Triple New Year‘s Surprise at Sylviander House

In the morning of the 1st day of the new year 2016 some of our guests went for a swim at the nearby beach. Then on their way back a kitten followed them into our garden. It was lost somewhere on the small road to Sylviander House. 

It was a boy, probably 4 weeks old. We called him Eisbär. 

I gave him diluted milk with a filler and hungrily he understood immediately. Then I made him a cosy bed in an old cane bag, where he slept for hours in my writing room. 

Around afternoon, when I was watering my plants, we heard the scream of another kitten, the brother of Eisbär. We called him Sylvester. How happy they were to be together again. 

In one of the big paperboxes in the artist‘s studio, I arranged a little appartement for them, a corner with some cloth to sleep, in another a clay bowl with sand as toilet, which they didn‘t understand yet and used it to snuggle with eachother. I put another clay bowl with cloth for that purpose and trained them to use the toilet by taking one leg and pawing in the sand. 

The next morning as during night already we heard again a kitten screaming somewhere nearby, but couldn‘t see it. Then the sream stopped. Later a guest looking from the southern verandah saw the kitten squatting in the neighbor‘s garden and went there to fetch it: It was a girl. We called her Lissy. What a joyful meow, when I put her in the box of her brothers. 

Now they were three. And how hungry! 

It often happens here in Kerala, that people take the kittens from a cat around the house and bring them far away. Then the mother cat can‘t find her kids anymore and the kittens are to small to survive. 

The same must have happened to our foundling Leo, when he suddenly appeared in our garden, tiny 3 weeks old.

It was not possible to feed 3 hungry kittens with the filler. Of course they had no patience, all 3 wanted to drink at the same time. I had to teach them to drink the milk from the bowl. Then to eat dry cat food soaked in water. Hunger made them learn fast. 

Between eating they took a short break to jump on my lap, to cuddle for a while, then running back to the meal … 

The similar behaviour I observed, when Bianca was feeding her kittens. They interrupt drinking, jump on Bianca‘s back or on her head, play and return for drinking …

    © Silvia Fouani 

The 3 foundlings grew every day a bit. After a short time I understood, they didn‘t like to stay in their paper box appartement anymore. So I let them run freely in  Alexander‘s studio. The cane bag was then their sleeping hut, mostly inside, sometimes on top of it.

What a yelling, always when I entered the room. They ran towards me, played around my leg, on my leg, on my lap, biting in my toe … 

Slowly I fell in love with Sylvester. He was the one, enjoying the most being cuddled and tickled. 

It was clear from the beginning, that we cannot keep the kittens. We have already 3 cats. But I would care for them until they are strong enough to be given to people who like having a cat. To find such pet lovers is not easy here in Kerala. Rarely somebody has cats in the house. If somebody has a dog, this poor pet will spend live long in a cage outside of the house. 

I was optimistic. In the right time we will find somebody. If not for all 3 kittens, then some could live outside the Sylviander House with the others, Bianca, Rosso, Apricot … 

Secretly I wished, Sylvester would stay … 

… but fate had other plans … 

When they were around 2 months old, our carpenter came for doing some works. He saw the kittens and immediately he wanted to have 2, a girl and a boy … 

… and when his rikshaw driver picked him up and had a look at the kittens, he also wished to have one. 

2 days left to say good-bye … 

After almost 4 weeks being a mother for these 3 kittens, they will get a new home.

I put them in a basket and drove them to the new place … 

The 2 daughters of the carpenter were exited and spontaneousely choosed Lissy and Sylvester. Eisbär would go then to the rikshaw driver who is a neighbor.

Of course, the 3 kittens were exited too, running through the room, under the sofa, into the kitchen … 

When they got a bowl of milk, they drank, but didn‘t even finish in need to continue their exploration of the new place. 

After one day we phoned the carpenter who told us, that everybody is very happy and the kittens had slept in his bed. 

How lucky these kittens are. 

Foundling Leo-Meeyoo, a 4th kitten for mama cat Bianca at Sylviander House

In the afternoon of 23.March 2015 I heared a kitten crying once in a while somewhere outside for hours. Thinking, this was a kitten from the neighborhood, I didn‘t mind. But since it went on so painfully, I had a look later from the verandah. Down in our garden I saw a reddish fur beside the fence on the north side of the Sylviander House. This must be the red one of Bianca‘s 3 kitten, I assumed and rushed down to get him back. Happy to be safe, he didn‘t refuse. In the kitchen I gave him some milk with the pipette, with which I fed Moojoo when she was very small and Bianca didn‘t come for hours to feed her. 

