Saturday, August 13, 2005, 17:49
Adrenalin Rush
There I was this morning, down in the pasture, stepping out the dimensions for the lane that we're going to build so we can have two separate pastures for the filly and my old gelding, when all of a sudden, a cat started screaming up in the big pines across the road.
From time to time, my cats argue with each other over something, scuffle for a bit, and then that's the end of it. Except, as I stood in the pasture, the screaming went on and on. In the backyard, our Shetland Sheepdog, Pixie, started barking, and our Springer Spaniel, Charlie, ran around to the lower driveway, looking alarmed.
And still the screaming continued.
I crawled through the fence and hurried up the driveway.
"Come on, Charlie," I said. "Let's go."
The distance from the pasture to the road is about 200 feet. The cat was still screaming and screaming, although just as I reached the road, the screaming stopped abruptly, and my red and white long-haired cat, MaryAnne, ran down the bank from the pines and zipped across the road, as if the devil himself were after her.
Charlie ran across the road in front of me, and we climbed the bank together. I wanted to see if I could spot anything that might have caused MaryAnne to scream like that. I couldn't see anything along the path going through the grove of pine trees, and Charlie, who sniffed around for a while, didn't seem overly concerned.
It was at that point I decided I'd better find MaryAnne.
Earlier in the morning, I had left the basement door open so the cats could go in and out if they wanted to. When the weather is cooler, and if there aren't too many flies around, I leave the door open for them a little bit.
MaryAnne had taken refuge in the basement. She was a bundle of nerves and fit to be tied. Gilligan, the red tom who is her brother, and my black tom cat, Rocky, had also taken refuge in the basement. They, too, were a bundle of nerves, crouched, frozen in position, wide-eyed, tense.
It took me a while to get a hold of MaryAnne to see if she was bleeding. She was too nervous to let me get a good look at her, but I saw enough of her to see that whatever had been after her had scared her so badly her bowels let loose.
"MaryAnne," I said, "you wait right here while I get some water and a wash cloth."
I went upstairs and got a pail of warm water, put some soap in and got an old washcloth. The cat was still so nervous when I got back downstairs that she could barely hold still long enough for me to wipe her off some.
When I was finished with that, I remembered my other kitty, Rocky's sister, Juliette. I went outside to find her, and eventually saw that she had taken refuge underneath my pickup truck. She, too, was crouched, big-eyed, tense, and staring across the road toward the big pines. It took a a few minutes, but I finally was able to coax her out from under the truck.
"Come on," I said, when I had picked her up, "you can stay in the basement a while, too."
I don't know what got after MaryAnne, but now, more than two hours later, I'm still a bundle of nerves myself. And I can't afford to be a bundle of nerves. I've got too much to do today. I've got to finish mowing the lawn behind the house. It's been so dry, that I haven't had to mow much lately. The grass isn't terribly long, but it's shaggy. We mowed the other half of the lawn last week. So I figured I'd mow the second half today. If it doesn't rain soon, we probably won't have to worry about the lawn anymore for quite a while.
When I'm finished with the lawn, I have to go into town and get some high-tensile wire, some stretchers, chain for the gates, a gate post and some more horse feed. Randy set the rest of the posts for the lane this morning, but then, at around 8:30 a.m., a friend of his called about going to a tractor pull today. When a tractor pull is involved, I know I won't see my husband all day and probably not until sometime this evening.
So, as they say, "time's a wastin'" -- and I'd better get a move on.
LeAnn R. Ralph
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Friday, August 12, 2005, 19:06
Watch Your Step!
"You should have seen Sophie," Randy said.
It was Thursday evening, and I was working in my office at the computer.
"What did she do?" I asked.
"She climbed up in my lap, climbed up on Teddy and fell asleep," Randy said.
Teddy is a medium sized brown teddy bear, and only a few minutes before that, Sophie had been wrestling with Teddy, knocking him over and kicking and biting him.
Just the night before, Randy was lamenting the fact that the kitten never fell asleep in his lap and that when he was holding her, she would want to bite and kick and play.
"Where is she now?" I asked.
"I put her into her cubbyhole," he said.
The only time any of us -- me, Randy, dog, cats -- are safe is when Sophie is in her cubbyhole beneath the coat closet. Otherwise she's usually chasing someone or something, zipping here and there around the house. And at no more than 4 inches tall, it's still a very real possibility that she could get stepped on and be seriously injured or killed.
Just this morning, things were very lively around the house. Pixie (my Shetland Sheepdog) was chasing Sophie -- or was it that Sophie was chasing Pixie? It was hard to tell sometimes. Pixie was clearly having the time of her life. Her round, brown eyes twinkled, her tail was wagging and she was panting happily as she played hide-n-go-seek with Sophie around the kitchen chairs, the shoes lined up beside the dryer and the table legs.
Sophie, for her part, is learning how to appear to be a "big mean cat" by arching her back, bristling her tail, and flattening her ears. Pixie is fairly certain that Sophie is playing, but she's not 100 percent certain. I guess I'm not 100 percent certain, either.
What I am certain about is that Sophie's eyesight is becoming more acute and that she is becoming more aware of the dog and the other cats. She still has not learned to drink from a saucer, but she is eating more solid food. She's six weeks old -- and I can hardly wait for her to get big enough so I don't have to worry about stepping on her!
LeAnn R. Ralph
P.S. If you're looking for a good book to read, you've come to the right place. Ordering is easy! Fill out the order form. Click send.