Alphabe-Thursday, "D" as in Demon...

Welcome to Alphabe-Thursday sponsored by Ms. Jenny over at Jenny Matlock..."off on my tangent."  For a list of this week's participants and information on how you can join in on the fun head over to Ms. Jenny's blog.

At least I hope when I get done typing this post I can find Ms. Jenny's blog.  This morning Blogger tells me I'm not following any blogs and my list of blogs is completely gone!  I have no idea how I'll ever find anyone again since all of that information was stored by Blogger on my Dashboard.  I'm hoping it's just a temporary glitch, but it's been all morning and now into the afternoon.  (Edit:  It's OK now!)

I was talking with my older son on the phone and telling him I had no idea what to do for the letter "D" on Alphabe-Thursday.  He suggested I write about DEMON.  DEMON was Keith's cat and one of the kittens that our original feral cat had under our deck.  This was when she was new to our yard.  Eventually, we trapped MaMa and had her fixed.  MaMa lived in our yard for nine years before running off when some workmen came into the yard.  I searched for her for five months, but we never saw her again.

MaMa originally had her kittens in our shed, but for some reason decided to move them under the deck when they were around four weeks old.  While we were out shopping there was a torrential rain storm and on the way home I became concerned because our yard sometimes floods when the rain can't run off fast enough.  I pulled into the driveway and when I got out of the car I heard the kittens crying.  Fortunately, my husband arrived home right after me.  The kittens had become trapped under the deck as the water rose.

My husband tried pulling up the boards on the deck, but he couldn't get them to budge.  Then we decided to remove the boards from the fence that ran alongside the deck.

We had some ivy that was growing under the deck and the kittens had managed to climb up into the ivy to keep their heads above water, but their heads were up against the floor of the deck and they were running out of breathing room.   My husband reached under the deck and pulled them out one by one.  He actually had to pull them under the water to get them out.

We dried them off and brought them inside.  There were three of them.

After the water receded MaMa came back looking for them, but we decided not to put them back outside.  We were afraid she'd put them back under there again, and she was not tame so bringing her inside wasn't an option.

We bottle fed them and then introduced them to cat food.  DEMON is the kitten on the left.  Keith ended up adopting DEMON and Imp.  Imp is the Calico kitten.  The gray kitten was adopted by someone else.

Here's DEMON with his litter mate.  They were a little bigger in this picture.

DEMON grew up to be a very large cat.  He was always looking for food.

Keith and DEMON...

Keith and Imp...

Sadly, Imp only lived a year.  She had feline leukemia.  We had never had them tested...just vaccinated in hopes they hadn't been exposed.  That was a mistake.  After Imp died Keith had DEMON checked and his test came back negative.  He was elated, but it didn't last for long.  Sadly, the test was wrong and DEMON also became sick with feline leukemia and died.

Now we don't bring any cats into our home unless they're checked for feline leukemia.  Since they were never outside after being rescued from under the deck we assume they contracted feline leukemia from MaMa even though she never became sick.

Keith now has two other rescued cats...Mittens and Katie.

"D" is also for DAD.

This is a picture of my DAD with his siblings taken in 2006.  They were all in their 80's and looked pretty darn good.  They're standing in front of the house they grew up in.  My DAD is on the right.  He died in September 2010.

Uncle Robbie is on the left.  He died last week after taking a bad fall.  The only one left now is Aunt Millie.  I'm really glad I have this picture.

Here they are a "few" years earlier with their DAD.  Yes, that's the same house. In this picture my DAD is the tallest one.  Uncle Robbie grew later on.

Now head over to Ms. Jenny's blog so you can visit some other Alphabe-Thursday posts.