Tuesday, January 21, 2014

If you're a mouse, I'd watch out.

Back in September, we were standing outside at about 10:00 pm.  I heard a faint cry and then it seemed to get louder and louder.  It was coming from across our yard down by the forest.  We live across from Le Forêt de Grésigne (which is the largest oak forest in Europe).  Anyway, we walked around the house and down across the road, Bruce had a flashlight and we could hear the cry, but couldn't see anything.  Then Bruce said "oh my god" and right at the edge of the forest, in a bunch of nettles we saw this little black "thing"....I picked it up and it was a little tiny kitten.  She was so tiny, she fit in the palm of my hand.


Still a bit scared...I don't think she got off the couch and ventured around for 2 weeks.

The man and his cat

After a month with us, she found our bed


We took her back to the house, because we couldn't just leave her outside as she probably would have been eaten by an owl or a fox.  She was shaking and scared when we brought her into the house. I didn't have any cat food and didn't think I should feed her dog food, so all I could give her was milk. She drank it right up.  We got a basket and put a blanket in it and put it in the bathroom with some water.  She cried for quite a while and then fell asleep.

The next morning we took her to the vet because we knew we were going to keep her.  We had talked about getting another cat (we did have Maillot and Mr. Fancypants) - who both found us when we first moved here for our sabbatical in 2009, but we had to find them new homes when we had to return to the states in 2010, as we didn't know if we would be coming back to France and we didn't think it was fair to take them back to Los Angeles.  They were wild cats, roaming around all day and being in Los Angeles would be very different.  Lately we've been hearing mice in the walls and seeing droppings in the pantry (luckily we keep the door closed).  I tried to trap with a "safe" trap, but they never fell for it.

The vet told us the little kitten was about 3-4 weeks old.  Taken way too soon from her Mother.  I'm sure someone just dumped her (very common here), as we never saw a Mama cat.  We named her Colette, because she's all black and our little hamlet of 3 houses were homes of the charbonniers, who made charcoal from wood in the Forest back in the 1800's.  So, if she would have been a boy her name would have been Cole, but since she's a girl, we named her Colette.

She's a lovely little girl - now almost 5 months old.  She's easy, loving (not too needy) and independent (but not too independent), loves her Momma AND, she a huntress.  She goes out first thing in the morning and within an hour she's either got a mouse or a little mole.  She usually tortures it right in front of our glass door, I have to look away as it seems so cruel.  But last night...oh last night.  She sleeps in the house at night, not in our bedroom, usually in her basket in the living room.  Last night I got up at 3:00 am to use the bathroom and there she was, right by my feet.  She scared me, as I didn't turn on the light and didn't know she was there.  Then she started darting around the toilet and I went and turned the light on.  Behind the toilet was a big fat mouse - who was about to have a very bad night.  I couldn't do anything about it, so I just went back to bed.  Bruce got up to go to the bathroom after me (I guess I woke him up), and I said "Colette has a mouse in the bathroom", but that was all I said and we didn't talk about it when he came back into bed.   So, this morning we went into the bathroom and didn't see a mouse, we looked around the house and no mouse, nothing (not a head or tail or liver or kidney).  Then about 1/2 hour later I went to take a shower. I looked in and what did I see - a liver or kidney and blood....in the shower!  Yuck.  But...yay. She got the mouse that had been in the pantry.  She's earning her keep for sure.

Tired girl after mouse hunting

See the little mole on the ground?????


Then I cleaned the shower.

1 comment:

Megan said...

So cute. Sometimes I would like to get a dog or cat, but not while living in an apartment...