Early Morning Excitement

I had trouble sleeping Friday night--woke up about 2 a.m., never did get back to sleep, and finally gave up about 6:30 Saturday morning and got up, dressed, and took the dogs out front to do their morning business.

Thank goodness the dogs are in the habit of waiting for me to give them the OK before they go out the front door! As I was bending over to pick up Timber's collar, all of us froze--me, Timber, Taenzer, and the very young cat curled up on the seat of the rocking chair on the porch about 6 inches from our collective noses.

That gave me time to slam the door on the dogs (which broke the spell--much barking and roaring from inside). Cat, a little dilute calico wearing a collar, sat there blinking at me in sleepy astonishment. I picked her up, and a caught a movement out of the corner of my eye--kitty #2, a grey tiger, about the same age and size, on the ledge under the curtain I have hanging there. So I carried kitty #1 to the steps, dumped her and shooed her off (still sleepily protesting), and went back for kitty #2, who panicked slightly, but let me pick her up and dispose of her as well. Then went back for the dogs, who by this time could barely wait to get their collars on, and charged down the steps looking for kitties! Then they came back up and sniff-sniff-sniffed the rocker and the ledge.

Sheesh. I've put a plastic garbage bag over the seat of the rocking chair since cats don't like to walk or sit on stuff like that (although Rusty liked to chew on plastic bags), but that won't keep them off the porch. Hopefully they had enough of a negative experience that they'll find somewhere else to hang out.

Nice little kitties. Maybe around a year old, or a little less. Never seen them before. I hope they don't get their little selves run over.