Family!

April, 1997

OK, if you're expecting a geneology of several generations of registered pure breeds, you won't find it here! The picture to the right shows some of my half-brothers and sisters. That's Mom on the left, the attractive matronly calico.

To anyone's earliest knowledge, my traceable family tree began when Mom wandered in several years ago--rumor has it that she had run a shady operation in an abandoned chicken house at the other end of the county and had to hi-tail it out late one night! Anyway, she settled down here, making herself at home in the horse barn (see photo at left). She contented herself with horse feed and mice for awhile, until the humans discovered she was there and began leaving cat food every day. That's when she decided she had stumbled upon the good life and, when a friendly orange and white tomcat moved in, she became, er, fruitful, and multiplied! The orange and white cat eventually went off to see the world, but Mom never lacked companions (according to my sources!).

Enter me and my two sisters, Chigger and Skeeter. We were born in the horse barn near the end of August, 1996! We never knew our father; Mom never talked much about him. From the few whispered comments we overheard from the relatives, I gather that he cut a fast path through her life--you know, here today, gone tomorrow! At any rate, I figure that I must take after him; I certainly don't look like her! Chigger and Skeeter are both orange and white, and built just like Mom. They both live with the parents of one of our humans; I hear that I am now an uncle twice over (or is that eight times over--Chigger and Skeeter each had four babies)!

June, 1997

FOOTNOTE: Much to my chagrin, I learned that Skeeter ran off when her kittens were only two months old, leaving Chigger to raise all eight kittens by herself! Chigger has always been a scrapper (she was the runt of our litter), and I hear that she just backed her ears and took over the brood with her usual aggressive determination!

No one has heard from Skeeter; I must say that I'm disappointed in her lack of commitment! After all, raising four kittens can't be any harder than keeping two stubborn humans in line!

August, 2000

FOOTNOTE 2: I've just heard that Chigger, after having VERY successful careers as a champion mouse-catcher and a mother and grandmother several times over, met a sad end on the road in front of her humans' house. She was crossing the road at night and wasn't quick enough to avoid an oncoming car.

Some of her descendents look very much like me, I'm told. Hmmph, and I thought I was one-of-a-kind!

"Cats have enormous patience with the limitations of the human mind. They realize ... that we have an infuriating inability to understand, let alone follow, even the simplest and most explicit of directions."