Posts Tagged ‘cats’
Kicking Cats
If you own a cat, and you walk around, you probably already know about this phenomenon. I don’t like doing it, and I don’t do it intentionally, but I kick our cat, Pequenita. Seriously.
Just two days ago, she stealthily slipped between my stride as I headed down the hallway from the bedroom and I caught her like football. I think she even let out a grunt as her body lurched sideways, but that may just have been an echo of the sound coming from me in a burst of surprise and remorse.
Much as I wish to avoid the unpleasantness of booting our favorite feline, her stupendous cat-like movements exceed my ability to track her location. In the time it takes me to move my gaze from where she was behind me, to where I intend to walk, she can easily (and frequently does) overtake me, so that I find her already present in the bathroom when I arrive.
She was behind me, and then in a split second, completely undetected, she is around the corner ahead of me. If that were always the case, it wouldn’t really be a problem. However, for some strange reason, she occasionally chooses to not race all the way ahead, and instead elects a pace closer to mine, with a route that crosses my path.
I am inclined to envision it as her playing a daredevil game to see how close she can come to the threat of impact —giving her the benefit of the doubt that she is oblivious to the risk of tripping me she poses in so doing. She would never choose to put me in danger while seeking her thrills.
Except maybe the times when she lets her claws inadvertently meet my flesh during her frenzied escapades of pretending to defend herself from imagined enemies, foreign and domestic.
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Unknown Future
For the first Monday in a long time, I am back at the old day-job and Cyndie is at home. We are reversing roles again. I won’t be doing the laundry today, she will. I hope she hangs my dri-fit items to air-dry.
We need to shop for health coverage. We need to figure out a new financial plan, because I only bring in a fraction of what her salary was. We need to leap into this next chapter of our adventurous dream.
The horses are ready. Delilah is mostly ready. Pequenita doesn’t care one way or the other, as long as I continue to vigorously scratch her from head to toe each night. The property is well-able to support activity, and will always be in process of becoming more ready than it is.
Yesterday, I finally got the last portion of our muddiest trail covered with wood chips. Now it is time to move on to the second muddiest spot, although that will require our making more chips, …unless we steal from the cache designated for use around the labyrinth. I suppose I could take from there and pay it back later.
I got started on trimming the growth around buildings and fences, but needed to take a break partway to allow for a brief thunder shower to pass overhead. I saw it coming and decided to forge ahead until I had used up a tank of gas. The timing turned out to be perfect, and I made it to shelter before getting wet.
I did pause briefly while trimming, to take a picture of the sky over the grazing horses. It didn’t cause them to alter their behavior one bit. They gladly continue munching grass, rain or shine.
I get the feeling they have no misgivings about what lies ahead for us. Ours is not an unknown future to them.
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Early Attention
It may not be 4 a.m., but it always feels like it when Pequenita, our cat, decides she has had enough with our being asleep and tromps on us before daylight is visible, kneading and purring, as if being cute and sweet will offset the annoyance of unwanted attention at such an early hour.
She puts her face in mine and tries a few head butts to make sure I know she’s there, but I practice the art of remaining comatose to convey to her that my sleep is not to be interrupted. It is the kneading with those front claws that I am forced to react to if the covers don’t sufficiently cover my sensitive skin.
Some mornings she decides to settle back down and join me in continued slumber, unbeknownst to me since I was practicing being comatose, and I will suddenly fling her off the bed unintentionally when moments later I realize my bladder can’t wait until sunrise for relief.
I am surprised by the amount of abuse she tolerates from me, continuing to lay and sleep at my feet as I jostle her rudely while moving my legs in search of a position my body will accept as sleep-worthy at the beginning of the night. Maybe it is because she knows she will have her vengeance in the wee hours of the following morning.
It is not entirely unlike the relationship of a mother and her child, though it was not my original intention to write all that as a segue to get to acknowledgement of all mothers and their loving sacrifices on this Mother’s Day in the US. Yet, even the title I chose for today’s post, before starting the first paragraph, could be interpreted as an homage to that which all mothers give.
Our kids are grown and gone, but with our dog and cat, we have accomplished a way to feel as though we are still parenting infants, just ones that never grow up.
Happy Mother’s Day all you moms!
