10 Years of Noe!!

Baby Noe - 10 years ago

10 years ago today, in the wee hours of the morning, we had a small(ish) earthquake rattle us awake.

Soon after that, we heard a chirping noise outside. We didn't think much of it, and went back to sleep.

We continued to hear the chirping noises when we woke up. Dick went outside to check it out (this was at our old house on 23rd street) and came back in telling me there was a baby kitten crying in our backyard.

This is the story of how our little Noe cat came to us on September 3, 2000.

We figured out that her momma cat (a regular stray in the neighborhood) was probably moving her from one yard to the next, and probably got spooked by the earthquake, and dropped her kitten. We thought it would be best to leave the baby kitten outside, and assumed that her momma cat would come back to retrieve her.

Dick and I went out for the day, and by the time we came back in the early evening, we found that the poor little kitten was still there - no doubt, cold and hungry.

We took her in, wrapped her in a towel, and drove across town to a 24-hour emergency vet. They approximated her age to be about 4 or 5 days old. Her eyes were still closed, her ears were still folded, and she weighed less than 5 ounces. They gave her a check-up, and told her that she would probably live if we took good care of her.

We named her Noe, (Dick's brilliant idea) after Noe Valley and Noe Street, where Dick used to live. :)

Over the next two weeks, we bottle fed kitten milk replacement formula to little Noe every 4 hours. We kept her in a tiny bathroom with a space heater so we could keep the temperature between 80 and 85 degrees. Noe lived in a cardboard box with a towel, and her fuzzy bone to curl up with.


Dick feeding Noe on her second day with us - she was about 6 days old


Noe in her box with her yellow fuzzy bone and a thermometer


September 9, 2000

We weighed Noe every day in a little scale.


Noe in the scale

By the time she was about two weeks old, Noe took her first steps!


Go, Noe, Go!


Trina & Noe
September 26, 2000

Noe continued to grow, and eventually grew to be the full sized, fluffy, 8.5lb cat that she is today. :)

We can't believe that our little "kitten" is 10 years old! It doesn't seem long ago that we found her in the "kitten bush" in the old backyard.

Happy Birthday Noe (4 days ago) and Happy 10 year anniversary of being part of our family! We love our little earthquake kitten.