Do you remember this past summer when a cat that I named Lilly showed up and had five kittens?   I posted about those kittens off and on for eight weeks and then I stopped.    Something rather tragic happened to this mother cat that captured my heart…

Three days after the last kitten was adopted, Lilly became very, very ill.   I’d had her at the vet just 14 days prior, and she had a slight rash.  Other than that, she was fine.  She was tested for feline leukemia (negative) and given all of her vaccines.   She seemed healthy in the coming days, however, the night before the last kitten was leaving, I knew something was amiss, and it only got worse.    Without going into all of the unsettling details, I made the painful decision to let her go peacefully.  I had her cremated and her remains are in the house in a small, wooden urn.   I’d promised this little cat she would move inside with me after the kittens were gone, and I wanted to honor that promise.    This mother cat spoke to my heart.  She was fierce in the way she protected her kittens, yet she trusted me completely.

When she had those five kittens, I wondered how I’d ever find them homes…I decided that if I could not find them good homes, I’d just keep them.   Weren’t they cute?  Two gray kittens and three “Oreo” kittens that were almost identical.

But…I did find them all homes!!   All of them found very good homes, and thanks to Facebook, I’ve kept up with most of them.

The kitten that I see the most went to my niece and her husband.   He was the wiry little gray kitten.    He was moving when the others were sleeping!  He was the second smallest kitten in the litter.

Today is name is Pip.  Sometimes he is Mr. Pip, Prince Pip,or Pippy; sometimes he is Little S*@t!!!   He is one of three cats, and he also rules a dog named Daisy.   Pip lives inside but since he lives on a farm, he gets to go outside when he wishes, and he has proven himself to be a hunter.   I don’t think he eats anything he kills.  He’s a sportsman type of hunter.  He terrorizes Daisy.

Our neighbor’s son and his very special girlfriend….Jason and Christine….took two of the kittens.  They were the first two adopted.   I keep in touch with Christine and she shares pictures.   Here’s the little gray one that they adopted.  I called him Huckleberry.  He was the largest kitten in the litter and he was an aggressive eater.  He had no issues knocking another kitten out of place so that he could nurse.  He seemed to be the “alpha” kitten!

Here he is today (below).   He is such a pretty boy.   He and his sister just got “fixed” a few weeks ago.

Here’s a recent photo (below) of the black and white Oreo that Christine and Jason adopted…her name is Kinky Boots!

The other black and white Oreo kitten is now called Sophia, and she’s pictured below.  She belongs to a young woman named Ann Eline.  She is in a lot of Ann Eline’s Facebook pictures and is her mama’s baby.

The last kitten…one of the three Oreo kittens…was adopted by a friend of mine, and I do not have a recent picture.  However, they are animal people so I sleep well knowing this kitten found a good home as well.

And that is where they are today.