Sweetbriar Farm, like most farms, has a collection of cats. Some were obtained in the conventional way of “house pets” as kittens; and some are wandering souls who don’t belong to anyone in particular, but happen to find short-term, or sometimes long-term, tenancy with us. Currently, we have 4.25 cats at Sweetbriar Farm. Four are essentially permanent residents, and one is a roamer who spends about 25% of his time with us. We have no clue where he is the other 75% of the time.
Of the four permanent residents, only one, Ollie, is a “house cat”. Technically, he is an “indoor/outdoor house cat”, as he has learned to use the doggie door and spends equal amounts of time indoors and outdoors. Ollie, a small-medium sized tuxedo cat, is a prolific hunter, and frequently brings his avian or reptilian prey into the house. Grammy, who has a tendency for renaming our animals, has unaffectionately dubbed Ollie as “Killer cat”. He also exhibits classic “Jekyll and Hyde” cat behavior of going from sweet to vicious in an instant. Since he came into the house with the dogs as a kitten, he learned to more or less peacefully coexist, mainly under Koda’s watchful protection.
Like any proper farm, we have a barn for the horses. There, on any given day, you can find at least two “barn cats”: Izzie (aka Oatmeal by Grammy) and Fluffy. The part-timer, we call Blackie or Black Cat (aka, Amos by Grammy) also frequents the barn on his brief visits. Izzie is the most interesting of the “barn cats”.
She is a medium-sized yellow tabby who came to us as an abandoned/orphan kitten and took up permanent residence in the barn with the horses. Izzie loves the horses, in general; and she has a special relationship with Jennifer’s Paso Fino, Jake, in particular. These two have quite a connection! At any given time you will usually find Izzie somewhere within 25 feet of Jake. When Jake is in his stall in the barn, Izzie will typically perch on the barn windowsill in his stall and often sleeps in the hay in the corner. When Jake is out in the pasture, Izzie follows him around like a “cow bird”. We have many pictures of Izzie and Jake over the years with Izzie sitting on a fence post right next to Jake’s head as though posing with her best friend.
Perhaps unique to Sweetbriar Farm, we also have a “garage cat”, named Delilah, who was once a house cat of Hailey’s when she lived in an apartment in Gainesville. When Delilah came to live with us, she was not greeted warmly by the “house dogs” nor was she welcome at the barn so she sort of naturally gravitated to the garage. She is a petite little grey tabby who has a funny little squeaky mew and lives a hermitic existence in the spaces between the barn and the house. Despite her solitary life, she is very affectionate and welcomes brief human attentions.
Other memorable cats have come and gone. Notably there was Inky and Shenna, who originally travelled by airplane and car, respectively, from my sister in Ohio; and actually made the big move with us from Jacksonville to Sweetbriar Farm. Then there was Tilly, who we originally thought was a girl, but later learned was a boy so we re-named him to be Mr. Tilly.
And perhaps the sweetest cat ever was Caesar. Caesar was an orange tabby who was brought home by the girls after church one night when our German exchange student, Franzie, was living with us. They said he was a stray, but deep down I fear that he may have actually been catnapped. Never has there been such a sweet cuddly loving cat! He was really more like a dog than a cat. Caesar would willingly let you pick him up and hold him, and he would nuzzle his head to your face or chest. He also had a strange habit of suckling on pillows, blankets, or even your clothes to the point that they would become wet. Unfortunately, there was an incident at the barn one day where I tried to pick Caesar up from off the counter one-handed and he flipped out of my grasp and struck his head on the side of the counter. From that point on, he was never quite the same about being picked up and handled, and he spent most of the time thereafter at the barn. Sadly, in the way of farm life, he disappeared one day and was never found, but will always be remembered. We prefer to think that he wandered off to be adapted by another loving family.
While I am definitely more of a dog person than a cat person, the cats do have their place in the order of things here at Sweetbriar Farm. Of all the animals, they are the most self-sustaining and require the least maintenance. Their presence does provide a sense of variety and counterbalance to the dogs. They have become fixtures in their own separate orbits and add diversity and character to the mix.
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