A short history of cats at Casa Shoehead

With the tragic loss of Vanilla Bean "Beansie" this week, I wanted to include a short history of my cats in recent years.
It started in 2003, when I first met the Lovely Mrs. Shoehead. She had one cat, Starva Wazzoo Kitty. After we got married, we saw a tiny kitten in a cage at our vet's, with a sign that stated "My name's Missy Cleopatra. I was found in a pillowcase in a dumpster. Could you please take me home?" So we did. That was around June of 2006. She and Starva didn't get along with each other at all, but we did keep them separate. Soon after, around August of 2006 or maybe a little later, a couple of alley cats started hanging around our little courtyard. One we called Asparagus, or just "Gus", the other had a crazy broken tail, and we called him "Cat-tail". Gussie sorta went away, but cat-tail always faithfully came around to our front door looking for food. Then, when we ended up moving to Firebaugh, we couldn't bear to leave cat-tail behind to face the dangers of--who knows what--so we loaded him up and drove him north.
Shortly after arriving at our new home, The Lovely Mrs. Shoehead noticed a little runt cat at her auntie's house that nobody wanted. he was a little grey tiger-stripe, and we took him home and called him Buster Brown. He never really felt at home, and was kind of a loner, although Cat-tail looked after him like a little brother. Eventually, Buster moved out of the house into the back garage. So we were a happy little family of 4 cats until July or August of 2008, when I looked out and saw a tiny orange kitten on my back porch. He was so malnourished and sickly, we took him in and named him Vanilla Bean Kittybone Catva, or Beans. He was a rebel much like Buster, and was always trying to escape, but finally he settled in to life in the house. Buster never really adapted, and stayed out in the back garage for months. I kept feeding him, but I went out of town for several days in April 2009, and when I got back, Buster wasn't around. I believe he moved on to another location. All went seemingly fine, when in October, I came home to find Starva dead! It was very traumatic for me. I buried her in a little rock garden in our yard. After that, the remaining three cats sorta bonded and hung out together. They were very cute, the three of them laying down sleeping all in the same direction on top of the dryer! This kept up until this week, when I found poor little Beansie dead and wet in the front yard. Now I'm down to 2 cats! I really do miss a house full of cats. I hope some needy cat finds us...