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Not Stinky
Pondering smells…
I didn’t live with cats until Cyndie and the kids successfully achieved adding one to our family unit. I didn’t have a strong aversion to cats. It was more what I would describe as a lack of interest in them. When I found myself facing the reality of having one in our home, my main concern was the smell of the litter box. I didn’t want to know it existed in our house. In time, I came to appreciate cats, but the litter box remained Cyndie’s responsibility unless I absolutely couldn’t weasel a way out of it.
When Cyndie landed work that provided good income, but would demand most of her time and attention, I was approved to take on the role of Ranch Manager. I didn’t give it much thought at the time, but the reality of tending the litter box was included in the many daily tasks about to become my sole responsibility.
I seem to have adjusted my sensitivities and am having no difficulties managing the chore of regularly cleaning the litter box.
I didn’t live with horses until just a year and a half ago. I knew manure would be a significant issue to manage, but I tended not to dwell on it. I figured it would be nasty necessary evil. I have come to realize the I don’t find it nasty at all.
Since the snow melted off the fields, we have slowly worked on spreading the droppings that had accumulated over the winter. I’ve tried a variety of different tools for the job, but so far the best results come from simply kicking the piles apart. While I was fervently flailing away in the back pasture yesterday, I became aware of what I now find to be a pleasant smell of the dry manure being broken apart.
There are certain smells typically associated with the keeping of horses. When a barn is well maintained, the aroma is a combination of hay, maybe a little dust, and probably some remnants of dried manure. To a horse-lover, it is an appealing smell. It resonates like wood smoke or the scent of leaves on the ground in the fall.
When I bury the pitch fork deep into the pile of composting manure and turn over the portion that has been breaking down, the smell is far from stinky. It is a rich, earthy smell that I find very appealing. It is a rewarding success to take fresh horse manure that can be offensive smelling and, in a relatively short time, convert it to something that smells pretty good.
It is an interesting twist that I tend to find the smell of perfumes irritating. Along the lines of beauty being in the eye of the beholder, I guess appealing aromas are in the nose of the breather.
Although, who doesn’t like the smell of fresh-baked bread? That one must be universal!
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Under Represented
I tell so many tales about Delilah’s daily escapades, and the horses are such a powerful commanding presence around here, that our beautiful cat, Pequenita, ends up being too often overlooked. Today she gets some well-deserved air time.
She is a wee little thing, but she knows how to use her claws to get respect when she wants it. That mostly applies to her dealings with Delilah. I’m pretty sure she means it affectionately when she reaches up and hangs her front claws in my pants leg. She likes me a lot so I get that treatment various times throughout each day. Most of the time I am wearing heavy Carhartt pants that have a double layer of fabric over the knee, so she gets away with it.
It surprises her when she tries that maneuver on the occasions I am wearing something else and I recoil in shock over the silly habit.
When I climb in bed at night with hopes of doing a little writing before nodding off to sleep, she immediately shows up in search of some tender loving care. Pequenita tenaciously navigates a position between my eyes and the display of my laptop, and settles in for some scratching and a massage from me.
My efforts are rewarded with a contented purring and handfuls of her hair.
We find her most often perched on our bed in various levels of slumber. Some days I walk in to grab something and she doesn’t move a bit. Makes me question her survival instinct a little that she can fall asleep so hard and ignore activity around her. Of course, all the other times I walk in, she rises from her nap to see what I want and I end up feeling guilty for rousing her when I didn’t plan on giving her any attention.
Most likely, the bedroom remains her preferred hangout because we usually have a gate up to keep Delilah out of there. It becomes a room where Pequenita can relax without a cold nose constantly pushing on her butt. They do continue to improve on tolerating each other’s presence, but Delilah can’t help herself from playfully brandishing her most dog-like aggressive-looking gyrations when she wants to roughhouse.
‘Nita would prefer the game involve a dramatic reduction in the smacking of jaw and baring of teeth. Delilah’s eventual change from that behavior to trying to sniff Pequenita’s butt doesn’t seem like much of an improvement to the cat by that point, either.
When it gets to be a bit too much for her, she retreats beyond the gate and takes a time out. It is not strange to see her choose to return after a very short time, but Delilah rarely figures out that it’s an invitation to try something different, and the scene goes through a bit of recycling back to the over-excited doggy gyrations.
