We've been hard on cats this fall

Well, one of our cats has been ill this week, going into hospitalization yesterday. We got the call this morning; total kidney shutdown, no hope. I'm going in at 3:00 to be with her at the end, I've already dug the hole next to the other two we've lost while living here.

Scrabble was 11 years old, and leaves behind her sister also living at our house, who has become quite social lately; when the two of them came to live at our house several years ago, Patience was quite skittish and private. Scrabble had been quite a lap cat over the last few months.

It seems a bit odd, but we'd already been planning it before Scrabble got sick; later this afternoon, we'll be out at a farmhouse picking out a new kitten.

I don't think I posted it, but we lost another cat about 6 weeks ago. Gadget never came home one night, and when I went out to look for it, I saw eyes glowing in my flashlight beam that looked to me like coyote. I don't hold anything against coyotes, just our bad for not getting our smaller animals in before dark.

Pics of new kitten to come...

Kitten

We got a new kitten this afternoon. It was a bloodbath (of MY blood, no cat blood). They're 6 weeks old, and have been living at a farm in what is essentially a junkyard. We spent an hour chasing them, trying to get them out of hidey-holes with sticks, etc. It sounds bad but we were trying to be as careful as we could, but in the end it came down to grabbing one, and it wasn't pretty. Lexi got bit once, and he really ripped me up. I have bites on three fingers that I think were sunk fully down to the gums, one went clear through a fingernail. I was really dripping quite a bit of blood from one hand; I think I kind of freaked out Lexi's friend who was there (it was her grandparent's house). I've never heard a cat scream before; it was not pretty but after what we went through to catch him I wasn't letting go, and I really didn't want to leave him where he was.

Anyway, once we got him wrapped in a towel, and I stopped bleeding enough to get back in and drive the brand-new car, we decided to cut him slack because of the fear we'd put him through. We brought him home, and he's now calmed down, has had something to eat, and has even played with a bit of leather lacing a bit. We're setting him up in the upstairs bathroom with water and a litter box, hopefully he'll be loose in the house permanently in a few days. He's really cute and I think he's going to be great. I think he was mainly terrified this afternoon rather than wild.

He's completely black so of course he's pretty tough to take a picture of, but here's a quick snapshot.