Outdoor Cats

Everybody thinks I don't like cats

We used to have barn cats. A lot of them. Shortly before I met the boss a lady he knew gave him three big kittens. By the time I had known him a couple of years as many as 75 cats came to the milk dish at chore time...all of them various combinations of black, white, or grey, with lots of silver tabbies thrown in. There were nice ones and nasty ones and pretty ones and ugly, battle-scarred, old Toms. 

This is a falsehood

Rats were not a problem then. I think they had one of those signs hobos used to leave on doorposts down at the bottom of the driveway, "Don't bother stopping here."

The cats ALL had names, some of them cute, some clever, some descriptive, and some profane. We all liked them. There was a veritable barn cat culture, with stories, relationships, and a lot of silliness. I wrote any number of Farm Side columns including one entitled "Dances with Barn Cats" about trying to carry a pail of milk to the calves amid the seething throng.

Speaking of names..this was Chainsaw, a great favorite of mine
his nickname was "Chain"

Then came the coyotes. At the time I met the boss there were no coyotes here at all. A few years later there were a lot of them. They eat cats, jsyk. I guess they ate ours because by the time we sold the cows there were only two or three cats left. The smart ones. The ones that stayed near the barn. They are all gone now.

He liked to help with the fencing

We had to wait for him so the coyotes didn't get him out there on the hills

The kids would like to get barn cats again and I understand, I really do. But in all the years we had cats the lazy ones always hunted at the bird feeders. They didn't eat House Sparrows either. Nope it was always a Rose-breasted Grosbeak or Northern Cardinal that they captured and all too often left on the porch as a sort of reward for me I guess. No thanks guys, I like them better in the trees.

Pumpkin

Miss Catty-fach

It's a worldwide problem and accounts for literally millions of songbirds every year. I won't get into that but it doesn't seem fair to offer the local birds a nice lunch counter in return for letting me watch them, and then put THEM on the menu. Plus I always ended up being the one feeding and caring for the cats once the new wore off. The kids say I don't like cats, but really I do. It just feels hypocritical for me to facilitate outdoor felines and wild birds in the same yard.

The infamous Elvis

So no barn cats now.

I loved Elvis, for all his foibles, and truly hated the damned  dog that killed him

Imagine my chagrin when this morning I paused as always on the stair landing on my way downstairs. Crows were alarm calling and the Carolina Wrens were frantic.

And no wonder. Right in the middle of the driveway was a big, black, cat, seated leg-o-mutton style, having a nice wash. Dagnabbit. Visitor from the housing development next door, stray, or drop off....I wonder.

When I took the doggos out he was gone, but you should have seen the little guy's mackles come up when he smelled where the intruder had been sitting. He knew. 

Then when we passed the car he went nuts (not a long trip for a Jack Russell Terrier, I know, but still).

The cat was under the car. 

The dog began swearing and leaping and muttering and thrashing. I dragged him indoors and let him off the lead, planning to coax him into his kennel with a biscuit as always.

Hah! Prey drive in a JRT is equal to the herding instinct in a Border Collie. All circuits were busy. He even blew the inside door open and got on the porch (and thank you, Alan for the strong outside door, which stopped him.) I had to grab some MacScruff and haul him back in.

No biscuit for you buddy!

I suppose this kitty must be a drop off. It is pretty tame for a stray, and it didn't streak off toward town when threatened by the Mack. I am not excited about having to walk the little juggernaut several times a day with him out there. The birds aren't happy either.

However: I DO like cats and I can prove it.

Cat story

Another cat story

Cats with thumbs

Herding Cats

Elvis was weird

Hardhearted Farmers

He's got a knife

There are many more cat stories available here if you search "cats" and plenty of fun with perhaps my favorite cat of all time, Elvis, if you search for his name....I am not sure what will happen with the guy under the car, but I'll bet there will be a story in that too.

Who

One of our cats, Chainsaw

Is working twelve hour days, seven in a row, outdoors in all this weather?

Not us. We work some hours, but surely not that many in the winter. And we mostly work in the barn except for the boss getting wood and taking out the cow poo.

No, the correct answer is the construction crew Al and his uncle are on, working just up the way on the other side of the river.

We see him for a few minutes most days and we feed him. Actually he went out and got a big bunch of groceries yesterday so we could be better prepared for that task.

Wish you could hear the story about the monster in his grouting hut yesterday. He was warned to be careful going in, as there were "coyote" tracks right up to the door.

