After we lost Riley, we were down to three cats. I thought, 'Well, three cats is plenty.'
And then, a few months later, this.
So what's her story? One morning, I was in the garden and heard a scolding mockingbird. I looked around and didn't see anything. Then I heard a faint desperate "mew." It kept mewing and I saw a tiny kitten near the wood chip pile by our garden. On the inside of our garden fence. How in the world???
She was scared and didn't want me to catch her. She didn't run away but tried to hide, and she gave me a tiny hiss when I picked her up. Gosh but she was squirmy. We're not in a location where a tiny cat could wander far. That corner of the garden has a farm gate off our semi-busy road, so it's possible she crept under the gate, but how did she get there? None of our close neighbors have cats. I can't imagine a tiny kitten wandering off farther than that.
I didn't know what to do with her. I couldn't leave her there, tiny and scared, so I took her to show Dan. Dan has an incredibly soft heart when it comes to critters. His response was, "Well, we lost one . . . "
She had a weepy eye and a patch of skin torn from her muzzle, but antibiotics soon made those right. What do the other cats think? Sam (13 years), Katy (also 13), and Meowy (10) are all slightly disgruntled at the kitten's presence. She's interested in them but none of them want to be bothered with her, and they warn her off.
Dan has asked around the neighborhood and we've watched for "lost kitten" posters but nothing so far. Now that she's not scared anymore, she's friendly and sweet. There's plenty to catch around here, and our senior cats are slowing down a bit. So another good mouser wouldn't be amiss. This one is certainly feisty enough for the job.
How could something so small have such a large presence in the house?
It would seem to be our destiny to have four cats.
