Kittens in the garden

It is that idyllic time in between litters.
My heart is bursting with cats.

There are three beautiful kittens in the garden chasing bees.

(I have gone so far as to call the vet and order Revolution for all of them.)

You can see how well Kaboodle is doing, as she takes the time to stop and smell the flowers.

She has become so friendly, and sometimes now she comes when called, and I pet her each day.

Make no mistake, she is not tamed, and she will move off as fast as a small bird, and I can’t pick her up or anything like that, but she will come over and get her head rubbed and push her cheek and shoulder and hip against my hand.

Sometimes she has the emerald green eyes of her mother Shaka Zulu, the cat whom we now just call “The Mother”.

The Mother of All Cats stopped by the backyard this morning. She is growing lean with motherhood and nursing as she births kittens somewhere off in the neighborhood.

Then one morning, we will wake, and they will be here, here in her weaning grounds, as she tucks them under the playhouse, and teaches them how to eat young rabbits.

This began when we were away in Africa.
While we were on safari in late summer 2008, she was here, expanding her territory into a dog free backyard, a peaceful quiet field of sand and moss and violets.

The dappled shade of the foodchain.