Maine Coon in the House!

This house has seen some exceptional cats in our house.  Before Pişi, Squeak and I moved in, my hubby housed the neighborhood nasty girl, Aslana. In another life, I shared my home with a wacky rescue named Nevada,  and a Maine Coon mix named Monty, who to this day I consider my most affable cat.  He was my only male cat - for some reason I'm prone to adopting sassy, strong girl cats. Pişi for one.  Squeak is proving herself to be pretty sassy, in her own fourteen-year-old fluffy cat way, with a new girl in town.

I thought, in fact, that Squeak might have some Maine Coon in her.

This is why I made the choice to go for blue-blood.  Pişi dominated Squeak as only a former Turkish street cat could, that is until towards the end of Pişi's life.  Squeak took some strong stands against that old street scrapper, but I must say that Squeak also showed the greatest respect for Pişi as she aged and grew weaker.  In fact, Squeak was in the room when Pişi took her last breath, and Squeak approached her gently, sniffed her, then quietly walked away.


I wanted Squeak to have a new companion a bit more like herself.  Since I thought she might have some Maine Coon in her, or Norwegian Forest Cat, I went looking for one of those.  A friend of ours had two Maine Coons - Delphine and Dodge.  Delphine and Dodge weren't being bred for any reason except to have babies.  (Dodge didn't have papers, though his pure heritage was apparent.)  In fact, here are some pictures of Frankie's parents:

Dodge and Delphine - making babies, I guess. (They had three litters together before Dodge passed away.  Frankie was from the first.)

Frankie (Francesca) and her mom Delphine

Frankie's daddy, Dodge

So, yes, I thought Squeak might have Maine Coon in her.  But hey, once I got a pure Maine Coon, I began to realize they are in a class all their own.  The normal rules of domestic cats just don't apply.  And if we try to enforce them, well, she just overpowers us!

Welcome Francesca (aka Frankie)

So,

we mourned Pişi for awhile -

about a year to be exact.

Squeak didn't miss her though.

She kind of dug being the only cat.

She would probably say we couldn't leave well enough alone.

We couldn't.

In January of 2017, 

we destroyed Squeak's

solitary bliss with a 

bundle of joy.

Her name is Francesca. 

We like to call her Frankie.

Frankie at 3 months . . . 

. . . at 6 months . . . 

(Much to Squeak's dismay, that kitten kept growing.)

. . . Frankie at about one year  . . .

. . . two years . . .

. . . 

and now (Frankie will be three in November!)

Francesca, July 4, 2019

And yes, she is a Maine Coon, and a character at that.

Frankie and Squeak asked me to restart the blog.

I promised them I would.

Been So Long

Far too long.

I was reading through some cat blogs the other day, and I ran across some old friends.  Cole and Marmalade.  They're cat rock and roll stars now.

They made me think of this blog -- which I loved keeping.  But life caught up with me, and it brought some changes along the one.

One of them was the passing of my dear friend Pişi.

She probably passed away about nine months after this photo was taken, in Summer of 2015.

When you have a cat like Pişi, you mourn for awhile.  

Her story is told earlier on this blog. Her Turkish roots,

her exploits.  

She was eighteen when she left us,

and a fighter all the way to the end.

She rests in our backyard now.

All the feral cats like to hang out at her grave.

I like to think of it this way:

they know she was a jellicle cat,

a miracle cat,

a powerful soul. 

It was probably her passing that silenced us here.

And life, of course.

Oh, life.