A Life Lived Rough

She was a cat who lived, island-like, at the fair. She would not come anywhere near the human side of life. Over the years, she cranked out litter after litter. I stole and kept some of her kids, deceiving her away from them with daily food.

In 2008, I baited a live trap and caught her. I got her spayed and ear-tipped, knowing she would always be wild. In fact, she broke out of my office the night I locked her there to recover from the spay. But she came to expect the food. We worked out an understanding, of sorts. I wouldn't try to tame her, she wouldn't run from me.

Each autumn, I left the fair to move back to the city, knowing that I would worry about her making it through the winter. I left an automatic feeder, outdoor heating pad and a heated water bowl. It was never enough, though: I had to drive down and check. I think the moment I got her spayed, I had to assume responsibility for her.

 

So in 2010 I trapped her one more time - it took days because she was wise to me by then - and moved her to the farm where I kept my horses. Up in the hayloft, I released her from the trap. She darted to the wall opposite of where I crouched. "This is where you live now, Harlotta," I told her. "I can feed you every day and you can be master of all you survey. Please stay here."

And she did stay. Even when that farm blew apart and I had to leave, she stayed. It was impossible for me to catch her and take her with me. Instead, someone very kind there took over for me. I brought food out from time to time, and I knew she was all right, but it haunted me that I'd left her. It didn't matter to her, though, and why should it have? Her needs were met, and they continued to be met after I was gone.

She listened to me. She never left that farm, and that's where she died, in her sleep, on Sunday morning. Now I can let go of her in the only way I ever wanted to, with peace of mind and relief. Hers was a life lived so roughly, but still, it ended in a better place.

Our Prince

We lost our Malden today, our Maldini. There he sleeps in all his shaggy splendor on the summer bed, apart from the pack as always. His fat tail, his ridiculous pantaloons, his strange two-tone coat. What I thought might be a tooth going bad turned out to be oral cancer. I left the festival grounds to take him home to our vet never dreaming I would return without him. He was our Italianate Renaissance man, the smartest cat we've ever known, fluent in English and opera.

Shock and grief, sudden as a bandage torn away.

The Three Brothers

Life is so big for housecats.

There was -- OMG -- a bird on the porch. The three wild-born brothers, Gimlet, Puzz and Mr. Suits, were transfixed. I love how they've lowered their ears to achieve invisibility. It doesn't work, but they don't know that. On the contrary, they believe. It was me who was invisible, actually, which is how I got this picture.

A Couple of Little Dreams Realized

My feral cat, Harlotta, has accepted her new home at the barn. This tough old girl is as smart as I thought she might be. She'll never forgive me for having had her spayed and ear-tipped, but she does respect my ability to feed her. She grudgingly eats kibbles from the automatic feeder I set in the hayloft, next to the watering station, but she lives for and feels entitled to cans of wet food too. I give her wet food every few days or so, just to help her fortify for the coming winter. "Puss-puss," I bark out when I arrive at the barn.

And there she comes, each time filling me with a sense of pride and joy at having saved her. I don't have to dream of it anymore because now it is.

And then there's another little thing: the elusive ear cam. Would I ever have a horse that I could ride with such a sense of security that I could bring a camera along? Not Scout - the click of a camera would have sent her skyward. Not Dar - both hands would have been occupied managing him and his strong-like-bull neck.

So this made me silly happy. Here's Saxony pondering the ground poles I used during our mounting-block work the other day. She stood so well yesterday that I did not need to lead her over the ground poles and back to the mounting block. I like the blue-black shading along her mane and neck that appears in this picture taken during the grey light of prewinter that I love so much. She has an amazing whorl there on the right that I like to smooth just so with my fine body brush. Ahhh...

Ebbing (I think)

But maybe haunting me a little, too. I haven't seen Dar since Friday, July 16th. Sometime late last week, he wasn't the first thought I woke up to any longer. We lost our dear old cat, Miguel, who dropped a shocking amount of weight in a matter of days.

I tune in to the animals around me like a dowsing rod bends to water it cannot see. Grampa Gelli preoccupied me, tapped my instinct. On Friday, H.G. and I drove him to the vet. There was a large tumor in his abdomen and we had to let him go.

Dar ebbed, receded. But just there, in the background, he echoes. What if, what if, a pulse beating in still wondering, still wishing, still missing him.

Housework

Every time we change the sheets on our bed, we go through this. We have no choice. This is Possum's favorite game, so it must be played. Of our 11 cats, only he understands the game of the deadly sheets.