Sharing the Wealth

   Bat, the Bayou Prince Cat, (also known as a rescued cat or somebody's throwaway pet) came to the Bayou by way of my son-in-law.  Robbie found the poor, pathetic kitten after someone abandoned it at his place of business.  He promptly brought the forlorn critter here with the promise of it being a temporary thing.  That was almost four years ago and the cat is still here.  This is home.  Here, the cat is welcome, cared for and much loved.  He returns the love and....returns the favor of being fed by often bringing his "catches" as gifts.  More oft than naught, his prey is simply released unharmed with the promise of a treat.  Occasionally, however, Bat makes short work of a critter.  Rats and squirrels stand no chance!  Then...then there are the times that he brings us something quite out of the ordinary.

  Mark and Son were busy digging a new drainage ditch down the back side of the hill while I cut some of the leaves that are a foot deep after our intense freeze last month.  Yardwork is never complete around here.  At one point, Son and I both saw Mr. Bat race up from near the pier.  Oh, goodness.  What was that goofy cat dragging this time.  Neither of us stopped work to investigate leaving the cat to his own business. Mark soon discovered just what Bat was dragging.  The cat presented Mark with a fine mullet!  Yep, Bat had caught a fish!  How?  How?  The wet, muddied cat was not telling his secrets!  He did receive a treat for trying to feed us...and, in a way, he will, at some point.  The 10 inch long mullet was not to be wasted.  The fresh fish was plopped into the shed freezer to be used as crab bait once the weather warms a bit more.  The crabs will be enjoyed by us!  Good cat!!  

  Once this story made its rounds with our friends, several put in requests for Mr. Bat to catch some fish for them!  Not many folks can claim they have "fishing" cats!  Oh, Mr. Bat, you are something else!

He Is There...He Is Always There

  For the past ten years (or maybe more), there has a been a resident of the Bayou that has eluded all offers of friendship.  An old, feral cat has been here without ever accepting anything more than an occasional supper and a dry place to sleep.  He avoids eye contact and voices scare him.  I have tried and will continue to try to befriend him.  He is there.  He is always there...just beyond reach...just beyond help.

  This morning as I came off the the pier, I saw him sitting about forty feet from me.  He peered at me through the darkness but scurried off when I spoke to him.  It breaks my heart to see the scraggly animal knowing that winter is not far off.  The best I can do is to continue to offer food and make a small entrance into the greenhouse.  There, at least, he will have some warmth during the cold nights to come.  

  This cat is another of what I call "throwaway pets".  I am not sure how people can sleep at night knowing they abandon poor animals.  This poor fellow has had to endure countless horrors as he tries to survive.  He has braved the coyotes and bobcats.  He has fought to outlast hurricanes and winter storms.  He has struggled to find food and surely is infested with all sorts of parasites.  It simply breaks my heart.  If he only knew I care.  If he only knew he could trust me to be kind and not hurt him like his past family.  Instead, he is just there.

Bat! The Halloween Cat!

   It is October and Halloween is coming soon but I really did not expect to be visited by spookiness this soon.  Have you ever had that feeling of being watched when you are the only one in the room?  Have you ever felt the presence of someone...something...when no one else is nearby?  Have you ever been startled be a commonplace thing?  Well, the Bayou is notorious for having tales of such.  While I do not easily scare by mere paranormal occurrences, sometimes things do go unexplained and make me ponder.

  Last night, I had settled in to do a bit of reading with just an overhead light when I started feeling edgy.  Hmmm?  At first, I brushed it off as getting a bit too involved in the murder mystery at hand but then that "something is looking at me" feeling got overwhelming.  I glanced up to find Bat, the Bayou Prince Cat, staring...not at me but just to my side.  His orange eyes were glinting from the only light in the room (my reading light) and his gaze was unwavering.  Ok....?  What was up with that?  It was then that I noticed a soft "aura" surrounding the cat.  Well, that was different.  I called to him but the cat never moved.  He continued to stare from his half-hidden spot behind the large post.  I called again.  He never even acknowledged my attempt to coax him to me.  This was not like Bat at all!  He is usually the most cuddly cat and welcomes any chance to be snuggling up next to me.  He stared. It was almost as if he was in a trance.  That soft "cloud" lingered a bit longer then slowly dissipated.  What was that??  Before the aura disappeared completely, I grabbed the camera from the coffee table and snapped a photo fully expecting the glow to not appear in the picture.  

