Our old farmhouse came with a cat. He was a big black and white tom, who according to legend had been the resident mouser for well over a decade. His original owners had long since moved on, leaving him to fend for himself. Consecutive tenants had put food out for him, but he was no ones pet.
The farm sat near the end of the paved road, with forest on three sides. Wildlife was everywhere. We had deer, raccoons, squirrels, birds of all kinds. And cats, plenty of cats. Evidently, Blackie had done more than catch mice during his tenure at the farm. More than a few of our feline visitors bore a distinct resemblance to the old tom.
They were what we called free-range cats. We mostly saw them passing through, on their way to some place else. Blackie came and went as he pleased, so it was a while before we noticed that he didn’t come home at all. I stopped filling his dish after it went untouched for a week.
The following spring a small calico-tabby set up house in our garden. There was a small “cave” in the rockery, and this was where she hid her kittens. Every day, Mama would stash the babies in the cave, and go hunt for supper. An hour or two later, she would return, collect her kittens, and go back to wherever they lived the rest of the time. They kept to the same routine for several weeks. Once the babies were weaned, the whole family moved on. Treating them as we would any wild creatures, we didn’t get involved.
This became an annual ritual. The third summer, a tiny kitten was left behind. Whether by accident or design remains a mystery. Our son found it and brought it into the house. She was solid grey, with a white bib, and fit into the palm of my husband’s hand. The vet estimated her age at 3½ to 4 weeks, barely weaned. We named her Smokey, and she became the first indoor cat we’d ever had.
The parade of free-range cats continued. Smokey would sit on the windowsill and watch, showing no interest in going out. It was a big, scary world out there. The closest she came the great outdoors was catching spiders and moths when they got into the house.
Last spring, Mama again brought her brood. Our garden was a small, fully fenced enclosure that was attached to the house on two sides. This provided a relatively safe sanctuary for her offspring. She had three kittens this year. One was pure white, the second an orange tabby. The third looked very much like Smokey.
We started to call the garden the “playpen”. It was quite obvious that the cat was leaving her kids in daycare while she went hunting. One morning I stepped out onto the deck. We had just spread fresh straw mulch on all the beds. Mama, making use of the soft surface, was stretched out, nursing her babies in the shade of the rhubarb leaves. She raised her head to look at me, and I realized she had a pretty face. I had always thought of her as kind of homely, with her blotchy coloring. I slipped back in for my camera, but when I returned, she was already sitting up, bathing her kitties. I photographed her anyway.
I had been given a digital camera for Christmas, and I couldn’t resist using the cats as subjects. For the first few days, all we could see of the babies were faces peeking out of the rockery. Gradually, as they grew older and bolder, they ventured out of the den to romp among the flowers. Their scrawny little pooptails were carried straight up, like flags. My husband and I would watch them through the kitchen window, laughing at their antics. I started putting food scraps out for Mama a couple of times a week. We kept the dish away from the house, out by the woodshed. I hoped that would prevent her from becoming too dependant on us.
In conversation, we named the kittens: Whitey, Brownie and Smokey Junior, JR for short. Whitey was the smallest of the three, but also the most aggressive. He would pounce and growl at his larger siblings, trying to be assertive. Brownie was the prettiest, a lovely golden brown tiger, with a white chest and paws. JR, mostly grey and white was the only one with long hair.
I felt like a naturalist, studying a pride of miniature lions. Any chance I got, I spent time outside, watching the kittens and taking pictures. I had fun observing their behavior. It became apparent that JR was the alpha male. Brownie was his sidekick, copying everything JR did. In my mind, that made him a male, too. We had no way of really knowing the sex of the kittens; it was just a poetic assumption.
Mama was leaving them alone more and more of the time. The three little kittens felt very secure in the playpen. We would see them, lined up like birds on a wire, sunning themselves on the logs bordering the flowerbeds. One warm, rainy night, we heard a tiny noise outside the screen door. A flip of the light switch revealed a pile of kittens huddled on the welcome mat. It would seem it was dryer there. They didn’t bother to run, they were just too comfortable.
