31 January

A Picture I Never Thought I’d Take

by Jon Katz
The Picture I Never Thought I'd Take
The Picture I Never Thought I’d Take

There are some photos I never thought I would ever take, and this is one of them.  For most of my time with her, Frieda was a hunter and a cat chaser, even killer. Whenever she could, she would hunt the cats, she nearly killed Mother, our other barn cat and chased Minnie up a pole a dozen times.

Frieda lived in the Adirondacks for years, and even whens he was with us, she hunted rabbits, raccoons, chipmunks, moles, skunks – and killed many of them. Minnie has decided to be friends with her, and Flo took one look at her and swatted her in the nose. Since then, they have been circling one another, Frieda has avoided the cats, they often avoid her.

And Minnie and Flo are both barn cats, hardy, resilient, wary. Even six months ago, I would have bet this would never happen.

This morning – it is frigid here – we came into the living room and saw the three of them all huddled up together. In my years with Frieda, I have never imagined her lying down on a dog bed with a cat. A photo I never thought I would ever take, but was happy to be able to.

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