Treasure Hunting

When my last 2021 foster kitten was adopted on 2/5/22, the 2022 kitten season had not quite started. We had a few kittens in the rescue, but all were day or week old bottle babies that required food every 2hrs, which is not compatible with my work schedule. The weeks trickled by and only tiny kittens were coming in. At the end of March one of the other fosters asked for a kitten sitter 4/2/22-4/3/22 and I jumped at the chance. Then another foster needed her kittens watched 4/6/22-4/12/22 and I volunteered for that too. It seemed perfect, since I had a houseguest scheduled 4/4/22-4/6/22 and then left for Disney on the 15th.

Given that schedule, I did the responsible but difficult task of telling the foster coordinator to take me off the list until after I returned from Disneyland. New fosters require a quarantine, which is tricky if I am kitten-sitting and also have my own pets. And there's no point in taking new kittens just to pawn them off on a kitten sitter while I vacation with Stitch. But shortly after I told them not to give me kittens, the first foster cancelled my services- no kittens on the 2nd and 3rd!!

*Insert crocodile tears here*

Then my houseguest delayed his trip to show up on the 6th, hours after I received 3 tiny kittens to sit. He ended up spending most of his visit in my cramped kitten room, sitting on a bean bag chair with a kitten on his neck. :)

I still cried when the 3 kittens were picked up by their mom (and have pestered her for updates almost daily since then, LOL) and it was 2 long kittenless days before my vacation.

Disney was fun, of course... but I made sure to reach out to the foster coodinator as we were driving home... "I'm ON THE WAY HOME and NEED KITTENS!". A few hours later, she sent me 5 pics and asked if I could pick them up the following day. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

The babies were found in this junkpile by a good samaritan who caught the brown tabby then sought help from a feral trapper. That trapper crawled through the debris to find the treasures.

I had to wait until the trapper got them to the rescue intake coordinator, and then finally got the pick them up. They calmly let us transfer them from the kennel to the travel crate and huddled in the back for the short trip to the grocery store. While my hubby went in to get a few post-vacation groceries, I reached in to say hello. Tiny brown tabby quickly decided I had a gentle touch and insisted on coming out to get held while his siblings continued their comfort huddle in the back. But when I let brown tabby out, his white face brother mewled in distress, frantically tracking his brother and making sure I didn't cause any harm. When it was time to travel again, the brown tabby protested and whined piteously for the rest of the drive home.
First stop is always the potty box. Lots of kittens pop out as soon as you plop them in, but these cautious kittens just huddled there for awhile. I settled into a beanbag chair and let them come out in their own time.

Brown tabby, of course, was the first to waddle over to me and made a nest on my chest. Of course, his white faced brother had to follow- maybe he's scared the brown tabby will disappear again. And the little girl wasn't far behind.

The black and the brown with white paws brothers were not sure I was trustworthy. They were willing to play with the feather wand if I only used my wrist to wiggle it around- if they saw my arm move too quickly they'd dart under the chair and hide. It was time to use my secret weapon... chicken filets, aka chimkins (made for pets)!

It took me approximately 2 seconds to discover that I had underestimated this pretty relaxed group. The smell of chicken turned the 3 in my lap into tiny land sharks, snapping wildly at anything that smelled slightly chimkinny... which included my fingers since I was hand feeding them, and my arm, since they dropped more in their frenzy than they could consume. They quickly downed the first quarter of the chimkin and a good percentage of my fingers before I was able to maneuver a few pieces past the front line to lure out white paws from under he chair.

If only I had a videographer to capture the next scene, which made me laugh so hard it kept startling white paws, which did NOT help the situation. White paws desperately wanted the chimkins and lunged forward with his jaws while he also desperately wanted to keep the scary human hand away from him so he swatted at the hand and tried to keep it away from him. Only the hand was holding the chimkins... I cannot adequately describe the hilarious spectacle of a kitten trying to both get the chimkins in his mouth while keeping the chimkins hands away... but it was NOT graceful or coordinated.

