Just The Boys

I'm taking a quicky break from grading papers this morning. That's what I've been doing for the past three days--nothing but grading papers.

So this morning, I thought I'd show off some of our "boys." First meet the primary males in our colony. There's MC, the oldest. Then Fiesty, Blue, and Swirly. 

MC 

 

Fiesty eating his favorite--canned salmon 

 

Handsome Blue

                                                               Swirly showing off his colors

  They are all related to Merlin in one fashion or another. He is the granddaddy to all the above.

 

Merlin when he first came to live inside 

Then we have the "Newbies" who joined the colony over the past year or two. We have Blanco--who incidentally is also related to Merlin. Beamer and WaitAMinute came along a bit later.

Blanco 

 

  Beamer   

  

 

                                                                             WaitAMinute

Beamer is an orange tabby feral. I think he was someone's pet, turned out or lost, and became feral to survive. Many pet cats that are turned out don't make it. Beamer is one of the lucky ones. He found a pair of cat-crazy people who were willing to manage a colony. WaitAMinute was most likely was born feral. We believe he's Lacey's father because they have the same facial features.

Then we have Buddy and what could be his brother, son, father, uncle, cousin. You remember Buddy from the Halloween Post, dressing in his costume? Well this weekend, what could be his brother/son/ father/uncle/cousin joined us. Looks like a smaller version of Buddy and very friendly. Those two must have been raised together because they haven't fought at all. They share the front porch post and both chase dogs out of the yard. We are having a hard time naming him...so right now he's 2B.  

2B

He's hard to photograph 

 Buddy

He's not happy about sharing his top bunk

 Because they are both friendly, I believe them to be strays--not ferals. Stray cats can become feral in order to survive. Stray cats were once someone's pet. Some people abandon their cats, believing they can survive outdoors. As I said before, many abandoned cats do not make it.There are many reasons pet cats become stray cats,and I'll cover that in another post later.  Right now, I have papers to finish grading!