Flannel

As I'm writing this, I have a purring bundle on my lap. Her name is Flannel.

I was going to get a kitten this afternoon when I got back to Kipkaren. But at breakfast, I found out that there was a kitten at the children's home. Joyce (one of the kids) had found it near their school yesterday, and they were keeping it in the rabbit cage! I went over right after breakfast and enquired about it. They were happy for me to take it since they didn't quite know what to do with it.

The kitten is in pretty bad shape. When I went to get her, she was totally wet because the rabbit cage she had been in all night provided no protection against the rain that had been falling most of the night. Even as I brought her back, holding the wet kitten to my chest, she was shaking. I wasn't sure if she'd make it through the day.

I gave her a quick, warm bath, which she hardly fought. She was so full of mud from the rain! It's only after I had been drying her for a while that she started biting, fighting the dryer. She had some spunk left in her after all.

I put some medicine on some places that needed it. It looks like she had been burned, perhaps. Her ears look scorched, and her whiskers are mostly gone. After she was dry, I put her down on my flannel PJ pants on my bed so I could find her something to eat. The moment I put her down on the flannel PJs, she started purring. So I called her Flannel. She digs her nose into the material, probably still wanting to nurse...

When I fed her, she gobbled down the food to the point that she gagged! All morning, I kept her warm under a reading light in a carrying basket until she stopped shaking. She slept all the way to Kipkaren, happy to be in her little basket. Once we got here, Flannel explored my home and didn't like it too much when Davis and Jen's new kitten stopped by, but the two will soon be friends. She just gives a little squeak when I pet her, then purrs.

So, I have a new little roommate/travel companion. Trusting she'll be well soon, healed from whatever caused her little ears to look scorched.