In the beginning there was a serval...

I know it's hard to believe, but I do get asked how all these cats and critters arrived.
Not that I don't love telling this story a thousand times, but I don't always have time. Now they can just come here.
In the beginning....
There was a very spoiled young serval who adored kittens.
His folks were staying with friends who had a very beautiful kitten. Unfortunately the kitten, Jazz, was major brat, badly behaved and dangerous to play with. This in a household which also has a cougar! Jazz had the sweetest kitten face, but it was just to lure you close enough to bite or scratch! She is a purebred calico Cymrik (long haired manx). For those not in the cat world, calicos without a lot of white on them are usually described as "difficult". Manx owners tell you not to get one unless you can spend a lot of time with it, they need company. If they get bored, they get in to trouble. They are also extremely intelligent.
Now, I love animals, I really really do. But even I didn't care much for Jazz. She lived up to both reputations a little too well. Soon her owner had dubbed her "itty bitty shitty kitty". In fact, the only one who like her was Moosie, the serval. No matter what she did, it was all right with him. He has great big ears, Jazz jumped up and grabbed one and held on, ripping chunk out of it. Moosie just sat there with this doofus "Ain't she cute?" look on his face, with blood streaming from his ear. Of course, before we could get to them, Jazz had dropped off and scarpered. So Moosie shook his head, the blood was tickling him, and the walls, furniture and our clothes were splattered.
Now, I am the biggest sucker for animals in the known universe. I've had pinky housemice when their mother was killed, a one-legged canary, blind sugar gliders. We had a housefull of pets, and no house yet. No way was I taking that little Demon Seed.
After an attempt to sell her (no takers at ALL) and as we got ready to move out, my friend played her last and dirtiest card. "Well, she's too mean to let stay around the serval kittens, she'll have to go out in the barn." Triiiiicky! She knew darn well that kitten would try to face down a truck or one of the big cats and be gone before 24 hours. She knew that I knew. I knew that she knew that I knew, but we somehow ended up taking Jazz when we moved out. Moosie was ecstatic. We were covered in bandages and iodine. Tarly, our other cat, just looked at her and yawned. Just so long as she was still the prettiest cat in the kingdom, she was OK with anything.

So, let's see, at that time we had Moosie, Tarly, and Jazz, two chinchillas, I can't remember how many sugar gliders. I'm sure we had more than that, but you get the idea. Upon arrival, the landlord's horse, Trouncer, greeted us with open hoofs. We finally built a fence to keep him from coming in the yard. I was warned to keep the door closed, because he would come right inside, and the floor couldn't handle it. Neither could my nerves!
I was doing the bottle feeding for a few litters of coaties. I'd already raised a lot, when this teeny tiny one came along. We both figured he had heart problems and wouldn't live, he was half the size of his litter mates. But, never say die. I carried him around under my shirt, close to my heart. People thought I was deformed, I had a baby coatie under my shirt, with a sugar glider pouch over that, with my shirt over the whole caboodle. (Hey, I once packed 32 baby squirrels all the same time. But that's another story.) Tickle Me Elmo came out that year, and that's all you heard about. My husband HATES Elmo's voice, he reacts to it like fingernails on a blackboard. Well, the baby was small, loved to be tickled and had a high squeaky voice, so I dubbed him Elmo, and prepared to make his short time on earth comfortable as I could. I guess it worked, because he suddenly recovered one day and hasn't had a sick day since. He's a big beautiful mountain coatie. His mother had broken his tail and it healed at a right angle, K says it's his kickstand.

My friend got new barn cats, and they were beating up her female. I'd always loved that cat, and they didn't much care for her, she was always underfoot and didn't catch mice. She's a black and white tuxedo kitty named Keyboard. So Keyboard came home with us to be an outside kitty. She hunts mice for us! I was hoping to find an inside only home for her, but it's been years, so I think she's ours. She and Jazz hate each other and fight through the window. Looks pretty silly in fact.

Our druggy neighbor took off and left her 3 cats behind. Guess who couldn't let them starve? Luckily my daughter fell in love with the female, a beautiful long haired tortie with a super loving personality. I warned her the cat was probably pregnant, since she'd been locked up with two unnuetered male cats. One was her brother and the other another black tuxedo cat. He and Keyboard looked like bookends! My daughter named the female Kanna and could hardly wait to get her. Her cat had recently died. Kanna began to look better, being fed every day and put on some weight. So did the boys, so I couldn't tell if she was preggers or not. We arranged a day for my daughter to come pick her up.
It was like Kanna knew she was going. She stayed in a box right by the window, tight as she could. Her brother laid right next to her, washing her face. Did he sense she was going too?
My daughter arrived, and we discussed the possibilities of kittens, and if they would survive since Kanna had been so neglected. We glanced out the window AND KANNA WAS HAVING KITTENS! She didn't seem to mind us at all, her brother was still licking her face. We moved her into a bigger box and got to watch the little blobs come into the world. 5! Where did that tiny skinny cat hide them?


A few days later, my daughter called us to say that we would have to bottle raise two of the kittens, as Kanna couldn't feed them all. How do you pick 2 from 5 adorable kittens? Well, the little tuxedo girl was already spoken for, so I picked the ones with the longest hair.
Ever bottle fed a baby animal? You can't leave home without them! So the kittens went visiting with us in a cute little basket. They loved all the attention and were very well behaved. Moosie was in seventh heaven. But there were better things to come.
At six weeks, my daughter called, frantic. The little orange cat never shut up and she was sure her neighbors could hear him and she wasn't supposed to have that many cats and she couldn't sleep and would we PLEASE come pick up the remaining kittens. Luckily they were weaned.
So the orange tabby and the tiny little tabby female came home too. He took one look at Moosie, who must have looked like a sky scraper, and hissed and puffed all up. We soothed him down, showed him Moosie was friendly, and the little orange guy had another idea. He and The Princess took up nursing positions in Moosie's long tummy fur. Hey, this was a bit of alright with him, now he really felt like a mommy!





Two years later, and Morpheus is about 15 pounds, a BIG cat. The Princess is still tiny and regal. Ariel, we swear takes cute lessons when we aren't around, she's such a Nermol! Johnny went to a friend, he's now a cinnamon hunk of tabby that is adored by all his fans. He still talks a lot, and his mom loves it!
And yes, the Tabby Trio still "nurse" on Moosie. Our Tarly passed away, so we decided we would keep one kitten. But which one? Morphy is outgoing and funny, Ariel is a lap kitty and adoring. The Princess supposedly was given away, but things kept happening, after a medical mishap, we decided she was meant to stay.



Our newest member of our fur family is the oldest. Emily out lived her previous owner and is 30 years old. I keep raising baby kinkajous for my friend, and it kept getting harder to give them back. So my friend came home one day with an ancient kinkajou. K said No, we have too many pets as it is. He was right of course. He listed all the reasons we couldn't have her. I discussed them with M, she solved all of them and Emily is now safely home for the rest of her life. She lives in our office, her cage is close to K's chair. We were told she hated men, but she adores him. He gives her attention all day long.



So, that's the basic cast of characters. There are lots more stories, and lots more animals. It's never dull around here. I never know what critter will stroll/fly/slither/roll/climb/rollic into my life tomorrow.