, so I'm excited about that. I added that here. You'll notice that there are some hidden assignments in module 1 that I created then cut but will probably add back for the semester so I've just left those. We don't do evaluations in the summer but I want to add a folder towards the end that expands on the blogpost I did for students ABOUT evals, how they work, some of the pitfalls, etc.

One thing that is nice is that the announcements now are a pop up, so students have to close them before they enter the course. Hopefully they will read them. I'm a little bummed about the lack of flexibility in Ultra, especially for announcements, as I really liked posting fun, useful, embed code thingies to help inspire and guide for the week. We'll see how that works out. I build my entire course out online. Then each weekend based on emails, feedback, what I've seen in assignments, I add general notes and resources in announcements, and it needed add target extras in that week's work.

Now that the course is built I will do a short video overview of how to navigate, where to find things, and post in that first announcement. I'll also add a video intro to me.

I'm not going to know about navigating the gradebook, items, leaving feedback, until the class is live. Ultra does default to the day you create as "due date" so I had to back those out to not have due dates. I also had to set to unlimited attempts and highest grade for each assignment. 

In case anyone is interested:

Summer Composition II syllabus

My Composition I template

My Composition II template

I don't know why I put template because I redesign my classes every semester to incorporate new information, scholarship, respond to whatever is going on. I made the narrative writing for summer for students to write a photo essay, choosing a photo they think represents the last year for them. For the fall/spring, I am using Ahmed's Be the Change to center identify for the narrative. Challenging stereotypes with the "What others think I do" meme. 

I did update the Class FAQs, which is linked at the bottom of the syllabus and links to my Google Site.

I won't have long between this class ending and fall starting, so I'll have to build my fall online class, and revise/tweak as I go based on how this works. It's not ideal. But I do just have one online class, so hopefully that's okay.

I wish I had more reflection time, but I do have a lot of built in time the next 7 weeks, so hopefully I can use that.

Basic Foster Kitteh Info

I started fostering last year after Nehi died. Momma used to say that kittens were better than cable and she's not wrong. I've had a variety of fosters- some older cats and brand new litters, each with different needs. I added things as I went, and even had some students who know I foster donate some blankets and such.

At first, I was using my guest room (with bed and shelves) as the kitten room, but most of the fosters had free range over the whole house. I like having kittehs wandering around and snuggling. They do like to eat wires, unplug lamps, occassionally break glasses by knocking them off things, but that's fine.

I have learned some things the last nine months, so I thought I'd share.

I get my fosters from the local SPCA. I call or email and ask if they have fosters, they say yes, I go in and often can pick. Sometimes I take ones that need fostering for the extra help, sometimes it's kitten litters. They provide medicine, although I've had a couple of times I have taken to vet for emergencies and paid for it. They also are good about answering questions, supporting me. They're all really great.

Some resources I found helpful:

1. The Kitten Lady is THE go to
2. SPCA guide
3. General foster info
4. When Nehi died, part of the reason I considered fostering was I follow @CagleCats on Twitter. Even if you don't want to foster I recommend following, it's a lot of fun.

First, I've gotten rid of the "guest room." One thing I've learned is that having a dedicated room, even if the foster free ranges, is important, if only for the first couple of days so they don't feel overwhelmed. For bebe kittehs it's REALLY important. I often have kittehs that have upper respitory infections (URIs) and need meds, so the room really needs to be cleaned well after, and I've noticed kittehs who are sick often shed a lot, have thin fur, so it gets everywhere. So it's a whole lot easier to have an empty room and things I can just wash with bleach than having furniture, shelves, etc.

So, the room is now empty- I pared down, donated, just got rid of, moved, everything that was once in there.

I had this great kitchen metal rack (I love these things) that used to be out in the kitteh room but the last set of kittehs started climbing the towels and blankets, and while their ingenuity was cute, I did worry a bit about them falling. I also had to clean around it. So in between litters I disassembled the shelves and reassembled them in the closet.

I intended then to keep the door closed, but of course, in typical kitteh fashion, all they then wanted was to sleep on the floor on the afghans. So now the door stays open.

It is nice having everything in one place. I looked at a lot of pictures online for ideas. The shelves have:

• Carriers on top
• Bed and folded down playpen 
• Bins for toys, bins for towels and baby washclothes
• I make sure I always have wet food, dry food (kitten and big kitty, in the rolling storage), and litter on hand
• The baby gate is helpful
• Hooks on the back of the door for litter scooper, broom, swiffer mop for daily clean ups

When I first bring them home, I leave the carrier out so it's easy to "transfer" the nest. I like these carriers and bought them because the sides and top unzip, so they're great when we're in the room AND the top loading is really handy for getting them in the carrier at the shelter.

An empty tupperware on its side with a blanket is a fun snuggle spot and the clear nature makes it funny to watch them play on either side!

After the first week I put the heating pad out, wrapped in a towel, so momma can have a break.

The baby gate does not last long, they learn the climb it, but it helps for a bit. I ended up taking the gate down early with one foster litter because momma had ear infections that threw off her balance and she was having a hard time jumping the gate.

I do find this chart (which I used various online sources to make) helpful for keeping an eye on benchmarks.

My whole house has gorgeous hard wood floors, but for the kitteh room I am seriously considering putting down lighter colored wood looking vinyl just to make it easier to clean.

I also want to repaint the room (although if I could contact paper the whole place that'd probably be easier). The room has two windows (that eventually I want to widen, as I do other back windows in the house-my bedroom, bathroom, kitchen-because this is my back view, and it's gorgeous). I was thinking that I would paint the room a lighter green, bring some of this in. I also think that I will paint the room a semi-gloss like a bathroom or kitchen, because sick kittehs snot in spectacular ways and somehow poop up walls, so easy to clean is a must.

Also, sitting against the wall, covered with kittehs, staring at this view, is very soothing.

For anyone interested in fostering, I can tell you that I started with pretty much nothing. The shelter sent me home with a bag that included some toys, food, a bed, and after that first time, I bought those things, then got a thing here and there over the months.

I use an empty tupperware for a "nest." A couple of months ago I finally got a carrier. Then I got another because a momma and four kittens won't smoosh into one after six weeks. Empty food boxes are favorite toys. I use just regular food bowls. It's more about the time and energy you put in I think.

Some cats just want to snuggle with you on the couch all the time. Some will play with siblings. Everyone is different. 

You can see that the stuff needed is pretty basic. I started with very little and just got a thing or two a month.

I do plan on getting one of those towers, because the windows are high, I think the kittehs would like seeing the view.

The blue "disposable" litter trays are good, and last quite a while, and are small enough for momma and kittens to access.

Old blankets and towels work fine.

Soft baby washcloths are very handy.

You use non clumping, scentless litter because kittens eat it as toddlers and that can be disastrous if clumping. It does produce a lot of dust, hence the swiffer mop every day.

I will say this, know your limits. I don't take kittens that need bottle feeding because I don't think I can take that schedule. I've taken breaks of a week or a couple after a foster that required a lot of work. 

One of the reasons I've been able to do this is my schedule was more flexible the last year. I'm not sure what or how I'll foster come August with being back on campus all day five days a week. I may have to pull back on fostering except for breaks like winter and summer. Or take only older fosters that don't need as much. I'll have to figure that out.

The shelter did "warn" me with first super tiny bebes that all of them might not live. Some kittehs get sick and don't do well. Some have injuries. I do okay with these things. I know maybe not everyone can. I share lots of pictures online of whoever I have at the time and some people get very sad or are very affected by some things more than others. It's okay to not want/be able to deal with these. There are lots of fosters that need help.