A Purrfect Pair

Actually, there are 10 cats there. Let me explain. This spring, both of our cats had a litter of kittens within a week of each other. One of them decided she wasn't going to raise that batch of kittens, left them for her sister to care for and got pregnant with a second batch within a week of giving birth. I was not happy about that because we were planning on moving to a new home about the time that she would give birth and I was tired of kitten messes. On top of all that, I was still pregnant with PC.
So, when the kittens were old enough to sell, we advertised them in the paper and managed to get them all sold before we left for California for a week long spring vacation. The days and weeks leading up to this California trip were packed with packing up our house for our move, so things were a bit hectic. We thought we had kept the un-pregnant cat inside and away from the boys.
We went to California and the pregnant cat had her kittens the day before we got home. Two days after getting home we loaded the moving truck and relocated. The whole time making sure the cats stayed inside.
Anyway, about 4 weeks later I had gotten our house unpacked enough to start thinking of other things... like getting the cat without kittens spayed. Only when I took her in, the vet said she was pregnant and would probably have her kittens in about three weeks. I was not happy about that either. My baby was due in three to four weeks and more kittens was the last thing I wanted. Besides... we still had two weeks before we could start selling the batch we already had. The vet cheered me up a little by saying that a cat would start weaning her kittens at five weeks and at that time I could get the mother spayed. So I made an appointment for the other cat the following week. I was not going to go through this circus again!
As planned, the following week I took the cat that already had kittens in to be spayed and the week after that we advertised her kittens in the paper. Only NOBODY was calling about the kittens. (I guess when people are planning their summer vacations they don't want to buy kittens. Animals are a lot of work!)
Three weeks went by and we still had four kittens. Then I went into labor with PC. Of course, since I wasn't going to be around to clean up any messes, the pregnant cat decided to have her kittens while I was in the hospital! At least I was smart enough to suspect she'd do something like that and thought ahead enough to lock her in the bathroom in order to spare myself a carpet cleaning job.
So we were almost back to square one... only we had made progress. We only had one cat that could get pregnant. And 8 kittens! If you look closely at the top photo, you can see all ten cats in the carrier.
Anyway, Dolly really hit it off with one of the older kittens. When these pictures were taken, we had finally started to sell off the first batch. This little female had a permanently curled tail (a genetic defect that showed up in almost every litter of kittens we ever had), and a very sweet and tolerant temperament. If we didn't already have two cats, I would have been tempted to keep her just because she and Dolly got along so well. They went for stroller rides, thought about sitting in the rocking chair, and even shared bath time together!! It was cute and I'll miss that part about having kittens around.
We're finally down to the very last one of the small batch of kittens.... Anyone interested in a kitten?