He went in really careful and found a monster tom cat snuggled up to the heat vent (have to keep the grout from freezing). It went ballistic, bouncing off cement and metal before finding egress and hiding under a trailer. Someone who shall remain nameless teased him about being nervous about a little kitty cat until the giant beast ran out in front of him. Eek!

I don't know where they come from, but it seems as if there is an endless supply of gigantic grey or black tom cats in this area. We always have one, and actually he thinks this is one that was hanging around here a couple of years ago, and they are indestructible and very fierce. They are not ours. They are just here.

We have a big, fat, grapefruit-headed grey right now, hiding under the machinery, sneaking into the barn, and beating the heck out of all our cats early and often. Maybe they come up from town. Not a fan.

Chain is tiny compared to the wild toms

Who Taught the Cats

What am I up to, you ask

How to get into the milk house through the hose port? One day, a certain someone, who shall for the moment remain nameless, stuffed the Amish kitties through the port. They thought that was a grand idea. There is milk in there you know. And feet to tangle and people to trip. The other cats watched them enjoying their new ingress and egress and quickly learned to follow.

The hose port is where the milk truck driver puts the truck hose in order to access the milk when he comes to pick it up every other day. I can stop it up with a gallon jug, but I don't like to inconvenience him.

Cats are not allowed in milk houses. Milk inspectors tend to object.

So now, I have to get cats out of there several times a day. A dish of milk or a handful of cat food usually does the trick.

However, it doesn't take long before they are right back in. I think I have a bone to pick with that certain someone....early and often.....

Just nipping into the milk house to get underfoot and bawl for milk

Something Feathered This Way Comes

Our kitten population has been taking a beating. One was hit by a car. One vanished. Smeagol was found in the farm lane way, way up on the hill. Looked as if she had been dropped from up high. The boss used to spend a few minutes every morning sitting on a bucket outside the milk house petting her and gentling her down. I am sure he misses her.

There was discussion that maybe it was a hawk, but we have never had kitties taken by hawks before. My vote was great horned owl, though we haven't seen one in years.

Then, this morning when I took little Miss Daisy out for her constitutional at just barely past dawn, a huge black shape lifted out of the honey locust right next to the kitchen. It was gone too quickly for me to get a fix on it, and it DID make some noise...owls are largely silent.

However, the noise was big wings hitting branches, not feather sounds in flight. I'll bet it was an owl, hunting Chainsaw who was right there waiting for me to come out. Chainsaw is one tough old fellow. If it grabs him it is in for a surprise!

Or maybe it is after the skunk that has been hanging around. It is certainly welcome to that, but I miss the little kitties. Only Smog is left....plus the old cats. We used to have a lot of barn cats, but it seems now, with all the varmints moving in, we are lucky to keep a handful, even though we feed them and vaccinate all we can catch.

Teh Kitteh Conundrum

Things happen to barn cats. Coyotes. Cars. Cows. The list is endless.

Thus when you get a barn cat you really, really, really like, sometimes you make the ridiculous decision to take one indoors and make it a house cat.

Hah. Hardly ever works. Becky tried it with Pumpkin, the cuter and lovier of the logger kitties.

Pumpkin made her displeasure known in various ways until Beck finally took her back to the barn before she managed to kill herself.

She was VERY happy to be there and raced up and down the manger like a mad thing, played with her sister, played with strings, played with hay, and generally rejoiced heartily.

Now guess who is at the back door howling to come in......


****I wonder if this has anything to do with the turkey we fed her last night....

Fluffy Butts Twinkling in the Twilight

Cat-riona

I am turning into a crazy cat lady. The logger kitties know I feed them so they follow me back and forth to the barn. At night their three little fannies bob and blink in the light from my flashlight as they precede me to the door, where noms await. A study in tortoiseshell and black and white,

They like to come to the house too, and follow me over in the morning, but mean old Simon boots them off "his" porch if they try for cat food there. If only I could tolerate cats in the house......

They are crazy entertaining and funny and full of kitty cuteness. Hope they are also smart enough to avoid varmints.

Rivers of Milk

With kittehs to drink them.

The Little Ones

Pumpkin

The river of our lives flows mainly around caring for the big animals, cows, calves, and heifers, and a couple of horses too. Everything there is has to be scheduled around twice daily milkings, thrice daily feedings, cleaning of stables etc. It is such a habit...I have worked in situations where I at least had to feed animals morning and night since I was sixteen...even when I have time off I get restless at 6 in the morning and 5 in the evening.....

