Ballerina

One Tuesday in Early November I pulled up into our driveway from picking Haylie up from preschool. I got out of the car and looked across the yard and saw a small black cat walking up the neighbor's driveway. The minute it saw us it came right over. Of course, Haylie, being the animal lover that she is began petting it. The cat was frantically weaving in and out of our legs and going for the kids hands. I am not what you would call an animal lover but this one looked so pitiful I reached down and pet it, and felt how skinny it was. It hung around the rest of the day and when Dave came home for lunch and saw how skinny it was we decided to feed it (or her as we found out later.) Haylie spent the rest of that day outside with this poor little cat. We figured we had made ourselves a pet by feeding her but were still kind of hoping that she would go back home. As it got dark the cat was nowhere to be found but was on the porch first thing the next morning. She has been here ever since. Haylie named her Ballerina and the kids and Dave built a little cat box for her to sleep in and get out of the cold. She is a very sweet little cat, and puts up with all of Haylie's affections. She isn't allowed inside so she is a pretty low maintenance pet. She was certainly unexpected but it has sure made Haylie happy to have a pet besides a fish.

Only the newer looking plywood is the cat box. A few people who looked at this picture thought the whole thing was the box. We did not build her a mansion. The other part is a table that was there when we moved in.

She is a pretty young cat and is very playful. She got up on the seat to play with the tassles on the handlebars.