Noel (at top) and Liam (at bottom, with his back toward us) about a month after I started feeding them - so they have put on *some* weight in this picture but not a lot.

Here is a full-grown, *very* spoiled Liam taking a postprandial snooze in the music room!

Liam is on the left and Noel on the right. My boyfriend Keith (who is English) says he thinks they look as if they have been round the boozer and are singing football songs!

Hope you don't mind my butting in, I just have a really cool story & need to share it with people I know will understand.

The background: For the last year, I have been feeding and attempting to tame a family of 3 beautiful marmalade-coloured ferals who live in my neighborhood. It's a Mom cat and her 2 sons, who I've named Liam and Noel after the Oasis boys since they seem to be equally tough and streetwise!

Well, in the last six of months I've made loads of progress with Liam (who secretly wants nothing more out of life than to be a spoiled housecat, and now considers this to be his home - sleeps in my bed, bosses me around, etc.). Momcat caved in, finally, over the Christmas holiday and has likewise been happily indoor/outdoor ever since. This leaves poor Noel, who is terrified of humans (he's so feral that he actually shares his bed and his food with an opossum), out in the cold and the dark all by himself. I've been working on Noel, but progress has been slllllloooooow . We stalled out for about 6 months at the point where he would let me stroke him while he ate, but as soon as he was done eating, he'd run away. Luckily the weather in the Southern US has been mild this winter (and of course I have built him -- and the opossum, sigh -- a shelter on the back porch which is as warm as I can make it).

But tonight, it's "fixin' to get cold", and when I got home from work and called "Yellow cats, come!" they all came a-runnin'. Liam and Momcat scooted straight into the kitchen, as always, and I propped the back door open as I've been doing lately, trying to induce Noel to come in by feeding the other 2 in his sight and not feeding him (until later, that is!).

Well, Noel put a tentative paw on the door sill, as he usually does, and was about to scoot away again when Momcat left her food, came outside, got behind him, and shoved him through the door into the kitchen!!! When he tried to turn tail and run, she bodyblocked him; when he tried to turn, she slapped him upside the head! When Momcat got him in, she turned him in the direction of the food dish and gave him another gentle shove. She was so clearly telling him, "You get yourself inside, son, right now! It's fixin' to storm, and I want you to be safe and warm. And by the way, you eat those vegetables, they're good for you!" It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen. Seems like she knows her boys will have a good home if they get taken in here. Isn't she smart??

Anyway, it's now 3 hours later and Noel is spending most of his time under my bed (quel surprise) but has come out to eat and play with Liam a few times. He was nearly hysterical at first, when I first shut the door, caterwauling and scratching at it; but now he seems to be settling very well, all things considered. This is my first experience with rescuing ferals, and I wonder what the next step will be (apart from the obvious ones of getting them fixed & getting them rabies shots of course) - but I suppose they'll find a way to "tell" me, somehow, as cats usually do.

Thanks for reading - just had to share the great news and say a public "thank you" to Momcat, without whose parental guidance I don't think Noel would have ever made it inside the house! Let's hope he gets used to it and decides to stick around.

Copyright © Liz Ireland
February 4, 1999

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