With a full belly this evening Mister Mittens came upstairs to do some sleeping on the old Castro just one room away from where I am playing the ponies and playing with my finger puppets. Her two kittens are running all over the house in happiness and with youthful exuberance.

Mister Mittens might just be near 2 years old but she's the mother of four and she has taken care of them well. She was a street cat until 1/8 Pole made contact last fall and showed her some human kindness. She adored his touch and readily accepted food and the warmth at the downstairs saloon.

How she ever survived the blizzards of last winter I will never know but when Mom Nature called to tell her that she was to become a mother in early July she came to my house and dug a nest in my wife's flowers out front next to the front stoop. She was crying a bit and my wife brought her into the house while she was in labor.

When things got to be "right now" my wife laid her into her nest with a blanket out front. The birthing went well and four new cats made their debut on July 7th. In the morning Mister Mittens was nursing her four tiny kittens in a corner of my front stoop but I knew that the entire front yard was open to predators. As an old fart Marine I knew she was in a real bad defensive position. I had to move them and Mister Mittens didn't want to go. She wasn't happy when I went near the kittens.

She wasn't eating good and needed to eat. I finally lured her away from her kittens with a can of Bumblebee and got her around to side of the house. We go inside, she'd gone that way with my son before. The side door was open for her and I closed it. Mister Mittens got the food and I ran out the front door and moved the kittens to the garage with the blanket.

After eating I let Mister Mittens out and she raced back to her nest by the stoop. Her kittens were gone and she cried out. She paced all over my front yard as I watched and then she caught something. I still don't know if it was a sound I couldn't hear or a scent I couldn't smell but she raced up the driveway and into the garage like a horse going under 1:10 for 6 furlongs. I was happy that they had some protection. I closed the garage door and left it open maybe 6 or 7 inches so that the momcat could get in and out. She now had 3 walls around her and could defend her kittens from only one direction of attack.

I go out to the garage a few hours later with food and the cats are gone off the blanket. I figure the Momcat knows what she's doing and give it up to being stupid about cats. She took them away to a better place. And then I hear a "meow". In a rear corner of the garage Mister Mittens has placed her kittens behind "stored stuff" with like just a few inches for her to get in to nurse them. She's got her kittens stuffed into a spot where nothing can get to them without seeing her first. I feed her. She gets water.

The next day the temperature hits 100 on Long Island. My wife buys the cats a cat bed. The next day the temperature hits over a hundred and the garage has to be 110+. The cats come inside to catch some air conditioning - the wife and I did not want to bake a cat and some kittens in the garage.

The Momcat and her young ones caught our hearts. For a few weeks there were no litter boxes here. Mister Mittens would go to the front door to be let out several times a day. And then I read the "cat books". And then my wife took a liking to the cats. And then we made some decisions about adopting one or two. And then Mischief and Chaos got adopted by wonderful people. And then my wife and I got naked because we had sold all of our clothing for cat food.

I'm happy to have Shiloh and Trouble around the house. They both go to the vet Saturday for a second de-worm treatment and a rabies shot.

After that deal, their Mom goes to be spayed. Then they go for being "fixed".

Jeez, all I'm doing is giving three nice cats a shot for a decent life.

For some reason the cats love to be near my ancient 30-year-old flannel shirt. I think they like the stink - I wore it maybe 40 times and never laundered it before putting it on a hanger in the closet.

Mister Mittens tonight:

If I where you, I would play every horse by Kittens Joy

Nice story and I look forward to the posts to follow along.