Sapphire's Miracle

by Erika

First, before I begin my story I want to provide some background info. I own 165 acres of land which is home to around 60 stray cats. My barn serves as the central grounds where the cats meet, talk, eat, and play on the lower level. The second floor serves as the nursary for my queens. There's always a litter present there.

Less than 10 of my cats are social and a few allow human interaction. Most of my cats with kittens are social so I get to see their babies. The other toms and kittenless queens roam my property, only stopping by for a quick meal.

Well, back to my story. Me and my dad were driving down there one day (we don't anctually live there) and he reported seeing a new clan cat. A cat with a dark face and tail. Sure enough, we saw it on the way down. It was standing on the side of the road and looked up at me with a sad, pleading expression.

I told my dad to stop and I got out of our Forn f150. I crouched los to the ground, extended my hand to it and made soft cat noises. It engaged me in a vexing conversation and immediately walked up to me. It sniffed my fingers and rubbed its cheeks on my fingertips. I hesitantly scratched the side of its face and the cat started purring right away. I stroked along its spine and noticed how thin this cat was.

My dad pulled the truck on the side of the road and poured out a dish of dry cat food. The cat started eating as soon as the plate hit the ground. Then, being the cat expert I am, recognized it as a pure-bred snowshoe. Then I noticed it was lactating. It was a female cat. My dad then remembered that he saw a cardboard box on the side of the road and took of toward it.

I waited a good five minutes then saw him coming back. I called and asked if there were kittens. He nodded. Two looked like mammma, a male and a female, and a calico. We lifted them out of the box and put them on the dry food. This was problably their first solid meal.

We knew this was a dump job and we couldn't leave these cats here. We put them in the bed of the truck and I climbed up with them. The kittens were calm, but I had to hold mamma to stop her from jumping out. We arrived at the barn with no traumatic incidents. We let mamma explore and cleaned of the kittens with a wet wipe.

We made a little shelter out of a large cat carrier. The kittens settled in and fell fast asleep. Mamma checked on them once more before we cleared a spot in the barn for them. I stayed outside with her and made sure she was comfortable.

She has the most beatiful blue eyes, the reason for me naming her Sapphire. She is now a loving barn cat and has a good home. By the way, I named the male kitten Jinx, the female Ruby, and the calico Jade. I didn't think a male would like to be named after a gem:)