However, it is often the little animal tributaries that bring the most fun and drama to our world, payback in triplicate for all that we give them.

The pup, Gil, is a devil dog, bowling people over with his fat, fluffy bum, tossing milking inflations, about the only toy he can't destroy, through the air with gay abandon, endangering all and sundry, and barking at everything and nothing.


However, just a few minutes ago, he managed to get his collar off. It lay on the floor, collapsed and lonely. 

Cat-riona

At first he was astonished to see such a thing. Then he bowed to it, twisted his head all sideways and pawed at it.

Barked at it, nudged it, nosed it, pounced, danced, paraded in circles around it with one foot in the air in case it might run away and need to be smacked down.

It stayed all sullen and grumpy there in a heap though all his efforts until he decided he had gotten all the good out of it and went on his merry way.

 We were hooting and gasping by the time he was done.

And those kitties our logger brought are pips. The little cats are hilarious, spending hours playing in a pile of sand we keep in an empty stall for shoveling on the floor to keep the traction good. There must be ten thousand kitty tracks in it now, from pouncing, digging spaces in which to hide, all the better to jump out and and surprise you, and hours and hours of patty-paw. They are the happiest, funniest kittens we have seen in years.

 Mama is a fine hunter. She wasn't here three days before she was up in the overheads and mows ratting and mousing.....clearly a business cat and good at her job. We like them all a lot.

Yesterday they were missing at evening milking. Normally they are right there waiting for noms and chances to hide in Alan's pockets and drink fresh, hot, milk, and other such fine kitty activities. However, there wasn't so much as a flash of tortoiseshell to be seen anywhere.

I had a sad. I figured mama, who is an enterprising big, black and white cat, had taken the kids and headed back home. Their former location is just a few miles away and cats do what they want to. I called and called. 

No kittehs.


At the end of chores I came in to cook dinner and get things ready for the boss to head off to an auction. Just as I was getting washed up Becky came in and reported that Alan had seen the cats, all up in the overheads with mama. She is starting them young and starting them right I guess. At least they are safe from big cow hooves up there!

Kittehs

Our logger, scrapper, trader friend delivered a mama kitty and two teen-aged kittens to our barn yesterday. Mom is  black and white, kitties are sort of tortie-calicoes; all are lovely. 

They are enthroned in the milk house just now in the interests of letting them learn where they belong......

They are already accustomed to an outdoor home life with coyotes abounding, so maybe, hopefully they will be smart enough to avoid predation. 

Athena

Help! Who am I!

Not a cat person here. I like them, but I will never be a crazy cat lady or anything. (Well, crazy maybe....).

However, I do like them, and in the way of families when the young folks move away, all the kitties that they brought home over the years have become my responsibility. I spend my extra coins on cat food and get up early to distribute same.

The very day after the Sunday Stills Cats challenge something murdered poor Sinopa and her idiot son Justin Bieber. They were not big favorites, but still they were threads in the life of the barnyard, the butt of many jokes about white cat syndrome (not that they were white), and just there..... I don't know how to explain how it is with your barn animals. They are not like the cozy creatures that share hearth and home, but more like partners in enterprise. They work for and with you and in return you see to their needs. Part of farm life that goes unsung, but not unnoticed.

Justin wasn't smart enough to come to the house for food, but he got milk and table scraps in the barn, and spent his free time thinking up diabolical ways to trip us or run under a cow's belly with his tail upright so we could get kicked. We still liked his silly self and the boss spent years trying to pet him. He would have none of that.

Whatever got them wrecked them. Both were too wild to catch when they came home to say goodbye. We found Sinopa later; Justin is just gone. The barn floor is bare without them.

Then Athena vanished. Athena is different. She is an independent little spotted brown tabby that belonged to children before she came here. They filled her up with love and she hasn't run out yet. 

She is of the liquid cat genre. You can pick her up in any manner and she will flow into your arms and melt around your neck and purr til the foundation shakes. In the winter Alan tucks her into the hood of his sweatshirt and she rides there all sleepy and proud, peeping out every now and then to see what's up. We have come very, very close to buying a conversion kit and turning her into a house cat.

She is timid over porch food and hides under the car until Simon and Chain Saw are done, but she does come in in the morning to eat. I always give her a little extra.

She didn't show her face for three days. Sorrow reigned. Just a cat. Just a barn cat at that, but there is much fondness beamed in her direction.

