With the acquisition of Darwin and Sunny, we kept trying to catch the remaining four kittens of Abby’s family. The kittens continued to come up to the deck to eat and play. We really enjoyed watching them scamper through the vines growing up from below. The black kitten was a particular fascination for me. It was obvious the father was a big black stray that periodically came up to eat. Both appeared to be pure black, sleek and beautiful. We never had a black cat before, and I very much wanted to collect this little guy.
Unfortunately, the black kitten was very elusive, and refused to enter the cage. But the dark brown tabby and the gray and tan kitten were not so coy. One evening, first one, then the other, decided to grab a quick snack following a good session of play. The tiny gray and tan kitten entered first, and while it munched, the dark brown tabby followed. Before either could change their minds and leave, I pulled the door closed and two more kittens were retrieved. These were the kittens I had been calling Reno and Potsy. We kept them in the big cage together, until they were tested for Feline Leukemia, and given a clean bill of health by the vet. Once they seemed at least a little accustomed to being around humans, we released them to the house, hoping they would learn to trust us more through observing the actions of their brother, Sunny and cousin, Darwin.
Reno is a very soft, full-coated brown tabby boy with dark black and gray markings. He is of similar size and coloring as Darwin, and unless we saw their faces or recognized some other characteristic, it was (and continues to be) difficult to tell them apart. Often, we just referred to them as “stripy-kitten” as they flashed or rolled past. Reno loves to have his head and neck rubbed, and will ask for such attentions whenever and wherever he wants. Sometimes he stands on his back feet and stretches up, clinging to my knee. Other times he will sit beside me on the bed as I’m getting dressed in the morning. As you scratch his head, he stretches and inches his way on your lap or off the edge of the bed, to the point where he sometimes falls on his head, unless I sit there and support him. While his head is being rubbed, his mouth relaxes and his lips curl up. It looks like he is grinning in ecstasy. It is the most comical thing to see. In the dark, I can always identify Reno by petting him. As my hand runs down his back, after a few strokes, he folds his tail back over his body, so your hand does a loop-d-loop. Reno is a real sweetie-pie! Reno’s Picture Gallery.
The dark gray and tan kitten turned out to be a little girl, another dilute (or muted) calico. Potsy doesn’t have the white spots that Bianca and Petunia have, she is just gray and tan. I like to call her my “little clown face”. If you look directly at her face, it looks like nature drew a line right down the center, between her eyes, then again cross-wise across her face. Opposite quadrants are gray and tan. But with her dark eyes, Potsy is really pretty cute. At first, she stayed out of reach of me. But I kept working at it, and eventually managed to pet her a little bit, even picking her up once or twice. Now, while she still doesn’t like to be picked up, she does like to be petted. One of her favorite places for attention is the bathroom. She has also been known to sleep with me over the winter. Potsy is very tiny, one of the smallest in the herd, but she holds her own against the boys, and loves to chase and to be chased. If no one is around to play with her, she is quite happy to play with herself, and has often been observed going round and round in circles, chasing her own tail. I wonder if she ever caught it? Potsy’s Picture Gallery.