Marmalade is the latest cat to show up for food. He's pretty wild, having come around last year but not staying to have a snack then.
The problem of course is the dog. Although Beau lives with two indoor/outdoor/indoor/outdoor cats, he goes sort of berserk when any strange cat shows up. He lunges himself at the sliding glass door to the back deck. I'm trying to train him to accept another feline.
When Marmalade tamed down enough to let me pet him, I let Beau smell my hand to get the drift that I was fraternizing with the enemy outside. Once, I put Beau under restraint in a far room when the cat was eating. Usually, Marmalade comes after dark. One night, he was patiently waiting for grub while the snow gently covered his back. Poor baby!
At this point, I think this cat would come inside. However, there's the matter of lamp shades. Just last week, I replaced yet another one. A fly was buzzing around the light when Iris sprang for it, bringing the entire floor lamp down. She no doubt was emulating her African relatives.
A chase involving the big dog and a strange cat doesn't bear thinking about. I still recall the fiasco with the bat flying around the bedroom with two cats and the dog in hot pursuit.
There have been other wild cats here. There was Fluffy, the one with matted fur and Midnight, a black one that only came after dark. I prefer to believe that they migrated to other environs, rather than that they met with untimely ends. Chris tells me that my place has not been a haven for cats. Nine cats, even some indoor ones, have died or gone missing in the years since I've been here. Even though the playhouse has a cat door and a pillow on a table by a window, I have never seen one of the "wilds" using it.
The word "feral" is popular now, to describe homeless cats. Somehow it conveys a picture to me of a bobcat or a cougar. I did see bobcat tracks in the mud down at the river one summer, too cool.
Speaking of wild things, here is one of the resident 'possums. He was hiding from me in the chicken coop. Adorable though they are, they do like eggs, so I shooed this guy out before shutting up the flock for the night.
When I lived at the farm, I found a possum in one of the nest boxes, waiting for a hen to lay an egg in her opened mouth. I know it was a female, because I could see tiny pink babies in her pouch. That was a great treat for me.
Beau cannot resist possums. He acts like they are his favorite stuffed toy. He carries them around for a while and then, finding them strangely unresponsive, he lays them down. He must have a gentle mouth, though, because no matter how many times he gets one, it is able to recover shortly and waddle down to its home under the playhouse.
I sometimes toss over-ripe bananas or apples under the playhouse, just to help the possums get through the bug-less winter.The bigger one, possibly the mama to this one, is a beautiful silver. I don't name them, preferring to call them all "Sweetheart."
