For the purposes of those who have not met our cats and will wonder who we’re talking about: we have 4 cats, all female, all the same age from the same litters. Three momma cats living on a farm in a barn in the Catskills gave birth about the same time (March 23, 2014) to 17 kittens. When the kittens were 3 weeks old, we happened upon them when looking for 2 young cats to join our family. They were being fostered by Maureen, thru AnimalKind, an animal rescue group in Hudson, NY. We picked one immediately, an adorable long-haired grey and white cat, but he was already taken. Then we saw a beautiful kitten, female, bigger and stronger than the others, who was able to leap small objects in a single bound. Picture of health. We chose her first and named her Grace. I had wanted an all-black cat for many years and they had one, a female; she was choice #2 and we named her Java. Okay, we had our two cats and we continued to visit them regularly because they were too young to leave their moms and were still nursing. Unfortunately, most of the kittens in this batch became very ill, several of them dying, even though Maureen had a vet making house calls to care for them. They’d contracted the Colicci Virus and the prognosis was not good. The adorable male grey cat became quite ill, and Rob had become quite attached to him even though he was already claimed – he had an amazing personality. Grace, warrior that she was, sneezed a few times and was the healthiest of them all. Java was ill and lame with a high fever and a badly swollen leg. I sat with her for hours and she became “my baby”. There was another kitten, a tiny female, all grey (for those familiar with the Russian Blue – that’s what she was). She was very sick and loved to be kept warm in our arms, hiding her tiny face in the crook of the arm. Just stole our hearts. #3 was chosen and we named her Luna. Luna ended up with the swollen leg, high fever, and started losing weight, which she couldn’t afford to do. She was hospitalized. Soon the grey and white male cat was hospitalized, too, and they didn’t think either would pull through. But when taken to the animal hospital, thru all the long fur, they found out that he was a she – and the people who had claimed her decided they didn’t want her anymore because she was sick. We jumped on the opportunity to take her, such a beauty with the incredible personality, and named her Pixie. Now we had signed up for 4 female kittens and we waited to see if Luna and Pixie would survive. Eight weeks later after the 4 girls had been given a clean bill of health, we brought them home, but Luna and Pixie still had a long way to go until full recovery. Each weighed less than a pound when we brought them home.
These are our four babies: Grace, Java, Luna, and Pixie. They will be 3 years old during our first retirement trip. You’ll see pictures of them in the blog from time to time. They’ve traveled before, but never camped longer than 2 to 2-1/2 weeks at a time.