In recent weeks it feels as if we have really been made to know that we are living in the middle of the countryside. Of course, we do know it, but every now and then Mother Nature makes sure that we haven't forgotten her. Recently it has felt as if all the wildlife in our vicinity has made a concerted effort to make its presence known.
Now we are fully into summer, and sleeping with the windows open is obligatory if we have any hope of getting the bedroom below 30C, our sleeping patterns are at the mercy of the various beasts with which we share our hillside.
Last week we woke at 03:30am one night to the sound of a deer barking right outside the window (in reality it was probably on the terraces close to the house, but it was loud enough to sound as if it was standing right beneath the window).
The very next night we woke at 04:00am to the bizarre and extremely loud sound of a pair of foxes fighting on the top veg terrace, immediately below the house. We shone a torch out, and saw two pairs of eyes shining back up at us, but they were undeterred and continued their shenanigans for about half an hour.
Then there have been the family of swifts that have used our bedroom windowsill as a landing and feeding ledge daily, the evidence of fox digging around the chicken enclosure, the rocks that have been displaced in various spots along the drive - probably by badgers (and indeed our guest, Norman, told us that he had seen a badger in the car park one night), and the hedgehog that appeared one evening on the other side of the guest fence and which sent Reggie into barking overdrive (the poor thing just curled up - clearly trying to hide from the racket that Reggie was making - and in the end, in a bid to stop Reggie digging his way right the way under the fence to get to it, I donned a pair of thick suede fire gloves and took it to a safer, altogether quieter spot along the drive).
But by far the animal that has caused us the most loss of sleep, and taken up the most amount of our energy, time and emotions, has been a little 10-week-old kitten who presented himself in our lives on Thursday evening.
He didn't come as a complete surprise, as two days previously one of our nearest neighbours (the house at the very bottom of our hill) had messaged us with a photo of said kitten drinking from a bowl saying "is this your cat? we've found it outside our house". We didn't think much more of it, other than having in the backs of our heads that where there's one kitten there might be others and we were a little cautious when taking Reggie out for walks in the woods.
Come Thursday evening, we were sitting under the pergola just about to start our dinner when suddenly there was a loud miaowing. Nothing unusual in itself, because Florence was sitting in our bedroom window and miaowing down at us outside. But this was different. It was coming from a different direction, and it wasn't Florence's miaow.
We downed forks and rushed down to the guest garden/top of the veg terraces where the sound seemed to be coming from, and started searching the undergrowth. Of course, no sooner had we got down there than the miaowing stopped - possibly because Reggie had started up a volley of barking - and it was impossible to locate. So, we headed back to our dinner, managed to take another two mouthfuls before the miaowing started up again. This time, I crept as quietly as I could around the back of the house, turned the corner and saw a little black and white face looking back up at me from the pile of rubble behind the house. The instant it saw me it dived for safety - underneath next winter's wood pile.
Operation capture the kitten then began - we located one of the cat travel crates in the shed and took it, along with a pile of cat treats, to the wood pile where, on our knees we started trying to coax the little thing out. He was clearly very hungry, and the prospect of something to eat was enough to bring him out from his hiding place just long enough to grab a treat and retreat. Unsurprisingly he was incredibly jumpy and the slightest movement of a hand had him scurrying back to his safe place. But after 10 minutes or so of gaining his trust, we managed to coax him out far enough to get hold of him and manhandle him into the crate. The poor thing was terrified, biting, scratching and hissing, and climbing the walls of the crate trying to force his way out through the holes in the wire mesh, but at least we had him secure and out of harm's way.
Of course, Reggie had been watching this play out from afar - stuck in the garden behind the fence - and was extremely agitated. There was no way we could take the little kitten into our house, and it was difficult to know (in our own agitated minds) where to house him safely. In the end we settled on the section of the shed closest to the house, where there was enough space for the cat carrier and would be quiet, dry and safe. We fed him a few more treats, brought him some water, which he lapped up thirstily, and then left him to calm down.
