Rosie, a New Member of the Society
Here we have another telling from the Annals of the St. Bee Kitty Rescue Society.
We have a regular visitor to our Society headquarters, she is called “Messy Faced Mom.” As best we can determine she comes around primarily to be impregnated by our resident inseminator, Stealth. Their liaisons result, like clockwork, in three litters each year. Both Messy Faced Mom and Stealth, hereinafter MFM & Stealth, respectively, are wily little folks. They have over several years eluded all of our ruses to trap them. Once we have them enrolled in the cadre of trapped, neutered, and released (TNR), we will all be happier. Stealth is not sure he agrees with that.
In any event, MFM’s most recent parturition brought forth an unknown number of kittens. MFM arrived on kitchen porch looking bewildered and put-upon. We can only guess that her new offspring were demanding of nursing, cleaning, and comfort, and that she was having none of it. We suspect that having birthed no fewer than seven kittens in previous litters in less than a calendar year, she was seeking her main chance to abscond from maternal duties. Why not, she reasoned: Stealth, the impregnator, was sitting with no acknowledged parental duties at all. He sits fat and happy overseeing the Meadow of likely paramours. Well, MFM has had enough.
MFM secretly aspired to a relaxing winter at the Society’s hearthside. She cautiously dreaded “Hav-a-Heart” trap. Food, presented alluringly, overcame her maternal instincts and her flight drive, and she risked the trap. As hoped (by us, not her), that contraption worked as designed and MFM was trapped.
She was introduced to other cats in our home but was incarcerated in a crate large enough for me to fit, easily. A cursory examination did not disclose whether she had recently given birth. She refused to play along and show us her under parts. She spent all of her time curled next to her litter box. We were concerned that she may have some kittens squirrelled away in some secure, warm spot now that colder weather has arrived. MFM would not make it easy for us. We couldn’t open her crate and try to follow her to her nesting place. Freed she would undoubtedly scamper off into the wood-lae sheltering our home. She might be lost to us and more important to any kittens she may have birthed.
The “Hav-a-Heart” trap was unshelved and redeployed at random spots around the meadow. We had neither seen nor heard any new kittens. Time would be running out on any little ones without proper shelter or food, if we had captured their mother. The search intensified.
We have plenty of hidey-holes nearby just made for kittens: a neighbor’s corn-crib or barn, another’s potting shed or beneath their new side porch. It is surprising that across a usually quiet landscape, especially in cold clear weather, small sounds are discernible. During a tour around a shed leaning against our neighbor’s barn, Shirley heard a tiny meow. Carefully and quietly we opened the rusty-hinged door and peered into the cob-webbed space. A passel of kittens, an undetermined number scampered away. Calls and clicks unavailing, we decided to place the baited trap in the shed.
The trap had to be disabled after dark because a kitten alone, untended would be exposed and afraid. Early the next morning the trap was rearmed and additional food placed within and around. We left for mid-day hours. On our return one tiny kitten was madly careering around the metal mesh. She was yowling, hysterical. The trap was taken across the field and the edge of the meadow and into our home. Our plan to place the little one in the crate with her mother went well. Neither acknowledged or, presumably, recognized the other.
Other kitties in our home visited the crate, pawing at the new arrival. Her reaction was neutral to them and to her mother.
Shirley looked at MFM and told her that her newly saved kitty would be known as Rosemary. We did not know the gender of Rosemary so Shirley has decided, with my assent, that we will call the kitty Rosie covering gender assignment from Rosie Rose to Rosie Greer.
Rosie and MFM remain sequestered. Shirley and I continue over twice daily visits to the rearmed trap. New food and clean water are abundant. We’re hoping that like last year when Stormy, aka BabyFace became part of our family, Rosie, her mother, and the rest of that little family will make our home, our society, theirs as well.
SDC
Thanksgiving Weekend
November 26, 2021
