A few weeks ago, I made a tactical error. Out of the abyss that is known as my big fat mouth, I let it be known that I definitely needed some barn cats. I know, I know, what was I thinking?
I mean, we live on a farm, and due to that status, it is kind of a requirement that cats shall be a fixture on our humble farmstead. Where there is livestock and agriculture there are vermin a plenty. We have a ten cat max threshold. I would like to say that there is a really neat mathematical formula for that rule, but in all honesty, the rule evolved due to experience. Mainly from that one time when I took in two pregnant momma cats as a favor and ended up with twenty cats overnight. That spay and neutering vet bill became pocketbook legend and I enacted the only ten cat on the farm protocol after that experience.
Well, over the years, coyotes, age, and other forms of cat-trition have taken their toll on the farm cat population, and faster than you can say Meow Mix we are down to four barn cats. And one of the four, a cat from the original twenty onslaught, whom I named Parvati, is fifteen. She is getting up there in cat years, and a couple of years ago she suffered a crippling shoulder injury that has rendered her with a leg that no longer has any function. My neighbor kids re-christened her Handicat and the new moniker has stuck. Aside from being three legged, Party-cat, as my brother calls her, is hanging in there. She just hops along to and fro the feed trough and can still leap pretty swell despite being fifteen and more than a bit crippled.
We also have Clover, Licorice Mittens, and Chaos lurking about. All of them are loyal, smart, and fantastic hunters. In order to reward them for their awesomeness, I decided to find some young blood for them to pass their skills on to. It seemed like the right thing to do. (Strangely enough, Chaos has been eyeballing me in the most hateful manner as of late, I wonder why...)
Operation Bring The Cat Population Back was supposed to be done in gradual stages, maybe pick up a cat or two over the next few months. However, in true Kat-family fashion, things went far differently.
I have a very pregnant friend. She and her husband had to move into an apartment in town unexpectedly due to a situation far beyond their control, so of course I said I would provide a home to their teenage kitten. We got Kahjiit on Monday. She has wares.
She also wags her tail like a dog. Seriously, it's like some sort of barometer. When she is happy the tail leisurely ticks back and forth like a metronome of joy. When she is angry the tail lashes about like one of Medusa's snake dreads. She is also the only cat I have ever seen that sploots. A cat all splayed about with its legs stretched out behind it and its tail flicking back and forth like an hummingbird on Adderall is a joyous sight indeed. Khajiit is cool.
On Tuesday Mia was deposited into our lives by my manager's daughter. She is a ginger orange floof of tiny cuteness, Mia is definitely going to be the new pack leader, for she has attitude and is full of sass. She is also a bit of snuggler, as evidenced by me constantly spying her snuggled up in someone's lap or the crook of my husband's neck. Right now she is curled up in my computer chair with me.
Wednesday offered a bit of a reprieve, but Thursday made up for it by presenting us with a two-fer. Our buddy Cam showed up to game night with a box under his arm. In the box were two terrified, tiny, feral kittens. The poor things were beyond scared and spent all of game night tucked up underneath our couch. Over the next few days a strange phenomenon happened. It's actually what happens to every animal that comes to our farm, they feel so comfortable and welcomed that their true personalities manifest, and we got to know Moaning Myrtle and Patches O'Houlihan.
Patches has gone from being a frightened little sprite to a toe biter of the first rate kind. She also is a bit of a parkour enthusiast, and has started scaling all the sick jumps in our house. I think she will get evicted into the out before any of the others, adventurous soul that she is.
Myrtle has the saddest eyes. They were full of fear and terror when she arrived. Her eyes now are still tilted at a could be sad all the time lilt, but I know better now, for that little cat purrs every time you scratch it. She's currently snuggled up to my foot and purring at the moment.
And that my friends is how my house has been invaded by the kitten kind. They are all too little to go into the out and be barn cats yet, so they get to hang with us for a bit. I'm sure my curtains are screaming in agony right now...
And as most of the time, all of the pictures in this post were taken on the author's currently being batted at by Patches iPhone.
