A cocktail of cat's tales
Oct. 25th, 2010 12:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
redroanchroniclesRecently, my coworker Sharon and I have been looking for new housing, so that we can keep our horses at home. Boarding here is generally either unavailable or extremely expensive in the winter -- most people seem to send their horses to pasture about an hour south to not have to deal at all with horsekeeping in heavy snow -- but neither Sharon nor I were particularly happy with that. Here in horse country, we figured we wouldn't have much of a problem finding a horse property to rent, and in thinking that we were, of course, embracing some sort of optimism-related insanity.
The process has been... well, I don't really have a word for what it's been. I feel like I should see a psychotherapist to start recovering from the trauma. Finding anything in a small town is less about how thoroughly and repeatedly you scour the newspapers and more about who you know, how much they like you, and whether they'd rather see you happy or see you sleeping in the gutter. It just complicates things to be searching with another person, who will inevitably bring their own priorities, preferences and demands to the table.
I won't go into all of the ways in which this process has felt a bit like being repeatedly bludgeoned with a heavy object... I think it's sufficient to say that, after months of searching and undoubtedly the development of some hard-core ulcers, we've finally got a place to live. It's a deeply terrific, just barely on the attainable side of affordable, and has a terrific set-up for horses. There's a hay loft and a garage and a fireplace and just a ridiculous excess of awesome things (can anybody say "bathtub with freaking power jets"? I thought you could). Somewhat ludicrously, one of the things I'm looking forward to most is the barn cat who comes with the property. I don't know what his name was to begin with (it was Smokey or Sooty or something along those lines), but I call him Awesome. And he totally lives up to his name. I would go so far as to say that he is made of 100% pure awesome.
Though I own a dog -- more specifically, a dog who would like to eat cats -- I'm mostly an animal person in general, so the idea of living with cats again is pretty exciting to me. (This is in spite of the fact that my last living-with-a-cat experience was pretty much like this.) Sharon will be bringing with her an indoor cat, in addition to Awesome the barn cat, so I'm sure I'll have my hands full just with preventing Trudeau from eating any of the other animals who will soon be his housemates, but I'm not letting my dog's dickishness dent my optimism.
In honor of the good news, I thought I'd do a little cats photo post today... a retrospective, if you will, on the felines who have deigned to tolerate my presence... these are barn cats and pet cats both. I love barn cats in particular, though, because they tend to be a bit rough around the edges, unpampered and self-possessed... and sometimes just possessed, period.
Alas, I have no photos yet of Awesome the awesome barn cat, though I suspect he's going to be a good photo subject if I can get him away from me long enough to take a few pictures... he's a gorgeous Russian blue, if I'm not mistaken.
I won't bore you with a (further) wall of text about all the cats above, but here are a couple near and dear to me that I'd just like to share a little about...
When I worked at the horse rescue in California, we had a barn full of feral cats... in fact, the whole area was pretty well overrun with feral dogs and cats, as it was generally populated by very poor people and also had some of the highest prices I've ever seen for spay/neuter procedures. At any rate, a colony of pretty tuxedo-colored cats had been thriving in our hay barn for some time, and just as we were working on plans to catch, fix and release some of the blighters (using raccoon traps, basically, because these were very wary and very feral cats), I walked out of my trailer one night and found a black cat mewling outside my door. I went to get a can of tuna to carefully coax her into my trailer, but there was really no need... she was happy to eat my tuna, but she'd have come in anyway... she had a pretty bad bite wound on one shoulder, and had clearly made a rational decision that the most prudent course of action was to buddy up to a human being. She pretty much tamed herself.
I named her Olive Snook. I took her to the vet to be patched up and my boss paid to have her fixed; the vet, rather foolishly, put in staples instead of dissolving sutures, so I'd have to keep Olive in my trailer for a few weeks longer until it was time to take the stitches out, but it wasn't a problem; Olive seemed to enjoy the cushy life, litter-trained herself as well, and was very pleasant company when I came home in the evenings. I was worried she'd make a bolt for it every time I opened the door, but she was perfectly content to stay. Then I took her back to the vet, got the staples out, and when I brought her home and took her out of the cat carrier, she went immediately to the door. I opened it up, and out she went. She'd come to visit most every evening (and would yowl outside my door until I came out to see her), but she no longer had any interest in being an indoor cat.
