Friday, June 19, 2015

Not Always About Horses

Near the end of October last year, Sherri was out walking the trails around our property with her horse Magnum, when a beautiful tabby cat walked onto the path in front of her and started rolling over on her back. Turned out there were 4 cats dumped near our place. Two adult females and one of the females had 2 kittens we guessed to be around 8 months.

Since my daughter has moved to Italy and I will have to go there every year to visit, I decided to learn Italian through Rosetta Stone. When we found the kitties, I decided to give them appropriate Italian names; Boccia and Pippa are the two adults and Tino and Tenero are the two kittens.

Pippa and Boccia were people friendly but Tino and Tenero were completely feral. Since October, and much effort, I have been able to partially socialize (and only recently) Tino, the male kitten, however I have never been able to get near Tenero, even with the yummiest food.

This morning I went out to the kitty shed to check on their food and lo and behold, there was Tenero with her one orange kitten that appears to be approximately 7-10 days old. I know for a fact that kitten wasn't there yesterday so I'm guessing Tenero moved it. I have no idea if there are more and can't wait to check again later. Hopefully she won't hide it again because I would really like to socialize the kitten to people.

This tiny orange kitten makes me smile even more because it reminds me of my beloved Clover that died suddenly and mysteriously on New Years Eve a couple of years ago. The Italian word for surprise is Sorpresa and typically I don't like words with r's because I simply can't roll my r's - suppose it will force me to practice.

Tovie, Tenero and Sorpresa (maybe there will be others when I check later)

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