Prodigal

Back in September, over three weeks ago, our house cat, Elvis was sent into backyard exile for household transgressions too egregious to accept. (The boss put him out). He was a reformed barn cat and should have been all right.

Instead he instantly vanished. We regretted our hard hearts and looked for him constantly....actively...I wrecked my foot plowing through the wet grass and it is just now mostly healed.

Two days later we found a mangled cat in the highway in front of the house. There wasn't much left...a couple paws...an ear...marked perfectly, right down to the tiny dots on the back paw.

We mourned...more than is reasonable for a bad-mannered cat. We acquired Simon, who is indeed a cat, although about ten times a day someone would say, "He's a nice cat, but he's not Elvis."

He can't help not being Elvis and I treat him well. Even if cat nip makes him sleepy.

I never stopped looking though...just a wishful glance into the tall grass, telling myself I KNEW he was dead, but still wanting him back.

Last night Becky went over early from chores ...I don't even remember why...and came back screaming. I thought she was hurt...or the cows were out. Alan was at the playoff game with with big brother and sister in law. What could have happened? She scared the heck out of me I'll tell you.

There was a cat that looked like Elvis on the back porch.

Yeah, right. That only happens to other people.
In stories.
Liz and I ran for the house just the same....no cat.

I went out into the tall grass and called the special call that always brought him down the stairs, hurtling like a juggernaut, in search of his dinner.

No cat. We started to go into the house and there he was. Thin. Burdock bedecked. Bearing a few battle scars and spots of missing fur, but there. I picked him up and put him in the kitchen and he immediately began demanding canz.

I am still kind of stunned. I wonder where he was. Certainly not here. There is cat food on the porch and I am outdoors all the time. I would have seen him I think.

He and Simon don't think highly of one another. Still, they are both used to being crated like dogs, when Nick comes through (Nick thinks of cats kind of like a succulent menu item) so we just set up a second crate... a second litter box....a second water bowl. I think I can make it work. I WILL make it work.

On another cat-related note, we have been stocking up on barn cats for the winter. Coyotes, fishers, and wild game of all sorts devour our working cats with depressing frequency, so we put out the word. So far we have a little silver and white girl cat, now named Triton, her daughter, Keebler, and a nice yellow and white Amish cat, which Becky and I are calling Lord John (we may not have the final vote on that). Now someone has dropped a big ugly tom by the driveway...kind of wild....brown tabby, long and lanky, with a small white spot on his nose...

Halloween Sky

Not the Halloween sky, just a cool sunset from the other day.

Shortly after the day started the horizon turned an eerie yellow with clouds like purple bruises looming down from above and lacing their fingers through it. Like skeletons sifting through thrown out pumpkin pie......It was spooky and not pretty and set the stage for the where-did-the-cat food-go-puzzle we are now pondering.

We lost our Elvis cat week before last in a tragic accident. He had a big personality, a lot more than cat-sized and we miss him very badly. Within a short time I found that I really needed to fill the hollow he left. It was a huge cat-shaped void that echoed at feeding time and had me seeing cats under all the furniture and all around my feet. It made my chest hurt from him not being there....such a big empty place right in the center. I had to put a real cat into that place before I lost it...I was really depressed.

I woke up a few days after Elvis left us with the decision made in my mind to adopt a cast-off cat rather than begin again with a kitten. Figured I would tap the Want Ad Digest for the cat of someone moving or entering a nursing home or some similar circumstance.

By the time I had been awake for two hours I had heard of one. Simon was a mill cat who took up pulling warp off the looms. He was facing urgent relocation in a pound-ward direction if he didn't find a new home. (Thank you Matt and Lisa) Alan brought him home that night.

Simon is a big guy. Twenty pounds worth. So far he has been a pretty good boy, but when I am not inside and able to keep an eye on him he stays in a dog kennel....that whole clawing thing you know.

