Mother tells Izzy to find another place to nap

  July 11, 2007 – I love Mother, my Barn Cat, and am grateful to her.
  An old farmer who lives in nearby Cossayuna came by this afternoon and remarked that he was amazed at how free of mice and rats Bedlam Farm was. I swelled with pride (and some asthma, too, I think). This, I said, is Mother’s doing. Mother is the barn cat I took in when my rat population threatened to drive the cows and donkeys out. I was sitting in my backyard with a .22 and a box of bullets, putting holes into old barnwood but hitting few, if any, of the giant rats who were terrorizing the place and popping in and out of burrows and stone fences. These were not like the adorable great chef rats in Ratatouille. They were big, mean and ravenous. Then Stanley, who used to work her, brought Mother, then one of his kittens and, reluctantly, I took in my first cat. I am a dog person, I remember muttering. What do I really want with a cat?
  Mother took to the dairy barn and has lived there (and in the coldest weather, the Carriage Barn, where the hay is stacked higher) since and is one of the most loving creatures I have ever met. The minute I step outside the farmhouse, she appears, demands attention and wraps herself around my feet. She loves to be stroked and cuddled and she trots alongside on many of the walks I take with the dogs. I bring her a cat of cat food ever day, and various fish and other delicacies.
  If you are a mouse, rat, chipmunk, mole, bird or snake, it’s another story. Mother is the Ted Bundy of Bedlam Farm, stalking, pouncing, slaughtering, torturing, generally wreaking havoc on the rodent population. She loves to sit by the bird feeders and pick off a songbird, torturing the poor thing for hours until Annie or I intervene. No squirrel dares come within 50 feet of my feeders. In fact, squirrels are rarely seen near the farmhouse.
   Mother is my living argument against people who think dogs and cats are just like us. No way.
    Even though she was a little thing when she came, the carcasses began piling up almost from the first, heads and body parts of rats and mice by the back door, in the road, in the barn. Even the Labs wouldn’t eat this stuff. In a few months, there were no rats or mice and Mother stalks the farm like the Queen Mum in Buckingham Palace, giving way to no rat or dog. She has finally, after two years, defied Rose, and sashays and waves her butt right in front of my imperious border collie. She pushes Izzy around continuously, making him get up and move during naps, as she did above. Emma the nervous border collie runs and hides at the sight of her.
  “I have a great cat,” I told the old farmer. “That’s why there are no mice and rats.”
  “Can I borrow her for a few weeks?” he asked. Not a chance, I said. Not a chance.