Jesse Owens?
Cassius Clay?
I was thinking more of black horses. I know Windfall is one. Not sure if this little guy seems like a Windfall to me, though.
Pharaoh is named after American Pharoah, so I do have precedent for naming cats after horses. I also, years ago, had a Ruffian and a Genuine Risk who were sisters. I have said a time or two that I must have one of the few existing pictures of Ruffian and Genuine Risk together. 
Jenny in particular was a character. She liked water. I mean, she reveled in water. She loved to play in the bathtub in the old house and got annoyed when I took a faster bath and drained the water too quickly.
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Okay, we have names.
The calico is Psalm. The little thoughtful tortie is Mary, straight out of the Bible. “Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.” Luke 2:19. The tuxedo is Con Brio, “with spirit.” Probably will just be known as Brio for short.
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The kittens appreciate the guest bed. They do not jump, but they scramble. They are definitely more active – they were kind of droopy in a spooked way that first night. The ribs seem a little less palpable. So hopefully they are doing well; the vet thought they just needed to eat as much as anything.
Mary is pettable but still is the reserved personality. I like it. 
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The big cats gather around the door and will look inside when I go in and out. Brio is a fearless little thing.
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I was putting a load in the washer this morning and suddenly felt like I was being watched.
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Their new names are perfect. Thank you for taking them in and giving them new lives. They are very cute. In fact, so cute that for a minute I was even thinking “How cute a kitten would be around here!” what!? Who said that? NO! 4 old farts, 1 older fart and a busy three year old kitteh…recipe for disaster, no? Give them kisses and snacks from me.
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The kittens are funny at breakfast. They want it in two, not three, saucers. Mary, of course, wants a private saucer. Brio and Psalm want a joint one. There, they will growl at and slap each other, with Brio definitely the more aggressive, but Psalm will not leave. She chooses the saucer of conflict. We definitely have three different personalities here. Mary is the aloof thinker. Brio takes life at a full charge. Psalm isn’t quite as bold as Brio, but she is spunky and will hold her own in a tussle.
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On my lunch break, I cleaned the kitten room. I didn’t want to freak out the kits with the vacuum in that room, and they definitely aren’t getting access to the full house until bigger, but I moved them temporarily into my bedroom for 15 minutes. Pilgrim was in there having a morning nap, but I knew he wouldn’t do anything but growl, which he didn’t.
Pilgrim and Psalm.
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Pilgrim, Psalm, and Mary.
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Brio. He’s a bold little thing.
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Making progress. The only hiss this morning was when Brio grabbed his tail. Atticus and Solo are the two youngest inside except these and the closest to kittenhood themselves, so I’m using Atticus a good bit as introduction cat. Solo has a much sharper personality; I’ll bet she’s the last to accept them. Mary, by the way, so skittish, is also the roll over kitten. She is easier to pet her belly than her ears, and she will flip herself when I’m trying to pet her. In play also, she spends a lot of time on her back. She is very vigorous playing with her siblings and frequently instigates things with them, but she seems to like to be upside down.
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That pic with the tail under the door - hilarious
Upside down in cats may not be submission. It is the preferred fight position because they can do a lot of damage rabbit kicking with the back feet. That may be what little Mary is instinctively doing. Isn’t it interesting to see their little personalities develop?
A few nights ago, I was eating chicken for supper, and three cats were on the table parked at the limit of tolerance, sitting there politely wearing halos and hoping for a bite at the end. Suddenly, there came a thud from the office (Atticus flipped the trash can. He is a trash fisher. Knowing this, I keep nothing but paper in the office trash can). Watching those cats’ heads swivel was funny. Something needs investigating. But there’s chicken. But something needs investigating. But there’s chicken.
Ah, the dilemma! (They finally chose to stay to guard the chicken.) Life is full of such difficult decisions for a cat.
Mary is definitely not submissive. She’s reserved, but not submissive. She actually plays quite fiercely, just often upside down, and she instigates games a lot of times.
This is from this morning.
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It’s always something. Brio last night seemed a little droopy to me, not as active as usual. I thought maybe he’d just had a hard afternoon playing. This morning, he ate breakfast fine, but he’s definitely off, went back to the cat bed after breakfast and is curled up while the other two wrestle. He’s sneezed a few times and is running a low fever. I called the vet, hoping that they would have an appointment today, but they are booked solid for a few days, as feared. However, since they did just see the three amigos back a few weeks ago when I took them in after I got them, and they all got examined (and tested) then, they are going to give me some antibiotics without an appointment. Hopefully that will help. He’s probably just got some kitten bug. The other two are definitely feeling fine and were all over me like a jungle gym this morning.
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Dose #1 down for Brio. That was easy, because he had no idea at all what medicine was and didn’t know what I wanted to do. I have a feeling that the next 13 rounds (twice a day for seven days) won’t all go this easily.
Psalm feels left out. She wanted some, too!
I made them an appointment while I was there to start on shots in a few weeks on the 28th since they are growing. They were too little to vaccinate last time. Brio should be over his bug by then, hopefully.
Some of the farm cats, including Cotton in action.
