Welcome to Mama Homesteader!

Follow my family in year 3 of our homesteading journey. Along the way we try to answer the question ," What can one small family do to change their lives on little more than 1/10th of an acre?" Let's Find Out!

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

The joy of Kittens

 

      I have a few fond memories of being a young child, and experiencing the joy of having newborn kittens in our home. It was a rare event in our house, but we lived in the country. We didn't have our cats spayed and neutered,  mainly because the crusade to prevent overpopulation wasn't in full swing. Secondly, well there were no funds to do so. But in the end, I remember two sets of kittens being born into our home.
  There is something absolutely sweet about kittens. Soft fur, tiny ears and tails, little meows. Although the logistics of finding homes for kitties these days is extremely hard, mainly due to the economy, I would rather have a house full of kittens than seeing kittens homeless and in danger. That is why we decided to bring in Dandelion, the pure white stray that adopted us and became our outdoor cat. We knew that she was VERY pregnant, but realised as well that we had six raccoons wandering our neighborhood. We enjoy our furry neighbors, but it was a very real possibility that harm would come to small kittens if they were discovered. So in came Dandelion on the 6th of July, bringing the cat population of our house to seven....


  Indeed we knew she was very pregnant, and had pondered bringing her in for sometime. But that day I just knew that if I didn't bring her in now, then she was going to have those kittens outside. I didn't know exactly how true that was! Within an hour she was extremely clingy, wanting me to follow her around and be with her. That lasted until four in the morning. I finally had to shoo her away because she woke up Sarah as she was laboring on Sarah's bed. As Sarah and I fell asleep, several new members of our family were being born into our home.
  We woke up and went about our morning routine, and Dandelion was right there yowling at me. Turns out I wasn't paying attention quickly enough and she nipped me on the leg. Shortly after that I found a kitten crying on the basement floor, and after cleaning her up, gave her back to Momma- who in turn took her under the couch.  I later moved the couch and discovered five little kitties! Three white and two black, but unfortunately two of our kittens did not make it.



   I can see the excitement in Sarah's eyes every time we spend time snuggling her baby kitties. They've been a valuable lesson on life (and death), on gentleness, and on responsibility for her. As they get older, I'll be able to give her the supervised responsibility of feeding them,socializing them, and playing with them.
  All of our cats, except for Dandelion and Snowy, are fixed. As soon as possible they'll both be spayed to prevent any future kittens. There won't be anymore kittens, so we'll be enjoying every second of our time with ours before they find new homes to spoil them rotten.

                                             Cheers! Mama Homesteader