All too often these days the news we read is filled with divisive party politics and articles about pop culture that we only read because we don't have anything better to do. I don't know about you, but I miss the days when my news feed was filled with heartwarming tales of how someone came to meet their beloved pets. Today I plan to be part of the solution and tell you how I met my two kittens, Ash (left) and Cinder (right).

At the time, neither of them were fixed. (I think it's all too clear what happens next!)

Taffy was about a month and a half pregnant when their owners were going to go visit some family in California. Because Taffy was so close to giving birth (expected due date was in two weeks) she needed a bit more supervision and care, so during their one week absence, Taffy would stay at my house.

Taffy is an extremely skittish cat. While she was used to me, she was terrified of my grandpa and for the first few days, he never saw her, due to her hiding behind the couches, on top of the china cabinet, between the counter and the fridge, under the tv stand. Eventually I learned where all her hiding spots were and could check on her without much an issue. But by the fifth day, I couldn't find her. I checked everywhere, even the fireplace. It was about an hour after my grandfather got home that Taffy magically appeared. But something was off... her usual white paws were almost the same color as the rest of her fur.

Just petting her turned my hand black!

It was then that we realized where she had been. She had managed to open the flues to the chimney and climbed up inside. Before we could go close them she had disappeared up into the fireplace. The next morning we hadn't seen or heard from her and weren't sure if she was still in the chimney or not. We decided to go onto the roof and look down into it. Indeed she was there, but much to our surprise she wasn't alone. We could see at least two tiny heads moving around. She had given birth in the chimney a week early!

We called around town. Every veterinarian and several of the local fire departments were all at a loss of what to do. This had never happened before. I couldn't even find any suggestions on the internet as to what I should do! Eventually I had one of my small friends try and reach up the chimney to see if she could get a hold of the kittens to extract them. Alas she was too short and just ended up a sooty mess.

The next day I was able to have a friend who was taller but just as small. He was able to get close enough to feel their warmth, but unfortunately, due to the shape of my chimney it wasn't possible to get any closer, not without some sort of tool. Cue a tiny net meant to pluck goldfish out of a tank.

However, blindly trying to scoop those kittens was a bad idea. What if we bonked them in the head? Or worse, what if they weren't all the way in and instead fell and got hurt? How many were even in there? We had no way to see what we were doing. We had a perfect plan! Get a selfie stick and do a video call to it! That way we could have a phone inside showing us what was happening while the operator watched it on his! I ran all over town only to discover that selfie sticks had gone out of style a week ago and were no longer sold ANYWHERE. I had found the perfect use for a selfie stick, and couldn't find one. That's when we decided to duct tape a phone to a stick with a flashlight.

We had to make sure that thing was SECURE! If that phone fell off the stick, there was no way we were going to be able to retrieve it. After about an hour of duct tape engineering we were satisfied and began our extraction of the kittens. It didn't go as well as planned because the net was too small. However, we managed to hook their claws into the net and pull them up just high enough that we could grab the kitten and extract them safely.

By the end of it all, Taffy had given birth to a litter of 3 healthy kittens.

The following day, Taffy's owners returned and they got to go home and meet their father Chewy, who, rather unusual for a father cat, was very involved with them and protective over them. The first night they were home he didn't stray more than two feet from the box the kittens were in.

By the time the eight weeks were up, they had only lined up two of the three kittens for adoption, and they were really pushing me to take the last one in addition to the one I already claimed. My grandfather wasn't too happy that I was taking one to begin with. It hadn't even been a year since our previous cat had passed, and he wasn't ready for another pet. It took quite a bit of convincing but eventually he caved, having cuddled a couple times with the unclaimed kitten.

They had such beautiful gray coats, and were born in the chimney. I just had to name them appropriately, and that's how the Chimney kittens were born and got their names, Ash and Cinder.

It's been about half a year since then and these two have grown up so much.

From the first day that they got their stylish bandannas...

To today, rocking the same style!

Getting too big to fit in their favorite cuddle spot

With these two it's been quite an adventure. They couldn't be happier and both my grandpa and I are so glad we decided to take both of them. These two are precious additions to the family and I hope you all enjoyed their tale!