“Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reasons.”   Robertson Davies

About ten years ago during one Christmas break I ran to my car on a cold winter afternoon to get something I’d left there. On my way back down the side walk I spotted a black and white cat in the bushes under the window.  She was meowing at me.  She looked cold, hungry, and lonely.

I went in the house and told my husband about her (I just had a feeling she was a her). My husband said, “Well don’t feed her or she’ll never leave.”  “I know, that’s the point!”  So, I got a can of tuna and a bowl of water.  She never left.

Six months later I looked out on the porch and yelled, “Rick, Wonder brought me a gift. It looks like a squirrel’s tail!”  In reality it was a calico kitten with a bushy tail!  Not long after that we took the two cats, both females, to the vet to have them spayed. Wonder and Surprise stayed with me for ten years.

There were other cats that came and went over the decade. There was Big Red, Bow Tie, Princess, and Old Red.  But about a year ago, all the cats died within a few months of each other.  I no longer had a Kingdom of Cats.

I have really missed them. Sometimes I come home at night and expect one of them to come running out to greet me.  But alas they never do.

Then, the Saturday evening before Valentine’s Day I drove my car up to the front door because it was filled with groceries. It was dark, but I spotted something that looked like a cat laying under the bushes.  I brushed it off and carried bags inside.

About a half hour later, my husband said, “Dawn, come quick. I want you to see something.”  It was a little grey fluffy kitten, about 12 weeks old, on my porch.  “Can I feed her?”  (I just have a feeling she’s a her.)  He asked if I had anything.  I opened a huge can of tuna and put it on the porch with a bowl of water.  It wasn’t long before there was another kitten, just a wee bit bigger than the other, along side her.

My husband said, “I can’t believe it.” “I know! I’m a cat whisperer!,” I replied happily.

I’m hoping the little ones will survive the wild long enough to be my new Cat Kingdom. They have to be outside cats.  My husband is very allergic.  But, if they can be survivors, I may just have a couple of cats for the next ten years or so.  Yay!

I’m afraid to call them Valentine and February just yet, but I might start soon.

PS  A third kitten has arrived who I may call Pumpkin.

dmzh

“To Do Today…
1. Sit and think
2. Reach enlightenment
3. Feed the cats”
Jarod Kintz   

Are you a cat lover? Have you ever fed stray cats? What do you know about caring for feral cat colonies? Would you ever take on such a project?