We had been keeping an eye on our neighboring farm cat colonies for a while.

One night, my friend Rose phoned me and told me she had seen a litter of kittens that looked "just like Judith's cats" and I should go have a look at them.
My two guys had taken both vehicles and so Rose took me to the farm. It should be mentioned that we have a certain type of longhaired cats populating the Oakland area for many years. At the farm we met a whole group of large, wonderful looking cats with nice long rectangular bodies.

Most of them longhaired. Inbreeding must have taken place because most of them were dilutes with white. Most farm cats have a certain amount of inbreeding.

Even though we are against inbreeding, we believe that even an inbred farm cat presents a great outcross to our existing lines because there is a long invisible pedigree behind them. Also, if a group of cats has stayed healthy over many years and litters are still large and perfectly formed - despite of the inbreeding - then this is a good sign that this is a relatively clean line with great vigor.

Then some of our research has automatically been accomplished - in a natural way!
We looked at the gums and teeth of some of the tamer cats and they looked great!

One of the blue/ white females, 4 years old, who just had a litter of four kittens struck our attention. They were just being weaned and all seemed to be in good health.
We decided on one of the blue tabby/white males and took him to our vet.

We also asked permission to take mom in for CBC and Felv/Fiv testing.

Please note that a Felv/Fiv test on a kitten younger than 12 weeks is not reliable. That is why we always take mom in first.

We took pictures of mom and the four babies and also of some of the relatives to get a clear picture of the traits in this particular line of cats.

We later called the mothercat "Canada Love of PrairieBaby". One kitten was really nice.
He is a Blue Tabby/White boy. The other boy kitten looked more like a hamster (ha!) than a Maine Coon and had a strong under bite. So he couldn't be used for breeding.
Father of Canada Love's litter was a big Blue tabby/white male we called "Souris Valley of PrairieBaby". Maxine, the daughter of the farmers, promised us a picture .

We later went back and took pictures ourselves. We weren't able to catch him though.
This is an old line and according to the farmers - good, honest, old fashioned English folks - there has never been any sicknesses in their cats.
As a matter of fact, the great grandfather of our little boy just died last winter at the age of 18. He lived with the neighbors of the farmers. Boakeman had been in many fights and has been badly beaten up. All their cats were well fed and most of them had nice shiny coats.

Mother Canada Love has had several healthy litters. The fact that there were 4 kittens in the litter and all were large and healthy, told us that the inbreeding COI can't be too high. The farm where the 17 year old male lives is also the home of the little Red Tabby/White girl, we later called "Oktober". She is his great grandchild.

Both parents of Oktober could be seen at the farm. Her mom is "Lilly of the Valley of PrairieBaby", a Cream Tortie/High White. Oktober's dad is "Oakland of PrairieBaby", a Red Mac Tabby/High White.

There was no scale for the cats handy at the farm, but my guess is that Oakland weighed about 15 or 16 pounds as an adult male. We were very impressed of this flock of cats. All looked extremely well taken care of. The litter of five where Oktober came from was running around happily. The lady knew all the "imaginary" pedigrees and could give us a pretty reliable history for all cats.

Update 2022: 
All three cats are now presented in many pedigrees all around the world. Some F6 generations became Grand Champions and Regional Winners in CFA, shown through Sheila Haskins in Texas, among others.