FAMILY PORTRAIT

A teenage pregnancy is a disaster - until you wake up and her kittens have been born on your bed! Our young Pico (Picasso) is an excellent ratter. We thought too good of a ratter when she suddenly got very, very, very fat. And then we realized that perhaps the wind pollination had done more than germinate the vegetable gardens!

Tomorrow the adorable kitten triplets will be 5 weeks old. They were born during the last night of my Dad @quailbreeder's visit last month. He is the original Doctor Doolittle and had really hoped to meet the kittens before he returned home. They obliged.

Imagine his...ummm....delight (?!) to be woken in the middle of the night, the day before he left, to Pico in labour, ON HIS BED! I wasn't too thrilled by my lovely white guest linen being soiled. But Pico was a very proud mama.

Their eyes opened in their second week and by the third week we couldn't contain them any more! They are real little adventurers. Much to the horror of their panicked mama.

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This last week they have taken our house by storm. Humans have to beware of their footsteps because the little bundles are blitzing all over the place. And if you sit still for even a minute a little fluffy creature asks to be picked up. Or tries to climb up assisted only by claws.

As you can tell I try to take photos. But they move so fast that I have dozens of blurred fluff. Ever opportunistic, little ginger (who we are keeping and have named Hunter) plays in my camera bag. Until exhausted he falls asleep. The mask faced little tabby has been named Butterfly by her three year old human who will collect her in another couple weeks. And the pretty stripped boy baby has a tentative home however we are keen on keeping him too, and have named him Bandit. This year is an exceptionally bad year with snakes. We lost 2 of our cats this year and the increase of snake activity bears witness to the fact. They are excellent hunters and keep the snakes off our homestead so keeping Hunter and Bandit seems a wise decision.

When they aren't practicing their scary hunting moves they are fast asleep. They need that time to grow. Who doesn't love baby things. They are so full of life, health and promise. Goodnight fluffy kittens. Goodnight all you humans.