A friend of mine has a litter of kittens in the barn. Since she is 
recovering from surgery, I do the barn work for her and run into cats all the 
time.
    Imagine the unbridled delight a kitten feels, when on it's first journey 
out of the tack room, it discovers freshly cleaned horse stalls. Stretching 
away to the horizon, (from a kitten's eye-view) one sees nothing but an 
endless expanse of pristine sawdust just waiting to be dug in. It's the 
world's biggest litter box! 
    Then, a few days later, the crew was making further explorations of the 
world beyond the tack room door, and they discovered the hay room. As bales 
are used, hay rooms acquire a layer of loose hay on the floor a few inches 
thick.... and the kittens thought it was a jungle and spent all morning 
chasing little rustles in the hay, pouncing on each other, hiding in the 
cracks between bales and tearing bales apart as much as they could. Mom 
showed up and seemed to approve, even giving a few pointers on the fine art 
of pouncing.
    The barn is unheated, but there is a hot water tank in the tack room and 
they like to curl up around the pipes to keep warm on frosty nights. I found 
that an empty feed sack stuffed with old binder twine makes a lovely pillow 
and the kitties agree.
   So far we have had a few close calls with the horses, but no stomped 
kitties yet. Both horses and cats are rapidly learning to avoid each other.
   All in all, they seem to think it is a great place to grow up. One is 
tame, two are nearly tame and one is pretty wild. The mother was very wild 
but she will come for a rub. The kittens are all medium longhairs, two being 
calico with very little white and tan ear-tips, one is straight calico with 
lots of white, and the last is a tuxedo cat.
   I've seen some cute litters in my time, but these guys are incredible! It 
makes the work go much quicker when you have kittens rollicking all over the 
place.
 
    And that's the story. Thought some of you might like to hear it.
--- Maximus 3.01
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