Roof Kitty

This month we celebrate the 14th year of living in our home in the woods NW of Houston. When we bought this house and the surrounding 4+ acres, our family consisted of 2 adults, 2 kids (12 and 15 years old) and a dog, Abby. The lady selling the house had 2 outside cats that she couldn't take with her so we inherited them with the stipulation that the owner have the cats tested for leukemia and vaccinated. One of the cats was positive and the owner chose to have it put down (it was aged) and the other, Sylvester, came to live with us.

I had 2 cats when we married in 1975 - my beloved Rigel and Deneb. Perceus joined us within months. After the last of these loves passed on, my dh declared that there would be no more cats in our house. Having Sylvester, though, opened that door and what an opening that became.

Within a month, we obtained Tweety. My son and I were buying catfood one afternoon and there was a lady outside with a box full of kittens. The typical "Mom! I'll feed it! It can stay in my room! You won't have to do anything!!" arguments followed and a little, yellow striped girl kitten came home with us. Well, of course the kitten didn't live in my son's room and I ended up feeding it and changing the litter boxes but a new member of the family was welcomed. She was an inside/outside cat and got along well with Sylvester.

After Tweety came to live with us, Goofy, Stella, Sandy, etc. along with a parade of other animals including Sugar the horse, Curly the dog, Daffy the duck, Oreo the pig, Frisky2 the hampster (don't ask about Frisky1) etc. came to reside at our abode. Over the years, all these animals have either disappeared (in the case of most of the outside cats) or passed on... except for Curly the dog. And the other group called the foo-foo kitties joined us starting in 1997 - I started raising and showing Birman cats. After 4 years, I stopped but still have 4 Birmans as inside pets.

So recapping, we now have in this house 2 adults, no kids (yeah!), 13 yr old dog Curly, 4 inside Birmans and believe it or not, Tweety the little orange cat that is now 14 years old. After the show cats came to live in the house, she moved perminantly outside. How she survived being attacked by all the critters in these woods can be summed up in one phrase - she became a "roof kitty".

Whenever the weather is not too terribly hot or cold, you can usually find her on the roof of our house. There is a tree growing along side that she is very adapt at climbing and that is how she gets up there. From the loft, I can access the roof over the den and she is usually there next to one of the skylights. She loves for me to open the window and give her a good scratching. We do feed her in the garage and leave it open for really cold weather but this little scrapper of a cat is our sole survivor of all the outside cats. Love this little girl. The last picture of her was taken a couple of days ago at age 14.

till later ~~ Dene