This story starts way back at the end of January. The adult cat shown here )which we now call her Mama) would come and sit on the porch furniture. This furniture is outside my studio window. She would stare at me with hungry eyes every night. Of course I would feed her. Then it got to be I would see her in the morning and the evening.When I would take her food out she was very skittish and would always stop and look behind her like someone was after her. I would never make the attempt to pet her because she was just very wild but hungry. We went along like this through the month of February and half of March and I felt we were getting quite a rapport going. So about mid march I decided to bend down every time after I put the food down and touch her back. She seemed startled at first but didn’t run away.Eventually I made it a whole hand touch along her back. Then she started rubbing against my legs and I knew we were getting somewhere. Then April came and I noticed with the longer days that she was gaining weight. Her belly was getting larger but I didn’t think unusually big. Then one day I saw her go places like behind the house, down to the pond where she very rarely goes. I felt like maybe birthing time was coming soon.Back in February when it was really cold I would not see her for a couple of days or maybe even a week, I had no idea where she was holding up. So this time she was gone for a couple of days and when she showed back up again she was much thinner and had blood on her backside so I knew she had the kittens. I didn’t know if they were stillborn or how many. I would start feeding her more food though and she was eating it voraciously. She started showing up again in the morning and evenings but didn’t stick around, ate and ran. I would tell her “Mama, where are your babies or Mama, bring the babies here. She would just eat and run.
I would never see a sign of them, and she would go back in different directions. Then one day Tom was shutting the pool cover and one must have been hanging on and popped out but got scared and ran back under. There was a small open area by the motor and she had brought the kittens there. I think that was amazing because how would she even know that was there? Well the one kitten got caught on the rope and died, but when we opened it up I had 4 other faces looking up at me. She had had five kittens! She had to have moved then to that spot recently because Tom had power washed under that to get all the leaves out. This was not a safe place and we left the lid open for her to get them out.
She did and they were all gone the next day. We buried the kitten with sadness and waited to see if she would return. The next evening she did come back to eat and we were joyful for that. We felt so bad about the baby. A week went by and our routine was back but one morning I look out on the chair and I see her with lumps all over her. I knew then she had brought the babies back.
I have another one spoken for and that will leave two. I hope that Mama will get tired of nursing the kitten, right now the two of them are off in the neighbors bushes. I think she has Mama wrapped around her little paw. Maybe I will see her in the morning.
Mama and I have come a long way, she sits on my lap, licks my hands, did a head bump on me too. That’s the ultimate. I truly feel blessed that she trusted us enough to bring the babies to us. It’s been a treat!!