Mom and Kittens

 It's pretty darn pathetic for some grown man to drive up to the park and toss out a mom and kittens, then drive off.  Too bad for him someone saw him and got his plate number and called the police, whom I hope throw the book at him.

Anyhow, I heard about it fast.  Happened after I'd left the park, but was still in Lebanon.  So I went back up and the camp hosts already had the mom cat in their cage sitting by the road, near the front of the park.  I had no equipment with me and was dismayed by the sheer number of people tramping the steep embankment and whacking at the berry vines with a machete to look for the other kitten.

One kitten had come out to try to get back with mom, in the cage, and was quickly popped in with her.  But the other kitten, was nowhere to be seen.  Much later I was precariously balanced on the bank amidst berry vines, some cut down, some not, when the kitten came out of a hole and made directly for me.  At that moment I began to lose my balance backwards and could not propel my fingers, that hovered three inches short of the kitten, forwards towards it.  It was so frustrating.  The kitten then vanished.

A woman from Alaska, with a hammock in her car, slept the night near where they were abandoned, to watch for them.  By that time, I"d gone home and got my kitten traps and then returned.  I was upset and worn out.  But it didn't stop me from trying.  I went home finally, and then returned this morning, to find nothing in the traps.  Reset, went home, took a long nap.  

I got back and it was already dark.  I'd built a second trap box, to protect the kitten trap from rain and larger cats.   I had a couple small size outside cat houses I'd made quickly also, just out of old litter buckets, some reflective insulation and straw.  I intended to hide them in deep root stump hollows, on that embankment, for the kitten, so he could stay warm.

I went up the trail and down, calling out in kitten talk and also human talking to the kitten asking the kitten to please show itself as it was just him and me now, nobody else and it was completely dark.  And by golly, I heard puny mews.  Took me a bit to find the source of the mewing, but I did and began responding, and the kitten came right to me. I put him deep inside my jacket and the contented purrs began almost immediately.  Kitten was also very very hungry.

I think there were only the two kittens.  How would I know though.

They're all in my bathroom, the mom and her two beauties, but the local shelter is taking them in the morning.  I was so happy tonight, with the kitten safely inside my coat, that I just beamed.  The kitten was happy too.