Sweet Little Wild and Crazy Kittens with An Unforgettable Fashion Statement ~

I can almost hear you sighing, saying how you want a kitten... or two... or three even. Well...HERE, have one or two or three even! I am not a cat person at all and my husband is allergic to them so why he got stuck feeding them is just beyond me! To decently explain what these guys are doing in the barn in a huge 8 foot cage complete with stuffed animals, blankets and pillows along with a few rattling toys hanging from the cage ceiling, I need to go back and start at the beginning ~ about four years ago when we moved into this house.

We built this home on top of an old corral that had stood here for a million years along with another barn. And we are surrounded by a couple hundred acres of fields filled to bursting with millions of field mice, voles, moles, gophers, rats, rabbits and raccoons, squirrels and anything else that falls under the category of rodent or furry thing with a long tail. Can you guess how long it took these critters to figure out there was a huge warm hidy~hole above ground sitting on that old muddy stinky corral ground? Not long, I assure you. So we have been fighting them "humanely" for a few years but to no avail. When you have this many, humane just doesn't quite cut it!

We had a few wandering cats around and about us but slowly they got lazy, died or went home because we also have a dog but for whatever reason, we lost our one and onlys. Then, and this was the "death" blow when it comes to being taken over by the little critters, we put in a quarter acre of "meadow grass" all the way around the house, mainly because we didn't know what else to do with it at the time and it was better than dirt. I don't feel that way now but at the time... It's called meadow grass because, even though it comes as sod, it grows tall but "stays green", or at least that's what they said. It doesn't. It's a cool season grass that dies in the summer, takes tons of water and in short, was a very bad idea but live and learn. AND... the mice, rats, moles, voles, gophers, rabbits, snakes, lizards and on and on and on ALL LOVE IT! They have miles of freeways with tunnels and ramps and and bumper strips and traffic cops dressed up like moles... They drive around on alligator lizards, writing speeding tickets...

So it was decided that we needed some cats. Trouble was, no one wanted to actually do it because we are not cat people and they couldn't be in the house because of my husband's allergies and I didn't want them outside because I was afraid something large might eat them, like the barn owl. So we never got anywhere fast. Apparently one day, my mother in law told my husband she had some wild cats she was "feeding"...you don't usually feed "wild cats" because they are "wild" but I digress. She had called the feral cat society who said they would come to the rescue! They would catch them somehow, spay them, give them their shots, etc. etc. and then deliver them back home again {jiggety jig} so they could not replicate themselves and all would live happily ever after. BUT my husband was there during the conversation so he told her, as luck would have it, we NEEDED some cats! It was as if the divine finger of God came down and touched the moment as it transpired between them. Angels sang~ Mother in law rids herself of guilt AND kitties and husband gets his cats, all fixed and ready to go out and kill everything in sight!

The next thing *I* know, we are to receive 3 little siamese-mix kittens, as wild as any lion cub, from the feral cat lady, who arrives with this cage, that you see above along with many blankets and everything else kittens might need and a few I really don't think they care lots about. That's me taking a peek at the little devils in one of my better outfits but I thought I would share another one of my fashion moments, you lucky people. Did I tell you I like color? Or hats? Or shawls? Or people taking my picture when I am not expecting it? Well, let it be said now... When I am old, I shall wear purple and a few other things.

So here they are about 2 weeks ago. Just ignore that crazy woman{why is she wearing sun glasses in the dark?} She's practically wearing her pj's here but who knew it would end up on a blog for anyone to see that wanders by. The kittens.... They were fed and cared for by dear husband for two weeks and released to "the wilds" a few days ago, to continue to be fed in the barn, where the cage bedroom is. They are very cute and very wily guys. One has taken to wandering around and around the house at night, calling dear husband with yowling. Around and around he goes until he finds OUR room, at which time there is a pause in the yowling as he finds the best spot to make the loudest yowls and then begins to carry on for the rest of the night. Really! Then today, I looked out and there he was, sitting at the door, lounging in the sun, NOT catching a damned thing! The weed-lawn has been cut so it's now easy to find things but no, he'd rather not catch anything when there is a large handsome man to carry feed to the bowl each day so really, why bother? Cats are smart like that!

And the rest of them? They are living in the barn waiting for food to come, chasing around this and that, a mouse here and a mouse there. Since the populations of rodents is quite lively up there too, I suppose that's where they have decided to spend the winter, while the rest of the critters have their cumulative little eyeballs on my house and it's dime-sized openings to slide into on a cold winter's night. But at least everyone is happy, warm and well-fed ...except me. I am anticipating the middle of the night run to the bathroom, when I am joined by a quick moving little furry thing running back to bed with me.