I always remind myself, pretty as they are, that these eyes are the last thing many creatures see in this world.

I’m devoting some space this weekend to the idea of work, for myself as well as for animals. Mother, my oldest barn cat, is a working animal, through and through. She was brought to the farm to help fend off a rat infestation – the rats were big, tough and fearless. They were all gone within weeks, even the biggest ones, so large my dogs would run from them.

Mother follows me everywhere, watches me from the meadows, sits near me and demands to be petted, but not held. She refuses to come into the house, even on the bitterest cold nights. She is the monarch of the barns, popping in and out of one, then the other, avoiding the many pitfalls of a barn cat’s life – coyotes, foxes, cars and trucks, hawks and stray dogs, hunters and crazy people who shoot barn cats.

She prowls at night, and in the morning, sleeps in the mid-day and early afternoon, appears and then disappears, sometimes for days at time. She kills beautiful birds, mice, moles, chipmunks, squirrels, spiders and snakes, and deposits their parts right by the back door for Maria and I to see. She is a merciless killer and loving companion, the great odd dichotomy of cats. One day she will probably not return, and that is the life of a barn cat, and I accept and respect it. I feed her at least once every day and she gets all of her shots each year. Beyond this, she is on her own, living her life, as she wants to live it. This weekend, I salute here and tomorrow, I’ll take Rose out and move some sheep around to honor another proud working creature on Labor Day Weekend. And I want to write about Frieda, who guards the farm so vigilantly.

And maybe the chickens, who eat so industriously and lay eggs. I said today they were dumb, and was soundly taken to task for that, so I willl have to reconsider this idea.