Greetings, Team TNR!
I hope August finds you awash in smiling sunflowers, and that the only thing warmer than NJ’s steamy temperatures is the joy in your heart.
We do not speak, at Tabby’s Place, of the cliched “dog days of summer.” We know better. Summer swelter is all about cats and kittens…colossal cavalcades of kittens.
Before we tumble into this month’s mewing madness, let’s catch up with July’s arrivals. I am inexpressibly grateful to report that all the kittens who were with us as of last month’s update are still with us.
More accurately, they’re not all with us at Tabby’s Place — adoptions abound! — but they’re all healthy, thriving, and growing like giddy dandelions.
Baby Boun, sole survivor of his litter, is big and boisterous.
Elaine and Gloria have somehow gotten cuter with age (call the Smithsonian or NASA or the Vatican or someone; these sisters were already the maximally cutest creatures our earth had ever seen, so something otherworldly is at work here).
And, utterly unsurprisingly, the ice cream kittens have made nice work of finding forever homes sweeter than sundaes.
But the cat days of summer keep coming.
Tempeh and Tofu came our way from an ongoing TNR project, two “tweens” with terrified eyes and hungry hearts (OK, and bellies). As scared as the siblings are, they can’t quite hide the deep sweetness within. When forced — and we are in the business of joyously forcing our kindness upon kittens — they discover that they do, in fact, love being loved. We’ll keep proving to them that love is the safest possible investment, all the way to their inevitable forever homes. Meantime, they’re in foster care with one of our most skilled kitten cuddlers, a valiant volunteer named Sue. She has yet to meet a kitten she can’t convince to trust her, so sunny days of snuggles are a sure bet for Tempeh and Tofu.
In a different aisle of the great grocery store known as Tabby’s Place, we welcomed a caffeinated little family who’s still figuring us out. Calico Starbucks was the belle of her colony when she slipped into our trap. We scheduled her for a spay, but Starbuck had other plans. She gave birth to one wild wonderkitten right in her trap.
Baby Dunkin — Starbucks’s one and only! — is already loud, gaining weight, and did I mention loud? America could surely run on Dunkin’s energy. It’s enough to make us grateful that he’s Starbucks’s only child. It would be a lot for even a tireless feline mama to keep up with six little dumplings like this dynamo. And so, the two-cat family is treasured and safe, and we all feel blessed to play barista to their needs. As usual with mama cats, it will be a wait-and-see game to determine whether or not Starbucks will be happier at Tabby’s Place or back in her colony. Either way, Dunkin will be her last baby…and the best days of both of their lives have only just begun.
Dear sponsors, this is all possible only because of your big hearts. Thank you for your steadfast generosity to the cats and kittens of August, and your year-’round devotion to all the little ones who need you most. As always, it’s the joy of my life to serve them with you!
With love, your correspondent,
Angela
