Feral Cat Fridays: Grable Comes To Town
It’s hard to know if we should be upset or pleased with Uncle Ernie. He was responsible for a lot of the colony we found ourselves needing to manage. Not only did he father a lot of kittens, but even after we were heavily into population control with TNR Ernie kept bringing new cats from the forest and into the colony. But if he hadn’t brought them out of the forest we likely would never have gained control of the population explosion. Grable was one of his gifts, and he kept a close eye on her.
Grable appeared in the back yard with Uncle Ernie as an escort. She hung out on the edges and took advantage of the food we supplied. We soon discovered she had a small family and we were unwilling to trap her while she was caring for her litter. Here you see her looking over her shoulder, most likely returning to her family. Of course, the delay in trapping resulted in a second litter.
Grable was an attractive, attentive cat with an unusual expressive face. She always seemed to be puckering her lips in thought or in preparation for a kiss. You could almost hear Miss Piggy saying, “Moi?”
We were eventually successful at trapping and Grable settled in after she was spayed. Here you see her on the deck with Cody, one of her offspring. You can see that they are both spayed by their tipped left ears.
Cody’s beautiful, but Grable looks pretty darned good next to that tree. I do enjoy the names you choose. They send me every which way, including back to my great-aunt Rilla, who was known for malapropisms. One that I’ve always remembered is her reference to The House of the Seven Grables. It was almost as good as saying someone suffered “fig newtons of the imagination.”
There’s nothing quite like a good malapropism, and I love “fig newtons of the imagination.” I bet Rilla was fun to be around. Our cat names came from a combination of free association, prominent traits or markings, and the need for entertainment in the face of a population explosion. Grable came from her gray coloration and she was attractive, so it morphed into Grable. One litter in the colony had 2 long-haired males that were nearly identical early on and one short-hair that was clearly identifiable, so we immediately thought of the Bob Newhart Show’s “I’m Larry, this is my brother Darryl, and this is my other brother Darryl.” Eventually they became Light Darryl and Dark Darryl when they matured and became different shades of gray.