Hungry like the Kitty

This is Kevin.
He's not our cat.  But belongs to some asian neighbour up the street.  So maybe he thinks I'm his owner since I'm asian.
Nah.  That's not it. He's been coming around and we've been playing with him since he was a kitten.  So it started with some home made play toys, and then with some cat treats, and then with food and water.
So he comes around pretty much every day.  Why not.  He's a really nice cat.  If I meow.  He'll meow back.  It's like a conversation, cat-style.

For a while though I didn't see him and I was a little worried that he might've been hit by a car or something.  He is an outdoor cat.  Like he sleeps outdoors.
How do we know that?  Well when it has rained in the evenings he's come by our door in the morning soaking wet.  Meowing. So I let him in a bit to get out of the rain.  He wasn't so eager to come in initially. I would open the door and he'd just look in but not come in.  Then eventually he'd come in look and then run out onto the porch.  There was one day it was thunder storming and he was scared.  So I sat out on the porch while he hid under the little table.

But he's been my little companion as I was working on the kitchen this past year.  When I was home alone working on installing the flooring or baseboards or trim, he would come around and visit me.  I guess he knows he's got nothing to fear about me, so if I open the door, he'll come in and I'll give him a treat or two or five.

I wasn't sure if he was getting fed for a while because he was always coming by, and so I started buying him cat food.  And he'd polish it off like he hadn't eaten in weeks.  I did that for a few months, and then neighbours would come by and say "who's cat is that? he comes by my house too and I feed him."
I know of 3 or 4 neighbours that feed Kevin.  So I've stopped buying him cat food and only get the denta-bite cat treats instead.  Kieran chose those so that Kevin's teeth are cleaned.

But this past weekend we noticed something odd on our front lawn.  I thought it was a lobster.  But it wasn't a sea creature that had escaped that closed down Asian grocery store on St Clair.
It was a cardinal.
It wasn't like the other cardinal we found at the back of the house.  That one looked like it wasn't looking where it was flying and hit the side of the house. This one was mauled.  Feathers were everywhere like a big pillow fight. And it's head was torn off.

On Monday we found out that it was Kevin that killed that cardinal.  The neighbour kids saw him kill it on Friday.  And left it on our lawn to leave me a gift for all the denta-bite treats.  Or he wasn't getting enough Tender Vittles so he went for some KFC (Killed Fresh Cardinal) and wanted to let me know he was hungry.  I'm not too surprised it was a Kevin that did it.  We've seen him looking at birds, perched high up on a fence near the trees staring at something ready to pounce if they came close enough.

One good thing about Kevin, he keeps the critters away.  Like I've seen him toying around with a mouse on the road, like it was a ball. I thought it was dead, but it was a live mouse that was trying to get away but Kevin would let it go and then pounce on it and then do it again.  For fun.  I'm figuring he'll keep the birds away too, because I just seeded our lawn (after I cleaned up his KFC mess on the lawn).

But he's out all night so sometimes when I head to the garage or when Tresa goes to her car in the early morning, Kevin comes out like the Batman, and it spooks us.  But better Kevin than a skunk or raccoon.

He may not be our cat, but that's okay, we take care of him anyways.  It's as close to a pet as we'll get.