Thus last night he was in the kennel when I went to bed (he doesn't seem to mind, being a very sedentary sort of fellow).

Meanwhile, Gael is fading fast. We brought her in from her bed on the porch at supper time last night to give her a can of cat food and her antibiotic. I gave her the pill but I didn't see her eat anything. Liz put her back to bed before she left last night.

This morning (under that spooky Halloween sky) that dish was empty and licked clean. Gael was still on the porch. Simon was still in his crate.

And I am still wondering. No other food was touched. There is butter and bread on the counter. Steak bones from dinner waiting to go to the other dogs near the sink. What the heck ate that cat food??????? I really hope it was Gael before she went out....or maybe somebody had Simon out after I went to bed......otherwise.....

Simon

I Want It

Side A

and Side B
of the same screen door

Gimme, gimme, gimme.....rowrrrrrrrr

A fat flock of fledgling robins can be frustrating


If you are a house cat and they are inches away on the other side of the screen

Cheap Dates

We all are...or at least very easily entertained by barnyard slapstick. First we were setting up in the milk house for evening milking. Alan called us all over to the door to watch the high drama going on outside. Chainsaw, the world's most obnoxious little black cat, was sitting among the cows like the king of his domain.

Except for the flies which were swarming around his ugly little head. Bite, bite, bite, slap, slap, slap, he snapped and pawed at the annoyance. It looked as if he was catching some too and eating them as a wee protein supplement to his usual diet of mice and rich, creamy warm milk. Still he never seemed to run out of them. We all stood quietly, watching, when suddenly things got Western.

He was so busy with the flies that he was oblivious to his surroundings. However, the surroundings were not so oblivious to him.

A big white heifer came tip-toeing over and snorted right in his ear. He clawed skyward in surprise, landed hard, and gathering the tatters of his dignity, stalked over to the edge of the yard, trailing his flies behind him.

The heifer followed him right over and snorted on him again. You should have seen his tail, snaking back and forth like an angry metronome.
He was so mad.
He turned his electric green glare on her and just stared right into her eyes.

And she backed down. Eleven hundred pounds of cow, maybe eleven pounds of cat and the cat won. Dang!

Then we went inside to sand the floor and get ready to bring the cows in for milking.
Becky was standing innocently near the window, just waiting.
Lemonade, her big show cow, stuck her nose in the window...unseen by her owner...and let out a mighty bellowing moo about six inches from her ear.

Didjaknow?
That girl can jump.
And I do believe that cows can laugh.

Make Me a Sammich

Race Cat

We are hemmed in by race tracks here at Northview, with Fonda Speedway to the northeast and Glen Ridge to the west (it is not quiet on Friday and Saturday nights in summer....)

Last night the kids went to Glen Ridge, which is not too far from our west border, but a heckuva long way from the barn or house, both of which are on the east end of the place.

Out in the parking lot they saw a little yellow cat scavenging around for lost French fries and road kill hot dogs. They watched it for a bit when suddenly it dawned. That was OUR cat, Kashette! (Now we know why she has been gaining weight.)

While they were trying to puzzle out ways to bring her back home in the BF's pick up truck she vanished and they didn't see her again that night.

This morning she was right back on the porch waiting for her drink of milk. Probably needed to wash down all that salty race track food. Alan picked her up to pet her and she smelled like hot dogs. Wouldn't that have been a puzzler if they hadn't seen her out on the town?

Finally Friday

Spring break just began so we have our boy home for a week...I am liking that.
The critters are liking the sunshine...

(Please don't mind Gael's semi-bareness. She is a very old lady and has become quite fur challenged these days.)

Is It a Very Strange Love Affair

Or is it hate? (hard to tell with a cat.)

(Especially a warped cat. And Elvis is warped...hates all other cats with a killing passion. We think he is channeling a dog...Maybe an 80-pound pit bull rottie cross with issues.)

