Chaos and the Bremmie have become closer in the last week. No more hissing, some play fighting, more grooming and now Bremmie is letting chaos suckle her. I'm sure the keg is empty but Chaos does not seem to mind having a surrogate. They are becoming great friends.

Chaos is eating good! He's growing like a weed!

Mister Mittens still lets Trouble and Shiloh have a nipple now and again but Dr. Wallach told me last Saturday that she should be dry by orders of Mother Nature after 12 weeks but as their mother will let them have a go at it out of deep maternal instinct and love for her kittens. He also told me that it's not impossible that Mister Mittens could still be producing small amounts of milk but that she's probably only pacifying them until she gets fed up with the deal.

Cats are incredible creatures.

Here is Chaos doing his best Shiloh impression. He can sleep anywhere he pleases but he seems to prefer this dustpan for his afternoon siesta.

Yup, that's Shiloh's brother.

Aw...that is so nice of Bremmie.

I believe cats so like company and companions when they get along.

great stuff.....just great stuff

I never saw myself as a Cat Man. I have owned dogs all my life. Susan was a pup and I had her here for more than 19 years. Sandy the rotty was adopted by me around the age of 3 and lived to be 15. Susan and Sandy were good girl-buddies and when they got old and died I figured we were done with pets.

And then Mister Mittens showed up and 1/8 Pole brought her into the downstairs saloon last fall. She was such a nice cat and was happy to be fed and petted and offered a place to nap. She'd come around again but we never saw her over the harsh winter. We would see her hunting and jumping fences in the spring. We would give her food. In the spring of this year I was out back with a contractor and explaining what the bride wanted done. The cat jumped my fence and the contractor said something about "wild cats". I told him that this young cat was a friend, that my son had made friends with it. I leaned over and laid out my hand - the cat ran over rubbed up against me. I fed the cat.

Fast forward to July 6th with the cat ready to go into labor. It was let into the house and parked next to my wife in the living room. My wife was petting the cat and after a while exclaimed, "This cat is going to give birth!"

As a woman who hates cats the bride snagged an old comforter for the cat but the cat was clawing at the front door to get out and give birth on her own terms in a nest and defensive position. Trouble, Mischief, Chaos and Shiloh were born in the dirt next to my front stoop early on July 7th.



In the morning my wife went to work and my son went to Ohio. I knew that was a bad place to be for the Momcat with the front lawn and street wide open for anything to come in on her but she wasn't happy with me when I approached her newborn kittens. I wanted to get the cats into the garage so that the Momcat at least had 3 walls around her for a defense with a door open (no, we were not adopting any cats then).

I got Momcat into the house for food by the side door, locked her in and galloped out the front door to snag the kittens. They went into the garage on a comforter. When the Momcat was let outside she went into a panic with the kittens gone. I grabbed her and brought her into the garage.

Later that day I went to the garage and all the cats were gone off the comforter. The Momcat had taken them all to the deepest darkest corner of the garage and had them in a nest that she could defend behind some stacked stuff. I brought her food and water and left a door open so that she come and go.

The days of 95 to 100 heat came and the garage was an oven at maybe 110. The cats were brought into the house.

As the days went by my wife named them - Mister Mittens got her name from a character out of a book my wife liked and had nothing to do about confusing her as a male from when she first showed up. For several days we let Mister Mittens out to do "her business" and she was wonderful at it. We knew that she would "clean up" after her kittens but we were dummies about cat care.

The bride buys cat beds and cat food and cat toys and I go to the library to bring home "cat care books". I stare up at the sky and cry out to God why he has me reading about pussy as a 62-year-old former U. S. Marine who's been married 37 years.

Anyway, we got two adopted into loving homes and the others are now house cats.

We must be doing something right. At night home from work and while reading a book on the sofa my wife will often have cats on her lap sleeping. During the day when they are playing I can walk by and lean over with a hand extended - the cats run over to me for a head rub or a pat along the back.

The hours between 4 and 5 a.m. are tough though - thats when I get cats in my bed looking for breakfast. No teeth or claws however, just gentle head butts and paws with no claws working my feet.