Cats, why bother?

Please don't be deceived by the innocent good looks of Nemo resting in the glorious sunshine at Rock HQ. It has been a wonderful sunny day and all our animals have taken advantage of the unseasonal good weather.

Some have taken advantage more than most.

While Tracey and I got on with what has to be the most tedious job on our list, sanding down the wood on the conservatory as the nice man who sold us the house had varnished it, this has peeled and trapped water inside so it has potential to rot unless sorted, the cats took full advantage of the lack of security in the kitchen.

Luckily for us the beagles have left the one power tool needed to complete the job, the orbital sander, alone. Unlike most of our tools it still had its power lead intact and unchewed. So several hours of tedious sanding began. For the cats several hours of worktop surfing began.

The butter was first to cop it, I had left it on the shelf instead of putting it away, it was found with curious patterns carved by the felines. They then decided that the liver defrosting was theirs not ours so helped themselves.

When their crime was discovered they bolted through the cat flap, hid and waited knowing that an alternative dinner would now have to be found by their vexed owners. Two further raids resulted in some pork chops and a few slices of belly pork taken out to make some pate disappearing through cat sized the hole in the back door. They even set about the leg of pork taken out for sunday dinner, this proved too tricky to manouvre off the worktop so they mauled it until discovered by yours truely who needed a coffee break.

War was declared and after a quick chase around the house, some pointless posturing and protestations from their owner they managed to avoid him and his broom and retreated to the relative safety of the garden, whilst the human occupants of Rock HQ came to terms with the fact that dinner was not going to be organic home raised pork but an oven ready pizza kept for emergencies.

Some time later a truce was declared and Nemo felt safe enough to sit still as I took his picture.

He knew he was safe as I no longer had the broom in my hand.

Finding Nemo

Somewhere in this picture there is a cat called Nemo.

Can you find him?

Natural Born Killers

Take a look at these two cats in the picture above, butter would find it hard to melt wouldn't it. This is Cosmo and Earl, Cosmo is the one with white bits, both huddled up in the cat box in the kitchen at Rock HQ.

Cosmo came from Charlies, she runs a pet rescue place that is hard to come away from visiting without a new member of our clan. Earl is from Aunty Jill's, she has a lovely farm Staffordshire way which I am loathe to visit as inevitably our visit coincides with a litter of kittens that just have to have homes and we end up with one. I would like to blame Tracey for this but I just cannot see a homeless tabby cat without wanting to adopt it.

Birdsong is a feature of Rock HQ. It is always commented on, how loud, how many different songs and the fact that its non stop, dawn til dusk the little birdies sing their hearts out. To reward their efforts we set out a lavish banquet on the bird table, particularly in the harsh winter months. So our bird population flourishes. Its also diverse, Redstarts, Nuthatches, Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers, are just a few. I frequently entertain my family with calls to come and see the Great Tits in the garden.

Then the cats appear. We have four, Black Cat and Nemo make up the numbers, Black Cat so named as she was called Molly until I sent her to the vet to be spayed and found she was a he and needed a new name. Stuck for a name Black Cat stuck as a name instead of a description. Nemo is the laziest cat in the history of domesticated cats, even Garfield would cringe at some of his lazy habits.

Anyway last night I saw Nemo on the cottage roof watching something. Thinking he was watching the Wisteria grow I left him to it.

This morning I was alerted to the panic cry of birds at the back of the house. Opening the back bedroom window I saw Cosmo in the Wisteria approaching a nest with malice aforethought. A cup of water got his attention and he descended tail twitching and in a foul temper at the sudden drenching. The nest was saved. A closer look, as close as I dared lean out of an upstairs window, the nest appeared empty. A thrush flew to the branches on my right and cocked its head on one side, eying me with suspicion before flying off.

Confident I had saved a catastrophic killing I went about my jobs. Less than half an hour later I saw Black Cat, Cosmo, Earl and Nemo all huddled in knot at the base of the Wisteria. Each had a large Thrush chick in its mouth. They scattered in four directions, well three, Nemo gave up without a fight, the effort required to keep his victim was just too much for him to contemplate so he let me have it.

The bird survived, its fellows were not so fortunate, they supplemented the crunchy cat food diet our boys get.

I put the bird in a cake tin, it was the first large receptacle that came to hand, and once I was sure it was OK I put it on the inside windowsill in the back bedroom.

An hour later it had gone.

In the tree with its parents hopefully, not eaten by these two.

The joy of cats

Having stated in previous postings that this smallholding can ill afford any hangers on, that is to say, each resident must contribute to the production of the smallholding to justify their food ration, I do wonder why we have cats. My dinner has just been found under the dining room table with three out of four of our cats sat at various points in the dining room trying to look innocent but each looking extremely self satisfied and full of Rabbit that was de frosting on the kitchen worktop whilst I was outside creating a creep feeder for the lambs.