Anyhow, I went out in the front hall the other day (it is part of the house that is closed off for winter) to find Mr. Kitty himself glaring at me, with that half/guilty/half go-to-Hell look that cats have, as he mauled this kitty.



He had to sneak upstairs through two doors that are kept closed and get up on the saddle rack in Liz's room to get it.....we are perplexed......how did he pick out a cat from all the stuffed animals available...and what is he thinking? Maybe I don't want to know...

What Not To Do

If your gentle, amazingly well-behaved house cat goes tearing out the door to fight with a barn cat when you open it to let the dog in..(he has never, never even tried to go outdoors before.....)

Well, the thing not to do is to go out and try to get him back. The &^%^^&& cats rolled right across my leg, biting and clawing. I finally had to separate them with a canoe paddle.

So I am all clawed up.
Nasty. Painful.
I shoulda left the little stinker out there.

Old Dog, Young Cat

Gael and Chainsaw, a small and quite appropriately named pestilence.

Sorta Back to Normal

Things are kinda, sorta, back to normal after a week when our youngest border collie, Nick, nearly died from eating an illicit chicken, and the cat, Elvis, nearly passed on from a hairball infestation. We also drove to Potsdam, had several inches of pounding rain, and went generally crazy every day....There were other stories too, harder and sadder than anything here, but not mine to tell.

The stupid chicken flew over a 6-foot chain link fence to offer herself up to Nick. How could he refuse? And of course, from the evidence left in the run, she was one of the ones that is laying eggs. I have no idea what eating raw, boneful, featherous chicken does to a nine year old dog who normally consumes only dog food, but I can tell you it isn't good. At one point he would only stand up to go outside if I begged him.

We nursed him tenderly, even went so far as to dose him with the cat's hairball medicine. Tablespoons full of raw beef. Rice and milk. Checking in the middle of the night. Beaucoup de petting. I am right fond of that dog. He is such a bad boy that he has to spend a lot of time in the kennel, because killing Mike his high on his agenda and all the cats are just a little lower on the list. On the other hand he is obedient and eager to please and sweet and great company when he isn't raising Hell.

At any rate he stood up from what looked like his last and ate a couple of bites of dog food Thursday. By Saturday he ASKED to go to his run to get some exercise and bark at cats. Today he seems completely normal and is eating ravenously to make up for lost time, snapping up bites from Mike's dish on his way out the door.

Please, chickens, you have hundreds of acres to scratch around on...stay OUT of the kennel.

Elvis is mending too.....despite my inept application of hairball medicine and several set backs.

Now we just have to get used to Becky being gone and Alan back to class

Oh, and the fair opens tomorrow too.

Wishful Thinking

In pursuit of

Toes!!

Like a rockstar....

........I have an entourage. However, mine does not include a manager in reflective sunglasses or a clutch of roadies with do rags around their heads..... mine is more low key and countrified.

Everywhere I go, indoors or out, I am always accompanied by anywhere from one to three black and white dogs. Supposing I sit down in the creaky old chair here at the computer. Thump, thud, clunk, three sets of border collie elbows hit the floor. Heads curl into tails and a chorus of snores begins. (Okay I know I am boring, but come on guys....). I don't know what they think I am going to get up to if they let me out of their sight, but they sure are afraid that they are going to miss something.

Someone always has one eye open under all that snoozing fur. If the washer stops cycling and I rise to hang up laundry, it's a three-dog stretch, then they all lumber after me out to the pantry. And into the parlor where my five (count 'em, five) sets of laundry bars reside. They all stand in the door way watching me hang up towels and blue jeans, tails gently waving, until I head back out to the next thing.

Nick is youngest and good about staying out from under my feet. Not so much the old dogs especially Mike. They have discovered that if they hem me in with slumbering bodies they will not, despite all those blindness and deafness issues, be left behind when I move on. Oh, they may get stepped on. They may hear some language not fit for tender canine ears, but they won't miss the mommy train.

