The saga of Casper

First of all, let me start with how Casper came to us. Just before we moved to our current house in the lovely retirement community of Keowee Key (did we know what we were doing?), we lived in a place in Gray Court on several acres. One morning I awoke to a cat's meow. The kids went out to find a cute little cat on our front porch. I instructed the kids NOT to feed the cat or it would stay around forever. They complied with my wishes. The cat continued meowing through the day and ALL NIGHT LONG! As I crawled out of bed the next morning after having gotten very, very little sleep, I instructed the kids to... well, you've probably already guessed it. Yeah, we fed the cat. Ainslee came up with the name Casper for the cute little thing. We continued over the next several weeks to provide a place for the varmint to stay with full intentions of placing it in our animal rescue friends hands when we moved, and since we now have her little babies too, you know what a sucker I am. So she came with us to our lovely retirement community.


She stayed outside only for the, well, several months. I kept telling the family, "We need to get her spayed." That changed one day to "I think Casper's pregnant." You can guess the excitement for the kids. So now you know, not only am I a sucka', but a slack sucka' too. Actually, I was kinda happy about it. The kids would get to experience the beautiful miracle of birth.

April 1st came and Case had a ball fooling everyone with his April's fools jokes. He had so much fun, he continued it throughout the week. Thursday: Casper had been coming into the house regularly each day by this time and today as we try to head out the door, we can't get Casper to stay out. Each time the door is cracked she bolts back into the house. We think nothing of it other than the annoyance it is causing. Friday: Cat is meowing LOUDLY at the door in the morning. Case lets her in, thinking she just wants in out of the rain, and (after it all said and done) he says she beelines for my closet. Everyone goes about their day and thinks nothing of Casper again until...

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Later that day, I am in the kitchen with Amelia and Case comes in and says,"Mom, Casper's having her babies!" " No she's not." " Yeah Mom, she is." "Case, stop. You're just joking." I am sure this is another one of his belated April Fool's jokes. " NO, Mom! Really! She's having her babies!" So I go and look and sure enough she had just had one kitten. It was so new it was still all wet. Amelia and I were headed out the door to run errands. Amelia grabs a book by National Geographic from my childhood that is a short, .informative tale of kittens from birth to 59 days called Cats: Little Tigers in your House. I instruct Case to let her be and have her kitties in peace but check on her occasionally. He calls us and updates us each time a new kitten is born. Casper has 3 babies throughout the day in the back corner of my closet beneath my clothes. They are now 10 days old, have their eyes open and are starting to move around a bit and Casper is a beautiful, attentive, wonderful mother. We are so fantastically proud of Casper and thankful she decided we belong to her!!