Deliver Me from Homeless Cats & Kittens....

My husband and I took Gracie for a walk yesterday in a near-by park, which backs up to the local nature center and Clear Lake. Gorgeous park with ball fields, picnic tables, BBQ grills, and even a duck pond. Just a short drive away from where we live.... as soon as we get into the car, Gracie gets all excited because she knows where we're going.

So there we were, walking along our usual path.... and Gracie starts to sniff around in the bushes by the Lake. She sniffs, she looks back at us. Sniffs again... looks back at us. My husband called her over to him, and I went to see what she had found: a mama cat and a pair of kittens. There might have been more kittens, but I saw just a couple.

Somehow, the mama cat found a deep hole underneath a honeysuckle bush near the edge of Clear Lake. I know that cats don't dig holes that deep, so it was probably an abandoned hide-away from a large mole or a water-rat, maybe even a rabbit.

When the mama cat saw me coming close to her spot, she jumped out of the hole and walked over to the nearby bushes, keeping an eye on me all the while. Gracie stayed very quiet.... she is used to our three cats and she's extra careful with baby animals of any kind.

As soon as the mama cat walked away from her hiding spot, one of the kittens popped its head out, and I was sure I saw a paw from the second kitten. The first kitten took one look at me and ran back into the hole, however... deep into it so I couldn't see it unless I had gotten down on my knees in the dirt (which I wouldn't think of doing).

My husband noticed that someone had left a paper plate of dry cat food out there under the honeysuckle bush, so that was nice to see. I told my husband to remind me to bring a can of Fancy Feast the next time we go to the park, but I don't think I will.

In fact, I don't think I even want to walk past that spot for a good long while. As it was yesterday, I felt very sad for the rest of the afternoon, to think that the mama cat was out there in the park with her kittens. There are raccoons there, and huge geese and ducks, plus the water-rats. How safe can those tiny kittens be? And female cats are very small.... can the mama cat fend off an attack by a 25-pound goose?

Just makes me sad. Also makes me think that someone brought the mama cat there when they found out she was expecting her kittens. We've been going to that park for years now.... never have seen any stray cats or kittens. There are no subdivisions close enough to the park for the mama cat to have arrived there without getting run over on the way.

Now there will be those kittens. I can't take in another kitten or a full-grown cat. Our inn is full. Besides Gracie, we have one cat (Rusty) whose sole mission in life is to eat, another cat (AngelBoy) whose main mission on this planet is to pretend (and have me believe) that he's the only cat in this house worthy of my attention, and another (ShadowBaby) who plays the part of baby-cat like Marlon Brando (with gusto, with unbridled enthusiasm, with panache).

I have to keep reminding myself of what my friend Frances used to tell me. She was a cat-lover like no other...... and her belief was that a kitten born "in the wild" would forever want to "stay in the wild." Frances had four house-cats and about 30 feral cats that she fed on her property. The wild ones never came into her house, and most of them stayed within a mile of her property line. All of them constantly brought her mice and baby squirrels and birds. "Wild to the bone," she used to say of them.

So.... no can of Fancy Feast the next time we go to the park. Once I start feeding that mama cat and the tiny kittens, I will want to take them home and keep them safe and warm. I can just hear AngelBoy now: "I don't give you enough to do? Well... let me just go find a corner to pee in and let's see how much time you have for those cute little kittens...."