October 16, 2008--Kittens

One of the outside cats that had been hanging around for the several months had given birth to kittens a couple of weeks ago, but we hadn't seen them yet. She'd had them somewhere in the woods. The only reason we knew she'd even had them was because she'd gone from fat to skinny all of a sudden.

We have a laundry room on the back of the kitchen, and the door from the laundry room to the outside has a handle that doesn't latch properly. Often it doesn't get shut all the way, and ends up swinging open. The inside door from the laundry room to the kitchen is the one we usually keep shut.

Yesterday evening I heard something crying, but I couldn't figure our what it was. I thought it might have been one of the puppies, but it sounded too close. Finally I went to look, and it was coming from behind the washing machine! There was a little, wet kitten behind there. It was raining and the mama kitten had decided to bring the babies into the laundry room to get them out of the rain. We put a box in the laundry room with a blanket, and put the wet baby kitten in it. The mama comforted her baby, and we left the back door open and then went to bed. By morning she had brought two more baby kittens in out of the rain. They all look exactly alike. We've moved them into the cat carrier now, but they are still in the laundry room. The dog and the cat don't get along well, so I'm not sure I want to put the cat carrier outside. I don't want to keep them inside, either, though. We're still trying to figure out what to do with them. They sure are cute, though!