I'm so excited, and I just can't hide it!!!

 It is really amazing that a feralish street cat loves his toys so much.  LOVES...his....toys!!!!

Well, I did invite them into the cortile when they were all kittens together....and I did my best....an aluminum foil ball, a leash attached to the side of a kennel...(a snake!!)...and then there were the side ties of the cushion underneath the kennel...(more snakes!).  They rolled and chased and batted and threw, jumped and rolled.

Now, the clowns have a plethora of "fancy" toys...rope mice, rubber mice, fuzzy mice, fuzzy balls, sparkly balls, jingly balls, rubber fish (supposedly good for their teeth, they have now de-nosed and de-tailed two of them) and tunnels.  Sometimes I haul out the laser pointer!

But Scruff.  Ah, my Scruffy boy, my sweet, fluffy Scruffy boy.  What am I going to do with him?

Scruff has asthma...a rather severe case, the worst of this clown troupe.  I have finally figured out a medicine regimen for him that keeps him breathing and cough free most of time.  And...when he isn't cough free I worry myself sick.

The sound is godawful.  What is it like?  Like wet sand heaving, like gravel being shoveled....from deep, deep within his tiny body.  Unlike Imp, who is smart enough to know his limits, who is tuned into his physical needs enough to understand that he has to "sit this one out" and go rest a while.....Scruff wants to party till he drops.  He won't stop.  He is addicted, obsessed, completely unable to make himself stop.  He is a mousie junkie. 

He loves them all, but most especially a fuzzy gray one and a fuzzy gray and white one.  When all his clown companions have decided it's nap time, he is still flipping and flopping and jumping and leaping and smacking and chasing.  The only way to stop him is to take it away.  Which I have done.  While he stares at me.  With BIG, SAD aqua blue eyes.  WHY?????  Why you take my mousie????

The weather has suddenly changed to Autumn overnight.  It was 100 degrees one day and in the 70s the next.  With that, the clowns not only decided they were ravenous banshees, but they also decided it was time to party like it's climate change apocalypse.  

Scruff is the ONLY one who just.....will....not....stop.  Not...stop.  Can't...stop. Can't...stop. Can't stop, can't stop, can't stop!!

Serendipity!  He managed to slam the white and gray beloved ball of fluff under the dispenza (pantry) in the kitchen today.  It was a grand slam, way back to wall, forceful slap and he tried and tried to make his little kitty arms longer but they could not stretch to the back wall no matter what.  

The gray mouse is in my pocket.  He knows it, too.  He is not a stupid cat.  He knows, in fact, where every one of his mousies are....I know he knows.  He gets VERY excited when someone decides to retrieve one.  So, he is watching me...carefully.  Mousie?  Mousie?  I know you're there........please come out!

When he stabilizes, when we all get accustomed to the sudden switch from full-blast furnace summer to cool Fall, when he stops coughing every damned day......mousie will return.  And not a moment before.

I love you, Scuffy.

This, nearly, was mine

 Three kittens.  Three tiny kittens and a Mamma cat.  We, sort of, took them under our wings.  We tried.  We had a box in the cortile with a soft towel that they would sleep in, all three of them.  The first words I ever exchanged with my neighbor (now friend) across the street were over these kittens.  The whole odyssey began with three little kittens.

One died.  She had a deadly injury to one eye, most likely from the predatory male cat that roamed around at that time.  She was barely three months old.

The Mamma kitty and the two others came every day for food and would sometimes just hang around, to the point where I was able to pet them all.  Scruffy, the gray tabby "look alike" of his mamma, had goopy eyes that I was able to fix with antibiotic eye drops.  At first I wrapped him up in a towel so I would not be ripped to ribbons, but thereafter, he allowed me to put the drops in his eyes.  He knew they were helping him.

Our mission was to neuter as  many as possible since we had over a dozen street cats in our tiny piazzetta.  If I could have managed to start a town program, I would have, but no one here is ready for that......yet.

                                                  Baby Ink and Scruff having a meal.

The two remaining kittens from "that" litter were Incubo and Scruff...Inky being an all black female and Scruff a gray tabby, just like his mother.  

The long story short is, we neutered nine cats in all.  Seven are in our home.  The two remaining outside are Inky and Mamma...Scruff's family.  They wanted NO part in being indoor cats, although we tried. They let you know what they want, in no uncertain terms.

I only recently found out that having neutered feral or street cats does actually deter other cats from coming into the "territory."  Seems that the neutered ones then tend to stick close to what they consider home and this, in turn, discourages other outside cats from invading.  It is a phenomenon we have noticed.  We are now down to about six "regulars"....there is another spayed female thanks to a lady down the block, and our two.  Then there is Funky, an unspayed female, and Mr. Gray...an unneutered but harmless male, and Chowder Cheeks, a creamsicle orange male....not neutered but accepted by the others and he doesn't seem to cause any trouble.  We have reached a point, at least for now, of relative stability and peace.

Mamma and Ink come every day.  Every. Day.  This is their home, not home.  It breaks my heart.  I worry about them constantly, but we provide fresh water and dry food always.  When we know they are there, we also give them wet food inside the cortile.  

                                              Ink, in the cortile.

Mamma is still, is ALWAYS, very wary and skittish.  After all this time...nearly 2 years, and she still barely trusts us.  But Inky is more approachable.  She will come to our door and cry.  She will even jump in the front window and cry or just hang out with the clown inside, rub noses with her brother.

If she is outside and we come around, she will "talk" to us and schmooze our legs and ankles and let us pet her.  If she is REALLY comfortable, she will sit beside me on the bench in the cortile. 

