June 11, 2024

Oh, to be in mountain-land, now that June is here!

June has been a relatively tranquil month on the farm (so far). We are blessed with beautiful bright sunshiny days, cool nights, and lots of lush green grass. The farmer girl wades out through the long grass each day to care for the hens. She walks on soft aromatic wild chamomile; a treat for the feet as well as the nose.

Most of the stock is out on grass and graze peacefully and contentedly. None of the hijinks common to cooped-up winter days and early spring freedom that goes to our heads. Even Mandie, a dry cow still believing her place is in the milking parlor each and every time the door opens, is easy to handle. Life would be dull indeed were it not for Abigail, the mama cat. Abigail makes sure the farm family keeps on their toes.

Abigail may have been born in a hay barn, but she aspires to greater things. She herself would do well as a housecat. Definitely her kittens deserve better than that dirty barn. Why, it’s full of hay and there are… gasp… spiderwebs in the corners! To say nothing of the dirty sparrows and pigeons that nest in the rafters.

Abigail keeps going down in the world. She wanted a nest in the house for the kittens but was obliged to settle for a new couch in the storage building. She moved them under a large hosta in the flowerbed right outside the front door a few weeks after birth, thinking that this new home would allow her to keep her favorite position on the front porch and still have the kittens nearby. However, a rainstorm forced her to rethink the suitability of this home and move them back to the outbuilding.

Since the kittens have grown older, and larger, and are more active they get into anything and everything in the building. Farmer girl has finally had enough.

“These kittens must go!” said the farmer girl, and she gathered them up and took them down to the haybarn. The kittens were enchanted with their new home. The floor is carpeted with soft sweet-smelling hay… there are mountains of hay everywhere… there are millions of hiding places in case something large and scary appears, and the best hiding place of all is a stack of building lumber along the side! The kittens sleep in dark secure corners of the pile and spend their days playing in the hay. What a good playground the barn makes! There are hay-mountains you climb up and look down on your littermates. You jump down from a hay-mountain to ambush an unsuspecting playmate! You swat at the hay and it swats back! Oh, what fun! We will play all day, said the kittens.

Abigail had other ideas. And mama knows best! Mama groomed little Thomas after his meal. She washed his face, his ears, and his neck. Thomas made no protest. He liked having his face washed. He did not like what Mama did next.

Abigail picked Thomas up by the scruff of his neck, like all mama cats carry their babies. A kitten’s instinct when they are picked up by their scruff is to go limp and unresisting. It seems to work for most mama cats, but this litter is either too large for Abigail to handle (she is a very small cat) or too mouthy and strong-willed. It is probably both. Mama is strong-willed, and so is the kittens’ father.

Thomas squalls loudly. He wriggles and squirms. He squalls so loudly the farmer girl hears the procession advancing across the barnyard towards the front door of the farmhouse. She opens the door and looks out. “Abigail!” she calls. “Let poor Thomas go!”

Mama cat stops and looks at the farmer girl, and Thomas takes advantage of this pause to slip out of Mama’s grasp and run at full speed back to the hay barn. Much good it does him, because he has been crawling around in the hostas early Monday morning mewing loudly…. Mama had brought him back again, despite the farmer girl taking pity on Thomas and carrying him back to the hay barn to his littermates and their nice nest. And less you think Mama only picks on Thomas, let me tell you that Kobie and Sarey both have their turns being carted around by their scruff to places they had rather not go… Mama believes in equal opportunity for all.

The farmer still has scars from the day he opened the front door to find Mama in front of him with a squalling burden in her mouth. “No!” the farmer yelled, and put a foot in Mama’s path. Mama dodged the foot neatly, steaming purposefully through the door. “No!” the farmer yelled again, skipping to his other foot to block Mama’s new path. Mama dodged him again!

But the farm family still lives in kittenless peace in the farmhouse, and the kittens still sleep and play freely in the lumber pile hiding place, and Mama still strives for a changed world.