Bye Bye Old Kitty

Hopefully this will be the last time I write something like this in 2009. We had to have our old cat Noggin put down on Monday. He had stopped eating and it turns out he had cancer in his abdomen. He was a stray who came to us 16 years ago from my sister-in-law who had taken him in. Just a feisty 6 month old kitten then, he lived to be an old man of almost 17. Looking through my photos of him, he's always on someone's lap or in their arms. I'll put some more photos up of him tomorrow, but this is the last one I took, right before we left for Washington last weekend, he's sharing a sunbeam with Callie.

For the record, that's two cats, two guinea pigs, and two chickens in 2009. I know it's often natural and to be expected (all were in old age except for Asa's cat Bandit), but it's still hard. Especially since Noggin was one of our first "babies", along with Sabre our dog who passed away two years ago now. The house feels emptier, especially when I sit down to breakfast and Noggin isn't there demanding his lap time.