An average afternoon delight as I sit at my kitchen table and eating grapes and watching our cats watching the finches. It's only a moment that passes before Sesame is circling my feet with the most annoying mew (high pitched and stuttering) until I get up to let them outside.
Lokes is the first mouser on the farm, and she couldn't have come at a more perfect time! Just fresh from the city, living alone in the middle of the woods in a new town. I was sleeping one night and I heard a noise in the kitchen, after getting up several times I figured out it was a mouse. So I set a trap... the next day it was 4 am and I hear a 'clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk' I slowly approach the kitchen to find this little mouse with it's tiny head stuck in the trap but trying to push it's way out. All I could picture was an old cartoon, and I could swear the trap read ACME! Not only did it not snap the mouses neck, it seemed as if the mouse may have been strong enough to pry the trap off it's head. I thought eventually it would die or strangulation, so I left it for awhile. Tick, tick, tick... ok, damn-it, what do I do? I called Farmboy* in Colorado, he said to just kill the thing with a broom, but I could bring myself to do it mostly because I thought what the heck would a broom do, he also suggested a shoe, but I like my shoes too much to have them be murderers! So I scooped it up and put it down a sink hole in the driveway... with the trap still on it's head. After that I knew a cat was a good thing, allergic or not. Turned out she even got along great with the ferrets.
Sesame showed up last October... a drive and drop. She belonged to some one, she was clean, no bugs/ticks, and trimmed claws. It only took her 24 hours to wiggle her way into our home. It was touch and go at first if she would be a hunter (which if not, then there's no room for her here... jk) but when the warm weather settled in she was climbing trees and finding critters. She's a personality clone of our youngest dog, a pest with a heart of gold.
I believe they think they are dogs, just like our boys. The go out to relieve themselves, they come in to nap; they hunt all day and then come back at noon for lunch and 6 PM for dinner like clockwork. Until these two rascals joined us, I didn't know cats were so goofy. They wrestle each other, and then wind up in a tangle or hissing to end up licking each others like they were from the same litter.
They are both great hunters, Loki will take down chipmunks and squirrels and eat them in one sitting, while Sesame hunts mice and shrews, and of course the hummingbirds (that stinker)! Not many mice around here these days.
I have never seen either with a finch like the ones in the picture, but they sure do annoy the little birds! However, out here they are quick to run across open spaces because they know they are the prey too, but still there's nothing funnier than watching the sparrows dive bomb them relentlessly!
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