The Kitten

Back at the end of August, a kitten showed up in our yard.

She was a little ball of feral fluff. Take a step or two toward her and off she ran. But she always came back. We never saw a mother cat nearby, so we figured she was on her own.

My youngest decided to try to tame her. She researched different methods of taming ferals and used her knowledge from watching Jackson Galaxy's "My Cat from Hell" on Animal Planet. Because this was a kitten, we knew we had better chances for success, but that didn't make the experience any less difficult. My daughter spent days just trying to get the kitten familiar with her. She put out food and tried to sit a little closer each time. She talked to the kitten. She tossed acorns to her when the kitten was playful. There were many setbacks. I described the experience like the plot of the movie 50 First Dates, where the main character is dating a woman suffering from short term memory loss. For a while it seemed like every time my daughter went out, she had to reintroduce herself to the kitten.

But each time it was a little easier.

And then...

The power of chicken snacks

Success! The kitten started responding to her and taking food from her hand. She became much more playful. She even started to let my daughter pet her.

This pumpkin stem from last Halloween became a favorite toy

As the weather got cooler and wetter, I led her to the playhouse in the backyard so she would have shelter. She settled in nicely.

 

 

Bonus: I got the playhouse cleaned out!

 The next step would be the hardest. I didn't want to take her into our house without having a vet check her first. We didn't want to expose our other cats to anything. We made an appointment and the morning of the check up we tried to get her into the pet carrier. An hour and several scratches later, I made a new appointment for the following week. We had much better luck the second time. I didn't feed her until we were ready to leave and put the food as far back as possible in the carrier. She was difficult with the doctor at first, but once she calmed down she was a model patient. She got vaccinations and had blood tests and was checked for parasites and worms. We took her home and brought her directly indoors, separating her from the other cats.

Suddenly the carrier is not a bad thing.

We brought all of the toys and other "scent soakers" in so she would have everything familiar with her.

She quickly adapted to indoor life. And my daughter got a good lesson in how high maintenance a baby is. After late nights with an energetic kitten, she is done with being a mother. (Health education: Parenting 101 check!)

At this writing, the kitten has been inside for two weeks and shows no sign of wanting to return to the outside. The only issue is that she did test positive for FIV (Feline AIDS), but our vet assured us that as long as she is not a biter, the other cats will be fine. Not that I could abandon her at this point. When you open your heart to an animal, they do a good job of curling up inside and making you wonder how you lived without them.

Storytelling: The Next Generation

Last May, I made the decision to stop running storytelling.

It was a difficult choice for me, but I had led it since my oldest started college, and her siblings had no desire to take it on. Their friends had moved on to other activities, and the children coming had gotten younger. I also didn't seem to have any takers from the next generation of storytellers who were attending the workshops I ran. It's easy to do these things when your own kids are a part of them, but when they are no longer interested, it simply adds to your list. When I started working (at a different library) it became even harder. It was time to reach out.

It's always hard to pass the torch. I had run storytelling for 15 years, led it for four. but I was running out of steam. Last May I asked if anyone wanted to lead for the month and no one did. I tried again in June. Two children stepped up. I came to offer moral support. It was a bit chaotic--no one had any stories to share, so it broke down into a conversation--but it was a start.

This month I talked with the group leader about what she would like to tell or read. I ended up pulling an easy reader of short stories from the shelf called "In a Dark, Dark Room." I had no idea whether it would end up being the only story, but I figured it was a start.

The group did not disappoint. My leader could not find the title story, so she ended up reading the first story in the book. She asked if anyone else would like to read the next story, and the book began passing around. It reminded me why I liked having the children lead in the first place. When you give them choices, they step up. This new group was not ready to move away from the page, as my veteran storytellers did. But with the stories in front of them they were willing to speak and share. It reminded me of the very beginning of our storytelling days.

I'll still come to storytelling to offer support and guidance, but it's nice to be in the background again. I love what kids can come up with when you let them be in charge!