Calling In The Backups

Gone are the days of the mouse infested barns.

Growing up on Green Acres, we always had barn cats.  And me, being a huge animal lover, took care of each one.  I was the cat queen.  In fact, so much so that I caught Cat Scratch Fever.  Yes it's real, but I think I'll save that story for another day, another post.

I'm pretty sure at one time we had well over 20 cats and kittens.  That's an obscene amount of barn cats to have at one time and is almost cat hoarders level.  As I grew older, I became less of a cat guru and more of a dog and cow lover.  Our cat numbers dropped off and hit an all time low this past year.  We had no barn cats.  None, zilch, zero.  

In the absence of a stealth mouse killing squad, the rodent population skyrocketed.  They started burrowing into our corn and making homes in the cracks in the concrete barn floor.  You couldn't pick up a bucket with out a mouse running out from under it.  It was an icky-yucky-eek situation all rolled into one.

My dad tried catching wild town cats and bringing them out to our barns.  But who really wants to be the lone cat living in a big barn?  Most would disappear by the next day or two.

Finally, two good friends of my dads brought out 2 cats apiece.  That makes a total of 4 new cats taking residence in Green Acre's barns.  In a totally unrelated coincidence,  all 4 of them are pure white.  I also should mention we also have 2 other cats that occasionally drift into our barns... a calico and a cat with no ears.  I have yet to see this cat with no ears, but my dad insists he exists.  

So here are the newest addition to our barns and hopefully, with time, they will become seasoned mice killers.  I've already noticed quite a drop in the mouse population.  Also, I really have no clue if these kitties are boys or girls, I think most are girls, but I call all of them hims and hes.  Please disregard my lack of general respect for kitty gender.

This is my buddy.  In fact, I've started calling him Budrow.  He's the tamest of the 4.  I saved him out of a tree the other day and I think he feels some sort of kitty gratitude towards me.  Also notice he has two different colored eyes!  I'd never seen that before, and now we have two cats with different color eyes.  Actually kind of spooky.

This is Budrow's buddy, we'll call him BB for short.  He's a little more skittish, but will still let you get close enough for a good head scratchin'.

Here is one of the other pair and he also has two different colored eyes.  I wish I could have gotten close enough to take a good picture because his eyes are so starkly different.  One is ice, ice baby blue and the other is a dark green.  This pair is much less apt to let you get within touching distance, but will look at your with big questioning eyes from a safe ten feet away.

Last but not least is the fluff monster.  He's mean to Budrow and BB and just seems to be spiteful about life in general, so I've given him the name fluff monster.

No this isn't a kitty.  But I liked the picture so I thought I'd share!  Until next time, keeping it real and hanging loose with the kitties.