Springtime in the Garden

We have babies. We have three little kittens who have appeared with their mother in our garden. They are far too thin. They are little scraps of bone and fur and for the last two days I have been putting out food for them. They disappear after eating, and don’t reappear until late afternoon, and I have no idea where they go or how the little mother keeps them so well hidden.

She is such a good mother. She is so thin, but a wonderful colour like very milky tea. She is a soft slick shadow of a cat, flitting quickly out of sight if she thinks her babies are threatened. She has long large ears, and a long thin face, and looks exactly like every cat on a Pharonic tomb painting. She was curled quietly under the arch that is the entrance from our drive to the garden feeding the babies, though she looks half starved herself. She was cleaning them with long slow licks. My gardener told me that he didn’t think she would survive having them because she was so weak.

They must have been there at least six weeks as even the babies eat anything I give them voraciously.

One is ginger and white – almost as if the back section was dipped in the ginger pot, one is ginger, and one is the wonderful pale apricot of the mother.

I am giving them at least one good meal a day. I really want them to survive – but I would like it even better if they were friendly. One had climbed onto the sill of a basement window that is ground level to the garden. Obviously it assumed I couldn’t get through the bars. I picked it up.

BIG mistake. It immediately turned into a whipping slashing SCREECHING machine. What looked like a soft little animal was hard and whippy muscle and the sensation was like picking up a thin pincushion with too firm a grip.

As a protective technique it was very effective because I put it straight down very fast.

Now I wish I hadn’t tried it because I have frightened it.

We also have one of Egypt’s beautiful coppery pigeons nesting in the gap between our bathroom shutter and the glass of the window – in full, if frosted, view of the bathroom. The nest is built, the eggs are laid and there she sits.

So - more babies are due. She has been sitting for three days and I have no idea how long they will take to hatch.

Thank you all for my lovely comments. I have regulars I hear from often, and even the occasional complete stranger – which means, not even a quilter! I now have a counter on the blog. It is really encouraging to see that many people check it every day.

Some have complained that they can’t work out how to leave a comment. You need to click on Comments. Then put your comment in the box. Then tick the anonymous box unless you have a Blogger ID. Then click on Publish. It is pretty quick really. The comment is on the site, but it is also emailed to me, so even if it disappears somehow, I have it. However, I can’t answer them, so please don’t think me rude if you asked a question and I didn’t answer.