A STOP ON THE KITTY CAT SUPER HIGHWAY

     We said good-by to Toupee today and Rod buried him under the pomegranate tree in the back yard.  Toupee used to sit under this tree and snooze.  I wonder what he dreamed of and I wonder what he had to dream about since we don't know what his life was before us.  He kept to himself and never let us pick him up and he wasn't too bad to the other cats.  Toupee was an abandoned cat, a stray, that showed up just after Christmas year before last.  He was a whole male all white except for a dark tabby tale and a round spot on his noggin that included his ears that looked just like he was wearing a toupee, hence the name.  His eyes were pale celery green, so unusual.  For some reason that time of year seems to be when cats get abandoned by their people.  Every year between Thanksgiving and the first of the year we seem to have a new cat come around.

     Pumpkin was the Monday after Thanksgiving close to ten years ago now.  This was before we took permanent residence here in the country and we had been up from South San Francisco to have Thanksgiving with our family.  Rod was taking the turkey carcass out to throw in the trash and around the corner came this long haired, short legged (we say he's part dachshund) orange cat.  Rod whistled and he came over when he spied the turkey.  He came in the house and crawled on my lap and Rod and I looked at each other and he ended up riding back to the Bay Area with us that night curled up in the plush lining of Rod's jeans jacket on the front seat of the Suburban on the bench seat between us.  The rest is history.  He became our baby and used to ride between us on top of the lid of a small container that held his personal stuff  on the bench seat of the Burb when we would travel back and forth the 150 miles north to the country.  We used to get big smiles at the toll plaza for the Carquinez and Bay Bridges.  A curious thing about Pumpkin when we first had him his whiskers kept breaking off and the vet said this was because of poor nutrition.  We think he'd been on the road for a while.

     The next winter in January a small grey cat showed up and took up residence in the out building.  She and Rod became quite good friends and I swear she's as smart as Cleo had been (see the story Cleo, 12/19/11) .  That winter had been so rainy and she was worried, worried, and we soon found out why.  She was carrying kittens and afraid that the floor of the outbuilding where she was nesting would flood.  Rod dug a trench away so the water wouldn't flood the floor and then we made her a nest on top of his old '68 Chevy Camaro hood with two nice sized cardboard boxes one inside perpendicular to the other to form a little roof and we put a nice clean towel inside.  She loved this.  She couldn't make Pumpkin accept her though and from then on they were each other's nemesis.  Oh, I forgot, she was solid grey and small with apple green eyes.  Because I'm from the South we named her Mosby after John Singleton Mosby, The Grey Ghost of Civil War history who was from my state and this name has evolved into Miss Mosby.  She had two kittens who Pumpkin loves and we named them Ranger (small and black) and Silver (white Siamese with black points).

     Silver and Ranger got  pregnant before they were a year and we could spay them and each had seven kittens.  I spied Silver with probably the father of her kittens high up about twenty feet in the blue gum eucalyptus tree in the side yard.  That was amazing to see.  Silver called and called when she came into heat but we never heard Ranger.  For a while there we were overwhelmed with cats but time and the "road" have dwindled that number.  Other than Pumpkin, Miss Mosby, and Silver we still have:  Spot-a tabby with stripes and spots, Skye-a tabby with a white muzzle and paws, and Jet-solid black.  We lost Silver's kitten Judy and she's buried in the roses in front of the dining room window.  She got hit by a car and Rod's brother Bob, next door, found her in his driveway while we were away and he buried her in the soft earth around his burn pile.  When we got home Rod dug her up and reburied her in the roses.  She was the first to stand at the family room door till we let her in and she'd sashay to the entry hall through the dining room and pantry to the garage door multiple times a day. 

     Over the years two other strays showed up one was a short haired orange whole male that was a marauder and all he wanted to do was bugger the other cats even Pumpkin.  Sorry to say we never named him and we were glad the road got him.  The other was a sweet long haired solid gray probably fixed male who Miss Mosby loved and we named him General Lee (after guess who!) which evolved into Mr. Lee.   Miss Mosby by this time had taken up residence in the garage on top of the water heater but she would come outside for General Lee.  I found them one day playing together with Mosby on top of an outdoor furniture end table and General Lee underneath playfully swatting at each other.  It was so sweet considering Miss Mosby growled at Pumpkin and never came out of the garage.

     At Christmas a year ago a wonderful event happened.  A tiny tiny baby kitten showed up at our patio door.  He was so tiny I know he was too young to leave his mother but what we found out is he wasn't afraid of the raccoons and even was swatting and playing with them when they came to finish off the cats dry food.  What we think is the raccoons had found him and adopted him because he was too young to fare for himself and the raccoon family included young kits of their own.  He finally decided to stay with us and we had him neutered and we call him Ruffles because his coat is swirly tabby markings with a white breast and paws.  He's as sweet as he can be and so much fun to watch playing..

     We believe Toupee, being a whole male, has probably been keeping away any new strays but now that he's gone there's sure to be more in the future.  Anything that stays gets spayed or neutered we learned our lessons long ago.