365 Project - DAY 1

Today is the "official" start of our 365 day photo project!

My photos today are of our cat, Mira. Mira has spent her entire 9 years with us. Her mother was our cat (she now lives across the street as she did not seem to want to make the move with us to the house across the street so she ended up living with our new neighbours).

Mira is a very special cat. Her father was a wild cat that my daughter befriended and brought home when he was a kitten. When he became of age, he decided to go back to being a wild cat with occasional visits to his friend (my daughter). When we decided to let Mira's mother have one batch of kittens before sterilising her, my daughter really hoped that Moritz would father the kittens. Unfortunately Moritz was a small tom cat and he had a lot of competition! During the last days of Piensi's heat, I did manage to confine Moritz and her for a couple of hours in their own private honeymoon suit.

When Piensi started delivering her kittens, she chose my bed as her labor bed. (I was not too thrilled about her choice, but accepted it). As she went through her contractions, she would look me in the eyes as if to say "it hurts.... I'm glad you're here...". As the kittens started coming, my then 8 year old daughter exitedly watched with hopes of at least one of them being from Moritz (kitten siblings born at the same time can be from different fathers). I had told my daughter that if one was very obviously from Moritz, she was allowed to keep it. In the course of 4 hours, 4 kittens were born and then it seemed as if that was it. Brianna was so disapointed, none were from Moritz. She went to bed. About 3 hours later, I checked on Piensi to see how she and the kittens were doing and to my amazement there was a fifth kitten there and she had exactly the same distinctive markings as Moritz (only he was black and white and this kitten was multi-colored and white!). Knowing how disapointed my little girl was when she went to bed, I woke her up and whispered that she had gotten her kitten. And that is how Mira entered our lives.

Mira is very people fixated and not place orientated (like her mother was). She had no problem making the move with us. She loves cuddles and company but can also be quite bitchy and tempermental. We can not imagine life without her being part of our family!