CATS!!!!!!

Cats! Lots of cats! We went from being a family with one cat to a family with 5 cats temporarily. If you know me then you know I am a sucker for animals. Danny and I have rescued over 25 animals since we got married. Most have been dogs. But, now, it is CATS! I have to admit, we have too many and two must go! Our sweet Gumbo is almost 10 years and we decided to add a cat to our family to give her a companion. We added 8 week old Cali the Calico kitten. She was our rescue at one day old when momma cat proceeded to give birth in our backyard and walk off (or so we thought). I will come back to that comment. Our Vet Tech bottle fed her and got her to a healthy age and then we took over. Two days into our new happy family, momma cat shows back up at our doorstep begging for food. Sidebar....Did I forget to mention we had been feeding momma cat for about 3 weeks before she gave birth(didn't know she was pregnant)? Our goal there was to earn her trust to get her Off the street. She would come in and eat in our kitchen and immediately want back out. She was very moody and took a long time for her to warm up to us. Bck to the story....two days after bringing our sweet Cali home, momma cat shows up for her evening meal and has a kitten in tow. Oddly enough the kitten is the same size as our little Cali. After our shock wears off, they both come in, eat and leave. The next morning, momma cat shows up with her baby plus an additional bundle of joy! Are you keeping count? Where were all these fur balls all this time? In a coinki dink, our neighbor was tearing down a shed in his backyard the same day the kittens appeared. They lost their shelter and momma brought them to us. At the very next feeding time, we let them in on the kitchen floor to eat. Momma proceeded to eat, sit down, and not want to leave! Her usual bit of eat and bolt was no more. We knew at that point she had no more kittens outside. Fast forward to today. The kittens are 12 weeks old and two WILL be finding new homes in the very near future. As for momma cat. She has turned out to be the calmest and laziest cat ever. So our family now consists of Our sweet Gumbo, 12 week old Cali, and Crytal the 2 year old who has decided we are her forever family. I am sure this will not be our last animal adventure. I truly believe, they put out a signal to animals everywhere that a sucker lives in our house and they will not be turned away. Oh, and if you want to know how to keep a house clean and smelling fresh with 5 cats, I am the queen of that department. Hopefully my next post will be written with two less curries pouncing around my living room.