For me, it is very difficult to have animals I care about "out there"...vulnerable to disease, rotten people, stray dogs, wild animals.  Worries me no end.  Each day we keep tabs on them.  Mamma?  Did you see her?  Has Inky shown up yet?

Both of them could have been safe and sound in here.  Scruffy is about twice the size of both his mother and sister now...thanks to good food, clean water, medicine and safety.  It breaks my heart, but I could not make them stay indoors.  This is the life they chose. 

Color my world....

Notte and Tee are the girls.  Notte is a petite little thing...I guess she always will be because she is over one year old now and not likely to grow much more. 

Tee is a big girl, (by Italian cat standards) all twelve pounds of her.  She looks like a big marble loaf when she's sleeping sometimes.  Tee can be moody and rather ...ahh..bitchy....especially in the morning, when it's time for breakfast.  She does not take kindly to fools.  She can leap like a movie star Ninja, totally airborne...and land with a well aimed smack that brings fear into the eyes of the beholders.

 She also can, when she feels like it, be very affectionate and sweet.  Prrrt.  Prrrrt.  Ankle schmoozies and collapsing to the ground for more pets.  Since Harry has been gone, she has been spending more time following me around and staying a bit closer.  She has been vocalizing more, too.  

Well, it seems little miss  has also decided to redecorate. 

In the winter months we add some thick carpet runners around the house for warmth from the cold ceramic floors.  Those carpets stayed down as long as Harry was alive because he needed them for balance.  We have taken them up....just in time before the scorchingly hot weather hit.  In the height of summer, it's nice to have cool ceramic under one's feet!  

We took up the excess runners in the bedroom but still had a couple of thinner "area" rugs down, one right next to the bed where I usually put my feet in the morning. 

Also in the bedroom is the window which, when we are lucky, has a wonderful breeze.  And a "breeze machine" that distributes cool air to the room while it oscillates.  

Lately my little "foot rug" has gone missing.  !!!  Granted, when the clowns are clowning around in the wee small hours, the little rugs often go askew.  But my little rug was disappearing completely!  

The other morning I saw a tip of it peeking out from under the bed so I started pushing it out with my foot.  It was stubborn....it was difficult to move, much more difficult than it should have been and the reason soon became apparent as Tee's little striped arm started to show from under the bed as she was still clinging to the rug.  "Noooooo!!!! Do not take my rugs!!"

As it turns out, we have some "rugs" back in storage....some extras (they are just cheap little foot rugs or runners we picked up at the Saturday market, but they help when it's cold)  and we decided that if Tee wanted to hang out under the bed and catch the breezes, while she slept on a rug, so be it.  We got another one out for my feet.  She pulled that one under the bed too. 

So, for the summer, at least, I may be without a "foot rug" beside the bed.  Missy Tee has decided they are better underneath the bed.  Such a diva!

He's my fella and I love him

 When Scruff was still in the streets, he was beginning to act as a sort of "little prince of the piazzetta."  He was the one who came to me when I called and all the others followed.  He was the one who ventured into the courtyard and started to play and just hang out because he was comfortable and felt safe.  Several of the other kittens clearly idolized him and I often noticed Calzini mimicking him.

Then Tee appeared and she, too, was drawn to Scruff.  She kept trying to get his attention.  If there was a ball to play with in the courtyard and she got control of it (kitty soccer!) she would attempt to aim it back towards Scruff.  In between "games" she schmoozed him every chance she had. 

Tee was getting close to going into heat.  We had to bring her in and get her spayed as quickly as possible.  It wasn't difficult, she was begging to become a house cat, following us on our walks with our dog and trying to follow him into the house!  Her "domestication" and her health issues are described in an earlier post.

Scruff was the second one inside because there is a large, mean predatory male cat that comes around and terrorizes everyone.  He was out there one night and so was Scruffy and I panicked, fearing that miserable cat would injure, maim, possibly kill Scruff.  My husband walked out the door and returned quickly with Scruff in his arms. 

These two went through their adjustment to home life together.  They went through recuperation from surgery together.  They went through treatments for worms and fleas and gastric disturbances together.  

Whatever attraction Missy Tee felt for Scruff not only endured but strengthened.  

After things got more crowded (!!!) Tee and Scruff became roommates, sharing the cage where they eat and poop and where they slept.  

With the passage of time it became apparent that these two had matured and settled down a bit more than the younger ones.  We began to allow them to stay out the entire night and...lo and behold!...all they did was snuggle together.  

That is not to say that they don't act like the kittens they still are.  In the mornings, generally, the clowns have a long play period.  Missy Tee is an excellent Ninja girl, and defies gravity with her amazing leaps, especially if there is a fuzzy  mouse or ball to catch.  

Scuffy loves his "mice" and always manages to hide them in his special spot.  He becomes quite agitated when we find them again and take them out.  One by one, he puts them back away.  They are "his" toys and no one else can play with them!

Then, after play time it is breakfast time and the gang gathers around me in the kitchen as I get 7 bowls ready (some with medication in them). This is when Tee gets rather testy and starts smacking everyone.  Imp tends to try to stay under or between my feet.  It's a bit awkward, but he's trying to keep away from Tee's wrath.  Percy has found that sitting on my chair keeps him relatively safe.  Tee and Zini seem to always wind up hissing and hitting each other.  Lupo and Notte get regularly bopped on the head. 

Scruff, however, has no worries.  Tee never, ever smacks him.  He's her special guy and she never gets mad at him.  On really good days, they stroll into the back room, heading for the food bowls, side by side, swaying in unison, giving each other little love bumps along the way.   It's love, and that's all there is to that.