Miss Kitty

One day, a couple of years back, a stray cat wandered into my yard to look for all the goodies and tidbits my ivy garden had to offer. It then crept off to investigate my neighbors yard for any desserts that might have escaped her watchful eye. Feeling sorry for this cat was not an emotion I would need to have for long. My neighbor has a softer heart than mine, and she adopted the kitty almost immediately. She went through the pains of having it checked for diseases, had it spayed and cleaned and loaded her pantry with the best of treats and food.

All this has not been in vain, as Miss Kitty (now named) has been a blessing to both of our yards.
She is a natural hunter, and no creature escapes unscathed of her basic instincts. Her only drawback is that she is not a friendly kitty. She is much too independent to walk up to anyone for a scratch behind the ears or a rub on the belly. It's not that there are more important agendas to attend to, she is just self-governing with her time and who she spends it with. If you are in charge of feeding her, while her folks go away, she prances around you with all the mastery of a grateful child, otherwise, she will have nothing to do with you.

Well, with all the treats that live in the wilds of my yard, and the neighborhood, she has landed herself a plethora of food abundance.... not to mention the regular meals she gets from her cat dish. Needless to say, this once abandoned scrawny cat is now a waddling, well filled out feline... still fit to capture and destroy any critter who crosses her path. I am grateful for that, as I have a true hate for snakes and rats... a specialty on her hunting expeditions.

I once had a terrible time with a roof rat that just didn't know the meaning of pest control. No matter what my Orkin man did, the rat was smarter. We stuck out big glue traps, of which it was still able to escape from... something I witnessed first hand. What to do? It was only a matter of time, and greed on the rats part, that Miss Kitty came to the rescue for me. I only needed to wait for the two to meet, and they did. I witnessed that too... only the rat didn't have much to say as it was now embedded in the cats mouth, fully dead. Yeah, I guess I should have felt a little bad, but no, I'm a nature lover that still has some limits.

So I reap the benefits of having a natural pest control patrolling my yard, without all the fuss of buying cat food, treats and toys. Best part of the bargain is that Miss Kitty brings back her days catch to my neighbor, but (as mentioned in a previous post) refuses to do it if her folks go away on vacation. I can't blame her for that as the best part of the catch is being able to show it off, and with no one around for her to brag to, she tends to leave little dead bodies where she last had her way with them.... walking off to newer hunting horizons. That leaves me with the "find" and a plea to my husband to get the shovel out. No, not to bury it, but rather to chuck it back into the ivy from whence it first came before it was innocent enough to cross the path of the cat.

I have become a cat lover over the years, and really enjoy the fact that they are as independent
an animal as you will ever meet. Never mind my Leo background, and the natural tendency to gravitate to felines in general. I just find that Miss Kitty has taught me a few lessons in this odyssey we call life. Left alone to do what we do best, reaps many benefits in the long run, and independence is truly a strong trait that allows one to be all they can be. So if we travel along the road to find the "rats and snakes" of the world, we need to be strong in the resolve that, like a cat, it's purely a search and destroy mission we are after... nothing personal, mind you..... it's just a job that needs to be done.