Because we're such good chum.....ps....

There have always been cats and kittens living in and around our backyard. We don't really mind as long as they don't poop in the lawn. In June, a kitten got up in the wheel well of our car. Great. We coaxed it out with food. Soon this kitten was hanging around our house. It was teeny tiny, and CRYING, so we fed it. (You wouldn't think it was teeny tiny judging by Sibbie's -one of our indoor cats- reaction. When she saw it outside, she tried to climb the windows, much to our amusement.)

A couple of weeks later, another kitten showed up. We can't remember if it was the all black one in the wheel well or the black with white feet. Anyway, we started occasionally feeding these two kittens. We knew they were probably off-spring of Senor Botas (whom I wanted to name Mr. Boots, but we couldn't, because we don't like such obvious names for cats... so we named him Senor Botas, or, in Spanish, "Mr. Boots"), who was black with white feet, and was born last year behind our neighbor's garage.

Suddenly, it was as if every cat we saw near our house was black with white feet. So, we named the big one Bass, the medium one Alto, and the kittens, of course, were the Sopranos. Ha ha.

It took us awhile to cotton onto the fact that there were indeed THREE kittens... one black with white feet, and TWO black ones. Ah ha... that's how they could seem to be everywhere. We can now tell the black ones apart because one is very bold, and will look at you like you owe him something.

I kinda got used to the Sopranos hanging out with me in the garden. Sometimes Alto would be there too. I think they were still being weaned at this point, because we weren't giving them more than a treat every once in awhile. One day, I saw a pile of kittens sleeping in the sun. There were the 2 black ones, the black with white one, and... a tortoise shell one. What the?!

4 kittens. I admit that we made a tactical mistake here. We started putting food out regularly. The mama (Alto) came a couple of times with all the kittens, but then she stopped coming. (Oh, and did I mention the pregnant Alto2 that had been hanging out too?) Now the 4 kittens hang out on our deck and we feed them every day. So, yes, we are chumps. Since they let us get close, we'll probably get them fixed when they're old enough. I think we've reconciled ourselves to the fact that we've got 4 outdoor cats now.

Oh, and we decided on new names for them today... since there are 4 of them. Pestilence, Famine, War, and Death. We'll probably change their names again when the mood strikes.

Check out pics of them on the left.... and tell me, what the heck would YOU do in a situation like that? Please, no haters.