Kittens!

Here is how we went from three cats to six.

Last summer, we noticed a big grey tabby cat hanging around the neighborhood. He looked pretty healthy and was friendly so he must have been somebody's pet at one time. Our neighbor who liked to feed strays had been feeding him, and we would put some food out for him sometimes, too. Everyone called him Buster, and he was definitely a boy with very big kitty balls. One day, I look out the window and see Buster with a little orange kitty trailing behind him-look, Buster's got a little girlfriend! A pregnant girlfriend! The little orange girl kitty would run off if you got too close, obviously a stray, and where'd these two kitties come from, anyway?

A few weeks later, our neighbor asked if we had found any kittens in our yard since the girl kitty wasn't pregnant anymore, so we went looking and found three very tiny very sick little kittens hidden under a woodpile in our back yard. We didn't want to give these kittens to our neighbor, who was somewhat of a flake and wanted a kitten for her daughter's little boy, the daughter being somewhat of a flake too, and currently homeless, living with her mother. Like you really need a kitten that needs lots of medical care right now.

So, here were these three little kittens, one orange (like his mama), one tortoise shell (a mixture of mama and papa) and one dirty white (no idea where that one came from). They were so very very tiny, and two of them had eyes that were glued shut from eye infections. Soft hearted people that we are, instead of taking these tiny kittens to the pound, we took them to the vet. All three had respiratory infections and eye infections and were dehydrated and constipated and had lots of fleas. They all got meds and enemas and we got bottles and kitten milk and gave them baths to try and get rid of the fleas. The vet said that they would have died soon, the mama cat won't take care of sick kitties, she'll just abandon them. The old survival of the fittest thing.

And so began the raising of the babies.
Here they all are after their bath-orange Buddy, white Mimi, and tortoise shell Lucy.
Look at that tiny little face!
Itty Bitty Lucy. Mimi was camera shy.