“Holy cow” I said, “there’s a cat outside!” The surprise and concern reflected in my voice came from the sure knowledge that cats do not survive on our farm. Josie, our lovable and watchful sheep guardian dog, hates cats, hates cats so much that she deals out an instant sentence of death the moment she sees one. Fortunately Josie was not at home. She was off at another farm doing the mating dance with a handsome male Guardian dog. My husband said, “So what are we supposed to do with a cat? Leave it alone, just let it wander off.”
The cat slipped out of my view. I secretly hoped she had moved on. But no, I went outside for some wood (we were suffering from an unseasonable cold snap or perhaps a seasonable warning sign to tell us it's time to prepare for the coming winter) and there she was, digging a wee bed in the wood chips and purring. She (actually he) did not run away. I walked right up to him and picked him up. He immediately cuddled in, rubbed against me like cats will do, and said in his little cat way, “Love me! Aren’t I just the cutest little orange kitten you ever did see!”
Now what…. My husband didn’t look too happy when I walked back in with the cat. We wondered where in the world the cat had come from, our nearest neighbour being over a mile away. “Maybe it’s Charlie’s cat,” I said. But no, a phone call negated that possibility. “I bet it belongs to Frank,” I said. “Maybe he jumped in the truck when you were over there last time.” I went to the storage shed, found a small kennel, and my husband took the kitten over to Frank’s place and dropped him off with all the other cats at their shelter. Frank was not at home to identify the cat.
A day later my husband was chatting with the fellow who owns Josie’s mate. “By the way,” he said, “You haven't seen a little orange kitten, have you?”
Whoops…! The kitten, it turned out, belonged to his children and must have hitched a ride when my husband took Josie down to be bred.
So my husband went over to the neighbour’s place to fetch the kitten back. “I wondered where that cat came from,” the neighbour said. “I have a few kittens around but didn't remember this one, and he's so friendly! Most of my cats are pretty wild. He got a good meal though.”
The cat stayed with us for three days until we could get organized to take him home. It turned out that one of our Border Collies treated the cat like he was a demon straight from the bowels of hell, so, for his own safety the cat was banished to the bathroom for his stay. I forgot how three dimensional cats are. Having no kitty litter on hand, I gave him a box of dirt for his litter box. Before he went home there were little brown paw prints on every level surface of the bathroom! But I didn’t mind. He purred his way into my heart the moment I first picked him up.
My goodness, how happy those kids, and that kitten, were when he got home! He took many a whirling trip around the house first, and was playing happily in the barn when my husband left for home.
