Kittens AND turnips

Jay had hoped for a lazy Sunday, but it didn’t seem like that was going to happen. He’d been awoken just as the sun was coming up by an emergency call that, although it had been fairly close, had taken two hours to resolve. So, when he got back home at about 10:00 AM he was almost ready to head back to bed. Unfortunately, he’d forgotten to feed the cats their special little containers of squishy food before he left, so he was met at the door by hungry cats.

“Daddy, you never forget us! There’s only stale crunchy food in our bowls.” That was Rudy, outside the back door.

“Daddy, I’m hungry! Please feed me.” That was Peep, sitting in the kitchen by the food bowl.

“Daddy, if you don’t put out food soon, I think Ginger’s going to bite my head off.” That was LT, from the doorway of the spare room. Ginger had been complaining for the last hour that her owner never made them wait this long for breakfast.

“Okay, I’m coming. Just let me put my keys down.” Jay hurried to put out food for all four adult cats. They might like the little cans better, but it was this involved a lot more dirty dishes and effort to carefully put out four plates of cat food in the small kitchen. He was always afraid that he’d step on a plate that a cat had pushed into the walkway between the table and the cabinets.

As soon as the first plate hit the floor Ginger was out of her box like a shot and into the kitchen. Having delivered five kittens a week ago hadn’t slowed her down any. LT settled in with the kittens, sighing. He was hungry too, but the priority was to get food into Ginger, so that she wouldn’t do him bodily harm.

One of the black and white kittens looked at him and yelled, “Monster!” Well, LT thought. I guess more of them are learning to talk. I just wish that I’d never called the tiger a little monster. I don’t know that Ginger is going to forget this whole thing too quickly. The little one, despite having called him a monster, climbed onto his back and nuzzled his ear.

“I’m not a monster, I’m your Daddy. Can you say Daddy?” LT thought he’d at least give it a try. He repeated “Daddy” and touched his paw to his chest several more times so that the kitten would know that he was talking about himself.

“Monster Daddy,” the kitten announced and rolled off LT’s back onto one of the ginger kittens who squeaked loudly. LT sighed. Well, that was at least a little better. He groomed the black and white vigorously until Ginger returned.

“This little one learned a new word, Ginger. Tell your mommy who I am, little one.”

“Daddy Monster!” The kitten was delighted with the attention. Ginger smiled.

“Well, that’s better than just monster, I guess. I’d ask you to teach him Mommy, but I’d probably be a Mommy Monster.” She giggled at the thought. They were so much larger than the kittens that maybe they did seem like monsters, but then she was sure that the kittens had no idea of what a monster was. In their mind monster and cat were the same thing. This could cause some problems if they didn’t figure this out before they met strange cats, but she’d deal with that later. She settled down and sent LT to his breakfast.

After finishing her own breakfast, Peep set out to see if the turnips had sprouted. She found Rudy by the back door and they went off together to check them. “I’m a bit worried that they might need to be watered, and how in the world could we do that?” Peep seriously wanted these turnips to grow.

As they entered the garden they saw that the soil was damp, and that the soaker hose had been set winding through the garden. It had been dry for the last few days, and the cats figured that the Daddy had put it there so his tomato plants would have enough water to grow good tomatoes. They checked the spots where they’d planted the turnip seeds. Nothing yet.

“Did the package say how long it would be until they started growing?” Peep, not being much of a reader, hoped that Rudy had checked the package for this information.

“I don’t remember. Let’s check the package and find out.” They ran to where they’d hidden the package and pulled it out. Rudy read, “Germination in seven to fourteen days. Ugh. It’s only been two days! That’s a long time to wait, and to remember exactly where we planted the darn things.”

“Let’s put a special pebble next to each one we planted. That way we’ll remember. It should be smallish though, in case we put it right above where we put the seed.” Peep’s idea was a good one, so they found pebbles and placed them in the garden by the planting locations. “Now all we need to do is wait.”

The two cats settled down by the garden. Just in case the seeds sprouted sooner, they wanted to see it happen.

Photo courtesy of mismisimos - http://www.flickr.com/photos/mismisimos/257131396/