And that is why I'm pretty sure that if they had thumbs, cats would actually be in charge of our whole planet right now.
Another of our tuxedo "rescue" cats was a kitten whose mom abandoned her in our equipment barn; we heard her squalling in there for a few days, and by the time our ranch manager caught her (she was a slippery one!) she was pretty weak. I fed her some warm milk and a bit of wet food, and walked around with her inside my jacket for a few days (we were quite the sight, training horses with a little kitten head poking out of my jacket), and before I knew it she was a fixture in my trailer and regularly raising hell.
I named her Calamity Jane, mostly because having her around was a bit of a calamity for me personally; she was quite the handful, though thankfully she also litter-trained herself and I got her onto solid food right away. With all her whiskers, she looked like a Jim Henson muppet.
She was great company, though just trying to keep her exercised and relatively calm was a full-time job. (But hey, I found another use for a Savvy String. :D) She eventually found a home with our farrier, who put her to work in his barn as a mouser, which she enjoyed thoroughly.
I like to think that all people are cat people at heart. (And if they aren't, then the cats somehow know and will attach themselves to those people purely out of spite. So really, it pays to be a cat person.) Care to share a few photos of yours? I promise to ooh and aah over them. It's sort of a knee-jerk reaction anyway.
(And if like me you're enjoying a nice rainy day and would like a little animated cat noir, try the short animated film The Cat Piano, narrated by Nick Cave. Great animation, great filmmaking, and incredible artistry.)
The process has been... well, I don't really have a word for what it's been. I feel like I should see a psychotherapist to start recovering from the trauma. Finding anything in a small town is less about how thoroughly and repeatedly you scour the newspapers and more about who you know, how much they like you, and whether they'd rather see you happy or see you sleeping in the gutter. It just complicates things to be searching with another person, who will inevitably bring their own priorities, preferences and demands to the table.
I won't go into all of the ways in which this process has felt a bit like being repeatedly bludgeoned with a heavy object... I think it's sufficient to say that, after months of searching and undoubtedly the development of some hard-core ulcers, we've finally got a place to live. It's a deeply terrific, just barely on the attainable side of affordable, and has a terrific set-up for horses. There's a hay loft and a garage and a fireplace and just a ridiculous excess of awesome things (can anybody say "bathtub with freaking power jets"? I thought you could). Somewhat ludicrously, one of the things I'm looking forward to most is the barn cat who comes with the property. I don't know what his name was to begin with (it was Smokey or Sooty or something along those lines), but I call him Awesome. And he totally lives up to his name. I would go so far as to say that he is made of 100% pure awesome.
Though I own a dog -- more specifically, a dog who would like to eat cats -- I'm mostly an animal person in general, so the idea of living with cats again is pretty exciting to me. (This is in spite of the fact that my last living-with-a-cat experience was pretty much like this.) Sharon will be bringing with her an indoor cat, in addition to Awesome the barn cat, so I'm sure I'll have my hands full just with preventing Trudeau from eating any of the other animals who will soon be his housemates, but I'm not letting my dog's dickishness dent my optimism.
In honor of the good news, I thought I'd do a little cats photo post today... a retrospective, if you will, on the felines who have deigned to tolerate my presence... these are barn cats and pet cats both. I love barn cats in particular, though, because they tend to be a bit rough around the edges, unpampered and self-possessed... and sometimes just possessed, period.
Alas, I have no photos yet of Awesome the awesome barn cat, though I suspect he's going to be a good photo subject if I can get him away from me long enough to take a few pictures... he's a gorgeous Russian blue, if I'm not mistaken.
I won't bore you with a (further) wall of text about all the cats above, but here are a couple near and dear to me that I'd just like to share a little about...
