I remember long ago the summers of my youth on a farm. Back there and back then a farm really was a farm. No matter what you said you raised as a farmer, you always had a barn with livestock. You may have told the world you were a corn and soybean farmer, but you still had a few head of cattle, sheep, and/or hogs in a barn. When the kids got big enough they were assigned the chores of feeding, bailing hay, and cleaning out the barn in the spring and the fall.
Everyone had a barn. Every barn with livestock had one thing in common, cats magically grew there. We called them “barn kitties.” They were never house pets and most weren’t friendly enough to even pet, but you always made sure they had food. Barn kitties were unbelievably skilled at drinking out of the water tanks you kept full for the livestock and the straw on the barn floor made for a massive litter box.
It didn’t matter if your mother or father hated cats, barn kitties were necessary, the more you had the fewer mice and rats you noticed. Barn kitties had another magic trait. Whenever a reasonably friendly female cat brought her litter out for the first time they were cherished by all for what they were, precious little things that wouldn’t be with us long. Barn kitties were nomads. While you might get one or two females to stick around if the table scraps were good, most roamed farm to farm. One of your favorites would simply disappear one day and some time later you would bail hay for a neighbor only to see it again.
While it may seem horrid to many reading this, whenever the mulberries were in season and we didn’t have other chores, we would spend time sitting under those trees waiting for the hoards of starlings that would fly in every 15 minutes it seemed. Whenever the first pellet or BB gun rang out, the barn kitties would swarm towards its sound. They knew the friendliest of them would be dining on some very tasty treats and the best way to get one of those treats was to be there when it fell. Some of the kitties got so accustomed to that food they couldn’t wait for us to have a day off. They would climb those trees themselves and dive out when the flock came in for a landing. On numerous occasions we saw one gray barn kitty snag one, and sometimes two mid air and still some how manage to land on its feet.
Yes, we had dogs as pets. Some would chase the cats, others wouldn’t. The cats, however, kept us as pets. If more than a few days went by without them getting some table scraps or aging milk in addition to their bulk dry cat food, they would come to the house. Mom hated cats at the house. The cats knew this. As soon as she saw them gathering outside she would start rummaging through the fridge and hand one of us something saying “it seems the cats haven’t been fed in a while.” That phrase always generated a pitiful “what about me” look from the dog. Personally I think the dog had an arrangement with the cats.
The livestock left the farm long ago. In truth it left most farms if they don’t have kids old enough to be in FFA (Future Farmers of America) or 4H. With the exodus of the livestock, the barn lost its magical ability to randomly generate new barn kitties. One or two would appear for a brief time, but no matter how you fed them, they didn’t stick around. Eventually the barn left and was replaced by a new implement shed.
A stone water dish we used to use for lambs to drink out of now sits by a hydrant in my yard. I fill it twice per day when I’m working in my office. I say it is for the dog, but he rarely drinks out of it. Mostly the squirrels, rabbits, and robins use it as a regular source of fresh water. If I have been lax in my duties there are four robins that appear to have little fear of me who perch on it and stare at me as I leave my office. They have me trained well as I always dump and fill it when I see that. Over at my parents house there is a bird bath in the yard near the kitchen window. It appears the robins know the exact moment mom is doing dishes. They perch on the rim of the bird bath and stare directly into the kitchen window being certain to make eye contact with you. As a result the bird bath gets filled after dishes.
Robins aren’t nearly as entertaining as barn kitties, but I’m glad something is still keeping us as pets.
