Our new "neighbors"

A family of cats has taken up residence in our backyard recently. We don't know if they belong to anyone. We had noticed the mother wander around our backyard ever so often weeks ago, but just a few days ago we realized that the kittens were living under our hot tub. The reason we realized this: we found one of them dead on the stone path next to the hot tub and saw little eyes peeking out at us when we went to investigate. (I got the depressing task of maneuvering the poor dead kitty into a plastic bag and taking it to the Humane Society.) The remaining kittens are really cute but we hope they don't stick around forever. As many of you know, I am allergic to cats. How ironic that they would choose our backyard as their home! At least these neighbors don't have loud parties in the middle of the night.

Mama cat did not take her eyes off me for a second when I crept outside to take this picture. I didn't dare get any closer!