You can imagine my joy when she was tucked under the big sink on the porch this morning awaiting her turn at the bowl.

We have got to get to the bottom of this killing thing. We have had coyotes for about twenty years, a fisher for two, foxes forever, ditto owls, although not so much any more. And raccoons. However, savvy cats like these know how to avoid those creatures or they wouldn't have lived as long as they have.

I am leaning toward the fisher, because the last time it came through it took Justin's sister, another cat wise in the way of the wild. 

There was something big and fast right in the house yard when we came home from the fair the other night. I miss the days when everyone hunted and varmints kept their distance.

***If any of you bird stars could identify the little warbler type critter above I would be wildly grateful.

Teh Kitteh Olympics

The sport is fencing. 

No foils allowed. 

The participant is Chain Saw, 

a domestic short hair from the USA.

 Gentlemen

Choose your weapons

 Our contestant caught in a pensive moment

 Perfect form in the "follow the farmer out to the field" event

 Sails smoothly past the "meadow hazard" with grace and aplomb

Carried victorious from the field in the arms of his supporters
*click to embiggen*

***And now, for the behind the scenes commentary....actually Alan and I went out to start....it is going to be a big job...putting the electric wire back up where the deer ripped it down. Chainsaw decided to tag along. In typical cat fashion he persisted all the way to the top of the hill and then petered out and lay around crying...."oh, I'm so tired...I, gasp, can't make it any farther.....gasp, gasp..."

So Alan carried him down. There were a lot of raptors around and he didn't want him to be eaten. Silly cat.

Catlap

Kittens

Over the past few weeks I have written of the perils of Athena's three kittens getting stuck in the wall etc.

Well that was nothing on what happened when they got big enough to run out among the cows when they came in and out of the barn. They are the dumbest ost adventuresome kittens I have ever come across.

It was heart wrenching to watch them getting stomped and rolled down the barn alley every day. Liz wanted to bring them over to the horse barn, which is near the house. "Bringing things to the horse barn" is a euphemism for bringing them to the house for mom to deal with.

Despite their cuteness I respectfully declined. I already have every single barn cat but one coming to the house to cadge food from me and I really didn't want three more.

Then yesterday the boss called me when he was going out for afternoon work, "Get your camera, you have to see this."

He was right.

That green bowl is a plant dish that somehow became the back porch cat food dish, used to offer sustenance to all those "barn" cats.

I think Athena is trying to tell me something don't you? She had to lug or lead that baby through half an acre of boot-top deep mud and muck to get it here......

Ah, well, I know when I'm licked. By evening chore time she had one of the other ones over here too, and I am sure there will soon be three......

Rescue Rangers

Taken with my cell phone...kitties are under the flap of the box.

Setting up the milker day before yesterday. Heard the dreaded cheeping cry of a kitten in distress.

Oh, oh....

Athena has turned out to be one of those kitten shifters...here one day, somewhere else the next and we hadn't seen her kitties in a couple of days.

The girls and the boss went on the hunt. No kitties in the manure shed. No kitties under the compressor. No kitties under the bulk tank. No kitties in the ceiling.

Nope the kitties were in the wall. Yes, indeedy, inside the wall. Appears Athena hauled them up stairs to an abandoned grain bin and they fell down into the wall.

Alas, when the wall was demolished with hammer and tongs...or whatever...there were only two kitties left of the original three. (Not to mention a large hole in the wall, which spooked all the cows that have to walk by it...or at least it spooked the Jerseys, making it seem like all the cows.)

The two residual chats were enthroned in a cardboard box in the milk house, with mama in fond attendance, canned cat food and milk was provided and all was well.

Well, except that cats aren't allowed in the milk house. By law.

Next morning when we went to remove the little offenders ...yay...an empty box. No kitties. So the girls crawled around on their hands and knees in the milk house until they found the two little devils under the fridge and pulled them out. They had to be relocated before the milk truck came and they got us in trouble.

Only lo and behold there were now three kitties. Either they multiplied like gremlins in the night or Athena punched a big hole in the plastic covering one window to bring the missing felid inside with his sibs. (Seems she knows a cushy berth when she finds one.)

I sent Becky for my window repair tote and fixed the yawning opening. Kittens were placed back in the old calf tie up whence they originally emanated shortly after birth.

And of course by evening they were missing again. This time they were quickly discovered over by the permanent cat food dish. I find myself wondering just how many lives they have used up so far......and also who is going to fix that wall and when.

Those Hardhearted

Just who are you accusing of hiding kittens in the grain tub?

