So Cheese chose to eat on the feeding station in the middle of the Garden Family group while her identical twin sister Cracker was happier on her special box, eating peacefully on her own. And this difference in their temperament manifested itself in another way as well – in their willingness or otherwise to be part of a group, their desire to mingle or to be solitary, and their relationship with The Cat and her family.
The Cat’s daughter Flora was an aloof and distant young cat, uncomfortable in the presence of humans, and fiercely feral. And yet she and Cheese struck up the most unlikely of friendships, one that saw Cheese regularly joining The Cat and her family on the water tank on the veranda to enjoy the morning sun – something that very few cats outside of The Cat’s family did. And not only was Cheese accepted, it seemed that she and Flora were like sisters, allogrooming, sitting close together. Flora was not the sort of cat you would ever have labelled as ‘affectionate’, and yet there she was, grooming Cheese.
But, for all the obvious affection between Flora and Cheese, a few months later when Flora decided that she had finished mothering Souci, her firstborn, it was Cracker and not Cheese who adopted Souci, and Cracker who continued raising Souci as her own, as a companion for Cracker’s son Clover. Cracker is also featured on the header photo which shows her with Clover, a few days before Souci joined them.
And then, as Souci matured, she turned to Cheese as a friend – Cheese, the twin sister of Souci’s adoptive mother – Cheese, the best friend of Souci’s big sister, Flora. Maybe it was because Cheese spent more time in the garden, but for whatever reason, Souci helped Cheese raise her kittens, and the following year they joined forces and raised their litters in one colony.
While Cheese was busy weaving her life into the fabric of The Cat’s family, Cracker was doing her own thing, raising her kittens in the fields and bringing them to the drive and the garden for weaning. The fact that Cheese was more integrated with the Garden Family was what led the humans to place kitten Sherpa with Cheese when he needed an adoptive mother.
So, despite their different characters, Cheese and Cracker had both stepped up to take on other kittens at a time when these kittens’ mothers had deserted them. It seemed that, deep down, maybe Cheese and Cracker were more similar than they initially appeared.
