Three of them have names, is what. The fourth one hasn't really accepted a name yet. They survived a few days of massive upsetness, then started eating kibble and choosing parts of the sand pit. They've learned to cluster around the door to be brought indoors after dinner, cluster just inside the door to race outdoors for breakfast. That's a lot when we consider how much the fluffballs have had to learn. Eventually, after other vital survival skills, they may learn to answer to their names consistently and keep their cute little claws out of people's hands. They are still working on Danger Avoidance and Unbearable Cuteness.
There really ought to be photos of these kittens by now. There aren't, because it's April and I've been out enjoying all the beautiful phenology. Dogwoods, redbuds, four kinds of violets, some bloodroot, a few Bidens, ground-ivy, cleavers and bedstraw (I'll post about those if funded in time), cardinals bright and cheery as ever...Wild roses are the latest threat to the Rose of Sharon, or Northern Hibiscus, bushes and I'm about ready to let the roses have that space, if they weren't so prickly and provoking. I had to prune them quite aggressively after the Big Wet Snow in December. Wild roses like being pruned aggressively. Whack them off at ground level and, in spring, they surge up into your face again.
I am considering planting tomatoes myself this year. That ought to be a happy thought. It's not, because my mother always was the tomato plant whisperer; I had a few tomato plants to practice on, as a child, but now the thought of buying them and setting them out is keyed to the thought "because Mother may not be able to do that."
And year-old Queen Cat Serena has carried on an old Patchnose Family Tradition, only she's modified it in a modern nonsexist way.
Patchnose, as regular readers may remember, was a genuine alley cat, found living feral in an alley, wild as a bird. When her big, bold kitten Mackerel set out to train a child to feed his family, humans realized that Patchnose and her kittens were the very rare social cat family where the father, Big Mac, was actually providing for his sickly mate and too many babies. When they were delivered to the Cat Sanctuary, Mac made a pet of me overnight, then set about persuading his mother and siblings that it was safe to eat food I set out for them.
Patchnose didn't live through the winter, but young Mac was another dutiful, devoted male cat who fed and baby-sat kittens.
I didn't interfere with the social cat family's own plans for themselves, much, over the years, because a social cat family is so special. Unaltered females did indeed time and space out the birth of kittens--it looked as if they were doing it consciously. Nursing each other's kittens was their most obvious technique. They have others. I counted...some HSUS alarmist posted, a few years ago, that one breeding pair of cats would, in nine years, produce hundreds of thousands if not a million kittens. Hah. Patchnose and Big Mac have seven living descendants I know about for sure (Samantha and Traveller aren't their descendants), plus the four new kittens, and nine about whom I'm not so sure.
Every year there've been kittens--some born to resident cats, and some delivered by people who've heard that the resident cats would foster other cats' kittens. (BUT ASK FIRST!!!) Male cats in the Patchnose Family have been patient and gentle when unable to avoid kittens, but not exactly devoted fathers, since Mac's time.
Every year, beginning at the end of the summer when Patchnose was weaning a second litter of kittens, the Queen Cat has called half-weaned kittens to join her on my lap while nursing. No male cat has ever been part of this family tradition.
Traveller is not related to the Patchnose Family, nor is he related to Serena's kittens. He's only a half-grown, not-quite-one-year-old kitten himself. But nobody will ever convince him (or Serena) that he's not Serena's brother. If he remembers having once had a different mother, or having been born a hundred miles away, he's never let it bother him. He doesn't seem especially intelligent on his own, but he does whatever Serena tells him.
He is also the cuddliest kitten ever. He acts as if he thought the only reason why humans sit down is to provide laps for kittens to snuggle onto. (Given a selection of laps, he likes to shed on each lap in turn.)
And so, when Serena resumed caring for her recovering kittens, after a few days of nonverbally telling me "See if you can do anything for them, I can't"...I came home at the end of the day and sat down on the porch. Traveller and Serena came up to join me, and the kittens came out from their hiding place, and Serena told them they could join us. Traveller was rolling around on my lap. Serena was sitting beside me in a cozy yet dignified way.
The kittens crawled up on my lap and purred and snuggled...with Traveller. Serena was leaning against me but not sitting on my lap. She's become a little more affectionate, due to the prolactin surge, since giving birth but she is not, never was, and never will be a cuddly cat. Her usual ways of showing affection are still slapping or chomping and bounding away, waving her tail like a flag--although she does that less often now that she has babies to look after.
After a minute or two of family bonding time in this position, Serena let her babies nurse, briefly, while she lay against the side of my leg. Traveller continued to rub his head and sides against me and grip my fingertips between his paw and toe pads.
He watches the kittens when Serena isn't watching them, just as Mac did. He's been known to cuddle up beside them or even lick them. He draws the line, "meowing" and walking away, only if a kitten tries to nurse on him.
All four kittens are basically white with spots. Two have light grey spots that give them rather pretty faces, one has extensive black spots that make him look like Felix the cartoon cat, and one has charcoal-grey spots that make it look utterly ridiculous. I call it Black Stache, as in this book...
Felix and Stache have a sister, Swimmer, so called from one of her misadventures. We don't know that she'll ever want to swim again, but we know for sure that she can. Then there's the other sibling, whose gender is uncertain and who has yet to respond to anything it's been called.
Photos will appear soon.
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