And they call it "Bella Notte"

Total lockdown lasted several months.  Our bustling town was so strangely quiet, like a ghost town.  I planned shopping lists and meals and with five cats, there were ever changing needs, small crises, and living adjustments (for the cats) with yet another large cage added to what would have been my reading/storage/guest room.  There weren't going to be any guests for the unforeseen future anyway. Rather than guests, I had five residents!

The "clowns" enjoyed the windows all summer long.  This picture is the bedroom window.  The bars are for safety as there is a sheer drop outside.  (There is virtually no crime here, other than petty vandalism, by kids...and an occasional, VERY occasional theft.) Also outside is the space between buildings that is filled with trees and greenery and lots and lots of birds.  Kitty TV!  Hours and hours of entertainment!

It was amazing to me how well they got along, but, then again, most of them "knew" each other in the street before being rescued.  Lupo had the most difficult time assimilating and it really didn't take long at all and no fights or blood letting were required. 

I continued to feed Mamma G and Ink outside, in the courtyard where they could lounge for a bit, with Inky sometimes sitting on the bench with me.  Sib came often. There was and still is a large gray male who comes by, with yet another uninspiring moniker, Mr. Gray.  Unlike the other predatory males, he is laid back and the others don't mind his presence.  Calzini looks just like him except Zini has the white socks and bib. Another small gray female, who purportedly "belongs" to a neighbor down a side street, sometimes wanders in, too. We call her "Funky" because she has odd eyes, a strange face for a cat.

Lo and behold, Mamma Nera showed up again in late summer.  She...and her two tiny kittens.  One was completely black, the other totally white.  Oy vey.

Mamma N came into the courtyard and the white kitten would wait outside and cry.  So, one day I put a tray outside for Mamma and a little paper plate with mushed up cat food out right next to her.  The white kitten approached and ate, the black one was too timid.

Soon, the white kitten jumped up the step to our courtyard and ventured in, but only because Mamma was eating inside.  I could see this kitten was larger than the black one and the eyes were green, which was good because pure white cats with blue eyes are deaf.

The tinier black one was still too timid to venture inside, or even, for that matter, to approach the food!  At least, not when anyone was looking.  

Ferragosto is a huge holiday in Italy, the 15th of August.  However, the entire country pretty much shuts down for the entire month.  (Should anyone ever get to travel again, avoid Italy in August.)  People go to their "summer houses" or to the shore.  Stores cut back to minimal hours.  It's hot, it's quiet.

My husband took the dog out for his walk and said someone had put what looked like little meatballs in the piazzetta.  After briefly wondering who might do that, we forgot about it, but I was not happy that Harry, or any other dog around, could pick one up and snarf it down.  We forgot about it until the next day.

The little white kitten was under a car.  Antonio, a neighbor, was sitting on a stoop across the street.  When my husband went outside, Antonio said he thought the kitten was dead.  He had been sitting there for a while and he said the little one had not moved.  No sign of Mamma Nera, either. 

Sadly, he was correct.  Those "meatballs" had been poisoned.  People had their suspicions.  We were told this had happened before.  Too bad we were not aware of that, since the sight of the odd meatballs would have alerted us immediately.  

I waited most of the day, anxiously, to see if Ink, Mamma, Sib, or Mamma Nera would come around.  All told, Mamma Nera was gone, Sib was gone, another large white male was gone and the baby kitten. The tiny black kitten was alive but orphaned.  Her timidity is what saved her. 

  

One lazy afternoon afterwards, we were heading to a cafe for a prosecco under the cool arches...we were just a few steps from our doorway and the sound of a kitten wailing filled the piazzetta.  The baby orphan!!!  She was wandering all around the periphery of the piazzetta wailing as loudly as she could.  "Mamma!"

Forget the prosecco...back inside...get some food, add some broth....c'mon kitty....come to us!!  

She might not have eaten in a day or two.  Heaven knows where she spent the nights.  She did, in fact, come.  After that, my husband went outside every day and sat in a folding camp chair.  He took food and a teaser toy.  Eventually, kitten got used to him, she got used to being fed regularly and she started to play.  Then, she let him pet her.   We called her Notte (Night).

Before the month was through, we had her inside.  She was just a little thing, about four months old.  

Probably because she was so young, the others put up no fuss at all.  She latched on to Lupo, though, almost immediately.  I suppose because he looked the most like her mother. She wouldn't let him out of her sight, it seemed.  So, once again we had to fiddle around with sleeping arrangements so she could snuggle with her beloved Lupo during the night. 

Here we were, with six cats.  THIS after "No more cats, no cats, not one, not ever."  Six. Freaking. Cats.