The Birds and The Cats...

... and I'm sure there are some Bees out there as well.

As I type this, both outside cats (Mickey and Gatsby) are sound asleep on the table on the side of the back porch. We bought that table and two chairs at a flea market a few years ago, with the intention of having breakfast and lunch out there when the weather was nice enough. Problem with having meals outside was that when the temperature was too hot, we were just too uncomfortable. (Living in Texas gets you accustomed to air-conditioning very quickly.) And when the temperature was cooler, that meant it was windy and who wants the dust from the pastures blowing over one's lunch plate?

So we hardly used that table at all, and the cats took it over. I keep a tablecloth on it to make the old table look nicer, and then I put two of their pillow-beds out there to make the cats more comfortable and both Mickey and Gatsby jump on the chairs, then jump on top of the table, and settle into their beds for a nap.

As I passed the back window just now, both Mickey and Gatsby are sound asleep, mirror images of themselves, all curled up into that comma-shape that cats do so well and so often. On the porch railing, right near that table, there are two wrens just sitting there and watching the cats sleep. Those two particular wrens have taken over one of the nests made by our ever-returning barn swallows, and every evening the wrens settle into that same nest, but only after they perch on the railing for a while to study the cats.

Mickey must not see the wrens because without a doubt, he would be trying to capture them. Not to kill them, but to play with them and then let them go. The only thing he kills are the tiny geckos, which he eats. As if Fancy Feast isn't good enough for that cat? And Gatsby, even if he did see the wrens, he wouldn't bother them at all. I think he's wise enough to know that he's too old and too heavy to run and catch them so he doesn't even try. Gatsby is just content to watch the world go by and just be an observer of his universe.