A Cat and Mouse Game

What is a farm without cats to catch  mice?

Once we stared raising animals, which meant storing grain,  I quickly changed my perception of the  little creatures. I no longer cringed at the thought of our cats hunting them down and slaughtering them. 

Mice eat grain.

Mice make nests and shred grain bags.

Mice droppings are messy, their urine stinks and no self-respecting farm animal will eat contaminated grain

Almost daily, a couple of field mice would fall into the grain bins. Michael would scoop them up in a pail, call the cats, the dump the bucket. This was the highlight of the day for our cats; there is nothing they enjoy more than having their prey handed to them so they can play with their dinner.

Often the cats left gruesome mice offerings in thanksgiving right on our doorstep, eliciting screams from our little girls.

Michael, my husband is a dog sort of man but there was one tom cat we owned who was a real man’s cat.  That old barn cat followed Michael around the barnyard and in and out of the barns almost like a faithful dog.

“Where was our dog”, you ask?

Oh, he was sleeping on the porch with one eye open watching this interloper in action.

Mickey, the tom cat, often perched on the top of a fence post while Michael fed the calf, horse and pigs. One day the curious calf stuck out his thick, rough tongue and licked Mickey so throughly that  the cat was lifted right up into the air, standing up on his back legs. Then Mickey calmly shook off excess saliva and sat back down,  balancing on the narrow post.

My husband’s admiration for the tough old tom cat increased ten fold; he proudly relates this story as an example of a real, man’s sort of cat who was the opposite of the pampered house cats that our little girls lavished affection on.

Weaving the Threads: Barn Cats?

Daily Prompt: Weaving the Threads

Draft a post with three parts, each unrelated to the other, but create a common thread between them by including the same item — an object, a symbol, a place — in each part.

Our House Lyrics

by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. From My Girl 2

Our house is a very, very fine house
With two cats in the yard
Life used to be so hard
Now everything is easy
‘Cause of you
And our la,la,la, la,la, la, la, la, la, la, la…..

Our huge, rambling farm-house needed updated and the list of its quirks would fill an entire post. The worst thing was that the house pump was in the barn and above ground which meant it tended to freeze about 4 months of the year when it could drop to  -30 C at night. Despite all the inconveniences, we all loved that house for 18 years because it was full of kids, pets, plants and plastered with kids artwork. I use to sing this song to the kids and they agreed with me, “our house is a very, very fine house” especially because we had cats. The best part was when one of the mother cats was pregnant. Everyone fell in love with the kittens and they were the main focus of everyone’s attention for almost two months. The atmosphere in the house was simply delightful.

Strays were often dropped off at the end of our lane and some flea bags had to find shelter in our barn; I just couldn’t bring them in with babies crawling on the floor. One particular tom cat, Amos, was an old curmudgeon, with old battle scars and a bad temper. Finally my husband had enough of this bully and he took him for a LONG car ride. Three days later, I opened the door and  there sat Amos glaring at me. Michael came charging to the door in utter disbelief. I couldn’t stop laughing and all that day the kids and I sang a Fred Penner song,

The Cat Came Back

Old Mister Johnson had troubles of his own
He had a yellow cat which wouldn’t leave its home;
He tried and he tried to give the cat away,
He gave it to a man goin’ far, far away.

But the cat came back the very next day,
The cat came back, we thought he was a goner
But the cat came back; it just couldn’t stay away.
Away, away, yea, yea, yea

What is a farm without cats to catch  mice? Once we stared raising animals, which meant storing grain,  I quickly changed my perception of the cute, little creatures. Mice eat grain. Mice make nest and shred grain bags. Mice droppings are messy, their urine stinks and no self-respecting farm animal will eat contaminated grain .  Almost daily, a couple of field mice would fall into the grain bins. Michael would scoop them up in a pail, call the cats, the dump the bucket. This was the highlight of the day for our cats; there is nothing they enjoy more that playing with their prey. Often the cats left gruesome mice offerings in thanksgiving right on our doorstep, eliciting screams from the little girls.

A friend gave us a huge, white rabbit but she would leave tiny balls of poop on the floor. Unfortunately, baby Daniel crawled faster than I could sweep, so we moved the rabbit to the barn. A week later, when I moved a couch, I was shocked to find two baby bunnies under it. We all panicked, and started running   to find the mother. In the midst of all the turmoil our mother cat who had only one kitten in an upstairs closet, calmly walked over, lay down and let the rabbits nurse! EXCEPT SHE SEEMS TO QUESTION HER DECISION IN THIS PHOTO.

CATS, you have to love those regal, bossy creature