Either she's dead or she just gave birth to her kittens. (For the past 9 months or so, Henny's been in my backyard around 5pm waiting for her regular feeding EVERY day.)
In my fantasy, Henny will gradually bring each kitten home to my
backyard over the next couple of days. I'll bring them all inside and
let the family nurse, then after 6 weeks, call the Austin no-kill
shelter to take all kittens but one, plus take Hennessy in to be spayed and then returned to me.
As I was growing up in the country outside of Azle, Texas, we had a stray cat, "Mama Cat," who showed up at our house and then had kittens. She did what I'm now wishing Henny will do: Lugging each of her five kittens home (in the Azle case, to our back porch) by the loose scruffs of their necks 'til they were all in a safe place. In Austin, though, I'm not sure if Henny is going to have that leisure. The apartment complex is surrounded on one side by auto shops, which are abandoned after hours... I'm guessing the stray cats take refuge (and have their babies) there.
For the past half-year, my apartment complex management has been sending out messages about NOT feeding the stray cats, like Henny, roaming around the complex --- so the no-kill shelter could set up feeding traps to capture the cats. Well, I'd already started feeding Penny and Henny, so I couldn't just STOP feeding the cats that were trusting me to feed them...
I WISH that Henny would be able to do all of this (bringing kittens home to a safe place) properly, like a country cat could do...
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