It was a sad day at our house

Labor Day was supposed to be a fun day. We were going to get a lot of work done in the morning and then spend the afternoon playing, doing something fun as a family on the mountain. But the day before, the cat who has claimed our home since we moved in (and scared off our own cats) had three baby kittens. Three tiny baby kittens that she abandoned. Tyler tried desperately to get the mama cat to take care of them, but she just hissed at the babies and ran away.

So, all day Labor Day we had a hard time convincing Tyler to do anything, because she was so concerned about those baby kitties. One kitten passed away in the morning. Tyler called anyone she could think of that had a mama cat to adopt the baby kitties, but she couldn't reach anyone. Finally, she decided to feed the kittens with paper towels soaked in milk. She seemed to think it was working.

But when it was time to go on our mountain outing, Tyler did not want to leave those poor tiny babies. So we took them with us. Sweet Facebook friends of ours gave us the advice of getting bottles and kitten formula from Alco, but we were out of cell phone data range when the comments started coming in, and of course, we didn't make it back to town in time to go to Alco.

Tyler and Rachel did their best with those tiny kittens, but one passed away on the drive up the mountain. Tyler refused to give up on the last kitten. It certainly seemed to be a fighter. We could hear it crying whenever we hit a bump on the way home. The fact that is was moving and making noise seemed to be a hopeful sign. She was still caring for it that night when she went to bed.

But in the morning it was cold and stiff. Tyler was devastated. We had even said a prayer for her poor baby kitten, even though it had seemed like a losing fight. Now I just think those poor kittens were born too soon and even the mother knew it. It still took me a couple days to forgive that mother cat. I was going to throw rocks and other things at her if she showed up here again.

Later I will post the pictures of our mountain hike and picnic and also pictures from the grave the girls made for the three little kittens.