Feline Fiends, er, Friends

One of the necessities of farm life, unless you have a pension for emptying mouse traps, is keeping a few good mousers around.

While Stephanie's parents still ruled this roost, a few fine barn cats showed up and never left: Sophie, an all black cat with a stereotypically haughty feline personality and Isabelle, a sweet, gentle, deaf, tawny colored cat with a crooked neck. Izzy disappeared in the late fall--perhaps to another home, more probably to the greedy talons of an eagle or the hungry fangs of a fox. Meanwhile, Sophie, on account of my wife's gentle heart and inexplicable love for cats, has been spending these cold winter days fattening up in our basement.

Sophie developed a pretty bad case of worms as of late and has been leaving little, wormy evidences all over the basement for the past few weeks. Predictably, she mostly left them in the chair that I like to sit in while I'm stoking the fire. On account of this unpleasant ailment, I've recently renamed her Grima Wormbutt. She seems to have taken to it well. It may be a harsh nickname, but it is no doubt appropriate. Sophie represents everything that cat-haters hate about cats. Deceitful, cunning, willful, bold, stubborn, snarly.

Grima

Grima, however, is not the only feline in the house. She is counterbalanced nicely by our housemates' charming and calf-sized cat, Johnny Cash. Johnny, as he commonly goes by, is a particularly large breed of house cat--I've been corrected, the largest breed of house cat. He is also more dog-like than any cat I've ever known, which is probably why we get along alright. My brother-in-law Kevin, when here for a visit at Thanksgiving, quickly fell for Johnny and nick-named him Golden Boy. The name has stuck with us.

Golden Boy

Golden Boy and Grima have a love-hate relationship. Grima, a typical feline, is aloof and disdainful of GB's amicable entreaties. His visits requited with hisses, not kisses. Having always been an indoor cat, GB was declawed; consequently he compensates for his lack of acerbity with extraordinary zeal in his frequent battles with Grima. He is also much bigger than her, so when he bats her with his judo-chop action, there is a disproportionate amount of weight behind the fast-action blows.

I have learned in recent years that I am somewhat allergic to cats (and perhaps dogs), so we try to keep the two of them out of the public spaces as much as possible. We've more or less trained Golden Boy not to come past the kitchen door, but Grima is a hopeless rebel. She'd rather make us get up and spray her with the water bottle than retreat from our threats--yeah, she's that sort of creature.

As of late we've discovered that Golden Boy has a new lair. He's taken to climbing on top of the crafting table ("Craft World") and leaping onto the shelf just below the ceiling, where he snoozes in a basket filled with fabric remnants. I suppose his real impetus for staking his new claim was to have a higher roost that Grima, whose perch is only about four feet off the ground and lies easily under Golden Boy's watchful eye.

GB's Kingly Perch

In this moment of rare reflection, I suppose that I'm glad to have the cats' company most of the time. That being said, I will be glad when animal companionship comes in the form of a dog.