Year of the Cat

I recently kept seeing this cat in our yard for a couple of days, but didn't think much of it. I just thought it was annoying and shooed it away before the dogs saw it.

I had also briefly heard muffled noises sounding like baby animals, but dismissed it as an overly hopeful misinterpretation of nothing at all since I generally go baby animal crazy in the spring.

Then suddenly last night I was outside and heard the noise again, and upon further investigation into a window well, found this:




FIVE newborn kittens! They were so beautiful! All squirmy and mewing like crazy! Their eyes were still closed! I was worried because their was no mamma there to keep them warm, and the temperature had significantly dropped due to an oncoming thunderstorm, but eventually she came back. The next morning I went to check on them and there were only 3 left! The mamma had decided to move them (hopefully to her home with an owner!) I figured that this was my chance to hold them. I discovered that they still had their umbilical cords attatched, so they had to be very very new little things! They cuddled up to my sister and I, blindly squirming in search of milk and mewing as loud as their tiny lungs would allow.

Gradually, the mom moved all of the babies, but I took a little video first:








(Al Stewart)