Caturday: my cats needed some incentive to do more exercises.
Things are changing so fast and the stress level is climbing according to the sudden uncertainty in this world. The best way to be focus and become calm was to play with my orange cats and to feed stray cats at the temple. I still managed to find the time to feed those stray cats twice a week whenever I was back to the big city. That’s my act of good karma which helped to keep me grounded. My orange cats were always very timid and gentle; they just let a big stray cat chased them up to the window ledge on the second floor. I just hoped that my neighbour’ s cat food would be able to attract this cat there permanently.
The first orange cat (grandmother cat) had been missing for two months and no one had seen her ever since. I still hoped that she would be alive and living at a house near the village. Meanwhile, I had to persuade my orange cats to go for a walk with me in the afternoon. They needed to lose some weights! Usually they would run after me like puppies in to the nearby fields. But these days I had to carry one cat at a time into the banana grove and deposit each on a compost box full of dried banana leaves.
This trick worked so far as to attract their attention and curiosity to explore the area surrounding them. I had no idea that cats could get bored just like people. They had been running in the banana grove for too long so there’s nothing new to attract their curiosity. We just had a new box of compost built last month so we could make rich organic materials for growing vegetables in a few months’ time. My orange cats seemed to be somewhat entertained by this compost box.
As soon as I walked towards the bamboo grove, Joan started to run after me. I was glad to see Joan moving his fat body followed by his sister Kwan. But Joan became curious of what’s on the dirt road. I tried to call him to follow me into the field. But he had sneaked out under the fence and had a sunbathing session on the dirt road. Luckily our neighbours’ three German dogs didn’t come along at that time. I could occasionally saw them running this way, sniffing around and made their markings too. I would chase them away whenever I saw them; unfortunately these dogs appeared to be very neurotic as the owners locked them up in small cages a for too long.
Kwan gingerly followed Joan onto the dirt road. I could see the happy expression on her face as if she had done something naughty and got away with it. Kwan just lie on the dirt road and roll about gleefully. Fortunately Joan didn’t lead his sister very far though he was thinking of crossing the road to explore the fields by the riverbank. So, I had to warn Joan about those big dogs and villagers’ motor bikes which could turn up any time. I said to him that he has to be responsible for his sister too.
After being with them for ten minutes on the dirt road, both refused to make a move! They were like stubborn kids who refused to leave the playground. I had to leave them there with a strong warning about big fierce dogs and other danger. At least they were not going any further than the dirt road; I reckoned they would have the time to jump back inside the fence where they could find hiding places among tall grasses. I just had to trust that they wound be looked after by our local guardians and land spirits.
They came back to the house after dark looking very contented with their adventure on the dirt road. At least they had their exercises and training for survival in strange surroundings. These cats should have the wits and skills to live in wild surroundings where snakes, stray or aggressive cats and foreign dogs could appeared without any warning. I thought these cats acted like bodyguards during the night as they just sat on the driveway looking at the gate for hours. Perhaps they could see something I couldn’t see and they were making sure that these strangers couldn’t enter our house. No wonder the alien never dropped by again!
Wishing you peace, good health and prosperity.
Stay strong and cheerful.