A Fox!
On Saturday afternoon Ken and I were sitting in the living room where suddenly he stared out the window and said, “there’s a fox out there!”
Sure enough, a rather scruffy looking fox (probably in mid-spring molt) was walking across our deck. He (or she) crept past the patio door and around the back side of the house, before heading down the steps to the backyard. He was then spotted by Colter who made quite the commotion over this unauthorized visitor to our yard.
In the meantime, I ran out to the shop and called Finny and the garage kitties to come in from the run. Once they were safely inside, I closed the window. I’m pretty certain a fox could figure out how to get into the run if motivated enough.
So now, Fin & Co are restricted to the stud room unless it’s daytime, we’re home, and someone is outside. The cats don’t think it’s fair, but I think they’d like it even less to be attacked by a fox. Granted, this is the first time I’ve seen a fox around the house and hopefully now that he knows Colter is here, he’ll stay away. On the other hand, one of our neighbors raises some kind of birds in an aviary at the edge of the gully, so Mr Fox may be sticking around trying to figure out how to make a meal of them.
Other random news for the day… Sondra, Brian & girls of the Rockatts welcomed a litter of six brown tabby & white kittens to the world on Friday. I finally got their website updated last night with the “F” litter’s pictures and information. (www.ourforestcats.com) Stop by and meet the newest babies in the LostWoods extended family. Rockatts Dasher — the dad of the litter — is the son of Ouijakatz Comet of LostWoods and LostWoods Kimbry of Rockatts. Norlights Maxine of Rockatts - mom - is McCoy’s littermate. Sondra is going to have her hands full soon with the Warrior Cats and the F Litter – eleven kittens in all – scampering through her home. But it’s summer… she and the girls are off work and school until August, so they’ll have lots of fun, too.
I’ve been trying to get a picture of Kali to share with you. She is HUGE! But every time I aim the camera her way she gets up and leaves the room. Maybe the poor thing is embarrassed about losing her sleek, girlish figure? Last year when she was pregnant I nicknamed her Kali Cantaloupe because she looked like she had swallowed a melon. By the time babies arrived, I said maybe she should be Kali Honeydew instead, but Kali Cantaloupe just rolls off the tongue. 
So the other day I was joking that since I don’t have a litter theme picked out for her babies yet maybe I’d just name them The Melons — Honeydew, Cantaloupe, Crenshaw, Casaba, Galia, Ananas, Charentais, Pepino (not a true melon, but I might need another name!), Kiwano, Hami… Those aren’t terrible names. LOL! I don’t know… it’s awfully tempting.