Over 25 years ago, Shayna the cat moved into our backyard. After nearly 18 years, Shayna died. Not a bad life span for a feral cat, but we provided a nice shelter and took good care of her. She was a good friend, but we never realized that she also earned her keep. Since Shayna’s death, the squirrels were emboldened and we can no longer enjoy our garden vegetables and and flowers.They are cute but highly destructive. Our five persimmon trees became their property and we only got a few mulberries in June as opposed to our normal bumper crop. They even started eating our tomatoes! We never realized how Shayna protected our garden. We miss our friend, but we also miss our security system.

A few days ago a cat gave birth to a healthy litter of kittens in a friend’s backyard. We adopted two of the kittens. They are healthy, happy, and running wild! We refurbished Shayna’s house and they have taken over. We haven’t seen a squirrel since.
The kittens though, still nameless at this point need some getting used to. Extremely cute, but we’ve needed to potty train them. Our deck is beginning to air out as they have begun to discover the litter box. And the flowers no longer have anything to fear from squirrels, but the kittens like to swat and play with them. Win some lose some. They also play war games all day long, attacking one another in continually.
We’ll let you know their names, as soon as we figure that out.