  After about ten minutes of the "stare down", Bat suddenly meowed and leapt up next to me and literally put his face against mine.  He refused to stay on the lap and had to be snuggled right on my shoulder.  Every so often he leaned back, looked at me then meowed.  Crazy cat!  Was there something here that I could not explain but he could see?  Was this all my imagination?  When I checked the photograph, a bit of the wisp could be seen!  Ooooh!  Bat, the Halloween Cat!  Spooky!

It's not easy being a cat!

  It seems as if there is a never-ending parade of cats that visit the Bayou.  Most are the typical "throwaway" pets that people no longer want because of one reason or another.  "They are too moody."  "I do not have time." "She keeps having kittens."  "There is cat hair on the furniture."  These are some of the whiny excuses that people tell me all the time.  None are reasons...they are whiny excuses for a person doing a mean thing.  Most house cats never make it in the wild.  There are too many predators out there that would love to dine upon "Fluffy".  Yep, that is hard to hear but, yep, it is true.  I have come across the remnants of "Fluffy" more times than I can count and it is never pretty and always heartbreaking.  Don't want to make the commitment...don't get a pet.  Simple. It has never bothered me to take in yet another stray animal.  They come, stay and live out their lives with us.  It does bother me that folks do see pets as something that can be discarded on a whim.

  Ms. Nycto came to the Bayou years ago.  She was as skinny as a rail, flea infested and sweet as a button!  She endeared herself to us immediately and no matter how I tried to find her original owners, no one ever claimed her.  She claimed us.  This sweet cat roams the house, goes out to bask in the sunshine and now rules the roost.  The Bayou Princess gets her choice of sleeping quarters whether it be on my bed, beside the dog or outside of Son's bedroom door. (He does not let her sleep on his bed because she has a habit of drooling...a lot.)  She, also, has the typical cat affinity for boxes.  Let a box be found...and a cat will be found.  

  This morning, I started cleaning out the dressers and came across nigh on a hundred socks.  (Hubby seems to have an affinity for clothes including socks!)  Out of this hundred or so, only about twenty were in sets.  The rest were loose socks.  I started pairing up the socks and tossed some of them in an empty box that once held sweet potatoes.  Since I was changing out the entire dressers, the box set unmoved.  Now, it is not a sweet potato box full of socks but, rather, a cat bed.  Ms. Nycto has laid claim to the nice soft box of socks!  Obviously, she figures that a warm place is needed to tide her over through this cold spell and a box full of socks is ideal. 

  No problems.  She can snooze to her heart's content.  No one needs that many socks anyway!  I will, however, miss her warming my feet at night.

The Big Ball of Fluff

  The weather is acting a bit out of the norm for the Deep South.  It is cold.  We are not accustomed to cold.  We live in an area of high heat and high humidity.  Cold is different.  I like it.  I could get used to not feeling as if I have a bubble of steam surrounding me.  I could get used to not sweating.  It is amazing!  This does not mean that I am not taking measures to warm the place.  The old wood stove is chugging along quite nicely.  The stovepipe on the rooftop is sending out poofs of smoke like an old time train engine.  Armloads of firewood are being toted in to fill the wood bin and I actually have on a sweatshirt instead of a t-shirt!  Again...I like it!

  While this weather may suit me, I am not sure the Bayou Princess is in agreement.  Ms. Nycto is a spoiled house cat.  She came to live with us quite by accident after being abused and dumped out on the road.  She wandered to the Little Bayou House and never left.  The adjustment was an easy one for us but not so much on her.  While we welcomed her with open arms, she had big shoes...errr...paws to fill.  The Bayou Queen, Ms. Put, (RIP) was a working cat that kept the place free of rodents, she stayed outside by choice and would only occasionally need attention.  Ms. Nycto, on the other hand, is just a big ball of fluff that would rather snooze on the bed and eat canned food than do any type chore.  She does, however, want to be outside during the daytime hours.  That is a bit of her undoing.  She begged to go outside early this morning only to find that it had turned a bit chilly overnight.  The decision to remain outside was a hard one but one she chose.  An hour later, I found her huddled near the greenhouse door with fur fluffed at its fluffiest!  Poor baby was not entirely happy with her decision.  

  It was not long before she was back at the front door meowing at me to open it for her.  Once inside, she made a beeline for the upstairs where she could nestle down in the big comforter on the bed.  Yes, she is spoiled but, then again, what does a princess expect?  