Pequenita is a precious addition to the non-human members of our family. She definitely deserves more attention than she usually receives from us.
Maybe that is why Delilah over does it so often. She is trying to make up for the other periods of attention deficit that Pequenita experiences.
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Morning Routine
We are in the third weekend since Cyndie’s surgery and things are going really well. Struggles have been minor and triumphs have been many. This morning I am experiencing a bit of a longing to be able to sleep in. Normally, weekend mornings are Cyndie’s chance to greet the horses she has been missing during the week, allowing me the opportunity to wake slowly, linger in bed, and compose my weekend blog posts.
I’ve long heard stories about dairy farmers who needed to get up early every day of every week, without exception, to milk cows. I am feeling an increased appreciation for that commitment.
My morning routine has normalized for all of us and is flowing very comfortably of late. Delilah has pleasantly announced her waking with soft mutterings, remaining stretched out on the bed in her overnight crate after she hears sounds of me getting up. I switch on the kitchen light and she lolls in place luxuriously while I get myself dressed and ready to take her out and feed the horses. It is a very soothing pace to start the day.
We step out and locate the horses during our stroll to the barn. It takes the herd no time at all to sense our approach, whereupon they begin something of a controlled stroll toward their morning feed. It is as if they don’t want to appear too eager.
The one variation in the pattern happens as they select who gets which feed pan. Some days it is very straight forward, and sometimes it becomes a complicated exercise of gamesmanship as the chestnuts take turns flaunting domination by driving each other off one pan to another.
If it is windy, or something else has them already on edge, feeding under the roof overhang is fraught with multiple emergency response drills as they all erupt in a hasty dash out from under cover whenever any one of them even flinches at the slightest thing. Just as quick, they seem to figure out it was a false alarm and come right back, but that doesn’t stop another panic from happening 20-seconds later.
It’s interesting that my presence is sometimes a contributor to their alarm, but more often completely ignored. I need to stay alert to be out of the way when they panic, and they surprise me that they don’t react at some of the clanging and banging noises I make when I am fumbling about.
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While they are focused on the feed pans, I wander over to the hay shed to fill the wheelbarrow with flakes that I distribute to the two feeders. As soon as the horses have licked the feed pans clean, they come munch hay. Hunter most often chooses to wait until the other three dive into the first station I have filled, then he chooses the other one. Sometimes another horse might meander over to join him, sometimes not.
After horses are fed, Delilah and I head out on an exploration of our trails. I will often let her choose the route, and I just follow along, stopping wherever she chooses to linger, examining the source of some scent that has dramatically grabbed her full attention.
Once back to the house, both she and Pequenita are served their breakfast, after which there settles a wonderful calm over the house.
When Cyndie gets back to full mobility, and we get back to the old weekend morning routine, that calm moment will be about the time I think about finally getting up.
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Sweet Home
When you get home from a hospital stay, the allure of your own bed can be too much to resist. Cyndie said she just wanted to test her ability to hoist herself up onto our tall mattress. I think she probably also wanted to test out taking a little afternoon nap.
Sure, the hospital has professional nurses providing care, but we have our cat, Pequenita. She settled right in at Cyndie’s feet as soon as it looked like a nap was about to happen. Nurses can’t offer that kind of support.
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Several Spectacles
This morning we were up early to view the lunar eclipse. When I ventured to the bathroom, I was surprised to find our front motion light was on. By the time I returned to the bedroom to see the moon, the back motion light was on. It seems we were being circled. As I stood at the window, watching the fading moon, I eventually spotted the culprit creating all the light pollution. It was a local barn cat, out on his early morning prowl. I hope he was catching mice, or better yet, moles.
Cyndie stretched to reach behind my dresser to flip the obstructed switch that turned off the back light so we could get back to the lunar spectacle.
Yesterday there was a another spectacle around our place. I finally had both contractors underway at the same time. Fencers were fencing and landscapers were landscaping. It was invigorating.
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I hovered around each, occasionally intruding on their activity to consult. As pleasing as it was to be enjoying this progress, I kept finding myself dwelling on the fact that both activities were initially sought to occur 5-months ago. Better late than never is the way I’m framing it now.
Regardless, we are extremely grateful to have these folks providing their services. Wintervale Ranch is another step closer to becoming the place we imagined when we found this beautiful property.
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Relative Something 