Cats

As we thought about moving to the country and starting a farm, there were many things that worried me, but I never once worried about cats. That just goes to show how little I knew about living in the country. Cats show up here, and if I were a regular farmer, like those I knew growing up, I would probably put out some cat chow and let them live their lives without much interference. I cannot imagine doing that. Ever since I was a child, cats have filled me with delight. They feel like friends, and I want to love them up and keep them safe. That is a tall order here.

When we moved in last year, six cats lived in the garage – a mother and her five untamed kittens. Soon the mother got hit by a car right in front of our house, and I tearfully called my friends, trying to figure out what to do. First, I trapped the wild, six-week-old kittens in a rolled up piece of carpet and moved them into my bathroom thinking I could socialize them. Within hours, I changed my mind because the kittens wheezed, and I worried that they would make my old cats sick. The kittens were too wild to lift, so I made ramps from an old trellis and a piece of wood paneling that allowed them to escape through the open window.

My daughter and I spent hours sitting on an old loveseat in the garage that summer, taming them. It worked. We also shelled out hundreds of dollars, which we did not feel we could really afford, to have them neutered. When fall came, one of the outside kittens followed us around the house, pressing his face against the screens to peep in at us with a plaintive look on its face. We gave in, and let it and its sister become house cats.

One kitten disappeared without a trace, so we were left with two outside cats. The orange and white one captured my heart completely. Every evening, it put its front paws around my neck like a hug, nestled its soft head under my chin, and purred with delight. My heart lit up. This spring, when another batch of kittens was born in the shelter by our porch, that cat never showed impatience with them, but snuggled with them. He was a lovely soul. I spent my Christmas money from my mother-in-law to buy him a heated bed for the cold winter because I could feel him shivering.

We have not seen him for over a week, and the neighbor said that while working the fields on the border of our property, he scared up a coyote that had just killed a young pheasant. I am struggling against picturing what happened to my friend. Its brother was hit by a car earlier this summer, so of the six cats that originally lived here, the two survivors live inside.

Two cats other live outside our house now – a gray female that showed up in the wintertime and had kittens before she was tame enough to neuter, and one of her offspring. They, too, are lovely cats, which purr mightily. I cannot imagine a nicer sound then loud purring mixed with the trills of crickets.

I am giving these cats good advice every night: Stay close to home, and don’t go near the road. Beyond that, I feel there is little that I can do to keep them safe. It grieves me to be reminded of how little protection I can give to all the things I love.