"Where there's livestock..."

It was a Wednesday in mid-September and I'd just dropped Mike off at the airport. Off to California to help look after his aging mom for 6 weeks. She has Alzheimer's, so it wouldn't be much fun for him. As for me, I had the house all to myself - well, if you didn't count Boots, Miss Marple, Sherlock, Sasha, and Charlotte.

Friday morning I wandered into the kitchen to plug in the kettle. As I headed to the bathroom, I noticed something out of place on the laundry room floor and went to inspect. It was a new-born kitten. And there was Boots, the mom, on the other side of the room giving herself a bath.

I scooped up Boots and the kitten and settled them in a spacious bedroom closet upstairs with an old quilt and food and water. Great. More kittens. That's all I needed. Still...

I checked on them throughout the day, and by early afternoon Boots had delivered 5 healthy, thriving kittens.

That evening I headed out at 6:00 to feed Charlotte, but she didn't butt in like she usually did. She just lay in the straw making strange noises. Puzzled, I turned on the light and went to check on her. Piglets. I'm not sure how many, but those were definitely piglets, and they were squealing. Well, that would explain her size. Maybe she shouldn't have been on a diet after all.

Not wanting to intrude, I left her food for her, turned off the light, and tiptoed out.

I stopped by Martha and Isaac's to share the glad tidings. I was feeling quite buoyant. Not that we needed more animals to care for, but there's still something uplifting about new life. I was wondering if I should open a fertility retreat. So many baby animals!

Martha and Isaac said they'd stop by the next morning to check on Charlotte.

Meanwhile, Boots wasn't taking much interest in her kittens.

After coffee on Saturday morning, I took Martha and Isaac out to the barn.

"Oh, you've got her in the grainery," Isaac said. He lowered his head, but I could see the grin. "This is just fine. Protected from the wind, lots of straw."

He picked up a long stick and walked up behind Charlotte, nudging her in the rump. "Come on, piggy piggy. Let's have a look at those babies."

With some coaxing, she left her straw bed, and Isaac stood looking long and hard at ... nothing. Martha, too.

"Oh, dear," said Martha, "she's eaten them."

"She's what?"

"She's eaten them. They do that sometimes."

Isaac shrugged. "Where there's livestock, there's dead stock."

Martha shook her head, tut-tutted, and looked over at Charlotte. "She looks tight."

"She looks what?" I was struggling to keep up.

Martha went over and patted Charlotte's underside. "Tight. She's full of milk."

"Oh." What else was there to say?

When Martha and Isaac left, I went to check on the litter. Not good. Boots seemed pretty indifferent to her new offspring. While they mewed in the closet, she sat on the window sill looking out over the front yard. I moved her back into the closet and got a couple of the kittens latched on, but Boots had no intention of staying there.

I went online to research pigs eating their young. Yup, it's a real thing. It's called "savaging". Turns out domesticated pigs do best with a human midwife and an experienced sow to show them the ropes.

One of the kittens died that evening. Later that night, I warmed some milk and tried feeding the weakest kittens with an eye dropper. Hopeless. I clearly had no idea what I was doing.

I studiously avoided the kitten nursery the next morning. I'd cried most of the evening over the piglets and the state of the kittens, and I wasn't up to dealing with more bad news until I'd had my coffee. Only one was still alive. Three more had died during the night. The last kitten breathed its last mid-afternoon.

I spent the rest of the day wandering through the house and crying. So many dead baby animals.

I called Luke the next morning.

"Can you come and get Charlotte?"

"Sure. I'll be by later."

He and Gary came and picked her up that evening to sell at auction the next morning.

She sold for $1.