Here at Keller Farms, most of our kitties are fed in the barn – at various places high up where the puppies can’t get to their dishes. Over the years, we have fed many kitties that didn’t live here and some who ultimately came to live here! Late last spring and summer I began to notice a beautiful small, long-haired black kitty around the barn. She would frequently be lying on a feeding shelf in the barn in the day time but would immediately run away when any human came anywhere near her. Being out and about behind the barn at various times during the day – with horses or without – I was finally able to see where this black kitty came from. She would come in through the back corner of Irish’s (my mare) pasture, up along the fence line and enter the barn from the back. One day during the summer I got a good look at her from the side and saw that she was pregnant. Oops.
After awhile, I didn’t see her anymore. Hopefully because she had had her babies and not because she was road kill. We live down a dirt and gravel lane about a quarter of a mile off the surface road. Like most country roads, the speed limit on the surface roads is 55 and people tend to do that or more. Any animal that is trying to cross such a road is gambling with its life. A long time ago, when on my way home, I had stopped to chat with my neighbor whose property is along the surface road and perpendicular to the back of ours. Along side her property is another dirt & gravel road that continues along the back of our property and beyond. While we were visiting, I saw this same black kitty, coming from my property direction, crossing the surface road! Very dangerous. This same dirt road continues to a dead-end on the other side of the surface road and I suspect that is where she was living. Being aware of her very dangerous trek every day, I guess I was always thankful when she showed up!
Summer ended and the days got shorter as fall set in. Suddenly one evening feeding the horses, there was our black kitty, only this time, waiting by Irish’s water buckets. I fed her right there. She was there the next night and the next so I moved an igloo-style dog house we had over to Irish’s so she would have a fixed place to eat – and shelter, if she wanted it. And she was always there.
Bob and I wear ball caps with LED lights for feeding and watering horses in the dark. One such evening, Bob called to me that there were three other sets of eyes lighting up in Irish’s pasture along the fence! Having never told Bob that the black kitty had been p.g. I was pretty sure these other “eyes” were her children. Sure enough, after putting down the food (I’d have to fall back to not pose a “danger”), the little ones would cautiously scamper through the pasture to join mom at the food dish. Too dark to discern colors (shining the lights directly on them made them run away, of course), I could only tell that one was sort of light, one was very dark, and one appeared to be partially white.
Ultimately fortifying the igloo feed area for protection from the winter storms, the visitors continued to eat at Keller Farms every night! With the coming of Spring and longer daylight, we were able to better see the colors of the visitors. One was black like mom, one was white with gray spots on its back and one was a pastel calico. Actually, the calico was the only one of the three bold enough to not only come every night but come into the barn with mom to find out where the heck their food was! (I could not feed any kitties till the puppies were put back in the yard.) This little calico is really pretty. And has a tiny “mew”, as does her mom. I named the calico “Sweetie Pie” and Bob named the black mom “Magic”.
Here endeth this post but not the story. In the words memorialized by Karen Carpenter, we’ve only just begun. Stay tuned for the continuing saga of the feral kitties at Keller Farms in the next post.