Kitties

 

We had to do it.  Living on an acreage you have to have either cats or mice.  We chose cats.  Our builder generously offered to give us two of their most recent litter.  The girls were very excited.  Bernadette picked a tiger striped one and named her Grace for a few days…then Alice…but when she tried to change it again a few days later to Mary, we put our foot down and made her stick with Alice. 

Clare picked a black one that has a few white spots on its under belly and named her Sally Soona – Sally for short.  Clare’s not to keen on holding the kitties and Sally’s not too keen on Clare picking her up, so they make a good pair.  Bernadette fearlessly picks them up a hundred or so times a day.

Alice is an easy going cat and has always been good about letting Bernadette pick her up, play with her, etc. But Sally took a little longer to get used to her.  Because Sally was harder to catch and didn’t like to be held as much in the beginning, the girls became kind of scared of her.  I tried my best to hold Sally whenever I got the chance and try to get the girls to warm up to her and not think of her as a “bad cat”. 

Bernadette spent the whole first week we had the cats in the garage playing with them.  On the second day, she was holding Sally and sitting in our wagon.  When she went to get out, her foot got stuck and she almost dropped Sally.  Sally freaked out and scratched her hand up a bunch and tried to bite her.  Thanks a lot, Sally.  I was trying to get them to like you and you pull this!  After I assured Bernadette that Sally is not a bad cat, but rather she was scared and Alice would have done the same thing, she forgave her.

Now, weeks later, the novelty of having kitties has worn off.  Both girls still spend some time playing with the kitties every day.  Clare even manages to catch one every now and then.  And Bernadette is very good at making sure they get fed every day and back into the garage at night.