Still, no amount of blind chimkin waving under the chair could tempt the black kitten out. I finally had to go fishing, reaching into the void to pull out a very unhappy kitten. He told me off quite vehemently until I managed to tuck him in my arm and use my other hand to grab a piece of chimkins to wave under his nose. He cut off mid yowl to join in with the frantic nomnomnomming happening in my lap.

And then they curled up and went to sleep, warm round bellies in a pile in my lap where I was stuck for the next few hours until my husband declared it was time for bed.

In the morning, brown tabby greeted me by telling me he was not pleased being locked up in a kennel without me. He popped out as soon as I openned the door, trailed closely by his white faced brother.

By coincidence, HONESTLY, I woke up with a very sore throat. Monday at Disneyland there was black smoke and the pollen was bad both in Anaheim and in Roseville. Tuesday at work my throat was irritated after talking all day. When I woke up Wednesday morning, my throat felt inflamed and I was very hoarse. I decided to stay home, spending the day writing reports and catching up on paperwork. It was a great decision, as I did do one Zoom meeting in the afternoon. Mid-way through the 1.5 hour meeting, my throat got so irritated I broke into a coughing fit. I made it through the meeting but was glad I had vocal rest most of the day.

But that coincidence meant I was home the day after I picked up the babies. I set up a small table in my kitten room and sat on the floor. These kittens were the PERFECT work at home group. Unlike most kittens, they did not attempt to help me organize my paperwork or type my reports. They simply climbed into my lap and went to sleep. Sometimes they'd shift positions, but mostly I had a quiet, warm, fuzzy blob of kitten legs, ears, tails, and bellies in my lap as I had one of my MOST PRODUCTIVE work days ever.

Over the last few days, I've discovered that these kittens just like being in a pile. I had temporarily nicknamed them the "junkpile" just to differentiate them from other litters of kittens in our rescue's database until I could name them, but more and more it seemed that their names should reflect their humble beginnings and their habit of piling up.

Flotsam and Jetsam were the first to be named- Jetsam is the bold brown tabby and his faithful follower (white face) became Flotsam.

The white paw tabby and black kitten both joined in the cuddle parties on my lap and loved me when I was sitting, but both still run in fear anytime someone is moving... whether it's my husband coming in, or one of my housecats trying to sneak in before they get shot with the waterbottle (quarantining kittens is my least favorite stage of fostering), or me just standing up or moving too quickly. So that pair became Riff (white paws) and Raff (black).

That left the little girl, who became Scrapper.

It's difficult to get clear pictures of individual kittens, though sometimes one or two will wander off to eat or poop... and SOMETIMES they'll play for a bit before passing back out.

While the kittens do spend most of their time in a deep sleep on my lap, after a few days with me Jetsam decided to start nursing on my sherpa lap blanket. Not to be left behind, Flotsam joined him.
Eventually, they taught all of the kittens to nurse- sometimes in a slow, relaxed manner as they drift back to sleep-sometimes with vigor.
**So I compiled a nursing video but it's been processing and "will be ready soon" for the last 30 minutes. Maybe I'll get to post it someday... maybe not!

Video processed overnight! Yay :)

Jetsam is the neediest. After spending a little time with them this morning, I left them for most of the day while helping out at a crossfit competition. The husband said hi to them now and then, but mostly they were scampering around the room on their own. When I got home, the first thing my husband mentioned was how needy they are, particularly Jetsam. "He yelled at me every time I went in there". No surprise, I could hear him through the closed door as soon as I walked into the house. When I opened the door, Flotsam, Jetsam, and Scrapper all came charging to the door-with Jetsam greeting me at the top of his tiny lungs. Riff surprised me by holding his ground, watching me warily until I set up my laptop and seat and sat down. Raff ducked behind a cat bed, not quite running but definitely cautious, also until I sat down. Within 30 seconds of getting settled, 5 fluffs were in my lap... Jetsam scolded me for being gone so long until I pet him into blissful submission.
And that's where I've been for the past 3 hours while I wrote this blog. Currently, 2 are in my lap and 3 have crawled up to lay behind my neck. Life is good with kittens!