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Dose #3 down. Brio seems a bit friskier this morning. Three cheers for Clavamox, careful cheers because I’m badly allergic to the stuff myself, so I’m being very careful with it and to wash off any drops immediately. This is liquid; I have to shoot it down him. But Brio apparently is responding well. The other two remain ferociously frisky. I wish I had a video this morning of Mary jumping on Atticus’ tail. He spun around and gave her an offended look. Didn’t hiss, though. He’ll be playing with them in another week, I think.
Here are Bagheera and Satin, brothers. They were little waifs once upon a time.
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Brio. I love his little mustache.
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Construction project, not yet complete. I am building a barrier to be able to move the kittens into my bedroom. More room for them and interaction with the older cats as we enter Phase 2 of Kittens. This picture illustrates why I didn’t simply get a baby gate. I plan for the big cats to jump over this, not on it, but I was pretty sure that despite my plans, they will quite likely make it a two-jump process and “bank” the obstacle, at least part of the time. Sure enough, I set the open frame up there to double check measurements, and it hadn’t been upright 20 seconds before Pilgrim was on it. Baby gates just do not seem built for repeated top impact. This will be a lot sturdier. It will have nonclimbable wire, and by the time the kittens are old enough to jump it themselves, they should be big enough to have full run of the house. I just want them more closely confined for a while still. They are doing well, but this is a BIG house, and with Mary, for instance, I don’t want her to totally disappear and not be seen until Christmas. I am working on Mary and making progress, but she is definitely the spook of them. I had somebody ask me if I planned to keep the kittens. That’s not totally decided yet. My first assignment was just to get them more established and healthy and ready for independent life. I originally had thought I might rehome them down the road. But Mary, I think, at least, will definitely be staying here. As spooky as she is with me, she absolutely vanishes with anybody else. Hard to rehome an invisible cat. She is a character, just full of tortitude, but she is not at all sure of people, and even having accepted me, she doesn’t strike me as ever becoming generally sociable.
Of course, if I were taking bets, I would bet that in six months, they will all still be here. Sigh. On the other hand, they are cute. And they purr. Maybe I would be less put off by human babies if they purred. But I doubt it. My maternal instinct was just switched to animals.
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We are integrated! Sort of. The big cats promptly left, proving that yes, they can jump that barrier just fine. The kittens were very tentative at first but by now are chasing each other around. They are enjoying my bedroom, which is three times the size of the guest bedroom. It also has a big cat tree and has a bed they can get under, not just orbit, so they are having fun.
Here they are discovering the cat tree. Predictably, Brio was the first to start up it.
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Brio and Mary looking through the barrier.
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The big cats studying this situation – from a distance. They can go over that easily. For now, they don’t wish to.
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Tonight should be fun. The kittens have never in their short lives had the experience of an inhabited bed available. The big cats are all used to sleeping with me. We may have a few disagreements.
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That was an interrupted night, of course. The kittens were delighted to sleep with me. Sometimes. Also delighted to play with my toes. Also delighted to play chase in their enlarged area at all hours. The big cats were not delighted… Period. But no actual blood was drawn, although we had a symphony of sound effects at times. It will (I hope) get better with more exposure.
Here’s Mary at the very foot of the bed. The blur to the right is Brio, who pounced right as I took the shot. He is definitely a full-speed-ahead personality, at least when he’s not sick.
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Pilgrim and Brio. Insert sound effects.
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And just now, I went in for a kitten check, and I absolutely could not find Mary. Not under the bed, not anywhere I looked. She’s talented at vanishing into cat warp, but I was worried that she might somehow have gotten out. So I resorted to that well-known method of making cats appear: Temptations. I got the package, treated the big cats out in the kitchen, went into my bedroom, shook the package (Brio and Psalm already twining around my feet), and Mary stood up from the VERY TOP platform of the cat tree. That cat tree is eight feet tall. With her small size and her lying down, she had been absolutely invisible from the floor. I’m impressed. I’ve seen a few of them on the first two platforms, and it is designed to be very climbable, but I hadn’t seen a kitten all the way up before. She is such an interesting personality, strong, playful, but very reserved.
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Aren’t they funny. I love people who say animals have no personalities. Oh, yes they do! I bet Mary will come out of her shell once she realizes she is safe. I don’t think you have much to worry about with the other two. Little Brio sounds like a little terror. That face - that mustache. :lol:
I let them out in the big house yesterday afternoon. So far, things are going amazingly well. Kittens are all over, exploring, and are using the litter boxes, which I have spaced around the house. I haven’t found anything broken yet. The big cats get disgruntled and hiss and walk away, but I did find Atticus licking Psalm last night. Psalm and Brio have been introduced to the First Commandment, which they did not like, but they got the point. Mary did make it up onto the table while I was eating bacon this morning, two-stage procedure, to the chair, then to the table. But she sat at a distance watching, nowhere near the line of tolerance, and when I got up at the end, she spooked and ran. She shouldn’t be hard to educate at all.
And Psalm found Mystery’s tail. 😊
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We have a vet appointment a week from today for another exam to see how they are doing and if they are big enough now to start vetting. They were too small to do anything with on their first appointment. They are growing, though, and Brio seems to have gotten over whatever was giving him the droops with the course of Clavamox.
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