Every Picture Has A Story To Tell...

...and this pair certainly have a Tall tail to tell. Can you imagine what kind of story?

Look at the pictures and try to guess. 

I will tell you the story tomorrow.

Catspaw

Its A Molly-Sneak!

I can always tell when Molly is bored, she picks up and plays with the blue plastic ring from a peanut butter jar, happily yowling and chattering to herself while racing after it, getting it lost under the mini carpet in the kitchen or tossing it in the air. 
Other times she amuses herself sneaking up on an unsuspecting Sassy. Its funny to watch as she stealthily picks her time to give Sassy a 'what for' swat and waits to the predictable reaction. 

Molly's stealthy sneak on Sassy...

Sassy's predictable snarl and yip reaction

...

...leads to their mutual distrust of each other.

Life is never boring living with 4 cats! 

Catspaw

Bereavement and Loss

It was a warm day in early October of 2010 when we prepared to set out on our cross Canada road trip to Prince Edward Island, where we were to live with Merrill’s ninety something mother. I had been packing for a month when we finally got everything we were taking crammed in. We said our goodbye’s to our friends and loaded the two cat cages in my van. 

We set out from Penhold, Alberta this fine, sunny morning with two overloaded vehicles and an almost bursting trailer with a handmade box hitched to Merrill’s van. The three noisy and complaining cats; Boo, Molly and Sassy, were none too pleased to be locked inside their carriers; Molly and Sassy were small enough to share. Actually it started out ok but then Boo decided he did want to play road trip anymore he started with a yowly complaint which got his companions doing the same. Have you ever been cooped up with three caterwauling, wailing cats that just want to go back home?  For a week no less! 

We stopped in Hannah, Alberta where little Molly got away on us and we had to gain the assistance of a kind gentlemen in a local lumber yard to use her leash to pull her out from under a huge lumber pile that look as though it could have collapsed on her, otherwise she would have become a permanent resident of that little town!  The whole scary scene was not lost on Sassy or Boo and after that, all three of them balked at the very notion of leaving the sanctity of their carriers; for the rest of the six days we were on the road they had to pulled out just to clean their confines. 

It was a blessing that the rest of the trip was largely and in seven days, we arrived. It was like another planet to them as they cautiously crept out of the carriers and into the room we were to call our own; they didn’t know what to make of the change. 

During the next two years they learned where home was when they were outside and usually stayed close other than investigating the only neighbor we had who lived across the road from us in large home with its expansive yard or the massive field behind the house where the owners grew potatoes. Sometimes I’d see them out in the small cemetery next to the house, catching mice. I could always call them in and when they hesitated, a shake of their treat bag never failed. They got used to being outside again and I never had any real problem with getting them in but lately Merrill’s mother was getting very forgetful and letting Boo out at night. Usually all my cats were indoors before the sun went down but I was working nights and Merrill usually got home late. He had absolutely refused to come in when called. 

The phone was for me that morning. Through a fog the neighbor was telling me she saw a black cat that she thought was dead just outside her yard… this sent me flying out the door and running across the road. It was Boo. 

My baby Boo and his brother Greymalk; I had found them both one winter in a freezing barn on a farm we were living on in Alberta. The mother was skin and bones and all her other kittens had died, their little wasted bodies strewn around the snow crusted yard. A visitor to the farm took the mother cat to a cattle and horse auction where she apparently found a home and did well. Her two tiny kittens, one completely grey with a little white mark on his head; the other black with a little white under his chin, were left screaming in the barn. The tiny black kitten, whose eyes were sealed shut from neglect, came screaming towards any source of noise hoping to find his mother and survival. That day he found me. 

I bundled them up and took them home, nursed them back to health and they became our first pets in Alberta. Some years before our move to the island and before Sassy’s time I lost Greymalk, now I had lost Boo as well. There was little to console me. Boo was a very special animal and I missed him dearly. It turned out that Sassy had a surprise in store for us that would honor her friend and companion Boo and help heal the wounds of losing him.

Catspaw

Molly's Introduction

Cat Friend One

There’s this noise that becomes a scratching, then a weight against my back; my cats are up before I am again this morning and are unobtrusively demanding that I rise to greet the day with them. What does it mean when Emerald sits on top of me, batting my nose at 6 am? Is it a ‘get up already and feed me!’ or a ‘good morning, I clicked the button and the coffee is on.’ You can almost hear the sing-song in her meow, almost.

I’m up. Sassy wants outside, Molly wants to be left alone, Emerald is demanding her treat and laid back Winston is just waiting for something to happen; another typical day in the Stewart household. All four have completely different personalities that clash, rather loudly and dramatically at times. Molly is my drama queen, Emerald is a very moody princess; if there was a cat click, she’d be the one dominating it!  Sassy is the ever practical wise mother/matron and Winston, my schoolboy, just seems confused most of the time about what the big deal is between these three girls. So that’s our warm and fuzzy family. 

I will introduce Molly first. Merrill surprised me with this little bundle of delight just after we lost one of our beloved males one night to a car on the dirt road outside our trailer in Alberta. She was a tiny black and white kitten that grew up with Boo, our remaining male. Boo looked over his whiskers at an over- enthusiastic, bouncy kitten who had moved in just when he’d just lost his brother Greymalk but by the time she was half grown they were inseparable; buddies to the end!  Molly turned out to be rather too clever for her own good at times, even as a baby she’d get herself into trouble with her escapades. Oh the tribulations! 

She was originally raised to be an indoor cat; safety, longer life, health issues and all that. But she would jealously watch whenever Boo was let outside then she’d send up a pitiful wail all full of ‘Life’s just not fair!’ and hammer at the door until it was showing signs of being shredded, after that she dashed from window to window trying to see where Boo was outside. I remember her silently and resolutely plotting my downfall as she sat and scornfully glared at me; seeing I was unmoved by this expression of harrumph she adopted another scheme and would follow me from room to room as I opened the windows early on hot days to cool the trailer. Somewhere in her mind’s eye a strategy was forming.  

Maybe, just maybe if she pushed hard enough on the mesh that covered the open window, she could tear a hole in it and get outside. I became suspicious of her designs on my window screens too late when I realized she was suddenly and unusually too quiet, I went to check on her. Yep, that’s exactly what she did. Now a lovely cool breeze was coming through the flapping mesh along with every flying bug in the neighborhood to take up residence in my spare room. Arrrg!

One Saturday morning when Merrill was working on adjusting the pipes from the hot water heater to the underground tubing under the trailer, Molly found this a fascinating occupation to watch. She also found that she could just squeeze her little body through the opening and the great outdoors awaited. Unfortunately, it was later in the evening while I was wondering where she’d gotten herself to that I realized she might have gotten outside again. That sent hubby out the door, at my express command to crawl under the trailer with a flash light to find her, sitting rather uncertainly, on the end of the pipe at 10 o’clock at night and mount a rescue operation.

Eventually I just gave up and let her go out on supervised excursions when I was working in the garden. She quickly improved her techniques for avoiding capture when it was time to come in but Boo usually knew where she was and kept an eye on her. How she loved being outdoors exploring every nook and cranny of her environment.  

Thus started many an adventure with our new companion and family member that would eventually take us all on a cross Canada road trip from Penhold, AB to Prince Edward Island and to new, more bizarre adventures. 

Catspaw