Time went on and Mama stopped bringing her kids to the garden. I continued to put table scraps out by the barn, and the little family would come by every evening to eat. One afternoon, JR was early. Somehow, he had been separated from his family. For several hours, he paraded around the garden and the deck, mewling loudly. Smokey stood with her paws against the screen door, watching her sibling. The two came nose to nose through the screen, talking in short murps and purrs. We were just starting to consider the necessity of adopting another abandoned kitten when Mama, Whitey and Brownie showed up. JR’s relief was palpable. They gathered around him, and groomed each other vigorously.
The little family became part of our world. Sometimes they came in a group, sometimes from different directions, converging at the front of the shed. If we didn’t see any of them for a couple of days, we started to worry. It seems kind of funny. The area’s feral cat population had been living just fine without us for countless years. They didn’t bother anyone, and nobody bothered them. Somehow, this set of pooptails was different. They captured our hearts.
One evening, Mama was at the feed dish. The kits were sitting in their customary posture, all in a row, waiting their turn. We stood at the back door, watching them eat. My husband suddenly stiffened. “Get me the pellet gun, quick.”
I grabbed the small rifle and rushed back with it. Then I saw a large raccoon, edging up the hill toward the cats. The coon wanted the table scraps, but would gladly snatch a kitten, given the opportunity.
Mama saw it, and retreated protectively toward her kittens. My husband took aim and a pellet glanced off the shed wall. The intent was to frighten, not injure. The raccoon interrupted his feeding just long enough to raise his head and snarl. The next pellet bounced off his butt. That made the animal jump away from the dish. After the third shot, he waddled off into the woods. Mama and the kitties slowly emerged from under the motor home. She turned her pretty face toward us, and I swear she smiled.
It was mid August when Whitey stopped coming around. The kittens had been on their own for a couple of weeks. We saw less and less of Mama, but her three children continued to visit the playpen. And then there were two. We like to believe that a neighbor found and adopted the pretty kitten, but know that it’s unlikely. A pure white critter doesn’t have much benefit of camouflage.
My collection of cat photographs continued to grow. JR and Brownie were continually striking a pose, whether they knew it or not. They provided much entertainment, and I regularly watched them through the kitchen window while I cooked. I noticed that sometimes the two brothers would sit sphinx-like, and simply stare up at the sky.
“Look at those silly things! What do you suppose they’re up to?” I mused, not expecting an answer.
My husband’s eyes dropped sheepishly. “Cheese,” he mumbled.
“Excuse me?” I thought I’d heard wrong.
“Cheese,” he repeated. “They’re waiting for cheese.”
He went on to explain that he had been tossing pieces of co-jack or cheddar out to the kittens every day.
“They can use the extra protein.” The avowed non-cat-person continued. “They’re too scrawny.”
I smiled and pulled out a block of cheese. “Show me.”
Very quietly, we crept out the back door. The kitties backed off a few feet. “I toss it up high, so they can’t tell it’s coming from me,” he whispered, arcing a cheese chunk.
It landed about a foot in front of JR. He pounced on it and zipped around the corner. The second piece fell inches from Brownie’s nose. He in turn snatched it up and scurried away. I giggled. “It’s raining cheese!”
“Manna from heaven!” We laughed together.
Wherever they thought their treat was coming from, the kittens thrived. They were healthy and fit. I put food out regularly now. JR, the larger of the two by about a third, always left the dish first. We surmised that he was the more successful hunter, and therefore less hungry. This allowed Brownie to eat more, he actually looked chubbier.
I worried about the coming winter. We had interfered with the natural balance, and now we felt responsible for the little critters. None of the kittens from previous years had stuck around. Never before giving it a thought, now we wondered if any had survived. We decided that since we had already meddled, we couldn’t stop now. We would not attempt to tame the cats. We would however, move the feeder into the carport, and provide a box for shelter. The little animals could use it or not, as they chose.
Over the next week, I gradually moved their food closer to the house, until it was under the overhang, out of the weather.
My husband fixed a nice cat hut out of an old Styrofoam cooler and lined it with an old blanket. He set it up near the dish, and we retreated to the window. Brownie and JR approached cautiously, and sniffed. It took the half-grown kittens about a minute to decide that the box was not only safe, but also fun to play in. I felt a sense of relief. We had done all we could do to insure the well-being of our outside cats.
Now, every evening when I cook dinner, I look out the window and see the feline brothers. Sometimes they wrestle. Other times they doze in the sun. They have taken to sleeping in the hut, sometimes. And every night, they eventually end up sitting side by side, staring expectantly up at the sky . . . waiting for cheese.
