At that time my husband was on vacation the second week in December through the end of the year. He noticed the mother cat around the garage doors and heard the kittens inside. So, he put out bait of pieces of left overs just outside the doors, leaving the doors slightly raised. He sat in his truck with the garage door opener in hand waiting for the little critters to exit...but every time he closed the door it scared them back into the garage. Finally after a day or so they were all exited and he watched as the mother moved them from one place to another in our bushes until she had carried all away but one. After a few days she did not return and the weather was turning colder.
I could not stand the thought of that little thing dying in the cold in my front yard! So, I climbed under the bush and extracted the little skinny thing. She was not at all enthused to be extracted and was shaking severely. We warmed some canned milk and fed her. Then I did the craziest thing and took her inside, upon threat of my life.
She had this one eye that she kept closing as if to wink - thus being named Winkie. She was skittish and not that loving, but after all she was a feral cat and I figured that would change as she grew. Not much! Though she did win our hearts in her own way and six years later she is our mistress. She will sleep in the crook of my legs and she will sit at the top of the stairs waiting for me to come up from the basement garage when she hears my car pull in. She loves us in her own way.
Then, the Friday evening of Memorial Day weekend this year she took a leap off the back deck and disappeared. Now, she had ventured out with me many many times onto the deck with no interest whatsoever in leaving - she is so skittish about anything new that after a few minutes out there she always wanted back inside. But this particular night she leaped and was gone. We searched for her until 11 p.m. and I even got up at 3:30 a.m. and searched some more. Our plans were to leave for Knoxville to visit our daughter late Saturday afternoon, and we did.
Several days before Winkie took the leap, I noted a facebook post by my daughter's boy friend of a picture of kittens - adorable and inviting, but I did nothing. Until the thought of having a house without a cat, so I inquired. I made arrangements to get one of them - a little grey and white one - for me. I did mourn the loss of Winkie - it was however, her choice to leave, but I also love cats and needed to have another one.
Well, wouldn't you know it - Winkie did not like where ever she had gone when she disappeared, so she was on the back deck when we got home on Memorial Day! What to do, what to do. I had arrangements for a new kitten to come into my home and I still had a cat in residence who would definitely not like the intrusion into her world!!!
On Wednesday night (before Bonnaroo) my daughter's boyfriend brought the new bundle...and the old bundle was not happy. So, after depositing our newest family member, the boyfriend and the daughter left for Bonnaroo. That night the little one found the safety from the big one under the sofa and spent the entire night there. When she saw my feet go by the next morning she came out from under...thus receiving the name Sophie!
It has been a week now since Sophie came to stay and I have to report that Winkie is warming up to her some (she wants to play so badly, but doesn't know how). I truly feel that one day they will be the best of friends and will lay in the sun licking one another the way cat friends do. Sophie and Winkie BFCF!!!
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