six cats in the yard

Since about August after we moved, and after we started letting Taxi out, we started seeing less and less of one of our grey cats, Max. It was worrisome, especially when he wouldn’t show up for 2 days in a row (and Max isn’t one to miss a meal, but he also is the most adventurous of all 6). We finally connected the dots (or followed the cat) and discovered that he was hanging out at our old house, just a couple of blocks away. He’s the kind of cat to wander up to strangers and demand attention, so likely they were feeding him and letting him hang out on their laps while they watched television. Of course that made me feel rejected and unloved, especially because he’s one of my favorites.

The house finally sold a couple of weeks ago and the tenants moved out. Suddenly Max started hanging out at our house all day long! We thought maybe he’d decided we were OK afterall.

Then I got a call at work today from a client who said her daughter bought the house we used to live in and she wanted us to know that our cat had been spending time in their backyard. She thought for sure that when she approached him he would run away, but, no, she said, he came right up to greet her. She just wanted to make sure he wasn’t lost or something, I imagine. Nope. She said, too, that he was a very sweet cat….Little does she know. The good thing is that her daughter has a dog who may not like cats, so maybe he’ll decide, again, that we are good enough for him.

It’s the story
of a lovely lady
bringing up 3 very loving cats.
Two of them had hair of grey
unlike the other
who was brown tabby

Ok…I can’t keep that up.

After my cat Skinny died at 12 years from cancer, I couldn’t spend more than a week without a cat and decided to get 3, just in case something happened to one I would still have two.

Wilbur, Max, Tinker

Wilbur & Tinker

L-R: Wilbur, Max, Tinker

Leigh, on the other hand, wanted a calico and couldn’t decide if he wanted the long-haired or the short-haired…so he got both.

Betsy & Billie

His don’t much like mine and all mine want to do is play (mostly) except maybe for Wilbur who wasn’t well socialized and likes to ambush Billie and Betsy in various spots, including on the roof.

In California, they all learned to dislike the 5 kittens we rescued and eventually found homes for (see picture of me with 4 kittens in my lap from the earlier post). Then, after we found homes for those 4, Tinker decided to become afraid of anyone who came into the house because she thought maybe she was the next to be given away.

Well, 5 cats apparently isn’t enough because I brought home a 6th cat to foster (yes, just to foster…initially). And she ended up having 6 (yes, 6) kittens…one for each nipple.

Taxi

7 weeks old

7 weeks old

Only a couple of weeks old

It was very hard to give all of them away, but I know that they have good homes, including 2 who went to Tricia (the grey and the black/white). No one seems to want an older cat, however. Even though Taxi (the mom) isn’t really that old either in true age or attitude, I couldn’t find a home for her, so now we have six cats in the yard.