Our Black and White Babies

By Carol Butler

Our black-and-white babies have meant so much to my husband and me, and we feel really blessed to have had them find us. And yes, you might say we have found one another, and I think we all know what a stray animal means and how they live. If anyone has a heart, then no animal should be put out in the streets to get by the best they can. But there are people out there. These babies were born in the bean and cornfields. The three have survived on their own and have not been touched by human hands till we found one another. We both are very blessed to have them come our way. We will continue to care for them and laugh many, many times a day because of them. We love them so much, and they have truly enlightened us in more ways than I could begin to say.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 24, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483621494

Carol Butler

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Book preview

Our

Black And White

Babies

Carol Butler

Copyright © 2013 by Carol Butler.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013906293

ISBN: Hardcover 978-1-4836-2148-7

Softcover 978-1-4836-2147-0

Ebook 978-1-4836-2149-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

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without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 04/05/2013

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November 9, 2010, was a warm and sunny day. We—my husband, John, and I—were headed south to our vacation home in Tampa, Florida, early the following morning. We had all the packing that could be done ahead of time, and we both wanted to ride our bicycles for a while as it was a really nice day for early November. We headed east to the crossroads, then north to the cul-de-sac, which is the end of that country road. We turned around and came back south, and as we were adjacent to Sygma, a food distribution plant, we looked up and saw this tiny long-haired furry black-and-white kitten all alone, and she had just rolled over on his/her back. We were neither concerned nor did we care what gender it was, just that it was a very small kitten and alone. John said that she had just surrendered to us, not knowing or caring what we would do or not do—she just wanted somebody to help her.

Naturally, being the animal lovers that we both are and have been since we married forty-six years ago and as long as I can remember for myself, we stopped and picked up this beautiful, darling small black-and-white kitten. I could not ride my bike one-handed, so he carried her the half mile to our house while riding his bike. She was a beautiful small long-haired black-and-white ball of fur. We immediately fell in love with her, and so would anyone who was indeed a pet lover. We contacted our pet-sitter—a neighbor and, coincidentally, a lifelong friend of ours who lived just a few doors west of us—Mike Maged to see if he could watch the new member of our household in addition to our older cat, Ossie, that we had for years. I will tell you a little later on how we acquired her. He said yes, so he, along with his two children, Bailee and Garrett, came on down to see our newest family addition. And naturally, both children fell in love with her.

The following morning, we were up, packed, and ready to leave around 5:00 AM, as we both like to get an early start whenever we travel. We happened to observe Ossie the evening before and overnight, and we were not sure what she would do after we left, so it was easily decided that we would leave the newfound kitten on the back porch. So we put old blankets and coats, etc., on the porch along with food and water bowls.

We had a dog, a senior obese Chihuahua mix named Corkie (he was approximately fourteen years old) that we rescued from the Vermilion County Shelter in 2001. In fact, that is the only place that I remember ever getting any of our pets other than those many who had been dumped at our place. He was a real baby, which we had both spoiled worse than any of our three children or one grandchild. He went with us everywhere, sometimes where dogs were not even allowed, which were the rules for our mobile home park in Tampa where we were headed for. But as John says, if Corkie can’t go, then he won’t go, so the three of us go everywhere as he is a member of the family.

So naturally, when we go places, we always have to find the pet-friendly hotels. And when we are in Tampa, we take him often down to the spot where the people go fishing to do his business. Something we have learned since we have done some traveling over the years: there are lots of people with lots of pets who travel with up to three or more dogs, which we personally saw and met in the badlands of South Dakota last summer as we were on our way to see our daughter Jodi and son-in-law Blu in the Denver area in the summer of 2011.

So anyway, we called Mike later in the morning en route to our destination to let him know we had put the new kitten on the back porch and thought she should stay there as we were only going to be gone for ten days to two weeks. Not all individuals feel as we do, and we respect that even though neither of us can understand why or how you cannot like innocent little animals, such as cats or dogs.

I was born and raised on a farm and have never in my life—and I am not young—remembered a time that we, my parents and three siblings, did not have some sort of animal or animals. Daddy had horses, cows, and pigs and, of course, chickens, and we even had the runt of the newborn pigs that usually got to come up to the house to live, though not for very long. One that I especially remember fell off the back step and into the slop bucket, which was right off the back porch. I think it contained scraps and whatever Mother used to put in it—leftovers, etc. Anyway, it died in that bucket, and I was not very old (this was my preschool years). And of course, we had dogs and cats, but I personally do not remember ever having baby kittens or ever witnessing the birth of cats.

Back in the early 1980s, we had a beautiful female German shepherd, and she had a pretty good-sized litter of pups. At that time, our youngest daughter, Jodi, was swimming both for fun and competitively, and we belonged to a local country club where we, the adults, were all avid tennis players while our children swam a lot. After tennis and swimming and a few drinks, we