My Feline Family

I was just thinking this might be a good time to introduce my six indoor cats to my readers.

When I first got married, it was the first time I'd ever lived in a house without a cat. I'd always had one or more growing up. and I really missed the campanionship and enjoyment they bring. I tried to tame one of the neighborhood strays to no avail, and Dave, seeing how much it meant to me, decided that it was time for me to get myself a cat.
My aunt, Paula, who lived in the country at the time, told me she had a litter of kittens I could choose from. She had bottle fed them after they lost their mother, and when they became old enough to find homes, I went to meet them. Of course, I wanted them all, but I picked Abby, the calico in the first picture, and Annie, the tortie sitting in the window perch, basking in the sun. They are such a delight, and I'm so blessed to have them....but, little did I know at the time, this was just the beginning....
Meet Merlin (the himalayan) and Morty (the orange tabby). They were adopted from the shelter in Sulpher Springs, where we had all our strays spayed and neutered. We had been looking for a low cost s/n clinic for a long time, because I was tired of watching the feral colony grow, fight for survival, then sometimes lose (but that's another story). When we went to visit the clinic, we met and adopted merlin. He and Dave immediately took to eachother. Morty joined the family later, when we went to pick up a couple of cats we'd taken to be fixed, and I saw him sitting in his cage, staring out at me. I was hooked, and we brought him home. That was supposed to be it. Four cats is plenty, right? Well, sometimes circumstances say other wise....

Meet Mabel. My niece adopted her, as a kitten, for her son, but when thier family moved to a place where pets are not allowed, and asked us if there was room in our hearts for one more, I just couldn't say no. Mabel is the most mellow, easy-going cat I've ever met, and she immediately blended in with minimal hissy fits from the others. So now the family is complete, right? Not so fast...

Meet Max. He is a gentle giant of a cat, but this wasn't always so. He was just a tiny thing, barely old enough to eat solid food, when a coworker of Dave's found him wondering around the parking lot at the bank. She and her daughter didn't want to just leave him there. She's highly allergic, and couldn't keep him herself, so she brough him to us. Of course we took him in. I mean, he had nowhere else to go, and we couldn't just send him back to the bank parking lot...Could we?

So our feline family is now complete...And I really mean it this time. If you'd like to see more picures, you can go to my flickr page. There are kitten pictures of Max, more cute poses from all of them, and even a few shots of some of our friendlier ferals. Enjoy!