Then I brought him upstairs to put him back into the box. But what a surprise!There were the 3 kitten peacefully sleeping and in my hands a 4th one, exactly the copy of Biancas red son. What shall I do? Of course I put him to the others, hoping Bianca would accept him. She did. When she came, she looked a bit wondering, smelled at this new kitten, then started immediately to clean him. Finally 4 kitten were laying beside her and drinking, sometimes struggeling and fighting for the best place. I think she was happy, she had lost so many of her kitten, eaten by dogs, crows, tree dogs and male cats. 

This new kitten was very different to the others. Whenever I passed the box and had a look, this foundling didn‘t sleep. He was sitting in the box, looking up as waiting for me. That moment he saw me, he screamed: Let me out! And then jumped towards me. I took him and let him sleep on my lap while I did my writing works. When Bianca didn‘t come for a long time, he was hungry, expressing by crying, until I gave him milk with the pipette, which he sucked eagerly. He needed this extra milk, since he was very skinny and a bit smaller than the other 3. 

When I told these news to my german friend Silvia, who lives in Delhi, she was deeply touched seeming to recognize her former cat boy and said: this must be my Leo! Her Leo was a hungry noisy brat too!

So I called him Leo. Due to the fact that he reacted immediately on his name and showed all the described characteristics, I also strangely felt it was this Leo, now reborn in Kerala. When I tried to find out the difference of the two red boys, I found a significant one. Leo had a small white spot on his forehead, the other one‘s was big. 

Leo was always hungry and since he was so tiny and skinny I gave him extra milk which he learned to drink soon from a bowl. He also learned very quickly to use the cat toilet, which I put in the studio – the other 3 refused, used instead the seam of our mosquito net and some corner of our room. 

One day I saw how Leo was eating a dead gecko, I understood he needs now real food. I started to give him rice with curd, which he was eating like crazy and soon I gave him rice with mashed fish, which drove him mad of happiness … 

During the Tibetan Medical Camp he was the darling of the Tibetan team, while the other 3 were shy and full of fear. 

Sometimes when I came to the studio, he was sitting infront of the door as he was waiting for me, then he ran to me screaming until I took him and let him play and sleep on my lap. This Leo-Meeyoo is really special.  

After many weeks of Moojoo‘s jealousy meanwhile she started caring for him like a mother, also Simba cared him a lot. And soon it was clear, Leo will be our 3rd member of the cat family, since he always was very close to us. 

It is said, cats decide with whom they want to live. Leo from the first days he really wished to be a part of our family and we are very happy with him. 

3 new kitten in the artist‘s studio

Thanks to our cats at Sylviander House, who make me forget for some moments the actual crisis in Europe and what is globally going on, I can refill myself with lively energy and joy. Such is so important for balancing during militant times troubling the world … 

During her last days of pregnancy I observed cat Bianca searching in the Sylviander House for the most safest place. 

In the night of February 25 she then gave birth to 3 kitten – where? In a paper box filled with canvas which always was the very secret hiding place of Simba in Alexander‘s studio. As I know my cats very well, I found out immediately. 

When Bianca went out for hunting since she is a wild cat, I had a look and welcomed these little beings: 2 girls and 1 boy. 

After a few days, Bianca has shifted her kids to another box in the studio, the box where I store my books »Das Glück der Narren« and »One Minute!« (sorry, all in German language only). 

I had to laugh to see them sleeping between the pages, obviously exhausted from reading. 

Then I made some order for more comfort to them. 

Again after some time the box was empty, but still I saw Bianca coming and going. So I knew, the kitten where here, but very good hided. To hide and to be invisible is the great talent of cats. It is very important for wild cats for surviving their kitten. Bianca already has lost many, eaten by crows, dogs, male cats … And how she suffered afterwards! All days moaning she has shared her pain with me … 

When I looked behind the huge cupboard, I saw Bianca laying between wall and back board, a narrow space, hardly she is fitting in. I understood. Under this cupbard there is a space of around 10 cm hight, which is closed to the front side. There once Simba and his 2 siblings were hiding as kitten too. Somehow I managed to take a picture for prove without being able to see anything to focus … 

This picture showed me how clean it is behind and under the cupboard – I guess, thanks to Bianca! 

