Happy 2024 Everyone!

I hope you all had a marvelous and safe New Year’s celebration! As for John and me ~ and the dogs and sheep! ~ we are starting the new year with some serious cat drama in the Little Barn! And on the driveway! And in the pastures! This morning, right before sunrise, something boiled over with Steve and Bob, and my constant admonition for peaceful co-existence apparently didn’t make it across the New Year’s boundary. 

I’ve mentioned Bob in a few previous Face Book posts. He’s the Seal Point  Siamese who’s adopted us. He has the thick winter coat of a cat who’s spent much time outside as the weather turns, and when he opens his mouth, you can see that several teeth are missing.  He also has the quietest broken meow of any cat I’ve heard. Siamese are known for their voices ~ their loud, insistent voices.  Bob isn’t loud; in fact, many of his meows are silent. All you can see is his mouth opening and his chest moving the air through his throat.  He also has a face much like Miracle’s ~ sort of smushed in with eyes that are a little off. All that said, though, he is incredibly affectionate. He’ll start purring instantly whenever John or I begin stroking his head, he no longer runs from our voices, and he will let us get close enough to gently push him away from another cat’s food dish.  

Miracle and Echo have formed a truce with Bob. They can pass each other in an aisle, or sit calmly together while each waits their turn at a water bucket.  If there’s a transgression in personal space, one will hiss and the other will move away.  Tiger has her own sort-of truce with Bob. Basically, they can’t be in the same room, and if they are, Tiger will simply move to another room.  Unless she’s sitting on one of our laps. Then she stays.  Mittens’ version of a truce with Bob looks a lot like taking a nap.  She’s fine in the same room as Bob ~ if she’s curled up asleep. Otherwise, she’s just not in the barn. 

And then there’s Steve, my panther cat. By all accounts, Steve is now six years old, and he seems to be feeling the cold far more intensely than he has in the two previous winters he’s been with us.  He moves slowly after he naps, and every once in a while, there’s a limp in the back leg that he injured last winter.  But he’s still very much Steve, a feral cat who spent his first three years on the streets of Detroit. And he absolutely doesn’t like Bob.

 Until this morning, they had been tolerating each other ~ separate food dishes a decent distance from each other, sleeping quarters in separate rooms of the Little Barn, and a pattern of avoidance that was almost a dance. Steve would enter an area of the barn from one direction, and Bob would move to a different area. Bob would go outside through the cat door, and Steve would come to high alert and just stare at the brown ears as they moved past him. Every once in a while, a hiss; occasionally, a dash ~ nothing aggressive, though. Just clear dislike and disdain.  

2024 started much differently, though. Steve, Miracle, Tiger, Echo and Mittens were all waiting for me at the house door. That never has happened. Usually, it’s just one or two cats at the house, and the rest will meet me in the barn.  As I was saying hi, we all heard a quiet “meow.” Five tails went straight into the air, and everyone froze. Then we heard another “meow,” and Bob appeared out of the dark walking toward us like he had joined the group every morning of his life. Tiger hissed and ran under the closest car. Mittens hissed and hunkered down until she just about blended in with the black ground. Echo and Miracle high-tailed it back to the Little Barn, but Steve took him on. All I could see in the dark was this even darker streak that was Steve racing right toward this deep brown patch that was Bob. Cat shrieks, swatting paws, and in what seemed like two seconds, Steve was running down the hill with Bob in hot pursuit. Then they just stopped. 

I kept moving towards the Little Barn, but I didn’t see either of them for breakfast.  I did find Steve later in the morning, though, curled up in a cat bed in the wood shed where he sometimes sleeps, and this afternoon, he met me in the Little Barn for a snack ~ tail held high, ears pointed forward, and jumping at every shadow. I haven’t seen Bob. At the moment, I’m not particularly worried, although I am really protective of Steve. If the aggression keeps going and it becomes clear that the two of them aren’t resolving it, I’ll do … something. 

As I moved through morning chores, though, I did have a thought. For years, I dreamed of doing exactly what I’m now doing ~ caring for unwanted animals on a piece of this Earth that I could also care for.  I saw myself saving wolves, horses, cows, hawks…The list went on, but it never included cats.  I don’t know why.  We had cats when I was a child: two beautiful Seal Point Siamese named Tia and Taio.  We had a Blue Point Siamese whose name I think was Melba and whose kittens ended up at the top of our Christmas tree one year where they had a grand time, until the tree toppled over one night while we slept. We had the requisite shredded sheer curtains in the living room, the litter box in the basement, and the cat food dishes in the kitchen so the dog wouldn’t have to go far to eat.  But as we opened Sundance, it never occurred to me to rescue cats. 

Seven cats later, it’s beginning to occur to me ~ and I am loving our cats! I will definitely keep you all posted on the drama. Here’s hoping your year started well ~ and will continue even better! Until next time ~