Be careful what you wish for!

Wednesday, July 29, started out like any other day. Shiala and I were out and on our way back home we saw some cows on the road near our driveway. I saw Allie's truck there and knew they were her calves. We drove into our driveway and went up to see if we could help her get them back in the fence. She said she had called her mom and dad and was waiting for them to come help. We helped her keep them from wandering further. A cat came out of the bushes from the Forest Service workers' living area. The cat came up to the calves and decided it really liked one of them but hissed at the other one. we kept trying to shoo it away but it was very persistent. After Jim and Karla came up and got the calves moving back down the hill to the gate, the cat followed Shiala and I to my house. I kept trying to get rid of it, but it would NOT go away. In fact, it chased off my cats and took over the place like it owned it. I was at a loss as to what to do. At one point, I picked it up and chucked it but it came back.
Sadie came out and she said to me, "Mom, I think it's pregnant." and all of a sudden a light went off in my head. I had seen some fluid leaking from it's hind end and I had thought to myself what a fat cat it was.  Then I felt really bad, realizing that it was not only pregnant, but in labor. I quickly rounded up a cardboard box and an old towel and put it on the porch in the shade. She climbed in and lay there as we watched the contractions ripple through her sides.
By 5 pm she had given birth to 3 little clones of herself. All of them were mostly black with white on their faces and paws. She was an excellent mother, and I doubt this was her first delivery. She knew exactly what to do and never made a peep.
I was not too thrilled with the thought of having to find four cats homes. That is so hard for me, always wondering if they went to a good home or were abused. But I could not turn her and her kittens out. Our own cats would have killed the kittens, so the garage became the nursery for this new little family. The mother cat was so very attentive and loving. I fed her eggs and gave her lots of fresh air and time outside. We kept them in the garage until the middle of September.

look at that sweet little face

about one week old

eyes are open now and they are exploring their home

mama cat

because they are all the same color it's sure hard to see all the babies and make sure she's not lying on them.

James and his buddy

he liked playing with them while everyone else was at school

getting bigger

There are so many places to play and hide in our messy garage, they really liked the Washoe game

gotcha!

The kitten on the top is Fluffernutter, the only one we kept. 

The day after these pictures were taken we were down to one kitten. Charles came home from school and went to the garage to play with the kittens. He came running back in and said that the kittens were dead. I thought surely he was mistaken, but he was not. Two of the kittens had just curled up next to each other and died. They looked like they just fell asleep. I wracked my brain trying to figure out what they might have gotten into. I had had a box of various cans of stuff in there and there was some bug spray. I don't know if they licked it or if it was something else. I moved that box into a room where the last kitten could not get to it. I cried every time I thought about those poor babies. I had moved them into the garage to protect them and it hadn't worked, and in fact, might have been the cause of their deaths. I did take solace in the fact that I had two less kittens to find homes for. A month or so later, the mama cat just took off one day and has not come back. So we came out of the deal with one little female cat. We have tried to find another home for her but no one has been interested. She is a beautiful little longhaired cat and is a good mouser so I guess she's meant to be ours.

The moral of this story is to be careful what you wish for. It was not more than a week or ten days before the mama cat showed up that I had thought to myself that I wished all our cats weren't sterilized, as I thought it would be good for the boys to have a kitten experience. Curtis told me I had wasted my wishes and should have wished for a million $,$$$,$$$!

We are actually down to three cats because Orange Julius took off this summer and we have not seen him since. He probably picked the wrong tom to fight with. Callie was chased off by the mama cat and her own MamaLou. I hope she found a more hospitable home.