6x9 acrylic on wood
$150
The Stubble Kittens
In 2017 we had been cat-less for two years (after having had three cats who lived many years) and had suffered a horrible mouse epidemic where the mice were pooping *everywhere* and even chewing through my coat and pants pockets to get the dog treats in them! Yuck! I live-trapped 35 of them and moved them to a Mouse Halfway House I had established out by the railroad tracks. We didn't want another winter like that one, plus we missed having cats in spite of cat boxes to clean. We left it a little late to start looking for kittens; we did want kittens, siblings, short hair if possible. We wanted kittens because we keep cats indoors (for their safety and that of small wildlife and birds), and older cats who are used to going outdoors might be miserable. We wanted siblings so they could be company for each other and get along. We wanted short hair because we didn't want to deal with grooming and hairballs. We had no luck. There were no kittens anywhere to be had! Finally, in October, on craigslist, I found kittens! When I inquired I found they were perfect! Two brothers, gray mackerel tabby, short hair, six weeks old (I think they were actually maybe a little younger), and they lived in Bemidji.
Heidi, their then human mom, was surprised we were willing to travel all the way to Bemidji for kittens; but we had absolutely fallen in love with them from the pictures she sent and had to have them in our family. We and the dogs spent the night in our camper in the woods near Crosby, then I trekked up to Bemidji alone to collect our new boys. We didn't want to overwhelm with two dogs and two people etc.
I had forgotten how "northern-Minnesota" Bemidji is! The homeplace Heidi directed me to was a couple of miles outside the town, kind of what I might call "the middle of nowhere." I had to stop for a deer who was just standing in the road, in the fog, looking at me. Heidi had given me the landmark that her place had a Napa Auto Parts sign outside, which helped. I pulled up to a collection of buildings, and was surprised to see in the front window a series of blonde heads looking out at me; at least ten, from five feet on down. A young woman in a head-scarf, a simple shift dress, and bare feet answered the door when I knocked. Heidi and all the other young women were dressed exactly the same. The dresses on the girls and women and the trousers and shirts on the little boys all looked hand crafted. After I stepped in, I was instantly surrounded by a crowd of articulate children of all sizes and several dogs. The hunt began for the kittens in the large, concrete-floored, garage-style storage space attached to the living space.
As I spoke with the children and teen-aged girls and young women while the kitten hunt progressed, it began to appear that all of the children were from different families in a sort of religious commune of some kind; hence the common dress style. According to the many accounts I was hearing, the kittens' mother had had them in the barn; but it being so late in the year, the people feared for the kittens and brought them inside, whereupon the mother abandoned them, and the people had to feed them by hand. So the kitten-boys were used to being handled by children, by many different hands of different sizes, and being fed by people, not their mom. At the time they came home with us they were weaned, eating dry cat food, and using the litter box.
The kittens were found, finally, asleep behind some boxes. A little girl brought them to me, one in each hand, just little scraps of gray fur (they turned out to be one pound each!), for transfer to the soft crate I had brought as their temporary home, which included a litterbox made of a large-ish ziplock storage bin with kitty litter in it, and some soft fleece blankets.
The rest is Blaine-family history: Patrick still remembers seeing those darling little creatures in the crate for the first time; the kittens came home with us; Daisy our terrier didn't eat them but looked on them as her own children; Archie still nurses on a certain blanket, maybe missing his lost time with his cat mom--though they both did that at first, Freddie has outgrown it; they are 10 and 12 pounds now respectively, Archie being heavier; they are best friends and often go outside (even in this 2019 winter) in the catwalk Patrick built for them, that will likely include a fish-pond summer 2019.
A friend of ours who grew up on a farm said her family called kittens born so late in the year, after the harvest, stubble kittens. I hadn't heard that term before. Freddie and Archie are gracious trouble and very affectionate, our stubble kittens.
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