The first stray I ever remember was Miss Kitty who made her home under our shed. I was only 7 or 8 years old at the time and thought it was so neat to have an outdoor kitty. Pretty soon, she brought four fluffy kittens up onto our porch to eat the food we had left out for her. I remember she had a black fluffy kitten that looked like a mini version of Panther. She had one short-haired Calico, and a long-haired Calico. She also had a black short-haired runt. I don’t remember if I had ever seen kittens that small before, and I was completely enthralled!
Once the kittens got older, we knew we had to do something with them as we couldn’t keep them any longer. We used a live trap to catch them and took them one-by-one to the local Animal control where they could be adopted.
We went many years after that without having a long-term stray living on our property. That is until we met “Lovey” . . .
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| Lovey was a very sweet Calico kitty that showed up in our yard two summers ago. She was very friendly and Roma and Rubia made sure she had LOTS of reasons to stay. J |
Lovey lived very faithfully with our family for over a month. She ate her food on our deck and slept on our outdoor furniture. She was never farther than earshot and would come running when we called her name.
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| After awhile, we started to notice that she was getting quite fat and her nipples were distended. Our neighbor who is a vet technician confirmed that she was pregnant. |
We took the best care of our very-pregnant Mama kitty as we knew how. We did start to get worried about her being outdoors with no real shelter. One night after dark I opened the door to the deck to say a quick good-night to her. Imagine my horror as I made eye contact with a big furry raccoon eating Lovey’s food just outside the door! I slammed the door shut and hyperventilated for a few moments. Thankfully Lovey was okay and never appeared to have any injuries from wild animals.
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| Many a quiet afternoon found Lovey sleeping on one of the tables or chairs out on our deck. We also fixed a cardboard box with some towels for her, in hopes that if she had her kittens any time soon she would have them there instead of out in the woods across our creek. |
Another time I was scared for Lovey was during a tremendous thunderstorm we had. It was a terrible storm with lots of thunder and lightning. A lightning bolt hit the next street over and traveled underground, burning 3 trees from the inside out so that the tree and the roots literally popped out of the ground. A neighbor’s house was also struck by lightning and we lost power for several hours.
Lovey was nowhere to be seen after the storm. We called and called, but to no avail. I felt absolutely terrible. I felt that it was my fault that she was gone, since I had been the one at home during the storm. I kept thinking that I should have brought her into the basement, or the garage, or somewhere that she could have had shelter.
Well, at 11:00 that night Mom woke me up telling me that Lovey had come back! I had never been so relieved in all my life! J
After that storm—and the raccoon incident—we decided that Lovey needed someplace safe to have her kittens. Cold weather was coming, and Lovey grew bigger by the day. We were very thankful when a friend of ours who works at the local Humane Society volunteered to take her into her home until Lovey had her kittens.
A couple of weeks later, Lovey gave birth.
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| She had 5 adorable little ones! They were all so cute! Their names were Chloe, Lola, Iggy, Winky, and Honey. |
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| We were able to visit the kittens again when they were about 8 weeks old. It was so hard not to take one of them home! My favorite was little Chloe, a long-haired Calico. |
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| Our friend got them spayed and neutered and started on their shots. All the kittens and Lovey were eventually adopted out of our humane society. |
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| The next summer brought us yet another visitor: “Lewis.” Were we amazed at the resemblance between Lewis and our cat Zack. Here, Zack extends his hand in greeting to our new guest. You can read more about how Lewis came to us here. |
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| Being an unneutered male, it appeared that Lewis had been in a fight with another cat. Thankfully our neighbor performed emergency “surgery” on his ear, and it healed up quite nicely after a few weeks. |
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| Lewis was a very talkative, laid-back kind of cat. He was very content to lounge around and generally be lazy. J |
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| He appeared to be quite young and playful. Many happy hours that summer were spent playing with Lewis. |
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| He made a very good supervisor when it came to big jobs like mowing. J |
Before the cold weather set in, we determined that we should take Lewis to the Humane Society to be adopted. After getting sick for awhile and being in isolation, he was finally adopted as well.
We are so thankful for all the opportunities we’ve had to show love to God’s creatures over the years! We have loved all of our pets and are thankful for each of their unique personalities and the joy they bring to our lives!
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