Not another one?

the day after we found Mr. Man - such a skinny little bit

If you've read this blog before, you know that almost a year ago we were outside, heard a crying kitten and found our lovely Colette (who was 4 weeks old at that time).  She's now over a year, healthy, happy and such a love.  Well, it happened again.  But Dashell found this one.  He was barking at a tree on our property and we went over to it, looked up and there was this little kitten.  We couldn't climb up the tree, so I got a rake and got him down.  He was so skinny, his hip bones were sticking out and you could see his ribs.  It was in the evening, so we had to wait until the next morning to take him to the vet.

The vet told us he was probably 2 months old, but because he's feral he's not developing.  He also told us that if he was left outside, he probably would have died.  Not that we need another animal, but cats are pretty easy and Colette could use a friend.

just a funny shot of Colette

Here's Mr. Man now - what a difference a warm friend and food makes

His name is Mr. Man.  He's now 5 months old, fixed and getting bigger and stronger (although his legs are really short, maybe stunted growth or something).  He's not interested in going outside at all - Colette couldn't wait to go out and hunt.  He'd rather curl up with us, or in front of the fire, or with his friend Dashell.  He's now a happy member of our pack.

"our" Maillot

Sastra in his maillot jaune

Lance in (one of) his many maillot jaunes

One of our passions is cycling (road).  We both have 2 bikes here in France and Bruce has a fixed gear bike back home that he just couldn't sell.  On all of our trips to france in the past 4 years we have brought our bikes.  We find that 1.  it is a great workout, so you can eat croissants and pastries and drink loads of vin de rouge and not gain weight and 2. it's the best way to see a country.  You notice things you'd never notice in a car just driving by.

We are also huge fans of the Tour de France.  Last years tour actually came right through where we are living now and we were sad to think that we missed it. We watched it on television from Los Angeles.  Next years tour will not come near us, so we are going to it.  We have decided to drive south to Marseilles and then down to Perpignan and then over into the Pyrenees.  We are also going to go over to Annecy for the time trial.  Our best friends will be coming over and they are staying in Annecy for a week or so and we'll go see them, see the race and then they'll come over and spend some time with us. That's not until July, which seems so far away.  We miss them terribly!

Ok, what does this have to do with "our" maillot.  During the Tour de France everyone wants to wear "the maillot jaune"...the yellow jersey.  It's coveted by all the riders and the leader of the tour wears the maillot jaune.  It can change from day to day or someone might lead for 5 days and wear the yellow jersey for that whole time.  It's huge if you win a stage and even bigger if you wear the maillot jaune.  For those non-french, you pronounce Maillot (my-o).

So, about 10 days ago Bruce was upstairs drawing and he had the window open.  He heard a cry and then another and he looked out of the window and there was a cat coming out of the woods behind our house.  He called down to me and I went outside and it ran away.  I started calling for it and I would call and it would cry, back and forth.  I brought out some milk and coaxed it out of the woods.  I couldn't touch it, he/she would run away.  But it looked healthy and relatively young.  After it drank the milk it ran away.  We figured it was just passing by.  But the next morning it was out in the woods again crying.  I brought out some tuna and more milk and it came out of the woods and ate.  This went on for about 3 days, morning and evening.  I said to bruce "I think we have a cat!"  We bought some cat food and I finally got to pick HER up.  The dogs weren't too sure about her, since they have never been around cats.

our maillot

Last Thursday she came in the house, pranced right in, rubbed again Dashell's leg and started purring.  Friday we took her to the vet to get checked out.  She is 100% healthy and probably 1 year old.  We got her some flea/tick medicine and brought her back to her new home...a home SHE picked.  We wonder where she came from because our closest neighbor is about 1/2 mile away (and we know them and they didn't have a cat).  

We tried to think of a name for her.  She looks very similar to the cat we had when I was growing up, Mitzi.  But I couldn't name her Mitzi.  We went back and forth and finally Bruce said "what about Maillot", perrrrrfect.   She spends most of her day outside roaming in the woods, laying on the picnic table in the sun, lounging in the meadow or sitting on the rail of the balcony.  At night she now comes in the house since it's really cold out and she's beginning to trust us.  She is still very shy and skittish. I'm not sure she had much contact or love from humans, but she'll get tons from us.