Few days later I found the kitten in the gap behind the shelf, so narrow, that Bianca didn‘t fit. She called then her kitten with a very special sound to come out for feeding. 

I placed them back in the book box which was more comfortable for everybody and Bianca accepted. 

Sometimes I take them out for making some pictures, which really is a hard task. 

1 month after giving birth Bianca will get a 4th kitten at the same age, but this is another story … 

Baby Cat Moojoo

After baby cat‘s siblings had died, however been eaten by craws or a male cat, and now lived in the paper box under my stitching table, of course it felt lonely. When ever hearing my voice it called me: take me out of the box! I put it in a shawl tied around my waist while cooking, which it was couriously watching, and afterwards I took it upstairs to let it sleep on my lap. 

Often it was flundering wildy as repeating the horrific moments of its trauma, when the to siblings next to it were attacked and then took away. I touched its jerking body with my hand to console. After some days, these nightmares slowly vanished. 

Without thinking I called it Moojoo. This was the sound, which I felt when cuddling and talking to it. And soon we saw, it was a girl. 

Was it the shock of mama cat Bianca, that she came rarely to feed her? Most of the time she spent with Mia – meanwhile more than 4 months old – and allowed him to drink again. 

One day she had a very bad wound near the tale, which seemed to get worse and bigger with every day. I mixed a homeo medicine, which has an effect of antibitotic, among her food and every next day the improve was visible. This incident was an additional reason that she rarely came to feed her kitten, obviously she wasn‘t well. 

When the gap was to long, I fed Moojoo with diluted milk in a pipette. I had searched in the internet, what to do. All informations I could find were from the West, where animal shops sell cat milk powder, which I wouldn‘t find in Kerala. Anyway, during this research I‘ve learned about to sweep the kitten‘s belly with a cloth after giving milk until it urinates. 

At least during night mama Bianca came to feed her. Since a male cat comes regularly near or into the house to attack Simba, we close the windows downstairs during the night. When Bianca was so unwell, she wasn‘t able to climb up the coconut tree beside the house as she did before. She found out an easier way to reach secretly the verandah in the first floor, from where she walks then down the staircase to the stitching room. Before climbing into the box she made a very special sound and waited until Moojoo answered. 

Still today even in the deepest sleep, Moojoo will react on the mother‘s call. Then, only after her kitten replied, Bianca climbed into the box, where she was loudly welcomed by her baby. This habit I only observed here with the wild cats. 

As a child I was growing up with a cat, also friends had cats and kittens, which I took care while they were in holiday. But these cats in Germany are real house cats even they can go out. They don‘t need to be cautious, when they have kittens at home, they don‘t know dangers or threatenings. Of course there are exeptions, but mostly they have made good experiences with humans. 

After around 2 weeks Moojoo wasn‘t in the box anymore when we came down in the morning. Shortly later we saw her playing under and behind the bed there. I understood, she can‘t stay in the box anymore. I made a cosy corner in my writing room, which they accepted both immediately. 

Simba didn‘t like at all this situation and avoided to being with us in my writing room during evening as it was our ritual. He played the jealous one. All night he spent somewhere out on the verandah or hided in the chaotic artist‘s wilderness, Alexanders studio next to our sleeping room. 

Moojoo develeoped the same favorite spots in my room as Simba-Meeyoo did … 

… playing and sleeping in the drawer of my writing table … 

 … sleeping between my legs under my laptop! 

… And when awake playing and biting whatever to find … 

When Moojoo was 1 month old, we woke up of a crying Bianca at 3 am. She was missing her baby. Searching together with her, even beside Simba actively looking for Moojoo, we didn‘t find her. It was a shock to Bianca and to us. Simba seemed to be happy with this situation and became the old one again, enjoying to be close to us. 

Fantasy troubled us, what could have happened to her. Did a male cat followed Bianca to steel her kitten and then eat? Did Moojoo somehow manage to climb up to the low window board, jumped on the verandah, running around confusely in the dark, fell down, then panicly runnng through the garden to somewhere? Is she still alive … 

I was surprised, how deeply her loss pained me. She had already become a part of our life, even beside this jealous guy Prince Simba-Meeyoo. But we had been confident, that for sure he would get used to the additional family member and then accept his little sister … 

My days were troubled by controversal emotions: Is Moojoo alive, is she dead? Even Alexander missed her a lot. In the sixth night after her disappearance I saw her in my dream, full of dirt, but coming back home … 

Story will continue.