When The Going Gets Tough

Our herd of feral or semi-feral barn cats are an eclectic collection. There is the big tom, a noisy Siamese-looking fella that yells his name rather than meow. You can hear him coming from the far fence line at meal time, “Me, Me, Me” and normally trailing along with him is the youngster that mimics his every move, Shadow. Then there is the mama calico with the distinct light coloring on one side of her face and dark on the other, we call her Half Face. There are two that are kind of striped, one with a more orange color in the background of the stripes. We don’t have names for them other than The Striped Ones, it’s a good thing they usually hang together. Then there is the youngest one, the baby of Half Face, he/she/it (haven’t gotten close enough to find out) looks like a toned down version of the big tom Siamese. The blue-ish eyes are there but the coloring in eyes and body is more washed out variety, not as intense as the dramatic tom, and it has two white feet inherited from the maternal side of the menagerie. We call this one Light as in lighter version of the male.

Even though I can touch most of the critters during their chow time, they whole bunch is pretty sketchy and no other humans can even get that close. An odd noise in the barn, like dropping a bucket or moving a hay bale, can send the bunch into a frantic cat scatter leaving kibble dispersed wildly across the cement flooring.

I am not sure what caused the panic the other day, but cats flew in all directions from the feeding pans. When the dust and cats settled, one of the Striped Ones had found himself safe from the fright, inside one of the empty buckets I had by the gate. This adult cat filled the bucket, but it stayed in place until the rest of them regrouped around the feed and all sign of danger had passed before gingerly extricating himself with tiptoe dexterity.

That kind of sums up my lifestyle over the last few months, I found a safe bucket here at the farm and just have been hunkering down until the coast is clear…

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