We lost Melvin recently. He was an extraordinary cat. We can't let his passing go without a few words about his character. Melvin arrived 5 years ago when his mother, Georgia, showed up pregnant. We found homes for most of her kittens before she was neutered but Melvin stayed.

Melvin was always an adventurous cat. He would go outside during the day and come into the back porch at night to enjoy some treats and sleep with the other cats. On New Year's Eve when Melvin was 6 months old, he showed up in the evening with a broken leg. When we had him checked out, it turned out he had broken his leg in two places - up high near the hip and low near the ankle. Although the injury was serioius, we decided to work with him instead of putting him down.

Five months we kept Melvin in the porch and did a physical therapy routine on his leg. That sounds like a lot of work, but we aren't quite as crazy as it sounds. Physical therapy simply consisted of petting Melvin several times a day and gently exercising his leg to keep it from getting stiff.

By the time the weather warmed up in May, Melvin's leg had healed enough that we let him go back outside. He was so excited he acted like a little kitten, running around chasing butterflies. Then he climbed a fence post next to the cow water tanks while we were filling them. Suddenly he saw something that caught his fancy and jumped 5 feet to the ground. I still remember shouting at him, "Melvin, no!!!" But it was too late. He landed on his newly healed leg and injured it again. Fortunately, this time it only took a month in the porch to mend.

For five years we enjoyed Melvin. He was very affectionate without being a pest. He was always right there at our feet, rubbing against our legs, hoping for a hand on his head.

Melvin developed an infection that started when a thorn pierced his eye. The fluid inside his eye became  infected, and then the eye socket itself became infected. The veterinarian said that although he was purring, he must certainly be in a tremendous amount of pain. She said treatment would require costly surgery, a long time on antibiotics, and his quality of life would be uncertain. We made the difficult decision to put him down.

It's amazing that although we have 29 other rescued cats we love, we especially feel the loss of Melvin. What a rich contribution he made to our lives for the past 5 years! Maybe part the loss is that he was our last kitten. We neuter all of our cats, so we only have kittens when a pregnant mother cat chooses our farm to call home. It's been several years since we have had kittens.

Parker came to us as a tiny orange fluffball about 5 years ago. The Security Police at Spectrum Hospital downtown Grand Rapids found this tiny kitten wandering in the parking ramp one morning. They surmised he had been playing under a car climbing around the exhaust system, and unexpectedly hitched a ride when the owner drove into town.

When the Spectrum Security officers took the kitten into one of offices at the hospital to find him a home, a staff member told them we had a farm and might be willing to take him in. We took one look and couldn't say no. Of course we named him Parker, since he was found in the parking ramp.

A day after we brought him home we had to take Parker to the vet for surgery on his feet. Parker had burned the pads of his feet riding on the hot exhaust pipe. That was a $250 expense we had not anticipated. A couple months later we took Parker back to the vet to be neutered, like all of the cats that find homes at Wild Rose Meadows. Alays keep in mind there is no such thing as a "free kitten!"

Parker turned out to be a really good find. He is one of our favorite cats. We are happy that Parker hitched a ride to our house.