A few weeks ago, Frieda ~ (an adopted kitten from a group of five “fostered’ kittens), was up on the roof for a few nights, very agitated and doing a lot of cat calls.
Seemed she was calling another cat… a street/roof cat, (a feral cat) who occasionally comes to eat some cat food when she can sneak past the dogs.
I have my strong suspicions that this feral female cat is actually Frieda (Khalo) and Pablo (Picasso)’s mother… as she has been identified as such by some neighborhood kids. Because she strolls this neighborhood, I have taken care of many of her offspring that are “thrown away” by locals, who generally regard cats as equivalent to rats!
Why was Frieda so agitated? Well, turns out that said feral cat appears to be pregnant yet again and was trying to find a comfy spot for her babies.
We found a cardboard box and put it under a stool on our roof top terrace, as well as food, with the hope that the stray cat mom and her babies would actually have a safe place to be, right from the start. But would a wild cat actually use the box? That is the question….
Frieda settled down and the wild momma cat, from here on known as Georgia (namesake for O’Keefe) much to my delight, started to settle into that box, clearly indicating that her babies were coming soon….
Oh yes!!
We now have five tiny newborn little babies, living on our roof terrace in a cardboard box!
But big problem: it starts to rain and we realize that a huge storm is moving in our direction.
I spend a good amount of time setting up a makeshift dry “tent” structure over the box for mom and babies using my painting canvas frames to create a roof for the rain to run down, and plastic on the top to help make the tent waterproof. Towels and rain ponchos are used to fill in the gaps. It’s “tent city” for cats on our terrace. The rain comes down warm and hard for hours solid! I go back up a few times to make sure the family is surviving the storm.
Fast forward: two nights of “monitoring” the impact of the rain and wind on our makeshift safe place, and I decide to move the kittens and mom to an indoor area, namely our second bedroom.
Hopefully Georgia, the feral mom, will be okay with this move!
So we now have a wild cat living in the house with her babies. Its room service in this bed and breakfast for ms. feral Georgia! She is adjusting well for a wild cat, and is even eating pieces of meat out my hands and allowing me to pat her while she nurses her babies. Pretty amazing for a feral cat!
I intend to get this momma cat ‘fixed’ at the local clinic as soon as the babies are old enough so that this will be her last litter. If she plays her cards right, she has just had a major life break, as Georgia may very well join the Hubbert Peak menagerie.
New problem: one of the four babies is sooooo cute… we might just have to keep him…
UPDATE: We do of course keep a baby and his name is SALVADOR, also known as SAL. He grows up to be a huge big adorable lovable feline.