Kittens

Calico kitten peeks out from the logs

Black kitten eating some delicious food

A few weeks ago, we were driving home in the evening, and a black cat raced across the road.  Kristen spent 15 minutes trying to trap it so she could feed it and take care of it.  The next day, she bought a couple pounds of cat food to try and lure it to our house.  That’s how much she misses our cats at home.

So a few days ago, she was excited when we noticed an adult calico cat walking around on our back patio, peeking in on our asado.  We threw it some extra bits of meat and bone, and it seemed pretty happy.

Then, a couple days later, Kristen was absolutely floored when two baby kittens (maybe 3 months old) showed up on our back porch and appeared to be living in the logs under our asador (BBQ).  There were incredibly cute!  One was calico, the other black.

They were extremely afraid of people, yet over a number of evening and morning feeding sessions (Kristen made a mix of milk and cat food), they seemed to be getting pretty comfortable with Kristen, and would let her come close.  She couldn’t have been happier.  She fed them and kept them safe by chasing away dangerous foxes.  We started making plans to catch them, take them to the vet, and raise them until it was time to leave in May.

But after the 3rd night in the wood pile, the mom came back.  It was the same cat we had seen at the asado.  We haven’t seen the kittens since.  We think the mother cat located the kittens in our wood pile after she received some asado meat, thinking it was a good, safe feeding spot for them.  But maybe she noticed them getting a little too comfortable around us?  Or maybe we scared her and she protectively took the kittens away?  Regardless, it was a bit of a tragedy after how much fun we had with them over those 3 days.

Kristen still leaves food out on the sill and checks the wood pile periodically, hoping they’ll come back.