The Nature of Things

Back in July, I told you about a new addition to our household - a tiny kitten that had turned up under mysterious circumstances in our driveway. We never learned where the kitten had come from but no one claimed the little mite and so we took her in.  Bertie, about a week after we found her. And, yes, it was her , although our first impression was that "it" was a boy, thus the name Bertie. Truthfully, at 12 ounces, there wasn't much to work with in determining gender! When I took her to the vet, the estimate was that her age at the time she came to us was probably four or five weeks. She was also full of parasites - not unusual for a feral kitten - so we had to deal with that. But Bertie took it all in stride , made herself at home, and set about putting us, including our two other cats, very firmly under her paw.  Bertie, considering one of her humans. Well, here we are three-and-a-half months later. Bertie is around five months old (estimated) and weighs in at 4.1 lbs...

We have lived in this neighborhood for 27 years. During those years, especially the early years, there have been a number of animals, mostly cats or kittens, that have been abandoned here or have found their way here after being abandoned. I came to think of them as throwaway kittens, a prime example of humanity's inhumanity. They were animals that had been betrayed and abandoned by the humans who should have cared for them. We did our best to care for them and adopted many of them. When our children were growing up, hardly a spring or summer went by without them bringing another throwaway kitten home. The last of those adoptees finally died last year at the age of 16. Four years ago, we adopted Beau and Bella who had been rescued by our younger daughter along with one of her friends when they turned up, abandoned, near that friend's house. Since then, we have not had the occasion - or the necessity - of adopting another animal. Until last week. Last Tuesday, as I was getting r...