Let’s say you live alone. Let’s also say you have only pets that live outside. Those outside pets are cats to keep all the mouses on the outside of your house.Let’s add to that, you came home from a few days away and in unloading your vehicle you left your back door open just a titch as you go in and out. Then…
Trina Machacek
A day of driving about three hundred or so miles, getting home late in the afternoon and having your suitcase and of course groceries and other purchases to put away you—okay me, it was me. I was tired and went to bed as soon as the groceries that needed to go into the refrigerator were in the refrigerator. Home again, in my own bed with my own pillow. Head hits the pillow and I am out! Soft little snores might be emitted. Hey, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!
Along around 3 a.m. there is a low, guttural “merrow” and I am awake holding up my head off my now hot pillow. I think, well that cat is not happy, and man it sounds really close through my open window. I turned the pillow over, to get the cooler side up, and splash back into the pillow’s softness. Then not two minutes later, “MERRRROOOW.” Now I am fully awake because the voice is inside—in my bedroom.
But! “Yes, a cat calling “but.” I surmise in that second arousal, that I may, just might have a somewhat feral cat loose in the house. Yes, I have a cat calling out, “Attention Hooman, there is a problem that needs your attention.”
My cats are friendly, to me. Just not hold and snuggle friendly. In other words they do not like to be caught let alone picked up. Did I mention it was 3 a.m.? This however is not my first free range animal in my house rodeo, so the first thing I do is close the bedroom door. At least the scaredy cat wouldn’t be able to escape and be chased all over the house. He had this one room to escape my clutches. Talking ever so calm and non-aggressively I finally see him behind the partially open curtain, sitting at the open, but screened window. He is beginning to calm down and even starts talking back to me. His meows getting slower and quieter.
Slowly I move, talking ever so “poor kitty” words. He knows who I am. He is however on high alert to run. But I persist and am soon petting him and talking and planning my next move.
I learned a long time ago how to put a scared cat in neutral if and when you catch one. Knowing that neutral is the only way to handle a free-range cat caught in your bedroom in the middle of the night! You act like a momma cat and take hold of them by the scruff of their neck. If the moon and all the stars are lined up, the wind is from the northwest and there is a bit of a chill in the air. Only then will the cat just freeze and hang there until you get it to the back door and gently let him go. Then? He will shoot out of your grip. Faster than a speeding bullet, like Superman, uh Super-cat. Whew.
I went back to bed but sleep was not waiting for me. I began to think about living a rural life. I have of course set, trapped and snapped my fair share of mice into never-never land. I have also chased a live mouse around in my bathroom until it left in the same hole it came in through. Then I nailed a tin can lid over that hole. I have chased a chipmunk around inside a tent until it was herded out the half-unzipped door. I have on foot in the middle of the night, herded a 2000-pound bull off my lawn around my 5 acres and out the gate. I have shooed a couple of full grown, fat, cat food eating, skunks away from the back deck—without so much as a psssst of a spray. I have talked to an antelope that was in the yard until he got tired of the conversation and scooted away going under a 5-wire barbed wire fence. (No, they do not lightly and beautifully jump a fence like deer do.) This is not to mention the cows, sheep, chickens, geese, ducks, dogs and cats, little to HUGE birds, and all of Old McDonald’s full line of animals we rural peeps interact with.
Yes, the rural life never sees a dull day, or night.
Trina lives in Diamond Valley, north of Eureka, Nevada. She loves to hear from readers. Email her at itybytrina@yahoo.com
