Mr Hope, Lavender Inn’s Permanent Resident

In  October of last year, we discovered a little kitten next to our front porch, keeping dry from the rain.  We tried to grab it to bring it inside to keep warm, but he ran off.  For the next several days, we kept food out to see if it would return, but didn’t.  It was the next week when we saw a whole litter running towards the neighbors house, but we couldn’t see exactly where they went.

Beth decided to go to Noah’s Apothecary to buy some cat food and find out if there was any way to save them and find a safe home for them. While she was there, she ran into a good samaritan that, as a hobby, would gather stray kittens & cats, nurse them to health and find homes for them.  Sure enough this good samaritan, found the kittens and their mom, took them to vet and cared for them until she found them all a home.

Several days after the kittens and mother were taken away for care, we noticed a mature black & white cat roaming around the area we found the kittens.  He would return daily and when he’d see us would run to Inn’s garden.  We were convinced that he was the father and felt terrible that we might have separated him from his family.  We couldn’t tell for certain and by then it was too late.  All of the kittens found a safe home.

One day in November, we finally saw where the cat was hiding.  Underneath the outside staircase in our garden.  We started to leave food out for him and made him a little bed, but we never saw him.  Finally, Beth set out his food one morning and she sat next to it calling out for the cat.  It took a while, but sure enough, the cat came out from underneath the building and slowly went to eat his food.  Beth did this for days, until he gained enough trust and let her pet him.  She couldn’t have been happier.  At that point he was officially  the “Lavender Inn Cat”.

Although he was no longer afraid to come out and eat, he never let us get too close. In January we had our annual INNCourage Retreat for Women with Cancer.  One afternoon while all the ladies were lounging in the garden, the cat came out of nowhere, approached one of the Ladies and sat right on her lap.  Her name was Hope.  You can see the picture above with Hope.  So Beth and Kathy finally gave him a name, Mr Hope.

It was at that moment that Mr Hope’s life was forever changed.   Mr Hope greets all the guests in the garden, sits with them for breakfast & demands to be pet.  There’s only one type of guest that he doesn’t like… the dogs.

We’re thrilled that he’s made his home at the Inn and we wanted to share his story.