By this time it was getting quite late so we went through the usual bedtime routine with Reggie and headed off for some much needed sleep... Ha. Well, sleep would have been nice! Reggie had wound himself up so much that it took 3 attempts to get him to settle in his bedroom, by which time it was way past midnight. Come 5am, Florence started making it clear that she would like to go outside, so I got up to let her out, only to find that Reggie was already whining and barking and the kitten could be heard miaowing from inside the house! So, despite feeling as if I needed another 3 hours' sleep, I got up in order to perform a juggling act of letting Florence out, moving the kitten down to the apartment (why we hadn't thought of that before I don't know), letting Reggie out of his bedroom and encouraging him to come upstairs with us for a bit while Florence had some outdoor time, then shutting Reggie back in his room so I could get Florence inside!
Thankfully, things calmed down once the kitten was down in the apartment as it turns out the soundproofing is a whole lot better than it is in the shed adjacent to the house, and Reggie soon calmed down, oblivious to the furry bundle in residence beneath.
We needed to decide what to do with the kitten, knew we couldn't keep it, thanks to Reggie's incompatibility with cats, but were clueless as to the procedure for taking it to an animal shelter - besides which we hoped we might be able to find it a home. First things first, though, we needed to give it a good breakfast and some more water, and we needed to clean the crate out, which quite understandably the kitten had toileted in over night.
It was then that we realised that, with no guests in the apartment, and if we blocked off the entrance to the bedroom and covered the sofa with a tarpaulin and towels, we could let the kitten out down there, giving it room to roam and relax a bit, and that would give us a little breathing time to try and find him a home. Of course, it ran straight under the kitchen units, but it didn't take much to coax it back out with some food, which it gobbled down in one go. Then, very gradually it started to relax and come towards our hands for a bit of fuss, and before we knew it the loud miaow had been replaced with a loud purr and he was enjoying being stroked and cuddled and clambering all over us. We fairly quickly worked out that we had a little boy on our hands, and it wasn't long before we found him a name, albeit a temporary one: Tiny Tim.
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| Tiny Tim soon relaxed with us and started to feel at home. |
We spent the next 48 hours desperately trying to find him a home (while rapidly falling in love with him). We put posts on various local groups and pages on Facebook, posted in all our WhatsApp groups, asked everyone we knew, and even other people helped out by posting on Facebook and asked people they knew… yet it seemed nobody wanted him. We photographed him and videoed him and even paid to "boost" a post on Facebook that - according to Facebook - was seen by over 3,000 people. Yet there were still no takers. It was beyond belief that nobody would want to take on this little guy.
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| Who wouldn't want this little guy? |
In the end, just as we were starting to give up hope and coming to the realisation that we would have to take him to an animal shelter the next day, our friend Amanda phoned me to ask if she could pass my number to someone she knows who 'really loves cats' and who might be able to help. Of course I said yes, and within a couple of hours and after a few more videos and photographs had been sent back and forth, the lady had found someone who wanted Tiny Tim!
So, yesterday evening, feeling a mixture of relief, apprehension and sadness, we drove Tiny to his new home (in Pieve a Nievole – about half an hour away from us). His new family seem like really nice people, they assured us that their dog is very good with cats and that he even used to sleep together with their old cat. They appeared to be totally bowled over by Tiny Tim (well, who wouldn't be?!) and seemed very much to be responsible pet owners. When we left, Tiny Tim was snuggled up on the lap of the teen-aged daughter purring loudly – he had taken to them very quickly, which has to be a very good sign.
Nevertheless, we came home feeling heavy-hearted – there’s still the worry of the unknown; the road the house is on is pretty busy; what if the dog doesn’t like this cat; what if things don't work out, etc.! All quite emotional really. I’ve no idea how people who work in animal rescue shelters manage to pass animals they have cared for on to new owners with little more than a bit of faith. And as for when we think about how Tiny ended up in the woods in the first place (undoubtedly he was abandoned in the woods - an unwanted kitten, the inconvenient product of the household cat, etc.), to say that it makes our blood boil is an understatement.
For such a tiny being, and such a brief spell in our lives, he’s left quite a hole!
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