My neighbor’s sweet little boy came running into the house declaring Madam Marie “laid” more kittens!
As I lay laughing on the ground pulling out baby kitten after baby kitten from under her porch, I remembered my favorite riddle, let’s see if you can solve this…Theschool bus driver picked up seven little girls, each of the seven little girls had seven pink backpacks. Each of the backpacks held seven cats and each of the seven cats had seven kittens. How many legs were on the bus when it arrived at the school?
Let’s just say cats multiply fast! (This is Madam Marie’s second litter of seven kittens this year.) Our family happily adopted two of the spring litter as our cat Spooky died last year at the ripe old age of 16. We only had her the last seven years of her life as she was a rescue but you couldn’t have asked for a nicer cat. She walked up our driveway in South Haven on the first day we moved in. We had to adopt her as she was coal black and it was only three weeks before Halloween. (We all know black cats don’t fare well on Halloween night.)
My daughter Zoe’s first kitten also came on Halloween when she was four. She dressed up like a witch and used an old basket for trickor treating at her Montessori School. One of the parents brought a batch of kittens to the party (clever parents) and before we knew it, she had a little gray boy in her basket as her treat! She named him Smokey, he was adorable and he loved
Zoe. He would sleep with her and follow her everywhere. He even endured being dressed up in old baby outfits and pulled around in her wagon!
Oddly enough I did not grow up loving cats. My Grandma Isabelle had a number of cats and kittens but I don’t remember liking any of them. Theywould hide under her wood stove in the kitchen and scratch my bare feet as I ran through the room. One night I awoke during
a sleepover at Grandma’s only to find a huge calico cat sitting on my chest. I screamed bloody murder because I thought she was waiting to claw my toes. Grandpa Haven was not happy. As it turned out that cat was just looking for a warm place to “lay” a new batch of kittens. If memory serves me correct – she had seven!
Did you figure out the answer to the riddle? 10,992 legs if you include the bus driver. Now that, my friend, is a lot of legs!
Women and cats will
do as they please,
and men and dogs
should relax and get
used to the idea.
Robert A. Heinlein
Taste of Home columnist Sandy (Anderson)
Holthaus lives on an alpaca farm in South Haven,
MN with her husband, Michael, and their children
Zoe, Jack and Ben. Her heart remains on the North
Shore where she grew up with her parents, Art and
LaVonne Anderson of Schroeder. She enjoys writing
about her childhood and mixes memories with
delicious helpings of home-style recipes.
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