On one hand it drives me crazy and causes me to miss a lot of phone calls (hard to get to the phone through the scrimmage of awakening canines.) On the other hand, it feels right to be surrounded by dogs...I am after all a dog person, through and through. A canine escort is thus not a bad thing right?

Of late my road crew has a new member. He can only be out of his personal dog crate when Nick is outside in his run, as Nick likes members of his species.
With ketchup.
But when Nick is out he is free to prowl.

Elvis is a cat (AKA Mr. Kitty, or Monsieur le Chat ).
However, he seems to have decided that he is a dog.
He fetches.
He catches things you throw to him.
He hunts and eats flies (one of Gael's favorite pastimes in younger days).
He understands words (especially the word "can" in reference to ones full of cat food).
He stops doing bad things when told to. (He even knows when he is doing a bad thing and stares at me slyly while extending claws ever so tenderly toward my chair. If he sees me look up he withdraws the claws and grins.)

He also follows me from room to room, plopping down among the dogs with just as loud a thump whenever I stop. I find that I enjoy his company as much as I do theirs. This is puzzling to me. I have not liked cats much since I was a kid when anything with fur, feathers, scales, claws or warty skin was wondrous fine and fair to me. I tolerate them, but you won't catch me picking them up to pet them. Feeding them. Talking to them. Or any of that mushy cat person stuff.

However, as we speak he is lying near me ( on an antique chair he knows full well is off limits), just a little away from the dog-rug surrounding the chair. I swear he isn't a cat...he is a dog in disguise. I mean, I voluntarily buy those darned cans he loves so much....somebody stop me.

Thinking about the bailout

Milking video and Elvis

(With apologies to dial up folks.) The first video is of Rebecca using the very latest thing in ultra modern, high tech milking techniques. *Note the strategic product placement. Fight Bac is our teat dip of choice, simply the best we have ever used and well worth the price and the mild hassle of getting it sent to us (and no, they didn't pay me to say that). Sorry about it being so dark and the mud on old Beausoleil. She chose a rather muddy location for her lying in. She is a dear old thing just the same. Even Beck likes her and she is not the world's biggest cow fan.

Modern milking technique




The second is our house cat (OMG a house cat at Northview....watch out for the sky falling, UFOs and other inexplicable phenomena) killing Mike's Bouda toy. As you can see he is quite ferocious and eager and then in typical cat fashion he forgets all about it.


Kill the Bouda..or not

Cats and comfort

It never fails that a cat will find the most comfortable spot available to lie down to rest. In winter you can spot the warm corners by the pile of cats tangled there. In the barn they will even lie in the fluffy bit of straw that collects behind a cow's elbow or on the sunniest windowsill, or even in a cow bed when she is standing up eating. (This can be very unhealthy if she lies down unexpectedly). Some pile onto sleeping calves until they look as if they were covered with a calico and grey carpet. It took Elvis about five minutes to find this lovely rug my brother wove for me........

Back Yard Recipe

First: take one disgruntled, elderly barn cat visiting the house (where she doesn't belong).

Add: two nesting mockingbirds with a strong sense of territory.

Stand back: with the camera and click like crazy

Vanquished

Going, going, gone.

The winners

Elvis

Behold-the box

Behold-the boxer

You can see why we named him Elvis. He always has to have center stage.

Clan Montgomery and how to tell boy cats from girl cats

My mom and dad
Happy Mother's Day, mama!!!

The camera wanted to get a picture of my folks and they were right down in town for Heritage Day, so it led me down there yesterday. I was hoping they would be in full Scottish regalia (my dad cuts a fine figure in a kilt) as they often are when representing Clan Montgomery, but alas no kilt.




Which brings us to how you tell a boy cat from a girl cat. (This is much simpler than most folks believe btw.) Simply give the little critter the remote control and watch its reaction. (This one is obviously a boy don't you think? He hogs the remote even when there isn't any baseball to watch.)

And please excuse the blur. He doesn't ever seem to sit still.