2. Share a photo that best represents your August so far.
My weekly Writer’s Workshop contribution has somehow managed to become a weekly update on my summer bucket list. I can tell you right now, I will not visit all 5 of Washington’s volcano’s this summer. That was quite a goal in and of itself. BUT…I would like to officially check off fostering healthy kittens because, drumroll please…
We have kittens!
We received them just one day after mama kitty Fern gave birth. Someone had brought her in to the animal shelter just in time! Unfortunately, they were absolutely flooded with cats and kittens at the time so they depend on foster families to step up or these kittens would be raised in small cages. Not nearly as comfortable as my kitten nursery!
Laina liked the name Fern for the mama, so we named her and all of her babies after nature. I was bummed we didn’t have a couple more females so that I could use Rosey and Lilly…coming up with boy names was a challenge.
It has been three weeks. Around the two week mark we got to see them begin to open their eyes and already at three weeks they are getting difficult to contain. Mama Fern is taking really good care of them and it’s so nice to see them all thrive. This is exactly what I wanted after the last horrible foster experience.
I uploaded our experience with them over the last three weeks in this video:
(video here)
And now I want to keep them all. I don’t have a standout favorite yet (I keep changing my mind), but it will be fun to see their little personalities develop! We will probably have them for another 4-5 weeks and that will give them plenty of time to outshine each other.
Which one would you choose!?
Patty says
Hmmmm…..I want that one, no…the other one….no, the orange one squished behind the calico one…no…..sheesh, I love them all!
You are such a good person for doing this along with anyone who opens their door, and heart, to foster care. There are so many animal horror stories out there, not enough kind souls to help and way too many village idiots behind the situations of animal abuse and neglect.
You shine, Kat!!
John Holton says
The key reason we don’t foster cats is because we’ve decided that, once Cece and Molly (our two survivors) go, that’s it. (Ours has been home to 36 cats in 42 years; I think we’ve done our part.) We know that, if we foster a cat or more, we’ll end up keeping them. Being cat parents is a long-term commitment, and, being realistic about it, we don’t have a long term to commit to.
Seriously, they are adorable, and you and your family are doing a great service. Our Humane Society, which we did some volunteering for, is positively overrun with cats. They’re so fussy about who they allow to adopt that many of the cats have spent their entire life there. We had to stop volunteering for them eventually, because we were afraid we’d break down and end up with all of them living here…
Rhenee says
We are looking for a kitty male .