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We didn't know anything about cats. In fact, hubby hated cats. Well - he used to. Booger (a Maine Coon Stray we began feeding when the weather turned cold) started the turn-around. But Sheldon clinched it. And Lazlo…. Well, Lazlo was in-between.
It was spring, almost summer. Beautiful sunny days, warm weather. Hubby was very focused on the grass. Making it thick, filling in the "bald" spots - you know, beautiful, weed-free grass in the yard. He came in one afternoon and said - you know, I think I saw a bunch of kittens out there! "Really?" I ran out with him - but didn't see anything.
 The next day he opened the door. I definitely saw kittens! They were playing under the bus and the picnic table and scampered up into the woods. We clambered up the little path through the prickly bushes - and lo and behold! a mommy cat had decided to make a nest in an old groundhog burrow. We'd seen mom around before. She was one of "the garbage-can raiders." But here she was, with her family. What should we do now?
I went on-line and found www.TheCatSite.com. I went to the forums - they have a Feral Colonies forum. I figured "feral" meant "wild," and that's what we had: cats living in the wild. I was encouraged to feed them. I wasn't sure that was such a good idea at first - I mean, if we fed them, how would they learn to live on their own? Well, of course, the answer was - feed them, adopt some of them, and find the other kittens homes!
But we didn't plan on all of that happening. Not at first. We decided to go ahead and feed the little ones. They were so cute! But wow! were they scared of us. We must have seemed so big and threatening. Patiently, day after day, we took food up to them. We made sure they had water. We sat near them while they ate. We tossed them treats, and little by little they came to trust us. Two of them were far bolder than the others, and allowed us to pet them while they ate.
One day they all disappeared. My heart dropped like a stone. Where did they go? Would they come back? Should we have already trapped the mom to have her spayed? My head and heart were in a tailspin. But they were just on a field trip with mom. After several days, they came back! My heart skipped for joy. We resumed feeding the little bunch of scampering furrbabies (and mum, who would always wait until the kids were done before having any food herself).
It was the day after the Fourth of July. The family was nowhere to be found. It was pretty quiet around here, so it wasn't the noise of festivities that drove them away. Another field trip? But later that afternoon we thought we heard a kitten crying. We checked out the burrow, but didn't see anyone. The next day, we DEFINITELY heard a kitten crying. Hubby and I looked at each other - what should we do? I'm terribly allergic to cats. He was still very new to not hating cats. Should we bring the little guy inside? What if we just couldn't make it work out? Well, we told ourselves, we can bring him in. If it doesn't work out, we can work to get him adopted by someone else. That's what rescue shelters do, after all, right? 
So inside he came! Hubby picked him up from next to his burrow-hole home, where the poor little guy cried and cried and moaned his loneliness and fear, and placed him in a crate. (We bought the crate when we'd decided to take the Maine Coon stray to the Vet to get spayed over the winter). If he thought he was scared before, this little guy was scared now! He SLAMMED and SLAMMED into the crate so hard hubby was worried he'd seriously hurt himself. Hubby carried him inside, and the poor little one cowered in the back of the crate. Hubby creatively took an 8x8x8 baking pan, filled it with dirt and placed it in the crate for the little boy. We were thinking he'd want it to use to go to the bathroom, but no, he went and sat on the dirt. Of course! That's what he was used to!
We called the Vet immediately. Needed to get the little fellow checked out. It was late in the day, and they were booked solid (and didn't know us back then!), so the receptionist suggested we bring him in the next morning (Sunday). She said a doctor would be in from 10:00 to 11:00 am.
Throughout the evening, hubby kept taking the little guy out of the crate and holding him. Our little boy would bury in, hiding his head in the crook of hubby's arm. We kept him in the crate that first night. We decided not to let him loose until he'd gone to the bathroom. Of course, the poor thing was so scared, and no one got any sleep. We placed his crate up on a table next to the bed, and kept opening up the door to let him out into the crook of hubby's arm.
In the wee hours of the morning, the kitten finally broke down. Once he'd used the dirt to go to the bathroom (one of the longest pees he's ever taken!), we praised him to high heaven and took him out of the crate again. I don't remember when it happened, but at some point during that long, long night, our little boy began to purr. What a wonderful sound!
