Here Kitty, Kitty

This last winter, as I was setting up the baby's nursery, I happened to look out the window. I saw a little calico cat on top of one of our garage cans. It was ripping a garbage bag open from the neighboring can. I felt so bad that the poor little kitty was so hungry it had to eat garbage. So I ran down to the garage and got some of our cat food and put it outside in front of the garbage cans. The kitty ran away when it heard me coming so I went back into the house and watched from the nursery window. I didn't see any sign of the cat but later that day I checked the found the food bowl empty.

I set out food for the next week and keeping an eye open to see if I could catch a glimpse of the calico. Any time I would, I would tell everyone who was at home and we would all crane to see out the kitchen window to watch what the cat would do. Any time we opened the back door, the cat would dash away. A few times, it would come into the yard while I was filling the food bowl and it would just freeze, frozen in seemly fear.

After a while I moved the bowl to our back patio so it would be easier to watch whether the kitty was eating, and easier for me to feed it in the cold rainy weather. It quickly became routine for us to see the cat come onto the patio. We would reward it by bring it food and Karl would always treat it with some turkey. We would get so worried when the little kitty wouldn't show up for days in a row.

Once spring, came more than just our cute little Cali was partaking of the free food. There was a big fat orange cat, what looked like his brother but grey, and a loud collared white and black cat. Now it's one thing to help out a little kitty that seems to be struggling to find food and a home, it's another to be feeding the whole neighborhood.

We have now adopted this little kitty, calling her (might be a him) Cali. She comes very morning and multiple times a day, snacking on food and even lounges on the patio or gives herself a bath. We can now walk onto the patio with her without her dashing off. Though if we get more than three feet close to her she will start to get nervous and growl or arch her back. Sometimes she peers through the windows in doors at us and I wonder what she is thinking. Does she wonder what we are doing? what it would be like to come in? Or is she watching to see how we treat each other, wondering if we can be trusted to treat her as well? With our own family cat passing this winter, we hope that our attentions and love can go to this lonely kitty, Cali if she would only learned to let us into her circle of trust.