Comic Relief

I talk about my dog Kat being my partner. She is a key part of my day to day work force. She is always a good listener and works hard. She is a significant and undeniable asset to me. But she does not provide one essential thing that the cats do…

Comic Relief.

              A barn cat has a major role on any farm. They are to keep the mice out of grain, from wreaking havoc in the tack room, nesting in engines or moving into the house. We have four cats and they do a job too. They are well fed making them superior killing machines. They do not just kill things to eat, they have tapped into the sadistic wild puma side of themselves and kill for sport. This sounds awful, but when it comes to expensive rawhide eating pack rats, or garden destructive bunnies well simply put IT’S ON. Now we have some old folks who are a bit retired who do more house patrol  and our two younger cats are on field and barn. So yes they have actual jobs yet as for job descriptions you decide.

Let's be serious cats cannot herd cows.  

Nor can they keep the deer out of the garden.  

 
But they are the stand up comedians of our place.
For morning chores I head out with Kat and my gang of cats, we storm the yard and go to work. During the day at any given time there will be a cat busy somewhere you look.

Sometimes it is Bird, who is Kit Kat's best friend. They are often caught in a solid cuddle in the evening.

Bird has assumed the job of making sure she keeps the pig pen covered. Making sure their feed is just right by ingesting some of the good bits out of their trough, she is prone to eating oats, corn and anything bread related she will fight off a full size market hog, for any tasty morsel that she believes is not pig worthy. She will also ensure that any little bird thinking that the water trough is a bird bath is on notice that this is not a place to spread your avian flu off you go, good thing she is too fat to fly from all her quality control in the pig sty.

Weasel aka Weeze is the silent killer, she is aged now and will find a spot and hold sentry kind of like the Queen's guard. You can talk to her or try to pet her and she is having none of that crap she is busy. She will stake out a cool spot in the summer and hold court and sure enough something will try to get by her and it's game over. Weeze has always been a bit lets say rotund. Last summer a skunk tried to make a home under the goat house and learned what a well fed house cat can sound like when it is under duress. In all honesty she was not really trying to deter the skunk, she was stuck under there but the skunk felt that it got told off and that was good enough for us.

Tuffy is  the head of the pride the ruler of the roost so to speak. He is the mighty overseer. In his younger more vicious days he took on a red fox with Bazinga and won. He is older and has diabetes, feline diabetes is not an easy thing. I will talk about it in another post, so let us not get into that. He still, despite his affliction will go outside and become wild cat. He hunts side by side with the black cat and you cannot get near him unless he comes to the house where he is once again a housecat. This did not always serve him well. When we moved to this ranch from another, he thought he would make the journey back to the last place and near died as a result. We were blessed to get him back and he was a changed cat for it. He remains a hunter and earns his keep.

           Bazinga is the youngest, this black cat has absolutely no clue he is not part dog part horse and all super hero.

He did not get the memo that cats are dignified creatures who do not behave in such a manner. He will climb you like a a tree for affection, he thinks he can come riding, has tried to take on every variety of livestock and wildlife. We are amazed all the time he makes it home to the house at night.  As a kitten he made a heroic leap to attack the strange beast that was the fan atop our woodstove. He received third degree burns on all four of his paws. We had to doctor his poor feet for months. He recovered and to this day loves his feet rubbed. His favorite place to sleep is in a chair right close to the woodstove. He is a lesson in fearlessness.

          When you are in a dark barn reaching out to grab a square bale and you grab two handfuls of cat. The moment of sheer panic thinking "what was that"  only to feel the purring and smack of a paw for man handling their business reminds you that you are very thankful they are there doing their job. Sleeping on the hay, keeping the unpleasant things from doing so.
It never ceases to amaze me that they are willing and able to work with us no matter what we are doing or what the temperature is. The dog will do it by loyalty, but the cats, well it must be for a whole other reason we have yet to comprehend.

                                          Or when they bring a snake into the house and you see it slither out from under your couch, as you are folding laundry. You do the sprint across the back of the couch hurdle the kitchen table, to dive out the front door. They have reminded you to not only to fix the screen door but that you still can move like a gymnast! Or when they get sprayed by a skunk you think hey at least this time it was not the horse or the dog. When you climb up into the tractor and there is a fuzzy little seat warmer, who rides around with you then promptly goes back to sleep on the seat when you get out with a wink  and a "I'll wait for you right here". Then there are the times you see them doing Serengeti cat in the hayfield and you can almost hear the narration in their head “ the majestic jaguar stalks his prey."

  

"The grasshopper is a formidable foe for the jaguar” Yah that goes through your head and you can only laugh.

Or when they think that a stand off with a coyote will be like the road runner and coyote show. When they realize the only option is up the tree but they overshoot the mark, you know the one that said you can climb down from here but after this point your screwed, yah then you get to find out you can still climb a tree too.

The animals have a way of changing  a crap day. Sounds so silly but a cat truly never wants anything much from you, which can be a major asset on a farm where everything relies on you and depends on you to ensure it’s existence. The cats have got life covered, they are hard working little creatures who deserve a warm dry place with some food and a cuddle. Seems so little for what they give to us. If you continue to provide them with entertainment they will do the same.


What is the most interesting thing your cat has done or has brought you as a gift, just to see your reaction?