Kittens
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Kittens
Click to enlarge.

This is a good story...and good stories always begin with...

"Once upon a time"..last Sunday night around 10:30 PM to be specific, a couple of nice inn guests returned from a night out. They came into the "Great Room" and told me that there were hearing a strange noise outside the inn. They thought it might be a bird or something. So I went outside to investigate. It was pouring cats and dogs out with the storm that was passing through the area. Little did I know, as I walked out the front door of the inn, that it was literally r@!ning cats!

Off in the distance, in the area near the Snowstake, I hear a loud cry. I recognized that sound immediately. When you live near the forest, the cry of a baby animal is quite distinctive. I knew right away that it was a kitten of some kind....I was thinking raccoon...but that is not what I found.

Through the r@!n, I aimed a strong flash light at the sound. It was coming from some bushes near one of Mary's gardens. Because of the downpour, a mountain stream had encircled the bush on 3 sides, forming a peninsula surrounded by a torrent. As I walked closer, I could see some bright blue eyes staring back at my flash light, coming our from a tiger striped animal. From about 15 feet away, I still could not make out what type of animal it was in the dark downpour.

As I got closer, the animal did not move. It just kept crying out. When I got about 2 feet from it, I noticed it was not a raccoon, but a tiny kitten all of about 10 inches long. It was soaking wet and shivering in the cold. Obviously very afraid and separated from its mother.

I got one of Mary's garden buckets and picked the kitten up. I brought it to our shed and got a towel to try to dry it off. The inn guests told me that when they went out for the evening, they had seen a cat with a small kitten at the bottom of Butler Road. With some help from Mary (she had retired to bed early as she usually does but she got up with the commotion) we dried the kitten off, gave it a saucer of milk, and put it in a box in the shed for the night. Feeling safe, I presume, the cat stopped crying, curled up into a ball, and went to sleep.

On Monday morning, we looked for the mother cat. She was no where in sight. Since we are not cat people (I am very allergic) Mary called our friend, Pat Linnemayr. Patty and her husband, Walter, have had cats for years. Walter came right up, saw the kitten, and knew just what to do.

Monday night into Tuesday, between shifts of feeding the kitten with an eye dropper, Patty came back to the inn to walk the grounds looking for momma cat. No where to be found. About 5:30 PM on Tuesday, during one of the walk abouts, there was a feeble response to Patty's cat call coming from near the Inn's Covered Carriageway. About half way down the Carriageway Patty discovered another kitten, half frozen and barely moving on the asphalt. Patty instinctively scooped the kitten up and put it under her jacket to try to warm it up. It was clear that this kitten was from the same litter as the first I had found.

What happened to the momma cat is anyones guess. We have been keeping vigil around the inn all week. Patty has set a "Have a heart" trap with some cat food in an attempt to lure it out, if it has not become lunch for some other creature of the forest. We have also continued to walk the grounds; making cat calls on the chance that the mother is down some where, or there may be another kitten in the bushes.

I stopped down at Pat and Walter's house this afternoon to see how the kittens were doing. Both are now eating thru the eye dropper. Patty figures that they are about 5 weeks old. One is probably a male; one probably a female. They are both active and inquisitive, as kittens usually are. Patty is talking to some friends about trying to find them a good home. She figures that they should stay together, as they are obviously related...So they may live happily ever after........Let it snow!