Hello and welcome to a mid-June Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is June 18th.
As the WAKWIR* alluded to in last week's blog post, we had an unexpected adventure a week ago involving a kitten. Here's the story as told by the Fourth Soon-to-be Fifth Grader (with help from mom).
So, we were biking from swimming lessons and we were on the homestretch by the St. Mary's Cemetery. I heard a strange little meow. We checked by the cemetery because I saw a white thingy, but it was just foam. Then I heard it again and I followed its meowing until I came to one spot and I almost stepped on the kitten. She was a calico with white fur and patches of orange and white stripes and brown and black stripes.
I told my mom that I found her. It jumped and scurried off through the tall grass away from us and toward the road. We followed her and fed her Lunchables pepperoni. We biked home, got the cat carrier and tuna, and we rode in a car back to the cemetery. We listened for the meows. When I found her again in the weeds and grass, my mom fed her some tuna and pet the kitty with the plastic fork to see how feral or friendly she was. The kitty stayed still as mom pet her with the fork, so my mom nudged her into the cat carrier.
We went home. We kept feeding the kitten tuna. My mom read an online article about feral vs. domestic cats and learned that domestic cats will make eye contact with humans. This little kitty was shaking and wrapped in a tight ball yet was making eye contact. We understood that she was probably just really frightened. We brought the kitty inside the cat carrier to our little play shed in the backyard. Wearing gloves, my mom gently picked up the kitten and removed her from the cat carrier. The kitty calmed down and let my mom hold her. We pet her a lot. She seemed okay, so we took her inside the house. We gave her some water. We made a litter box for her and set it in my room.
Once we were in my room, my mom let me hold the kitten. My mom showed me how to hold the kitten by cradling it so the kitten would feel safe. At first, the kitten squirmed in my arms, but once I wrapped her in a little ball, like a baby, she settled down, closed her eyes, and slept. I cried a little. I felt proud because I had saved the cat and she was just so little. My mom said I looked like a new mother holding her newborn. The first time the kitten purred, she was in my arms.
It was getting late and we had to do our family prayer. My older brother brought the kitten downstairs to the family room with us. While we prayed, the kitten stretched across his lap and conked out.
The first night having the kitten in our room was hard. The mosquitoes were already bad and the kitten was hopping around exploring. I couldn't sleep. My older brother and I had to get her out from under the bed and put her in the cat carrier. She meowed, so let I let her out, and then she was skitter-skitter-skitter around the room. When I finally caught her, I put her in the cat carrier again and she went to sleep.
I knew for 100 percent that I wanted to keep the kitten because she was little and I didn't want to give her back to her owner. But, I didn't think she had an owner. We don't know if the kitten ran away, fell out of a tractor, or was abandoned - dumped - by its previous owners. My mom said that the kitty must have come from a home because, once she relaxed, she was very sweet and tame.
We have had the kitten for ten days now. In the daytime, she is sleeping everywhere (throughout the house) but when I'm trying to sleep at night she's skittering around the house playing with objects - shoes, backpack straps, Legos - and she likes to climb on furniture so she can get up and explore. When she's happy she purrs very loudly. It's hard to take care of a cat - especially cleaning her doo-doo and pee from the litter box (which we moved to the laundry room once the kitten got comfortable in our whole house), but I still want to keep her.
When my mom called her friend, Gretchen Mehmel, the former Red Lake WMA Supervisor for the MN DNR in Beltrami Island State Forest (she recently retired), I had the idea of calling the kitten "Gretchen." She looked like a Gretchen, so that is what we named her. My mom wasn't crazy about the name and called the kitten "Kitty." She and my oldest brother came up with two other possible names - Mixie June (because she's a calico and we found her in the month of June) or June Bug - but the name "Gretchen" stuck.
My mom has been looking for posts for missing or lost kittens on the various area Facebook sell and swap pages and on the Lost & Found Pets in NW MN page but hasn't seen anything. While my mom says the right thing to do is return the kitten to her original home and owner (if there even is one), we would also be perfectly happy keeping her. Except for my dad. However, my brother just told me that our dad said it would not be a good experience telling me no. I agree.
On This Day
Historic Highlights (credits)
Happy Birthday to You!🎶
Remembering You
Kim
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| Photo Credit |
*Wannaskan Almanac Kid Writer-in-Residence
Lucky cat.
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