Here's another picture of Jasper. I hope Angie comes here to see it. This one shows the clipped ear he inherited from his feral past.

There is a group of feral cat benefactors near here who feed, trap and neuter feral cats and then release them. The way they know who has been neutered is by clipping an ear tip. Is that what happened to Jasper? Such a handsome fellow!

Yes, Jasper was brought here by a rescue group just after he'd been neutered. They didn't know he was going to have a permanent home when they neutered him. They clip the ear so that they won't have to bother re-trapping a feral cat for neutering (not to mention performing invasive surgery on the females more than once).

Twelve of my cats were feral when they arrived at my house.

I guess the ear clipping is a universal (an universal?) practice. Our barn cats are all ferals who moved in on their own. We also trap them and neuter them, but we don't mark them which has been a mistake. I thought we had neutered all the brown tabbies until we found a litter in the hay shed after their brown tabby mother had been killed by dogs. Those second generation feral kittens are now our house cats.

What adorable kitties!!! I'm glad that they're housekitties now rather than just barn kitties! Everyone needs a housekitty or two.. or twenty...

It seems they got a bit carried away with the ear clipping on Jasper. One thing's for sure: He's the only one around with ears like that ! In my next life, I want to come back as a Zuzu PET !

Love those brown tabby kittens ! How do you tell them apart ?

They are easier to identify when they are not so tightly packaged. Scoot, the female on top, is more stripey and brown while Scout, the male, is quite black and spotty. They also have very different personalities: Scoot is bold, Scout is shy. He is the imaginary cat; strangers never see him.

Should have named him Boo instead of Scout!

I have an "imaginary" cat, too. He'll only come out when I'm around.
When I was gone for a week last month, I had someone come in to feed him. She never once laid eyes on him, but she knew he was there because the food was gone.

My Mom had a feral kitty show up in her garden a few years back, after she had a litter of 4 kittens, she brought her in to get fixed and they also notched her ear. Molly eventually became tame enough to now be her beloved companion, follows here in the garden when she's outside.

Molly looks like she owns the place.

Oh she does!

Indeed. She was kind enough to grant Sue's mom the privelege of using the garden !

I just love cats in gardens. I can't imagine having one without the other.

Remember my crazy Abracadabra that reverted to Black Beauty? Well, now it has produced a very bizarre bloom, half-red and half-yellow. Below it, you'll see a Black Beauty bloom. Hard to believe these are growing on the same rose bush.

Wow, that gorgeous! It sure fits in the entertaining rose category!

I love it!

Oh man, that is just GORGEOUS. You have the prettiest roses.... *sigh* *swoon*

What the heck ?????

What a delightful surprise! Can viruses cause color oddities like that?

That is the coolest rose I have ever seen love it