Saturday Stuff

The past two days have been so very nice... sunny and warm, a slight breeze... temperatures getting close to 70 degrees. Perfect winter days.

The neighbor's horse across the road... he was near the fence line the other day, looking over at our property and looking quite sad. I quickly got an apple and sliced it into quarters and walked across the road and up to the horse. (The horse doesn't have a name, by the way... that neighbor isn't into naming his livestock, nor even his pets.)

That poor horse... covered in mud and bits of hay from his mane to his tail... after all the rain we had, I guess he couldn't escape the mud in the fields over there. And I would bet the farm that the neighbor doesn't bother grooming the horse, since he barely 'grooms' himself.  I offered the apple slices to the horse... he smelled the apples but wouldn't take the pieces... he just stood there looking at me with the saddest eyes. I talked to him for a bit, offered the apple slices again, but he didn't even bother to smell them the second time. I tossed them into the grass on his side of the fence, and just hoped that he would enjoy them when I walked back to our own property.

That orange cat.... give me strength. No matter how long we have this cat here, I just cannot feel as if he is 'our' cat. And that cat, no matter how many hours he spends on our porch, no matter how many bowls of Meow Mix he consumes, and no matter how many nights he sleeps in that cat-bed out on the porch... he just doesn't realize that we're not here to hurt him, we're trying to help him.... and he still swipes at my legs when I walk by, and tries to claw my wrist as I put down the bowl of cat food.

So many times, I've said "NO!" to that cat as he tries to get me, and he'll look at me with those golden eyes that just won't soften up a bit.  That orange cat has a mind-set of a feral, and even though our little friend Miss C feels that he "wants a family but doesn't know how to get one," I know for certain that one of these days, that orange cat is going to carve his initials into my leg.... "O. C." will be engraved on my shin, for all the cat-world to see.

And you would think that after all his time (over a year now) our two outside cats (Mickey and Gatsby) would have gotten used to that orange cat. Not a chance... both of them continue to hiss and spit and howl whenever they get within three feet of that blasted cat. Even the cats don't trust that furry orange terror.

Giving the orange cat a name (Pumpkin Kitty) hasn't worked... he doesn't feel like our cat, he doesn't act like our cat.... and there's no way I can stop myself from just calling him That Orange Cat. So I guess that, in itself, is his name.

I've said it before, and I'll repeat myself here.... if I can get that orange cat into a carrier or a box, he is out of here... I'd drive to the shelter with him so fast that his whiskers would be blowing in the breeze.