Feral Cat Fridays (2): … And this is my other brother Darryl.
When Harley arrived with 5 kittens, we had a problem. It wasn’t the problem you might imagine — we were used to feral cats bringing kittens out of the woods and knew the drill. The problem was that we couldn’t tell the difference in 2 of the kittens.
You’ve met Larry and Darryl. Now meet Darryl.
Darryl was a dead ringer for his brother Darryl at first. But after several months had passed Darryl stayed dark and Darryl lightened up a bit. So we had Dark Darryl, the subject of this post, and Light Darryl, the subject of yesterday’s brief post.
Dark Darryl was more social than Light Darryl, although he kept close to family like all of Harley’s children. His sociability let us get more photos of him than we were able to get of Light Darryl. It also likely contributed to his long life. Several of the males in the colony became more social and docile after they were trapped and neutered, but this was particularly true of Dark Darryl. He hung out close to house and home and was one of the 3 longest living members of the colony. The final 2 are still with us.
I’d like to say that I got this story out ahead of time because Light Darryl’s spirit was eager to see it in print, or at least in electrons, and I was inspired by his dreamy gaze into the sunlight that you see in yesterday’s post. But that would be a lie. It’s actually late, not early. Life got in the way of plans, as is often the case, so here’s the final installment, one day late.
Now, like Bob Newhart and Mary Frann, you’ve met Larry, his brother Darryl, and his other brother Darryl.
I knew I recognized that agave (?) in the photo. I think that’s the one near the feeding platform you showed in the previous post. It’s a good thing that Darryl #2 darkened up, or I don’t think I could have distinguised the two Darryls. Did Dark Darryl spend more time on the porch than Light Darryl? He was one smart kitty; porch sitting is a fine occupation.
You have a good eye – that is the same small agave. It was given to us by the wife of a carpenter who did some deck work for us, so I guess it’s appropriate Dark Darryl became fond of the deck. Light Darryl kept his distance from the house and was rarely on the deck. Dark Darryl came closer and closer to us and the house as his nuclear family died away. By the end of his long life he was spending a lot of time on the deck. He struck us as one of the cats who would have made a very good pet if life hadn’t dealt him another hand. He never became tame enough to be touched or petted but he became comfortable close to us during his last year or two.