How it All Began, Part 3
"What fates impose, that men must needs abide; it boots not to resist both wind and tide [or cats]." --Wm. Shakespeare (mostly): Henry VI Part Three, act 4, sc.3, l.60-1.
The sun set serenely, at least in our part of the world, on June 25th in 2018.
I’m sure it did, although I don’t remember it. But I do know that there was no thunderstorm, nor wind, nor rain and not much going on at our place except gardening. We were in our second year of planting for a small market garden (with a lot of help from our cat Thomas).
In the barn, though, there must have been quite a lot of excitement as King Oscar called the Council of Cats to make a decision: To move or not to move? That was the question.
Apparently the Ayes had it because the next morning, when we opened our front door, this is what we saw. I am sorry the quality of the photos is not better, but of course we could not risk disturbing the cats by opening the door. I mean, they needed their Sleep.
In short, in the early morning hours, we were invaded—permanently. In the distance, we could see some more of the mother cats carefully leading more little ones to the Promised Land, and they soon arrived on our doorstep as well.
All of the cat mothers were busy on the moving project, with some taking care of the kittens (their own and those of others) and some walking more little ones over from the barn as the morning went on. Big Sweetie (so named because she looked like Little Sweetie, but was bigger) lay on the doormat, nursing a variety of kittens that may or may not have been hers, including one—clearly not hers because her own were older—that didn’t have her eyes open yet. We named her Tiny Dice because of her mottled colors and because she was so tiny.
This kitten, whose eyes opened within a couple days, would lie on the mat as she grew, surrounded by heaps of older kittens who kept her warm when they were all sleeping. But when we took food out and all the older kittens popped up to eat, Tiny Dice would be left screaming in frustration on the mat. We would often pick her up and deposit her close to one of the nursing mothers so she could eat, too.
They didn’t all live on the doorstep. Many of them inhabited the garage while some chose to hang out close to and sleep in the shelter we had provided on the front porch for Little Sweetie and her kittens (see “How It All Began, Part 2”). But wherever they chose to deposit themselves, they now all clearly regarded themselves as having a New and Better Place.
Our biggest problem besides the expense of feeding them, of course, was that we couldn’t touch most of the adult females. They were fine with lounging about our porches and eating the food, and they had no problem with our taming and handling their kittens. But with only a few exceptions, the mothers resisted taming and touching. They made free with the toms, though, and therein lay the rub. There would be kittens and more kittens…sickly kittens because of the pervasive malnutrition, lack of any kind of care, and heretofore unsanitary living conditions in the barn, from which the cow manure was not often cleaned out.
I suppose any reasonable person would ask “Why? Why did you allow yourselves to be bamboozled into this kind of impossible situation? Didn’t you THINK about what you were doing?”
Well, yes. Yes, we did. We started searching, sometimes frantically, for solutions from the beginning. One thing we didn’t realize right at first is how sickly nearly all of them were. That became clear only when so many of the kittens would die—fail to thrive, get diarrhea, and develop respiratory issues, including glued-shut and swollen eyes, and horribly plugged noses.
Sometimes, to be perfectly honest, I am a teensy bit irritated with God for sending us to this place—because we are pathetically besotted weaklings where animals are concerned. Intellectually, I know that He does all things well and that no circumstances in our lives are there simply by chance. Emotionally, I often don’t feel that—like when I’m looking at a dying cat or a drained bank account. We are not the people I would have chosen—were I the Almighty, which I am not—to carry out this project, this mission. But…
“Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well
When our deep plots do pall, and that should teach us
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will….”
Blessed be God in all His designs.
