Going back, looking at cats

I tweaked my back recently moving a too-large load of soaking wet leaves, so I have no desire to go walking around the garden with the camera. Also last night I had a very strange dream about my cats shrinking, so I thought that I'd go "back" in time and collect my garden cat posts for you.

I loved it when I had stray cats hanging around in the garden watching me work, and the kittens were, well, kittens! 

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The first garden cat that hung out with me was "Growly", in late 2009:

That's him with "Whitey", who was not a fan of people and would always run if I got too close. I wonder if Growly (now called "Digby" after we adopted him) and Whitey were brothers?

In the winter of 2009 I think Growly lived in a burrow he made in my leaf pile (or was it 2008?)

Fall 2009 is when I started seeing a white cat who was so wary that she would disappear if she saw me, even if it was from 100 feet (30m) away. I'd see a flash of white then she'd be gone.

Then in late winter 2010 (February or so) she really stayed around for most of the time and would even come up to me and rub on my legs.

We called her "Super Whitey" because we give descriptive names to strays, and the name "Whitey" was already taken. He was a half-white male who stayed away from me and any other humans. This was back in March 2010 as seen here and here.

Then we realized that Super-Whitey was pregnant, and we let her into the garage to have her kittens:

There were just two luckily:

They were my first prolonged exposure to kittens, and I took lots of photos of them as they grew, especially when I'd let them out of the garage and they could explore the driveway and patio:

At 5 weeks they were at their cutest I think:

All of the kitten posts can be found here if you're eager to see more.

Meanwhile the two males were still hanging around the garden:

Whitey (on the left) disappeared soon after this (in fall 2010), but Toe White stayed around for a couple more years:

That's the last photo I had of him, from December 2012.

He was the last regular outdoor cat in my garden, not counting the occasional visit as I mentioned the other day.


I miss having a cat out there in the garden!

Note that our adopted cats are indoor only now, although they get to go onto the deck once in a while. We have a dangerous neighborhood for cats -- we always saw the strays injured and limping -- and we don't want them catching birds. Kumo (Super-Whitey) is the only one that longs to be outdoors -- the others are very content to be inside.

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