1+1=8
Has Suki been overeating? No, but she's been naughty in other ways...
She ran away on September 11 and it took us 5 days and a case of champagne (the reward to the person that called us) to find her and bring her home. When we found her she was practically arm-in-arm (paw-in-paw?) with another cat.
Bad, bad Suki...
65 days later, at 4:30 in the morning, she climbed onto our bed and got to work. Two hours later she had a single heartbeat, instead of seven....
Suki chose the Buddha position to give birth - quite original probably.
This pic shows two kittens, with a third on the way.
All lined up for the photo - smile please...
Notice that there are two black, two gray, one white and one multi-coloured kitten, so we think there were four fathers.
The photos below show just how small they are...
One proud but exhausted mum...
Just how cute are the kittens?
4 weeks old
At 4 weeks old, their individual characters are becoming obvious. The white one may be the smallest, but she's probably the cutest, with her over-sized head, and she's certainly the most playful and confident. The pure gray one, the only male, is the most timid, though one of the black ones is that way too. Their second month is critical in their development of confidence and sociability towards humans, so we're being extra attentive. You'll notice we haven't given them names - that would just make it harder when the time comes to give most of them away.
Anyway, here they are...
Below left, an attentive mother watches over the most adventurous of her kittens, Marie.
And below right is the ugly one. We call her 'Vrac' which is French for 'chaos', because of her horrible color scheme. She looks so sad here - she must have just seen herself in the mirror.
On the left is the only male in the family, a real wimp. Catherine chose the name 'Mitsu' for him.
On the right is Marie, the cutest of them all, but sometimes rather timid.
6 bodies, but only 5 heads!
4 months old
We gave away two kittens, one black and the mottled gray, when they were about 11 weeks old. Here are some photos of those that were left. This is Marie enjoying the sun in Chamonix.
Below left, guess who, and below right is Mitsu, striking a relaxed pose.
As I write this paragraph in December 2016, all theses cats are long gone, with the exception of the mother, now 16 years old, and Vrac, the ugly one.