Pippi snorts a kitten

When we arrived at the barn the other day, we stumbled across two newborn kittens. We knew that Maggie and Tipper were expecting, but neither was anywhere to be found. At first glance the black kitten looked to have passed, still attached to his umbilical cord, and not moving in the dirt. Then I noticed a slight movement and then a shudder. A neighbor had a knife and cut the umbilical cord off, and picked the little cold body up. Miranda had heard some small kitten cries under the barn, and her and the neighbor fished out another Silver kitten who was in better shape but also attached to his umbilical cord. No Baby Mama. It seems there are bad moms in the animal world as well. We held the kittens, and I rubbed the black one vigorously and he livened up a bit. Miranda called Donna, who came down and went looking for the wayward mom. Meanwhile we wrapped the kittens in Pippi's dirty towel, and Miranda held them to keep them warm.
Pippi became quite interested and knowing her fondness for cats we let her take a look.

"What is that? I want to see!"

"What does she have?"

"It's a Kitten, I love those, smells good."

"I am SO HAPPY right now, can we keep 'em? can we? can we? Please?"

"It's kissing me! It loves me. Smells so good."

"This one is my favorite. It loves me."

"That's so precious. It fell over."

Pippi was obsessed, followed us everywhere to see the kittens. Every few minutes she would stretch her neck way out, and curl her lip in a huge grin. Shaking her head, and then lowering her head softly to smell them some more. Wish I would have been able to film it. She followed us to the backdoor of the barn to sniff the kittens some more. The Silver kitten was snorted half way into her nostril, and Miranda had to stop him from crawling in. Pippi even tried to lick them.
Seeing Pippi so tender and caring made my heart ache for her to have a foal, although I know all the reasons not to breed her. She sure would make a great mom though. One can dream...............

We did find the trashy mama, and she accepted them back and let them eat. Silver ate fine, but the Black one was not latching on. We did not see them yesterday, but hope that Maggie's motherly instincts kicked in.