The Furry Creature

In my first week here, I discovered that we have a number of feral cats that come in and out of the compound. I soon discovered an incredibly cute kitten that I fell in love with immediately. Like all the feral cats, it was very skittish.

Several nights later, I was walking in the yard and saw it wedged in between a windowpane and some bars on the windows (about a 4" wide spot), just hanging out. Cutest ever. I snagged some kitten-appropriate meat treats from the fridge and thought I'd see what happened. I made some small clicking noises (hard to explain but, you know ... pet sounds) and tossed it a piece of fish. After only a split-second's consideration, it ran and gobbled down the little bite. After five minutes of getting closer and closer, it took some fish out of my hand. Still, it was clearly afraid to come near me and got very nervous of my movements.

Since then, we've made it a little ritual to meet in the garden for a snack every few nights. I walk outside and make my clicking noises, and it comes running and mewing. It's still skittish - tonight it got close enough that I just barely touched its little head, and it streaked halfway across the patio in terror (but came right back). We're working on the whole touching thing, slowly but surely.

Here are a few pics I snapped tonight. Nothing special. Two are a little fuzzy, but it's the only way to eliminate glowing animal eyeballs.