When I worked at the horse rescue in California, we had a barn full of feral cats... in fact, the whole area was pretty well overrun with feral dogs and cats, as it was generally populated by very poor people and also had some of the highest prices I've ever seen for spay/neuter procedures. At any rate, a colony of pretty tuxedo-colored cats had been thriving in our hay barn for some time, and just as we were working on plans to catch, fix and release some of the blighters (using raccoon traps, basically, because these were very wary and very feral cats), I walked out of my trailer one night and found a black cat mewling outside my door. I went to get a can of tuna to carefully coax her into my trailer, but there was really no need... she was happy to eat my tuna, but she'd have come in anyway... she had a pretty bad bite wound on one shoulder, and had clearly made a rational decision that the most prudent course of action was to buddy up to a human being. She pretty much tamed herself.
I named her Olive Snook. I took her to the vet to be patched up and my boss paid to have her fixed; the vet, rather foolishly, put in staples instead of dissolving sutures, so I'd have to keep Olive in my trailer for a few weeks longer until it was time to take the stitches out, but it wasn't a problem; Olive seemed to enjoy the cushy life, litter-trained herself as well, and was very pleasant company when I came home in the evenings. I was worried she'd make a bolt for it every time I opened the door, but she was perfectly content to stay. Then I took her back to the vet, got the staples out, and when I brought her home and took her out of the cat carrier, she went immediately to the door. I opened it up, and out she went. She'd come to visit most every evening (and would yowl outside my door until I came out to see her), but she no longer had any interest in being an indoor cat.
And that is why I'm pretty sure that if they had thumbs, cats would actually be in charge of our whole planet right now.
Another of our tuxedo "rescue" cats was a kitten whose mom abandoned her in our equipment barn; we heard her squalling in there for a few days, and by the time our ranch manager caught her (she was a slippery one!) she was pretty weak. I fed her some warm milk and a bit of wet food, and walked around with her inside my jacket for a few days (we were quite the sight, training horses with a little kitten head poking out of my jacket), and before I knew it she was a fixture in my trailer and regularly raising hell.
I named her Calamity Jane, mostly because having her around was a bit of a calamity for me personally; she was quite the handful, though thankfully she also litter-trained herself and I got her onto solid food right away. With all her whiskers, she looked like a Jim Henson muppet.
She was great company, though just trying to keep her exercised and relatively calm was a full-time job. (But hey, I found another use for a Savvy String. :D) She eventually found a home with our farrier, who put her to work in his barn as a mouser, which she enjoyed thoroughly.
I like to think that all people are cat people at heart. (And if they aren't, then the cats somehow know and will attach themselves to those people purely out of spite. So really, it pays to be a cat person.) Care to share a few photos of yours? I promise to ooh and aah over them. It's sort of a knee-jerk reaction anyway.
(And if like me you're enjoying a nice rainy day and would like a little animated cat noir, try the short animated film The Cat Piano, narrated by Nick Cave. Great animation, great filmmaking, and incredible artistry.)
no subject
Date: 2010-10-25 06:22 pm (UTC)...that is all.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-03 08:37 pm (UTC)KITTEHS!
no subject
Date: 2010-10-25 07:28 pm (UTC)And if for whatever reason this doesn't work out, my inlaws board horses in Bayfield relatively cheaply. (Just out in their fields, and feeding hay from the summer cutting. I think it's up to $60 a month now.)
no subject
Date: 2010-11-03 08:39 pm (UTC)And thanks for the tip about winter boarding! Do they check in on the horses and feed daily, or are they mostly left to their own devices? I have a friend who might be looking, but all the places in Arboles made her neverous... nobody checks on the horses and they're in huge herds where it'd be pretty easy for them to get into fights and get hurt.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-25 08:33 pm (UTC)Sleeping in the sink.
Sleeping on a kitchen counter.
He's kind of going through a bit of a phase where he's sleeping in weird places. He's also about 20 years old now and still quite active.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-03 05:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-25 10:57 pm (UTC)And if they aren't, then the cats somehow know and will attach themselves to those people purely out of spite.
This is so very true. I have a house full of cats, and whenever we have company, they flock to the person who likes them least or has the worst allergy.
This is the most recent feral to attach himself to me.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-03 05:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-26 02:01 am (UTC)Congrats on finally finding a place. And barn cats that come with the house are always awesome. Mine was named Saddle. lol
no subject
Date: 2010-11-03 05:50 am (UTC)