A Kitten Named Milkweed

We were sitting in our living room a few weeks ago watching Castle Rock on Hulu.

It was about 10 pm and we had a few episodes to catch up on with this show inspired by the characters and settings in Stephen King novels.

One of our cats was sitting in the window that’s to the left of our front door.  The window was open as we had turned the air conditioner off and we were enjoying a coolish summer evening.

There was some commotion at the window.  I don’t remember if the cat (it was Kit-Cat our female tabby who’s tiny) hissed or not, but there was something going on at that window.

Man-Farmer said “why is Cali (our tortoiseshell female cat) hanging on the screen?”

We pushed pause on the remote so we wouldn’t miss anything on Castle Rock.

I got closer to the screen and said “that’s not our cat.”

This is not the first time I have said those words about a cat on our porch.

Once, Zoe carried a big-eyed tortoiseshell cat in through our front door.  I remember looking at this cat, we all thought it was Cali, but upon closer inspection I realized it was NOT Cali.  “Um, that’s not our cat Zoe.  Put that cat outside.”
“It’s not?”  she said.
“NO!  Look at it, it has HUGE eyes, that’s not our cat.”
She went back to the front porch and set the cat down and sure enough realized it was not our cat.  It ran off and we never saw that cat again.

So, back to the cat hanging on the window screen…”that’s not our cat” was out of my mouth before Man-Farmer and Zoe ran over to the window and we all realized it was a kitten.

It jumped off of the screen and ran off the porch.  But, it didn’t run too far away.

We saw it peeking over the edge of the porch, trying to get a vibe on us.

Zoe and I sat on the porch as Man-Farmer went to get some food for it.

We put down a bowl of crunchy kibble and it warily got closer to it.

It was hungry.

And it was kinda semi-feral.

It wanted to get closer to us, but it was very scared.

We managed to get some quick pets in.

It was purring.  But having trouble breathing, eyes were goopy.

We put a box on the porch with a bowl of water and hoped to see the kitten when we woke up the next morning.

The sun rose and we got up and the kitten was not there.

We put out more food and hoped to it would come back.

And she did.  This went on for a few days.

Scared…happy…hungry…sleepy…scared…hungry…sleepy…she slept a lot.  Not something a kitten usually does.

She eventually realized that we are A-OK and Gigi named her Milkweed.

She has been taken to the vet.  She had fleas, an upper respiratory infection and ear mites.  I gave her a vaccine to protect for cat diseases and she’s taken over our hearts.

No, we don’t need another cat (this cat makes our total feline population 7), but she’s just too sweet to give away.  Her coloring is called lilac or dilute tortoiseshell.  I think lilac tortie sounds better, so that’s what I say.  She’s a gray version of a traditional tortoiseshell coloring.

We live in the country.  People dump animals in the country all of the time.  We have had our share of strays that have shown up on our porch, in our barn, and in our bushes.  Animal control has been at our farm many times picking up strays.

This little girl has joined our clan.  She’s about 4 months old.  She will need to be spayed.  She follows the big cats around hoping to be friends.  The only one that sort of tolerates her so far is Popcorn.

She was initially VERY scared of the dog.  Now she is curious about him.  She hides in the hallways or under the dining room table watching him as he goes by.  And then she runs out after him and now he’s scared of her!

We are keeping her in the house.  She likes to sleep wrapped around Man-Farmer’s bald head at night.  She likes climbing through Gigi’s Lego collection.  She likes chewing on Zoe’s Converse shoelaces.  She likes being loved by a family.

Oh, and she likes watching television…