A creep feeder is basically a large wooden crate designed to keep sheep out and let lambs in to eat the special rations for the little ones. This wonder of wood is already on the second version because as we installed it Easter crashed into it like a battering Ram intent on getting at the Lamb food inside. Having anticipated this would happen I was confident it would hold out against the onslaught, what I hadn’t counted on was the smallholding rule that states all animals can get through a hole half the size you expect them to. So somehow she managed to squeeze her massive bulk, and she is the biggest Ryeland ewe we have, all the others have lost weight due to raising their lambs (Easter abandoned hers, but that’s all written down elsewhere), into the confines of the crate and scoffed most of the goodies inside.

Now considerably larger than when she went in she added to the difficulties of getting out by choosing a different gap than the one she entered by. Stuck fast she started to panic, as did Tracey and I, but for different reasons, Tracey because she thought the daft beast was going to hurt itself, me because I could see the result of a couple of hours sawing and hammering being reduced to matchwood before my very eyes. Easter dug deep and started to push the crate up the hill, quite an achievement as it took two of us to lift it into place. I had tried to keep it lightweight but as I was building it I kept adding reinforcing spars and planks, just to make sure it was robust enough, forgetting that it would have to be carried into place by Tracey and myself.

I scrambled over the fence in time to stop Easter demolishing the whole thing and much to our relief she managed to break free by only breaking the wooden bars on the front. These have now been replaced and the sheep can’t get in, but the lambs can. So can the ducks, chickens, geese and Faith the Gordon setter who all set about eating the second lot of feed.

We returned to the cottage to get a sandwich and a drink before tackling some jobs in the garden, which was when we discovered the cat burglars.

We are owned by four cats, a huge Ginger Tom called Nemo, whom is without doubt the laziest feline ever created. He has been found face down in a sack of cat dried cat food having eaten his fill, his whole weight on his face pressing into sack, front feet hanging limp by his sides sleeping off his gorging. Whilst the others are out hunting in the day he waits to be fed. We once found him sat with a dead squirrel, the hapless rodent must’ve died of fright and fell out of the tree as there is no way he could have caught it otherwise. He was good at catching tin cans when he had a magnetic identification collar, he would sort through the recycling boxes looking for tasty morsels missed and in doing so would later be found with numerous tins and lids stuck to his neck.

There is Black Cat, he was always thought to be a lady cat but when she went to the vet to be spayed she was found to be a he and so came back without his furry purse and needing a new name, temporarily he was called black cat, that was two years ago so we have plenty of time to choose a new name for him. We also have two tabby’s, Earl and Cosmo. Earl is a full tabby, he is in the picture above, whilst Cosmo has white socks. We also had a female cat called Jess but she took a detour through the woods at the end of our lane as there were cows in the field directly in front of the cottage. She never made it back; we assume a very brave fox had her.

Cosmo and Earl are the biggest worktop surfers and are often seen dragging my dinner through the cat flap. A war was declared and the cats and I are involved in skirmishes from time to time which usually result in them spending time outside while the wounds I got on my hands carrying them to the door heal. What usually follows is a period of uneasy peace, some very stealthy raids on their part that go unseen but their little paw prints are a dead giveaway, as are the open cupboards and missing butter, or cheese, in fact anything that takes their fancy. They test the kitchens defenses but are very quick to resume “sleeping” or cleaning each other once they hear anyone approach making out that they would never dream of jumping up on the worktop and rush off with the very expensive steak that is cooked to perfection but cant be served as you had to answer the phone. As Tracey has banned me from rigging up booby traps for them, preferably the ones that explode, I have to wait and catch them in the act if I want to give them any aversion therapy regarding theft of food.

The three were sat around my rabbit, which I shot last year, and which I was looking forward to slow roasting in a spicy tomato and red onion sauce a hearty supper to reward a long day outside. After these three had finished with it even the dogs turned their noses up at it as it looked so unappetizing. The cats saw my demeanor and instantly took off, three cats trying to get through a standard size cat flap all at the same time is quite funny. They managed to get out without injuring themselves and then sat at various strategic points in the garden just to let me know they weren’t bothered at the upset they had caused once again. I stamped around cursing them and making threats to their welfare should they ever come within arms reach.

Nemo must have heard the commotion and realized the human he owned was having a sense of humour failure over his fellow feline’s lack of respect. Using his cat intuition he must have known the writing was on the wall and took it on himself to restore the uneasy truce that previously existed between man and cat. Never having done so before he decided to demonstrate what an important contribution he and his fellows make to the smooth operation of Rock HQ.

He has caught a mouse.

Very slowly he walked past the honour guard of cats and dogs to Rock HQ’s main entrance; they all watched his progress with interest as he carried his awkward and heavy load. He walked into the kitchen and very carefully deposited the mouse on the floor with in front of the fridge and sat back and awaited our response. It was one of complete amazement; our ginger cat had never brought in a mouse before. He sensed our gratitude and went back into the conservatory for a lie down.

I picked up the rodents corpse and released it from the mousetrap.

As I took the trap back to the workshop to re set it by the animal food stores I realized Nemo has taken his laziness to a new level.