The Momma is now interacting with us, in a certain fashion. She walks up the path and stares at the kitchen door--at me--then walks back to the shed. If I follow, with a bowl of food, she runs a bit away from the shed and peeks out at me from behind a tree. I leave the food on the step and talk to her as a cowboy talks to his dogies. You know that Wyoming will be your new home. What do they hear? She's up on the step and eating before I get back to the kitchen. Her black fur is a wonderful camouflage and sometimes I am not sure I'm seeing her at all, just the shadow between the steps. When she looks back at me, even when she's standing in the cracked doorway with only her head in view, I can see the gold circles of her eyes, as close to the cheshire eyes are I've ever seen in real life. Last night Libby went into her lair after dark to check on the kittens. Momma hid behind a table and put forth her growl. Libby poured some "kitty milk" into two little saucers at the edge of the kittens' area--the table leans up against a wall beyond that, and that's where the Momma growled. Backing away, Libby could hear Momma lapping the milk. Progress.
Meanwhile, there's a big yellow tom still lurking around. I looked into his face this morning at close range. He happened to walk past and heard a sound from me. He doesn't look in the least friendly, but fearsome. The worry that he might kill the kittens continues to be an active one.
Yippie ti yi yo. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjL-Xqb68Gc
why would he kill the kittens?
ReplyDeleteWell possibly this is old folklore. Libby recalls a childhood incident where such a thing happened to kittens at her home. As to the "why" of it, I have read (somewhere or t'other) that there's a genetic survival of the fittest argument for such behavior, wherein the feline male will kill kittens to insure his own genetic survival, since the mother will go into heat again after such an occurrence (again, supposedly). I can report no sightings of the big yaller yesterday, and the kittens are all fine. I'm waiting on a great photo my son-in-law took Saturday of the brood to start the next chapter of this saga.
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