Tipptity-tip

  Early this morning as I stumbled to the kitchen, I heard a funny sound coming from some unseen entity.  At 5am without coffee, I am not much in the mood to go searching for something making a tippity-tip noise so I left it be...for the time being...or so I thought.  As usual, a pot of coffee needed to be set to brewing if I was to wake at all.  Then, the cat needed to be fed.  She has the loudest meow when she is hungry and she is always hungry which is why I was up before sunrise.  That goofy cat decided to sit on my chest and meow until I forced my eyelids to open.  With her fed and quiet (thank goodness!), Mr. PJ wanted his share of breakfast.  Ms. Nycto's loud meowing woke up the dog so he came running to the kitchen nearly colliding with the cat.  Big ruckus...poor brain...need coffee.  Finally, the coffee..nice, hot coffee to waken the brain was brewed! 

  With that mug of coffee in hand, I pulled out a chair to have a seat.  That is when I came face to face (literally) with the tippity-tip maker.  A rather large crane fly decided that my glasses needed attention so it was flippity-flipping all over my face!  Actually, I had disturbed the critter from its busy work.  The crane fly must have come in last night with the cat and decided that indoor life was not its cup of tea.  The insect was bouncing around on the window curtains trying to escape the confines of the kitchen.  Its attraction to my face is still unknown unless it was seeking my help in its getaway.  I did...the critter was set free and seemed happy to take leave of the place.

  Crane flies are some of the most misunderstood insects there are.  At least down here in the Deep South, they are seen as enormous mosquitoes that can bite.  Nope.  They do not.  Other folks claim that they are "skeeter eaters" (which would be a good thing).  Nope. They do not.  Some even claim that they will "ruin your tomatoes"!  Nope.  They do not cause the ugly marks on the tomatoes in the garden.  Put the blame where it is due...those blotches come from stinkbugs.  So, the crane fly is a pretty innocuous critter that does little more than flit around aimlessly hunting for a mate.  The larvae can sometimes cause dark spots in the lawn but, other than that, they pretty much just live and make tippity-tip noises on your window...at 5am...before you have had your coffee.

They tolerated...

 Sometimes I think that animals have far greater wisdom than humans.  They also seem to have a greater sense of loyalty and even apparently of tolerance.  Take old Ms. Put, for instance.  The Bayou Queen has aged drastically in the past few months.  Her health is failing along with her senses.  She seems to be nigh on deaf, blind and may have even lost her sense of smell.  Here lately, she wants to stay inside more and more.  The cooler nights have found her hovering close to either the wood stove or a space heater.  This is all fine by me as I do not have to worry about her being attacked by the coyotes.  She is comfortable, warm and safe from any predators.  

  Her little kingdom was recently sent into a tailspin by the invasion of family.  While I knew she would not tolerate another cat being brought into the house, I was in hopes that she would warm up to the idea of kids bouncing around the house and would see fit to ignore the old dog, PJ, if he was not to her liking,  Ms. Put and old Ms. Ez seemed to be best friends before Ms. Ez passed.  She did well with the kids and eventually let Mary Ruth pet her.  All was good.  Then the last few days saw a big change of events.  Ms. Put tolerated not ignored PJ! 

  It seemed that both the dog and the cat sensed that neither meant harm to the other.  While I cannot say that they were best of friends at least they did not squabble.  It was nice to observe how the two managed to get along well enough that they spent a good bit of time relaxing near one another. The big. old dog and the frail, little cat both tolerated...and did it well!

Fickle Feline or Fine Friend?

  Ms. Put, the Bayou Cat, is often the topic of my writings and/or artwork.  She has been around the Bayou for so many years that she has endeared herself to just about everyone.  Don't get me wrong, she is not an overly sweet cat.  Not at all. She just chooses her times, her places and her friends.  She is definitely a fickle feline but, at the same time, she is a fine friend.  Perhaps the best you could possibly want. She is devoted to those she likes and has little to do with any others. That, my friends, is why I adore her.  She makes her own decisions and those do not hinge on what anyone thinks...human, feline or canine. Her world is the Bayou and she rules her world.  What a fine example she is!

  Occasionally, I am allowed to pet her.  This she tolerates as long as I do not make a constant habit of it.  Ms. Put, unlike Ms. Nycto, (the wannabe Bayou Cat) does not use her feminine feline wiles to endear herself to her human counterparts.  (We could be better described as her servants.)  Instead of winding about our legs, meowing incessantly or pouncing on us, hers is a more indirect approach.  She stares.  That means feed me!  Or give me your cheese.  Or leave me..whichever fits the moment.  

