The Garden Door Family

Meet my newest foster cat family.  They have been named the Garden Door Kittens because the momma cat brought them to the back porch of one of Abbey Cats foster moms, knowing they would be well looked after.  Momma cat is named Gardenia (Deeny for short?):

She is a beautiful long-haired calico.  She seems to be settling into my spare bedroom, although she growls a little bit now and then, which sounds more like a rumbling than a growl, as if she is disgruntled rather than afraid or angry.  She is quite happy to let me pet her and comes out from under the bed to let me do so.  No doubt, she's probably still trying to figure out how she got here and who the heck I am.

I'm told she's been hanging around the previous foster mom's backyard for about three years now and this is her 3rd set of kittens (that we know of).  Each time, she has had 2 kittens and a couple from previous years are still hanging about as well.

These two kittens are named after roses.  One is called Polyantha:

and the other is Floribunda:

So far, I can tell them apart because Florrie is just a little bit fluffier than her sister.  She also has a tiny, barely noticeable patch of white under her chin and on her belly.  Polly has a light coloured paw on her left rear foot, as you can see from the photo above.

They are both tortoiseshell cats, which is not a breed of cat but rather a term used to describe their colouring - torties have a mottled colouring with orange or cream and chocolate, black or blue patches.   According to Wikipedia, the more white in the cat's colouring, the more likely the patches of colour are to be more defined, which is how you end up with a calico cat like Gardenia.  Most cats with either of these colourings are female.

At the moment, the plan is that these kittens will be ready for adoption next week, so I don't expect they will be staying with me for too long.  Once again, Katrina doesn't seem to notice or care that there are new cats in the spare room.  Maggie (Lady Killigrew) has been crying at the door, but that may just be because it used to be her room and she likes the view from the window in there.  Hopefully she will settle down, she's been making a fair bit of noise the past two nights since her last kitten left, although she's pretty quiet until the lights go out and I'm trying to sleep (smart girl).