I thought Barney’s food was disappearing awfully fast.
Barney is the cat that adopted us, and Ginnie and I love him. We took him to the vet and had him fixed and given shots. He didn’t seem to mind. He’s less than a year old and splits time between indoors and out, although he prefers outdoors by far. Every farm needs a farm cat. On Ginnie’s insistence, I got Barney a litter box, but he ignored it, so I moved it to the garage.
Consequently, Barney spends most of his time outdoors. He loves doing chores with me and follows me around from feeding Blossom, our heifer, to gathering eggs. Blossom seems quite interested in Barney, which is a funny sight — an 800-pound heifer following a three-pound cat.
At first, I kept Barney’s food and water out in the barn, after all, he was “Barney the Barn Cat.” Taking care of him was just another chore on my morning-and-evening chore route. I watched Barney snare a mouse in the barn, and knew he was a keeper.
But his food seemed to disappear awfully fast, so I moved it to the garage. Ginnie made him a little bed, which he utilized with much purring and bath taking. We kept the garage door open a crack so he could get in and out. Life was good for Barney the Barn Cat.
Then Barney’s food in the garage also began disappearing. Raccoon? Another cat? I happened to catch a movement out of the corner of my eye. Yep, there was another cat. It was a black cat. No, it was gray. There were two extra cats! They were a little younger than Barney — kittens really, and awfully shy.
Barney began complaining a lot. He wasn’t getting enough to eat because the other cats were snarfing it. This wasn’t good. Something needed to be done. I should have known — you never have just one farm cat. But what to do?
I noticed with chagrin that the stray cats were using the litter box I had left in the garage like they were trying to demonstrate that they could be good house cats. Hmm.
I remembered the live animal trap we had. I had used it to catch a marauding mink that was killing our hens. I set the trap in the garage and placed cat food in it. While I did chores, I kept Barney in the house so that I wouldn’t catch him. When I returned from doing chores, sure ‘nuff, I had caught the two stray cats, one black, one gray. I couldn’t believe I had caught both of the strays at once. I figured it was going to be a one-at-a-time process. But nope.
Now, what to do? I put a notice on social media asking if anyone wanted a couple of kittens. There were a couple of nibbles, but no takers. So, the two stray kittens got a free ride to the Henry County Veterinarian Hospital. There, they will be put up for adoption. Ginnie and I hope they find a nice home — they are pretty cute. And litter trained!
Maybe, just maybe, the stray cats have taught Barney something — how to use the litter box. We can always hope.
Contact Curt Swarm in Mt. Pleasant
at curtswarm@yahoo.com