Karen took this picture of our cats Treena and Sheena next to an heirloom epiphyte, Schlumbergera orssichiana, or "Christmas cactus", and posted the photo as "Cats and Cactus," which sounds somehow late D. H. Lawrence in flavor. It's not a very large cactus but it is many years old, and belonged to Karen’s late mother. Treena and Sheena are house cats exclusively though they do enjoy our screened porch where they spend whole days in fine weather. Their feelings about the outside are conflicted. Treena will make a break for it but if she succeeds in
escaping she just runs in circles in the yard. Not really a good Darwinian adaptation. Sheena used to be tempted to escape too, but on one occasion she succeeded too well and had to spend a couple of hours sitting on the stoop waiting to be let back in. Since then, the outdoors is not for her. Sheena is a shorthair and doesn't even care for the porch in cold weather. Treena, on the other hand, has a psychopathic degree of optimism about all things. She scratches to be let onto the porch regardless of weather. If the porch is as cold as it is today, she scratches to be let back in after about three minutes. An hour later she's ready to try again. It could have gotten warm. She won't know until she tries. In her experience sometimes it's warm and sometimes it's cold and she may see no pattern in this -- or she may just be playing.
escaping she just runs in circles in the yard. Not really a good Darwinian adaptation. Sheena used to be tempted to escape too, but on one occasion she succeeded too well and had to spend a couple of hours sitting on the stoop waiting to be let back in. Since then, the outdoors is not for her. Sheena is a shorthair and doesn't even care for the porch in cold weather. Treena, on the other hand, has a psychopathic degree of optimism about all things. She scratches to be let onto the porch regardless of weather. If the porch is as cold as it is today, she scratches to be let back in after about three minutes. An hour later she's ready to try again. It could have gotten warm. She won't know until she tries. In her experience sometimes it's warm and sometimes it's cold and she may see no pattern in this -- or she may just be playing.
Our country neighborhood, which is well forested and has large yards, is home to a varying number of feral and semi-feral cats. This photo, taken several summers ago, captures a couple of them sunning in the side yard. The ferals love our sheds and brush pile, and live under and in these, and they hunt. In winter,
regardless of cold, perhaps especially when it's good and chilly, they hunt for a good part of the day, or just prowl for snacks. Their coats become very glossy and wooly as if stimulated by cold. We just know them by their colors -- the long-haired gray one, the black and white one, the tabby colored one. Some
establish a more definite identity.
regardless of cold, perhaps especially when it's good and chilly, they hunt for a good part of the day, or just prowl for snacks. Their coats become very glossy and wooly as if stimulated by cold. We just know them by their colors -- the long-haired gray one, the black and white one, the tabby colored one. Some
establish a more definite identity.
A few years ago I found a mass of tufted orange and white hair on the rockpile with a cat collar marked "Biskkit" and an address in town about 5 miles from here. It sounds gruesome to say so but I interpreted this as the work of buzzards, who will carry a dead animal to a convenient place to pluck it. So I disposed of Biskkit's identification and wrote him off as a case of vulture-absconded roadkill of whom nothing was left but his collar. A couple of days later we began to spot a huge dreamsicle-colored tom with a white and orange ruff that exactly matched the tufts on the rockpile. It was Biskkit. Had I kept his I.D. I could have sent him home. But he didn't want to be home. He had apparently removed his own collar by rubbing it off over his head. Was he a dropped cat or a volunteer feral? I don't know, but he was great at yard life. Also rude; he was a rude and unmannerly animal with a nasty attitude and he probably always belonged outdoors. In cat language his name was surely not Biskkit but something like Hiss-spitter. We saw Biskkit prowling the area fat and sleek for the next three or four years, which is half a life cycle for a
feral cat.
feral cat.
The yard ferals were fascinated by the fox that appeared in our yard two days ago, on Thanksgiving morning. Though it doesn't sound festive, I had a spot of work to do and there was no reason not to do it
then, but I happened to look up from the keyboard and saw movement in the woods on the hill behind the house. It was a big red fox of the classic fairy tale variety, as large as a hunting dog. Unlike the somewhat meandering paths feral cats often take, the fox moved as if it had somewhere to be -- a trotting gait in a straight line across the face of the hill. Foxes do seem sometimes to have a purposefulness to them. Last
summer we saw a smaller one trotting up the center of the road in broad daylight without an apparent care in the world. And why should they not.
then, but I happened to look up from the keyboard and saw movement in the woods on the hill behind the house. It was a big red fox of the classic fairy tale variety, as large as a hunting dog. Unlike the somewhat meandering paths feral cats often take, the fox moved as if it had somewhere to be -- a trotting gait in a straight line across the face of the hill. Foxes do seem sometimes to have a purposefulness to them. Last
summer we saw a smaller one trotting up the center of the road in broad daylight without an apparent care in the world. And why should they not.
Not long after, I spotted the white and black feral and the longhaired gray feral heading up the hill from opposite sides of the yard, like they were on a flanking maneuver. In reality I think they just wanted to smell the fox trail. Cats and foxes interest each other though a fox can't catch a cat and a cat has no reason to catch a fox. It was an interesting moment in their day. It was an interesting moment in my day. Treena and Sheena missed it. They were glued to the front window on the other side of the house, absolutely hypnotized by the assortment of small and large birds flitting to and fro on the bird feeder. One thinks of Svengali as catlike, hypnotizing the more birdlike Trilby; but it is the cat Svengalis who seem to pass into some altered consciousness at the window, while the birds see only their own reflections and not the gnashing teeth behind the glass.
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