We saw the Vet, who said we had a very healthy little boy on our hands! He gave him some de-wormer, and sent us on our way. We drove straight to the Pet Store. We decided not to leave him, terrified, in the car. Hubby opened his shirt, and in slipped the little kitty!
He crawled down the arm from around the back of the shirt. He wormed his way so far in, hubby had to almost take off his shirt when we checked out so we could get the little kitten back into the crate for the drive home!
Fully equipped with all the cat accouterment, we drove home, excited to see what would happen. We left him in the crate until we got the litterbox set up. We took a little bit of "used" dirt from the make-shift litterbox, placed it in the new one, and opened the crate door. The newest member of our family bolted like a shot out of the crate and into his new box. He was one relieved little guy! He took to his new bed right way, and slept off some of his fear. We placed his bed on "daddy's" bed-side table. We woke up that night, with little Lazlo curled up asleep on the pillow just above my head.
Needless to say, I saw the Doctor and got all kinds of scrips: Zyrtec-D, Nasocort, and a steroid cream for the hives. We quickly learned that little kittens, especially feral ones, will find any small space you have. Lazlo found all of ours, and we spent hours fishing him out of spaces he shouldn't be and then making them inaccessible to our little guy. He cried by the door for several days. He was easily distracted by play, but he still missed his family. Which, several days after we "rescued" Lazlo, reappeared! Well - we were already Mom and Dad, so there was no going back. But maybe he'd be happier with someone to keep him company….one of his siblings, perhaps? In came Shelly!
 Sheldon was ready for it. Waiting for it, I think. We decided to bring in a friend for Laz, so hubby trundled up the hill, and Sheldon, the friendliest of the four kittens left outside (and always daddy's favorite), trotted up to hubby. Hubby picked him up, walked down the hill, and handed him in through the front door. Little Shelly was warm in my arms - took a look up at me - and must have said to himself - "what the heck am I doing here?" and LEAPT out of my arms. He RACED to the front of the home, then RACED to the back of the home, then RACED to the front of the home again - to daddy - where Lazlo tackled him before hubby got to him. There was hissing, ears were back, and hubby ran up and separated the two. He picked up Shelly, who trundled to the favored spot - inside hubby's shirt.
We didn't know then what we know now. We should have kept Shelly in a separate room - let them get used to the new space little by little, not all at once! Let them meet each other slowly - not right away!
They tussled a bit after that - but nothing so terrifying as that first squabble. We were here for several hours with them together, but HAD to leave for the airport. Should one of us stay behind to monitor them? They'd have to be left alone some time - might as well get used to it. It didn't look like anyone was going to be seriously injured. We both decided to go.
We opened the door with some trepidation. What was the house going to look like? In what kind of shape were the cats going to be? We peered inside. Nothing was amiss. We looked here and there for them. Couldn't find either one of them anywhere. We checked all the spaces we thought we'd made inaccessible. Our "barriers" were still in place. Finally, we looked in the crate, which we'd left open, next to the bed. There they were. Curled up together, a ball of kitten, sleeping soundly. And what looked like contentedly.
Shelly, despite his gangly legs and small body size, quickly established his role as Alpha. Lazlo took it pretty well. They squabble over the position from time to time, but Shelly usually ends up on top.
They're eight months old now. We had them neutered after they lost their first baby teeth (about 5˝ months old). We did trap their mum and have her spayed. I'm so glad we waited until we were absolutely certain the kittens were at least 12 weeks old, because when we released her after that, she never returned. So we became the caretakers of the other kittens outside. We had them spayed and neutered, too. As a matter of fact, we now put enough food out for all the cats who come and go. And hubby has become an expert trapper, and we've had all the cats we can trap sterilized. I don't know if we've become "crazy cat people" or not, but there's no doubt that we are cat caretakers!
All the kittens from that litter and the other litter that showed up are now safe and happy in their new forever homes. As to Lazlo and Sheldon - well, they're our boys. Lazlo isn't a lap cat, but he wants to be loved, and I'm more than willing to give it to him on his terms. He's my stoic little boy, who sleeps every night on a sheepskin next to me on my bed-side table. And Sheldon - well - he's the unflappable Shelly. He seems far more like a hand/home raised cat than a feral. He recently became a lap cat, and he is daddy's boy! Hubby is convinced that Sheldon is the reincarnation of the 11th Panschen Lama (the Lama "that brought comedy to Buddhism"). That's our Shelly!
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