Saturday, July 03, 2004
Kitten mining commences
One Christmas Santa promised my son a much-desired kitten. Said kitten did not materialize; perhaps Santa in his wisdom knew that the mater familias had gotten whiplash at a stoplight when driving to after Christmas sales, and that the addition to the family should be delayed.
Eventually it was time to get the cat. Through family, we heard of a litter of barn kittens that needed homes.
Although the kittens turned out to be older, really adolescents or young adults and far from the tiny fluffy thing my son had wished for, he picked out two young female cats with encouragement from his grandmother.
Then Santa paid off every arrear of tiny meep sweetness and fluff....for what do you know, both of the two new young cats came FULLY LOADED with kitten fun. Woo hoo, and wasn't it fun for mater to chase after them with a scraper and a bottle of enzymatic cleaner.
We found homes for six, and one of the mothers reacted by running away to a house down the street, where she is to this day a happy only cat.
It's a little like having too many children; I don't want six cats, and six cats are a lot of expense and trouble - They wreck stuff, they leave chipmunks in the radiator, and they take up a lot of room - but they are all so dear and so different you can't imagine parting with any specific cat.
Below are two from the kitten mine.... Waterbug A and Waterbug B. It's not that they don't rate different names (and they do have individual nicknames now), its just that we ran out names at one point. Also, in the beginning, if you did not look closely it was hard to tell them apart.
Introducing the waterbug twins:
Eventually it was time to get the cat. Through family, we heard of a litter of barn kittens that needed homes.
Although the kittens turned out to be older, really adolescents or young adults and far from the tiny fluffy thing my son had wished for, he picked out two young female cats with encouragement from his grandmother.
Then Santa paid off every arrear of tiny meep sweetness and fluff....for what do you know, both of the two new young cats came FULLY LOADED with kitten fun. Woo hoo, and wasn't it fun for mater to chase after them with a scraper and a bottle of enzymatic cleaner.
We found homes for six, and one of the mothers reacted by running away to a house down the street, where she is to this day a happy only cat.
It's a little like having too many children; I don't want six cats, and six cats are a lot of expense and trouble - They wreck stuff, they leave chipmunks in the radiator, and they take up a lot of room - but they are all so dear and so different you can't imagine parting with any specific cat.
Below are two from the kitten mine.... Waterbug A and Waterbug B. It's not that they don't rate different names (and they do have individual nicknames now), its just that we ran out names at one point. Also, in the beginning, if you did not look closely it was hard to tell them apart.
Introducing the waterbug twins:
