Um... The House Comes With These... Things

Many older houses come with animals inside. Ours is absolutely infested with spiders. Not the bad kind of spiders, but kind of creepy all the same. They're getting better, though, now that we live here. A friend of ours bought an older home a few years ago and found a squirrel nest in the attic big enough to stable a pony in. We were spared that particular annoyance, thank goodness.

But our neighbors moved out a few days after we moved in, and they left some things behind. (They also stole some things, including the refrigerator, out of the house they were renting, and left the garage piled floor to ceiling with kitchen garbage. In bags, but still, piled floor to ceiling with garbage.) They left behind their indoor-outdoor cat, a white and orange tabby tomcat. He is going to the humane society soon to become a regular plain cat instead of a tom cat, because he is the only male cat in the area and we can't afford to spay a bunch of cats.

Because a bunch of cats is what we have. There is a mama cat (Mama Cita, for now), who is a standard brown tabby. And there are these things. Three tabby kittens, very similar in appearance, and shockingly similar to Tribble. We have been calling them Dasher, Vixen, and Blitzen (that's in order, left to right, in the photo below) for the last couple days, although last night I decided maybe we should give them names of minor characters from Star Trek series (to go along with Tribble).

They're very nice kittens. They stayed reasonably still for this photo, which Tribble generally doesn't do unless she's asleep. In the background you can see the tom cat, who I've been calling Creamsicle (the obvious choice) although Smittywife suggested Orange Pop, since he's the dad and all. (But he's fathered his last kittens.) I like both names. Perhaps I'll let the humane society choose when they receive him for surgery.

We're keeping them as outdoor-only cats, although they have become rather too comfortable at the house and like to sit in the windowsills and look in at us. I think we shall have to start giving them their food in the garage or something so they don't get so comfortable at the house. Creamsicle/Orange Pop sits on the porch and just stares. It's toughest for him, because I know he was used to coming inside before. The kittens and Mama Cita have only been outdoor cats. Once there's money coming in, I'll get them all spayed, but none of them have had any shots and they probably have some fleas, so it won't be cheap to take them in (the Humane Society will give them their shots and everything at $10 a shot; it's a lot cheaper than taking them to a vet, but considering that they're not even really our cats... four cats times $49/each to spay, times $10 per shot (2 shots per cat), I mean, I just want to prevent future kitten outbreaks, not spend $300 turning them into pets. Maybe there's a charity that will pay for this for us...). In any event, neutering Orange Pop should at least prevent future kitten outbreaks for a while; that is the hope.

Anyway. Just wanted to post that adorable picture. There will be house pictures galore coming soon!