Life on the Road

A small miracle happened this week…

We arrived in Florida Sunday evening, and got our first look at our winter home.  We’d been warned over and over not to get too excited, since it was “just a little, old house,” etc.

It is fairly small, true, and an older house - but’s it’s an adorable Art Deco bungalow, and has a huge sunroom that adds tons of space.  We’re thrilled.

The owners decided to tent all the houses in this area (three of them) for termites, so Monday the pest control guys showed up.  During their inspection of the third house, which has been empty over the summer, they reported hearing kittens under the house.

As we pieced the story together later, the family knew that there were kittens… somewhere.  And, in fact, they had been trying to find them in earnest since Friday, when Mama cat was killed. 

Only one of the family was around at the time, so he and our family became the Cat Rescue team.

The first pair came out without too much difficulty.  One pale orange and sweet, the other a feisty tiny calico.  The other pair hid deep in a hole in the cinderblocks, and gave us all a bit of a fright.  Eventually they were located, but getting them out was still a problem.  Two feet straight down in a small hole, and the one on top was mean!  She hissed, spit, yelled, clawed, and bit right through the gloves of anyone trying to reach in and grab her.

A hose was the next gambit… surely spraying some water on them would flush them out.  But it only made them madder.

Finally we arrived at the desperate solution: he took a hammer and began banging.  Although we hoped the noise would scare them out, he was willing to - and eventually had to - break a hole in the bricks to get to them.

He dragged out the one on the bottom, the only long-hair of the litter, and a sweet calico girl.  It still took a bit of doing to drive “meanie” up and out (another calico).

Three colorful girl, and a cute orange boy.  Saved from starvation because the termite exterminators happened to come, and now living happily in a big kennel on our dining room table.

I have been saying for a while that I’d like to get a couple of kittens, since I’m already concerned about the age of our two Old Ladies.  What a blessing to have this litter delivered up into our laps!  Looks like we’ll be keeping two, and one of the sisters will take the other two.  Of course, we’re not sure yet which two… 

It’s been a bit of a challenge, of course, since we can’t go in the house yet.  I assure you, the RV was quite small enough with 4 of us, my growing belly, and 2 cats - who, by the way, are furious about the interlopers.

Luckily one of the sisters is a cat person.  She loaned us a great big kennel (now occupying our entire dining table!), and ran to the feed store to get some kitten formula and food.  Fortunately they have taken to drinking the formula from a saucer, so we didn’t have to go as far as bottle-feeding.  They aren’t mch interested in the solid food yet (soaked nicely in their formula), though.  They really are tiny things.

In a way, of course, the timing is ideal.  I feel for them losing their mother at such a young age.  But by all accounts she was truly feral, and would have raised them to be little wildcats as well.  As it is, within an hour of their rescue they were snuggling up and sleeping in the crook of our arms, and after a day of TLC they are happily playing and roughhousing with us and each other equally comfortably.

Of course we have pictures…  Just… Ummm… I don’t know where the camera interface cord is…  LOL  So much stuff got shoved around to make a place for this gigantic cat castle, the RV is in even more chaos than usual!  Ack!

Anyhow, the termite treatment is done today, so we’re going to start fixing and prepping the house for paint!  And I’ll find those pictures…