Farmers....or so the AR folks would have you believe. However, had you been a fly on the wall in a certain upstate NY dairy barn this morning you would have gotten an ear full of just how hardhearted they are in real life..

See, three little black kittens popped out of wherever mama Athena has been keeping them hidden and Liz found them while we were milking this morning.

Chores ground to a total halt. There was much crooning and cuddling and cooing and baby talk. Did I mention cuddling? Ownership was distributed. See, technically Athena belongs to Liz as she brought her home from our friend's farm. However, everybody loves her, Alan especially. Although he lobbied hard to have ownership of the actual kitten factory transferred to his account, he was awarded instead a single black kitten. Beck also got one and Liz kept one for herself.

Athena, a spotted brown tabby, was not concerned as long as a sufficient level of admiration was bestowed upon her offspring, as well as upon herself for her great accomplishment.

Canz (Elvis's canned cat food) was heisted from the house. Ditto dry kitty food. There was discussion, by the subject of Wordless Wednesday Revisited, of running up to the vet's office (once the roads all open again) for little kitty vaccinations. He may look ruff and gruff, but he loves kitties. It would seem that his kids do too.

I'm telling you, you would have been embarrassed by the gushing....brutal.

Down Sizing

His name is Chainsaw and he usually lives up to it....however, maybe he is trying to tell us something.

Should we change his name to Brush Nippers?

Mystery Solved

What has been happening to my catnip plant? I kept finding it tipped over and the stems all crushed. I thought it was the wind, but I guess not.

It was Embarrassing

Corn bread and chuck roast from the steer

To watch Elvis the cat attack Nick, my good dog, and thoroughly school him, until he left his breakfast (which did not consist of the stuff pictured above) and ran and hid in his crate.....

First stalking him with glowing yellow beacon eyes.

Running at him like a puma.

Then buffeting him with giant paws, tipped with freshly-sharpened claws.

Cuff, cuff, cuff, until cowed and thoroughly policed, the poor guy ran for cover.

Danged devil cat. I should have named him Fluffy...then maybe he wouldn't have been so full of himself.

Poor gentleman dog, who knows the cats are off limits to him. I was THIS temped to say the magic words.

Get the kitty.

On the Porch this Morning

Chickens stealing cat food. How handy that I just happened to have Nick in the house. Nothing like a border collie for removal of unwelcome poultry.

Found old Stormy dead there when I took him out for the first time. Not a tragedy or anything, just one of those things. She was not a pet by any means, just a scruffy old working girl, retired, long, long past her ratting days and it was just time.

In a way it was almost a relief. No one has any idea how old she was, but she wasn't a young cat when the boss's mom passed away and it has been nine years since then. If I had to guess I would say thirteen or fourteen at least. It is a lucky farm cat that avoids milk trucks and foxes and coyotes, owls and clumsy cow feet for that long.

And she had a kind of on and off relationship with good health, and was probably the ugliest cat we ever had. She also had a long history of stealing kittens from her kin, Wild Thing, who vanished this summer. Wild Thing also stole from her so there was never any knowing which one actually owned what kittens. They hardly ever raised any anyhow, being absurdly inbred. I don't think there is a single cat left now from that era. You see, we never knew it until just before he died, but a dog we used to have, a big homely behemoth in black, named Beethoven, used to kill any new cats that came to the farm. Strays or drop offs, I guess they were intruders in his mind.

We NEVER saw him do it, but every now and then we would find a cat corpse in the barn or out in the field. They looked untouched. We worried about disease...but we never knew what was going on until he was gone and suddenly the "disease" was too. Thus our barn cats had no outside blood for at least ten years, and were all grey or black, wild as heck, and dumb as rocks.

He also caught wild turkeys, no small accomplishment for a 120-pound dog. He would start a flock flying, usually downhill as they are heavy birds, run like heck to the bottom and grab one when they landed. He ate the whole thing, feathers and all, which resulted...oh, never mind what it resulted in, trust me you don't want to know. Woodchucks held no fear for him either and he dispatched them with a snap (maybe he thought they were cats.)

He was the guy who held up the road repair job by sitting on the dynamite too, but that story has been told before so I won't go there again. He babysat the kids...wouldn't let them go down the slide until he thought they were old enough, and walked grandma to the barn and back every day, letting her use him as a prop and helping her up if she slipped. A good dog back in his day.

Anyhow, sorry about the ramble......have a good one.

Keebler