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Wednesday, July 13, 2011

the knitty gritty kitties...

Cats are the supermodels of the animal kingdom. They are photogenic wherever you find them. They lounge, and pout, and look at you with that beautiful predatory gaze. They love to wander into photo ops, casually wrapping around an ankle or draping themselves across a still life display.
Miss Doolin is named for the tiny town in Ireland where I spent 3 happy days, wandering from pub to pub, washing my clothes in a sink and hanging them out to dry in the April sunshine. Here, she acts casual while looking fetching in her natural surroundings.

Camino, named for the fair-trade chocolate, is a most astonishing shade of chocolate brown. She came to us as a tiny kitten, hissing and spitting in a cage. I alomst gave up hope that she could be tamed, but after days of determined cuddling and contact with the kids, she has grown into the most loving, and might I add, beautiful of all our cats.
Jupiter, aka the Guardian of the Porch, has been with us for going on 8 years. He is affectionately known as "The Big, Fat Poopoo", due to his astoundingly swingy belly. He mostly sleeps and puts up with the adoration of Camino, who thinks he is her mother.

To me, cats are essential on a farm, not only to catch mice and other pests, but to sit around looking all picturesque on fence posts, on old rocking chairs, in barn doorways, and in flower beds.

Nice work if you can get it...

7 comments:

  1. You're absolutely right! And what a job it is. You have some really beautiful cats.

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  2. I LOVE that last photo!!!! And I LOVE cats. Camino really is the most beautiful kitty ever, with the coolest name to boot. I'm saying this out of earshot of my own farm kitties. I'm thoughtful like that.

    I once saw a comic strip that went something like this: An old workhorse asked a fence-post-sitting cat, "What do you do at the farm?" The languid cat responded, "Do?" The horse then grumbled about the cats having a better union.

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  3. My grandmother, who isn't much of a cat person, discovered that one of her barn cats liked to catch bats (Grama hates bats)...she treated that kitty like GOLD in exchange for his bat-control services. The other barn cats got food and water and sometimes milk, but Bat Catcher got the best of the best at all times. Still makes me giggle when I think of how Grama pampered that cat.

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  4. What a gorgeous post! I love it!! We LOVE cats here, we have two, one we rescued as a kitten called Olive and a really fluffy marmalade one called Charlie. Our lives wouldn't be the same without them. Your cats are amazing:)
    Good luck with your art show:)
    Warmly
    Linda

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  5. such beautiful, peaceful creatures!

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  6. I love Jupiter and routinely look at his photo. He's my favourite, and my V's favourite too! ;o)

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  7. Our house is not a cat house. I wish we were. but we have dogs and thats just who we are. I think if my husband liked cats more, we would get a cat. But the thought of litter boxes in the house freak both of us out. And since we live in the city I would NEVER have an outdoor cat. To many things to worry about and I would never sleep with my kitty being outside.

    but that being said, I do love kitties and yours are lovely.

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