During one of our homeschooling days, Angela noticed a cat carrying something across the yard. Upon further inspection, she and the kids realized it was kittens. The mother was moving them, one at a time, from one neighbor’s yard to another. Gavin and Angela went to the wood pile she moved them to and saw 3 kittens, each a different color. After talking to a homeschooling friend who works at a rescue, we decided to attempt to capture them to get them fostered, socialized, and adopted. Angela is allergic to cats so fostering them ourselves was not an option. We also decided to try to catch the mom to get her spayed.
After calling a few rescues we learned that it was “kitten season” and shelters were full. Gavin was still adamant about helping the kittens and agreed to foster them himself in the garage. When it comes to kids and kittens, parents will apparently make decisions that don’t quite make sense. So we said yes. Angela checked with neighbor whose wood pile the kittens were in to make sure he didn’t mind us poking around in his yard. He said yes, and the Kittens Curriculum of Chaos began. As soon as we made the decision, we realized the mom had moved them again.
Angela and I pretty much gave up on finding them and felt a sense of relief that we wouldn’t have to deal with kittens. During our many hours of yardwork to prep for our summer trip, we noticed the mom frequenting a different neighbor’s yard. On a whim, we had Gavin go check the neighbor’s old play fort one last time. He came back excited, and the real work began. The kittens were hiding under decking, which the neighbor had been planning on replacing anyways, and he told us to go for it.
Three hours later, after ripping up boards, playing kitten peek-a-boo, grab that kitten, and should we give up yet, we had not 3, not 4, not 5, but 6 kittens. It turns out the 3 we’d seen before each had a doppelganger. It was already 10pm at this point, and we spent the next 2 hours bottle feeding them. Having already made questionable decisions, we decided to just keep them in a crate in the house.
Angela hit up the allergy meds, and we all dove in on feeding and socializing them while a friend found a shelter to take them. The kittens quickly switched to eating canned food and using a litter box, which made everything easier. There were several hours of playtime and cuddling over the next week and a half before they went to a shelter. We were all sad to see them go, but also relieved that the kitten chaos came to an end so the packing chaos could begin.
P.S. During this time, we also managed to trap the mom and get her spayed.
Emge Adventures 
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