As the kittens play

It’s a beautiful cool and windy day in Michigan today, only 68 degrees.  Last night we received much needed rain, almost 2 inches of it.  Of course it was on a night when we had a yard sale set up outside.  We moved the clothing into the car last night and covered everything else but it was a soggy mess this morning.  Still my plants are very happy this morning and I’m happy for them.

 We had 9 baby ducklings hatch last week.  I moved them into a pen outside for a couple weeks with their mamma.  She hatched them in the chicken coop but the kittens were way too interested in them and they had access to the coop. The pen is in the outside area reserved for ducks and turkeys and eventually mama duck will be able to take her brood to the pond.

 The pen has a blue tarp over it for a top.  The kittens follow me around everywhere even though most of them don’t want me to touch them.  After I feed all of the birds I usually sit down outside the barn to observe things for a few minutes.  The kittens have begun to use the top of the pen as a big stage for them to perform huge elaborate skits for me.  They run across the tarp, they wrestle, they skitter through the dry leaves collecting on top, they chase their tails and pounce on flies.  They climb the fence next to the pen and leap down onto the tarp top.

Poor mama duck underneath all this activity keeps cocking her head warily at the tarp above her head, probably wondering just what the heck is happening.  The baby ducks no longer seem bothered by it, its normal for them.  But I soon feel sorry for her and go somewhere else so the little cat brats will follow me.

 There are seven kittens left from 2 mama cats, neither of which I have seen in several days.  That’s ok because the kittens are about 3 months old.   One of our other old barn cat females died this week and I am beginning to wonder if the older cats aren’t roaming somewhere and someone is poisoning or harming them.   This old white cat that died had distemper some time ago, the only survivor 2 years ago when distemper swept through here and killed all the other cats.  For a while there was only her around then a momma cat moved in last fall and had 5 kittens in a groundhog hole under our propane tank.  She has since disappeared and now all the original 5 kittens are gone too, if the two females who had this batch of kittens are truly gone.

 It’s strange since all of the kittens here appear healthy so I don’t think a disease is the cause.  The momma cat that came here last fall was a terrific hunter and really cleaned up on the population of mice and rats.  The two daughters that had this current crop of kittens were also great hunters.  I hope they had enough time to teach these babies well.   I didn’t like it when they hide under the ramp in the front to catch birds at the feeder but we did like it that the mouse/rat/ mole/ rabbit population had dropped.

 As my husband says seven cats are enough to feed so I shouldn’t worry about it.  I think 4 are males and 3 are females in this batch so we have plenty of cats to carry on for a while.  One gray male and a little golden striped female are pretty friendly and allow me to pick them up but the rest only want me to feed them and watch them play.   They meet me at the door at feeding time.  Barn cats are a whole different breed from house cats in many ways.  Our dogs don’t play well with cats so we have barn cats.