This morning, bleary eyed and still in my jammies (baggy shorts & T-shirt
that not-fit-for-wear-in-public), I take some seed out to the bird feeders
(instead of filling them completely, and letting it all go to the squirrels,
I do like my Mom, and only put about a cup in each feeder every morning).
As I get to the back door to come back in, I hear what sounds like a cat
screaming - and it's sounds like it's coming from the 'low rent' apartments
a block up the road.  I call DH out (he's still in his jammies too), and we
both listen.

It could be a cat/kitten in distress, or a bird (sometimes they sound like
cats), so DH goes back inside to get dressed, as I take off in the direction
I think it's coming from, which is north.  As I get to the northwest corner
of the house, and am standing in the driveway, I realize it's not coming
from the north, but from the *east*, so I take off down the driveway,
occasionally calling out "kitty" as I do so.  by the time I get to the
northwest corner of the house, it's starting to sound 'echo-ey'.  I get to
the road, and it is *much* louder, and I realize it's coming from the front
porch of the house-for-sale across the street (the one that had a tree land
on it's roof this past spring - BTW, it was selling for 94thou, but they've
lowered it to 85thou).  They are having an open-house there today from 1-4,
and yesterday, we noticed they were bringing some things over to make it
look more inviting (plants, decorations, etc....), and when they left, they
left the enclosed front porch door standing open.  As I cross the street, I
hear the more-and-more desperate cries of the poor critter.  I surmise that
the cries are coming from the porch.  As I go up their driveway, and
approach the house, I call out again.

The cries stop.

And then here comes a little tortie kitten trotting down the steps.
CUTE!!!!!  She runs right up to me, and I scoop her up, and then step onto
the empty porch to make sure there's no other cats/kittens there.  Nuttin.
By this time DH is dressed and looking for me.  He finds me holding the
kitty in the driveway across the street (and, remember, I'm still in my
jammies), and trots across to us.  He asks where 'it' was.  I reply that
*she* was on the open front porch.  He says "maybe it's theirs".  I replied
"nobody lives there!).  He wanted to know if there was any food/water dishes
left there for 'it'.  I say it's a *her*.  He asks how I know.  I reply that
99.9% of torties/calicos are female.

Anyway, there were no food/water or anything (besides a potted plant) on
that front porch. So we brought her back over to our house.  On the walk
back up our driveway, I cradled her on her back, and checked her belly for a
spay scar, and her teeth so try and guess her age.  She was kinda squirmy
(she wanted to climb up on my shoulder and purrrrrrrrrrrr, and knead), but
looked like she had her big-kitty teeth, but no spay scar.  I did, however,
spot a flea scamper across her belly as I looked.

So Kitty is now ensconced on *our* front porch, with food water and litter,
and since she has big kitty teeth, she was Frontlined.

We estimate her age to be about 12-14 weeks old.

We are going to canvas the neighbors over there in a bit to see if anyone is
missing a kitten.

She was crying on our front porch for a bit, but has now settled down on the
old towel we gave her for a bed.

Dh is calling her Sally....<sigh>

Oop - there are workers at the for-sale house again, DH went over there to
talk to them, and they say it belongs to the people that live in a rental
trailer next door to that house (owned by the same people that are selling
the house), and they said it was following them around and crying at them
yesterday.

DH siad the trailer-people just left their property, probably going to
church.  We will go speak to them later today.

We did manage to take one *good* piccie of her (she's leaning over, getting
ready to flop on her side and do upside downy head), posted at
http://community.webshots.com/photo/76978303/2085189930047371020gxsvEC