  I will say that she has always gone above and beyond when performing her duties as Queen of the Bayou. We have been the recipients of a steady stream of headless rats, birds, squirrels, mice, lizards and snakes.  During the nigh on eighteen years that she has graced the Bayou with her presence, not once have I been frustrated with her.  She is just that perfect...at least in my eyes.  It does make me wonder if the hateful person that cruelly threw Ms. Put and her siblings from the car window ever knew just how wonderful of a friend they discarded. (She obviously has had a much better life with us, though, so it is their loss.) I keep telling her that she now deserves to be treated like the Queen that she is but she is content to keep on with her humble ways.  It is no wonder that she is my favorite!  She may indeed be fickle but she is definitely the finest of cats!  Ms. Put will always be Queen of the Bayou!

She ain't no spring chicken!

    She definitely is getting up there in age.  Ms. Put, the cat, is starting to show her age here lately.  Don't get me wrong.  She is still Queen of the Bayou in all ways but she just moves a bit slower, eats a lot less and spends most of her day sleeping under the camellia bush.  Both Michael and I have noticed that she has also mellowed a good bit in the past few months.  It is rare to see her temper fly as much as it has in the past.  My goodness, she has even started tolerating the dog, Ms. Ez!  That, in itself, is worth noting as in the past, she would have bitten off the dog's head if she was so inclined.   As of late, however, she lounges within a few feet of the dog as if she does not notice her presence.

  All of this started just about the time that the new cat, Nycto, made her appearance.  I am not sure if there is any connection between the two or if this is just a mere coincidence. At first, Ms. Put tried to put an end to the intrusion by this other female cat.  There were the nightly fights and daily temper tantrums by both.  After a month or so, this settled into a mutual dislike for each other but, also, a ceasefire by both.  Ms. Put now hangs around the front of the house while Ncyto has taken up residence in the back.  The truce seems to satisfy both so all is well on the hill.  

  Perhaps Ms. Put has decided that her role as Queen can now be taken a bit more seriously.  With a new cat about, she can now spend more time doing regal things like sitting and staring out over the Bay.  She has the opportunity to catch up on her beauty sleep and not be constantly on the prowl.  Her hunting days are limited to whenever she has the whim and not to constantly battle all rodents within the entire county!  Maybe she is ceding some of the duties to this much younger cat and has settled into just being Queen of the Bayou.  At least, I hope this is what has brought on the change.  I really like this cat.  She has been around here for nigh on seventeen years now so is more like family than just a pet.  She has been through thick and thin with us so we will definitely make hers a life of ease if at all possible.

Choose your battles well.

  It is good advice to choose your battles well.  Sometimes things that you think are easily won are the most difficult to obtain.  This became quite obvious early this afternoon.  I was in the living room crafting while Ms. Ez sat staring out the door.  There are still fleas in the yard so she has to be satisfied with quick runs to do her business. There will be no stalking squirrels for a while yet.  Just outside the doorway, I could hear the rap-tap-tapping of a woodpecker on the old Black Gum Tree.  A large Pileated Woodpecker was working on the very bottom of the tree.  This tree had died some time ago but since it houses a number of birds and flying squirrels, I have not pressed Mark to cut it.  It stands defiantly against the odds as it is filled with holes.  The woodpecker was having a grand old time hammering that thing.

  Suddenly, Ms. Ez started barking and I heard a great ruckus in the vicinity of the Black Gum Tree!  What was that woodpecker doing?  I leapt from my chair just in time to see Nycto, the (new) cat, shoot out of the jasmine vine.  Obviously, she had chosen to attack the woodpecker!  This was one of those times when it would have been prudent for her to choose her battles.  Anyone who has ever seen a Pileated Woodpecker can tell you that they are rather large!  The birds are extremely strong and, as with any woodpecker, have a long bill. Nycto should have never tackled this bird!

  The bird was not harmed in the least by Nycto's attack.  As matter of fact, after flying to a nearby oak tree, it fussed at her for about ten minutes.  It then went back to work on the Black Gum Tree.  I assume that there are some mighty tasty grubs in that rotten wood!  As for Nycto, I checked on her and she seemed to be well enough.  Other than some ruffled fur and a case of nerves, I think she fared pretty well.  Now if she learned her lesson, everything will be fine.  Nycto still has a lot to learn about being a Bayou Cat!