Momma Cat

Today's blog is a guest entry. I didn't really ask for permission, but I don't think he would mind. Also, it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. 😉 Cats are very dear to him and this is the beginnings of a story of a very special cat who infiltrated his life for a period of time.

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First time I saw that Junkyard, I was amazed at the old cars I saw: a Citicar (a 70's electric car that flopped on the market) several Studebakers, Perhaps 15 Corvairs, a terrific-and ancient-VW van, a Packard, a drivable 'top-line 73 Gremlin, and animals...lots of animals.

The junkyard owner is rather simple, and his idea of feeding the animals is to toss a bunch of chow into the trough and let the four-legs go at it, and devil take the hindmost.

That means, of course, that the big dogs are fat and the little cats starve. 

The kittens were emaciated and filthy, and the mother cat was scrawny as she could be, yet she was beautiful with the glow of maternal love, and had a sweet and tender disposition, like any mother does. She sat in the same shady place on the porch, as if glued to it.

She obviously loved her kittens, yet she could do so little to take care of them, against that canine tidal wave.

Whenever I visited the junkyard, to buy parts, or haggle about this or that car, or just to look, I'd take food for the cats.

And I always fed Momma cat first. 

I could, possibly, have lassoed each of those myriad kittens in turn, and fed them one by one. The result wouldn't have been very successful, though, because they didn't know or trust me, and I didn't even know where they all were.

But I knew that if I fed Momma Cat, if I gave her the help she needed, if I put her first, then she would have the strength to take care of her babies, far better and more completely then I ever could, no matter how deeply I cared and wanted to help.

So I fed her first.

I also had some very stern words for the simpleton in charge. A 2-pound kitten loses to an 80-pound Doberman every time, so he had to feed the babies away from the big'uns. He's not a bad guy, but "junkyard owner" is probably the top of his intellectual potential, so I can only hope the lesson sunk in.

But the overall lesson is the important one: Feed Momma cat first, even if we ourselves are Momma. It's not just OK, but necessary.