Cats, Clouds and a Silver Lining!

I am sure that by reading the title of this week's writing, you will have gathered that cats come into it.

Yes, they do.

And a guardian angel by the name of Michelle.

A few weeks ago a stray but friendly female cat arrived at The Poleyard. This yard is right next door to Phillip's nursery, and Godfrey at the Poleyard started to feed her. Sage, (the resident nursery cat) was not overly impressed by her arrival, but as long as the food was plentiful, they seemed to get along. I met her briefly when I went to buy plants and she was happy to be stroked and held and we knew that she was used to people and had probably been dumped/abandoned/chased away.
She decided to stay and Godfrey was happy to keep her, but the first thing we needed to do was to have her spayed.

But as you have probably guessed by now.......she was pregnant! Too pregnant to be spayed, we knew that kittens were on their way. We just didn't know how soon that would be!

I saw her last Sunday (18 Sep) at the nursery, looking very pregnant and then she wandered off into the poleyard to have a snack.

Godfrey was planning to make her a little wooden house so that she would have her kittens in a safe place, and he was going to move them into the poleyard so that they were away from the parking area when they were old enough to frolic and chase around.

Last Monday morning (19 Sep) he phoned to say that she had had her kittens!

And where did she have them? Nobody knew!


The area of poleyard and nursery is huge and it is surrounded by farmland, so she could have chosen any number of places! We wanted to find them to get them used to human contact, to make it easier to find homes for them when the time came. I drove there to help find them.

We finally found them under a huge shrub between the nursery and the poleyard! Phillip and I saw two, a white one and a dark tortoiseshell one. Only two? Great, finding homes would be easy.
The next day they counted eight!!!! But as it turned out, there were in fact only five. Two white, two ginger and the dark patchy one! They stayed under the shrub for a few days as we didn't want to disturb her. The weather was warming up and the rain was over.

So we thought, until Monday when a cold front arrived!

The box tucked under the shrub.

I gave Phillip a large wooden box that had once been a dog's flight kennel, so plenty of room for mum and kits! And a blanket to keep them warm. He put a smaller cardboard box in the wooden one and moved the kittens in! He put the box under the shrub and hoped that mum would approve.

Warm and cosy until mum saw!

But mum took one look at this, and carefully moved each one out and put them next to the box. So Phillip put them back into the box and mum took them out again and put them next to the box! So he left them where she wanted them, as he was concerned that she may move them far away to stop him fiddling!

And it rained. Poured actually, we had 8 mm overnight and into the following day. But all was well, they were safe and stayed dry as the bush was so thick.

Godfrey was finding homes for the babies and I was working out when it would be safe to have mum spayed.

The rain stopped but the dark cloud remained, because this morning Godfrey phoned.

I knew from his voice that there was a problem. And there was. Mum had been run over on the road. She was dead and she had left her ten-day-old babies.

We needed help.

I had Michelle's mobile number so I phoned her. I explained the problem and asked her if she could help.

Now comes the silver lining. She was driving........past the poleyard!! Yes, she could help, yes she would stop and pick them up. She had a mummy cat at home who had milk but whose kittens had died. As we were talking she turned into the poleyard and within minutes had rescued them.

Like the Lone Ranger.

Godfrey is going to give the dark tortie a home once she is old enough. She will be spayed and I know that she will be cared for.

So, my heart is heavy but I know the kittens will find homes and Michelle has helped more than she will ever know.

But the saddest thing for me is this:

We never gave mummy cat a name.

We thought we had time to find a name to fit her.