Theo & Millie

The weather has been sunny with a chill, almost chilly enough to require a jacket. The National Weather Service posted, “This morning, with high pressure over the region, clear skies and calm winds helped the temperatures to fall into the 45 to 50-degree range in the interior part of northern Michigan. Some protected location even dipped into the upper 30s this morning.” In other words, the weather has been perfect. However, we are expecting warm, humid air this week–I think due to Hurricane Barry in the south. Yuck.

With Madeline gone, Annie appears very lonely and sad so we decided to get another outdoor cat to keep her company. Also, we have chipmunks. We see them running around, sitting on our deck, climbing up the posts to stuff their fat little cheeks with sunflower seeds from the feeders. They don’t scamper away until we are quite close to them. They are very cute and fun to watch but I can imagine our chipmunk population exploding and them becoming a real nuisance. So we posted on the Michigan Barn Cat Project that we were looking for a cat.

As I mentioned the other day, we just learned about the Michigan Barn Cat Project, which is a group on Facebook that finds homes for outdoor/feral cats. It connects people with outdoor cats with people wanting outdoor cats. All cats must be fixed and vaccinated before they are rehomed.

A woman commented that she had two cats needing homes and we agreed to take them. She and her family brought them to us early this afternoon. We like to keep new cats contained for a few days so they can get used to us and their new surroundings. After some thought, I had prepared a place for them in the storage side of the chicken coop/shed which is where they will shelter in the winter. Putting them in the coop provides them with a safe place, and yet also helps them and the chickens get used to each other. They can see each other so they can get used to each other, but not mix.

The cats came with names, but I like to give them our own names. One cat looks like Madeline but is a male. I think I will name him Theo. I think I will name the black female cat Millie. At the moment, I like old fashioned names for our cats.  They are both a bit scared right now in their unfamiliar environment, which is normal and expected. They are hiding behind the straw bales I put in there for them to hide behind until they feel safe and to sit on. The woman said that they are very affectionate (once they aren’t scared) and very good hunters. They will be able to keep our coop free of rodents,

EJ and I go out to the coop now and then to pet the cats and help them become familiar with us.

We had sort of a scare. The family had the cats in a pet carrier. We took it around to the coop in the back yard and put the cats in the coop, also showing the family where the cats would be living. As we started to walk back to their car, the Mom noticed one of her kids was missing. As we rounded the house, the child emerged from our house. It never occurred to us that a child would just walk into a strange house. Our house is NOT childproof, and there are all sorts of things she could have gotten into, such as medications. She could have let Hannah out of the hallway where we had put her to keep her out of the way. We don’t know really how Hannah interacts with small children, especially ones she hasn’t been introduced to. The child hadn’t latched the front door, so Hannah could have gotten outside if she had been let out of the hallway. Our indoor cats could have gotten out too. In fact, we thought Little Bear had gotten outside because he was missing for several hours. At first, we just thought maybe he was hiding somewhere, but when we didn’t see him after a while, we went looking for him inside and then outside the house. We couldn’t find him anywhere. And then suddenly we found him calmly sitting in the kitchen window. Anyway, we decided that in the future, if we are outside with parents of small children, we will lock our doors to keep everyone safe–both small humans and animals.