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Feels Like Fall

Sunday
8/18/2013

We handed off Marie nine nights ago, then took an early flight to Boston and drove from there to Maine, where we attended Ted’s family reunion. Beautiful lakeside setting, with tall pines, sprawling lawns, and a sandy beach. Nice weather for lounging outdoors. Then two days visiting museums and catching up with friends in Portland and Boston before flying home to surprisingly cool weather.

Our housesitter survived her stewardship of our three rambunctious young dogs, though I’m sure it was a draining six days. Adding June to our pack effectively doubled our canine activity level.

We got home last Thursday evening and spent most of Friday cleaning before I drove Martha back to the airport so she could fly to Uganda for a three-week work trip. So I’m hunkering down with our feline and canine staff, which of course means… time for more kittens!

I picked up a nursing mom and her four female kittens on Sat morning. They’d been with a Homeward Trails coordinator for two weeks, and during that time they’d overcome their upper respiratory infections and resumed nursing and gaining weight. The mom-cat had responded well to meds, was eating heartily, and was producing enough milk that the kits just needed a little topping off with a bottle.

Pulling the kittens out of the carrier and plopping them in the nest was confirmation that these furballs are in good shape. Silky fur, clear eyes, and round bellies tell the story. Mom was a little shy at first, but after exploring the villa and snarfing down a few cans of wet food, she seemed pretty satisfied with her new domain. That was yesterday, and today she purrs like a wood-chipper when I enter the room. Eats like one too.

So the biggest challenge with this group may be telling them apart at a glance. Three of the kits are lookalike brown tabbies (though one has white paws). The fourth is a tuxie.

They're also already named, and those names must remain immutable under the new HT database regime. Too bad, since we always get interesting and relevant names from our readers.

The mom-cat’s name is Autumn (I guess her time is coming soon.) Her kits are named Boxer (there's a name we never would have thought of), Daphne (we had a dog named Daphne when I was growing up… this Daphne is the runt of her litter), Callie, and Hailey.

Rather than solicit suggestions for a litter name in an attempt to come up with a unifying theme, I threw in the towel and decided to call this all-girl posse Autumn’s Eves. At least the name will gain relevance by the time they’re ready to go home.

So far the Eves seem to be ahead of the pace we saw with the Blinis and Sea Questers. They all still weigh less than a pound, but they’re rambling outside the nest and sticking their noses into the canned food while Autumn eats. If they mimic her purring volume, the Eves will be pretty irresistible.

filed by: TS

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