February 5, 2009
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Second Generation Piebeans
About a year ago, Alice had a litter of kittens we called the Piebeans because of certain characteristics of the place she chose for her nest. That story is here. Alice went away when the kittens were weaned, and never came back. She was sweet, fluffy, blue and lovable, but one less fertile cat around here is a blessing, not a loss.
Starting about twenty hours ago, and into the night, P.K. Piebean (AKA Paring Knife, Petite Kitten) had six kittens, raising the feline population by 50%. Doug and I had been viewing her increasing girth with amusement which recently shaded over into alarm when she became incapable of slipping through the gap in the dog barrier to reach the cats’ feeding station. We had started calling her “Rotunda.”
Two of the new kittens are ginger. Two are the black and white tuxedo-pattern we call “dinks” in honor of Dickie Marcinko. One is a gray tabby, and the last-born littlest one is white. The litter hasn’t gained its own designation yet. They will not be called Piebeans. That would be wrong for several reasons. Each litter has to have its own name for genealogical purposes, and P.K. did not go back to the secluded kitchen cabinet nest where she was born.
She did something no cat has done here before. She had her kittens in a spot that is fully accessible to the dog. Heretofore, Koji has met new kittens only when they were mature enough to leave their nests. P.K.’s half dozen are in a battered and cat-chewed cardboard box on a shelf just a few inches off the floor, beneath a cushioned seat a few feet in front of the wood stove.
We use that seat for warming our feet, putting on boots, or just enjoying the glow and radiant heat from the fire. Several cats, including Pizarro and Tiny Ted, like to curl up on the button-tufted round cushion in front of the fire when it’s not occupied by a primate butt. Koji has curled his massive form on the too-small cushion a few times, to Doug’s huge amusement and my frustration at never having gotten a photograph of him there.
Koji apparently loves the new kittens. Maybe the atmosphere in the nest box is suffused with the oxytocin of mammalian bonding, maybe he has some other way of picking up the mood, or maybe he just loves kittens. Hilary, who was Alice’s mother, P.K.’s grandmother, had been fiercely protective of her kittens, and while she was around Koji experienced pain every time he poked his big snoot into the midst of a pile of nursing kittens. P.K. just lies there and purrs.
My first move when I got out of bed today was onto the seat by the fire. I was peering down into the shadows to see the white sausage-like thing born while I slept, when Koji sidled in between my knees and started sniffing kittens. From head movements, it was obvious that each kitten got its own careful olfactory examination. Koji’s tail was waving gently back and forth the whole time.
Then he pulled his head back out of the kitten box and laid his chin on my knee. He gazed into my eyes and conveyed, as clearly as if he could speak, his awed affection for the sightless, helpless, wiggling mammalian young in the box under the bench.
Updates and photos will follow, of course.
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I’m feeling battered. When was my trip to town? …last Thursday?!? A whole week ago, and I’m still exhausted and impaired. I know I overdid it, loading some heavy bags of cat food into the hatch at the last grocery stop. And then there was that tense and tiring drive home through the snowstorm.
Doug’s sleep cycle is opposite mine now, so I haven’t needed to awaken in the night to tend the fire, but I awaken anyway. I haven’t been helping my recovery with the hours I have spent at the computer this week, either. It would be more restful on the couch playing the PS2 or in bed reading a book, but I have no game that calls to me at present, and the bed is occupied by Doug.
Maybe I can rig a light somehow, so I can read on the couch… but I’ll probably just stay here at the computer because interesting things happen here all the time, and the book will be there whenever I am ready to pick it up.
Comments (9)
Koji’s probably happy to have something new to amuse himself with in that wintery wonderland of yours. Congratualtions are in order for the healthy new litter. hehe. More warmth huh? Hope you’re feeling more energized soon. Time is a good thing for that.
It’s funny how dogs and cats interact sometimes. We have two cats and a dog. One of the cats is your typical hunter-cat. The other was the typical lap cat – as in, only wanted to be on your lap when you were paying attention to something else, but always affectionate. As they’ve aged, the lap cat has started acting more and more like a dog. In fact, he and the dog do exchange hiney sniffs and have been caught sharing both the beds and food. But back to your kittens… Congrats, I think. New critters are fun. At least until they have their own personalities and one of them develops a poop-in-the-wrong-place habit.
It’s all fun and games until someone hocks up a hairball.
@Automaton_Emotion - Ugh. I found a hairball in my purse once, but I didn’t screw the hook into the ceiling and hang a basket there to hold my purse out of the cats’ reach until one of them scent marked it. If I knew which one of them it was…. Pissing in the primate’s purse is bad karma.
@SuSu - Oh, man… I am soooo glad all he does is puke.
i a lookign forward to the pix. I am happy that Koji is enjoying them. Koji and PJ are friends…that is sweet…Sassy
aw kitties. I want one once Baby grows a little more.
PS2 games Hmm what do you play if I may ask?
Reading online is my habit now and my book reading practice gets neglected. I love true life stories.
@Ikwa - My favorite games are RPGs. I love Final Fantasy, everything from FFVII on through XII, but X-2 wasn’t quite up to my expectations. FF Tactics is an older one, but I have played it through several times without boredom. I recently started playing Okami. It’s a lot of fun, and the music and graphics are pleasant. I liked both Disgaea games, and Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross. On the X-box, I liked Blue Dragon. I don’t like shooters or games where the visuals are depressing (FFVII is okay after they get out of Midgar), and I can’t play any that require fast finger action.
That’s adorable, about Koji and the kittens. So sorry Alice went away, hopefully she found a good home…one never does know. Sounds like you let them come and go and be just cats instead of cooping them up the way I do mine (lost one to a car once, don’t want to ever, ever go through that misery again).
@butshebites - At our old place across the highway, which we still own, there was a feral colony in the area when we moved in. We put food, kibble in 20 pound bags, outside in a sheltered area for them.
We live here now because the man who owns the land needed someone to stay and care for his animals, 3 cats and a dog, while he went to Florida, Hawaii, or somewhere, for the winter. He came back for the dog the following year, and gave me title to this trailer. The cats he left, our landladies, were spayed females. Two (Granny Mousebreath and Muffin) are still around, and Pidney, the one who captured my heart, went out one day a few years ago, and never came back. I assume that she, like Alice, met a predator. There are a lot of predators here. We’re all part of the food chain.
The perpetual kitten supply started with Hilary, a kitten born to a stray that Greyfox took in at his place. It was probably an unwise move, but I was missing my Pidney. Since then, I have loved a lot of them, and some of my favorites disappeared into the food chain. Still, it is better to have loved and lost…. In summer, a window is left open and the cats come and go at will. In winter, we close the door after one of them opens it and comes through, and for the ones too lazy or stupid to open the door for themselves, we respond to the scratches or meows and open it for them.
At present, four of the cats here choose not to go outside: Tiny Ted; his mother, Bagel; Fancy (a spayed lady from Hilary’s first litter); and Roosevelt, one of Ted’s littermates. There’s one more, beautiful Val, who ambushes me for pets every time I walk past him, that I wish wouldn’t go out, but I don’t really have the right to stop him.