Rainy Day and Killer Cat

I saw one of the oddest things I have ever seen today, and I have seen some odd things in my life. One of the cats, a really good hunter, made a kill of a large rat late this morning; that is not so odd, he does that, kills big rats. What was odd about it is that it was a two-in-one kill. I was working in the garden a little, trying to get something done before it started raining. I heard a noise over by the trash pile and looked up to see my little cat with something in his mouth that was almost as big as he is. As I try to focus on it to see what he had, I see either a rat or squirrel depending on which of the things was its tail. It had what appeared to be a fuzzy tail and a thin mostly hairless one. Meanwhile the cat is walking at a quick clip to a better place to torture his prey.  He stopped just outside of the garden and so I walked over to clarify to myself what I was seeing. It was a rat, a big rat, and hanging off its rear-end was a smaller rat, fully furred but only about 1/5th the size of the big one. The little one hung on to the big one through quite a bit of abuse before it finally got knocked off. It was still alive but barely moved, maybe injury, maybe just plain fear. The cat walked a little ways away to finish off the big one and by this time he had collected a bit of an audience, me, Ron (and his eldest daughter via phone), three dogs, and two other cats. One of the cats tends to wait until "the hunter" is done and cleans up most of the remains, not that he doesn't hunt himself, it is just he gets more this way. I took a stick and flung the small rat his way, he got it. At this point it is starting to sprinkle and the odd spectacle of the double rat catch was over--I still don't get the little one hanging off the big one through the grabbing, the 5o or so yard fast-paced walk to the killing ground, and then the five or so minutes of abuse; it was not a baby, they are hairless, it was too small to consider mating with the big one and that is not the way it was hanging anyway. Just really odd.

Speaking of my little hunter, he has a funny thing he does. If it is dark or the weather really bad, he wants to bring his kills inside, many cats really try to do that, but I, of course, do not let him/them do this. But I discovered one stormy summer evening when I could not keep him out of the den, he would accept a box for it. I got a box big enough for him to move around but not too big, about the size of a case of bottled beer or soda. I put him with critter in mouth in the box, he jumped out at irst but I put him in again and he got it. Now he comes in and verbally demands a box instead of asking to go inside or letting it loose in the den where it could get lost. One time, not that long ago, we didn't have a box and he showed his disfavor by using a laundry basket, that was nasty to clean up. Now we make his boxes live longer by putting newspaper in the bottom and they can usually be reused.

The rain has stopped and I really ought to go see if there is any gardening I can get done. Because of my surgery the garden is way behind. We are going to have almost nothing this year. We do have some seedlings that need planted out and I do want to start some beans even if it is late, but the garden isn't ready for them yet. It is a really good thing we do not have to depend on it to eat (just to eat really good food) because last year we had a lot of stuff planted but so much got that weird curling and didn't produce well and now this year we just couldn't get done. It has been cooler than usual also, some things that enjoy heat are just stuck in limbo waiting for it to warm up. This is the only year I can think of that, when we have had an A/C, we did not turn it on in May. I can only think of two days I even considered it but it was already getting late and the sun would be down soon cooling everything, so it just never happened; here it is more than a week into June and still haven't used A/C. As a matter of fact, it is not supposed to get out of the mid-70's today. The first day of June we didn't make it out of the 60's. It is supposed to get into the 90's this week though so we will probably close the windows and turn the A/C on.

I am really starting to see why the surgeon kept saying about my hernia being big. I was loosing a lot weight prior to the surgery because I was having such trouble eating. I lost any fat I had and my muscle was disappearing, I was getting real skinny yet when I would sit, my belly would be in my lap; I didn't understand that but… Now, even though there is still a hint of swelling from being cut on, my belly is not in my lap. It is not flat, never will be again after two kids and the surgeries, but there is a significant difference. And I had an appointment, my last, with the surgeon last week, it is the first car ride I have taken in years that has not been an experiment in torture. I won't say it didn't hurt but the difference in pain is significant; the difference in an uncomfortable ride and living in fear of having to get into the car. And, yes and, I have not felt the eels in my guts since the surgery. Eels is the only thing that really describes the feelings, not worms, not snakes, it was eels and they are not there anymore. No wonder I was having so many problems, half of my guts were on the wrong side of the muscle wall.