Faith in humans... Restored!

On October 3rd, I followed the stray that had been hanging around Mom and Dad's to this dear basket of kittens:

(They were not found in the basket, of course -- Under a wooden crate leaning against a railroad tie)

We adopted the kittens, who we determined were about 4 weeks old, and brought them to our barn to finish growing.  In the meantime, we went to work finding homes for all of them.  The orange one went first to one of the neighbours who was looking for an orange one.  Mom claimed the cream tabby, and we worked on getting Dad to come to terms with having another cat in the household (the departure of Harley helped).  I advertised on eBrandon and found the sweetest El Salvadorian family who took the grey one, and Bob, the grey one with no tail, awaits a home with the man who installed our internet-- in the meantime he gets to wrestle with Blondie at Mom's a couple of days a week and he's a pleasant ball of energy in the barn.  We decided to keep the mother, Roseanne, as she is a good mouser, a really nice cat, and we assumed the kittens would be easier to get rid of.  We had her spayed a week ago so that no more kitten accidents happen, and so she is officially ours.

Just when we thought we had control over the cats in our life, enter Callie.  We went into the barn to do chores when Roseanne and Bob were recovering from her spay surgery in the sunporch, and heard a cat meowing.  A little long haired calico appeared and wound herself around our legs and climbed us, purring expectantly.  She looked cold and slightly bedraggled-- I couldn't not feed her, even though I knew that by doing it I was making a commitment.

She hung around of course, sneaking into the barn when we left the door open, showing up in the morning and meowing for food, and climbing up to my shoulders to rub my face with hers in gratitude when I fed her.  It broke my heart!  And it made me think of all the people who don't do their part with controlling the pet population, people who drive unwanted cats out to the country so that softies like me are forced to deal with them.  They don't just disappear!  Cats are resourceful survivors.  Callie spotted me instantly as someone who couldn't resist helping.

So, I listed her on eBrandon, and got 4 leads of homes for Callie.  She is getting picked up this afternoon and will go live on a farm near Brookdale.  I hope they will take good care of her and have her spayed, but I'm not really in a place to insist this happens -- All I know is that she will have a better chance somewhere else than here, where we have 2 cats and no capacity for more.  Samson doesn't get along with other animals, and as we are going away at Christmas and have to shuffle our 2 cats and 2 rabbits in with Mom's 2 cats as it is.

So, I am grateful to find that there are others out there who can't resist helping, too, and are willing to take on friendly strays that find us.  I hope Callie does well in her new home, and I am enjoying having her in the sunporch today as she awaits pickup.

A beauty!

"What's a 'Bed'?"