Life on the Unfarm: an illustrated account

Max stalks his fat mouse/cherry

Cherries: they're not just for eating - they are also for playing with, according to Maximus. 

This morning found Maximus on one of his typical haunts: the kitchen counter. Despite being told (repeatedly) that he is not actually allowed on the counter he maintains that we must be mistaken. This is, after all, the best place from which to view Rat TV (which, despite our efforts to the contrary, is still airing occasionally), and how else is a small cat such as himself to get any milk, yogurt, ice cream, butter, etc if he is not where the food is: on the counter? 

Also on the counter this morning was a colander full of fresh cherries. Max sat in front of the colander and contemplated the cherries: they were small, and dark, and had tails (aka stems.) Just like his favorite wand toy, which he has currently chewed down to a disappointingly small nub. But fate has presented him with an opportunity - here sits a bowl full what can only be fat mice. He fished one out with his paw and dropped it onto the floor. From there he hopped down and batted it all over the kitchen. He then picked it up by the tail and carried it off into the living room to continue playing amongst his many other toys. He seemed quite proud of himself, and despite his multiple transgressions (on the counter, stealing food, throwing cherries around the living room carpet) our reprimands were half-hearted at best. Can you really be mad at someone so cute? So far the verdict is "no."

Life on the Unfarm: an illustrated account

The photos above offer definitive proof that Maximus is a true cat: no cat that I have ever lived with could resist sitting in a puzzle box. I must admit that Max is the first cat who has decided to entertain themselves by diving across the table, knocking half of the puzzle onto the floor. The first, also, to eat the pieces. If Maximus seems to be showing up a disproportionately large amount of the time in these photos from the Unfarm it is because he is a kitten, and by definition he can be found doing something amusing approximately 78 percent of the time. The rest of the time he's sleeping. He walked on the stereo in the master bedroom today and turned on "Dancing Queen." After he spent two minutes playing with the curtains he decided he'd had enough of the music and he turned it back off again.

Life on the Unfarm: an illustrated account

It's Monday, folks, which means that it's time for... pictures from the Unfarm of course! I call this one "You snooze, you lose." This is another common sight on the Unfarm - Maximus knows that the dogs get some canned food mixed in with their dry food during dinner time and he wants in on the action. The canned food is actually an incentive to get Maia to eat as her appetite has shrunk over the years - she is 18 now and entitled to a little special treatment. For her part, Maia is convinced that if she holds out long enough something even better will magically appear in her bowl. These items might include ham, chicken, eggs, cheese... you get the idea. So while Maia procrastinates Maximus takes advantage of her lapse of attention and scarfs down bits of meat and gravy until he is caught and sent out to the living room with his consolation prize of canned kitten food.

Maximus: our newest arrival on the Unfarm

As you may remember, last year the Unfarm took several hits including the loss of Aspen, bringing our cat population down to one. Or half, maybe, because Mynx is rarely seen by anyone but myself and you cannot really pet her, let alone pick her up.  She is convinced that any attempts at affection are in truth a thinly veiled threat: surely we mean to harm her in some horrible manner and she screams bloody murder until we set her down and she can bolt back under the bed. 

Mynx's attitude combined with the loss of Aspen six months prior had me thinking: perhaps it might be time to start contemplating the addition of another feline to our household. Mynx did seem to be lonely, after all - she had taken to spending an unnatural amount of time outdoors hanging out with Chico, the neighborhood riffraff who technically resides next door but is regularly seen throughout the neighborhood terrorizing other cats and all small creatures that creep, crawl or fly. Hardly the kind of character we want Mynx associating with, even if he does seem to have a soft spot for our spotted softie.  

It seemed, therefore, serendipitous that last November I should receive an email from our local cat shelter, announcing that they too would be participating in the Black Friday madness: all of their black or mostly black cats would be available for adoption for the bargain price of $10, a whopping 90% off the usual price. Being the good bargain shopper my mother taught me to be, I could hardly pass up a deal like that now could I? The only real question was this: how to narrow it down to just one...? 
 

Maximus in a rare moment of stillness

My sister and I spent an arduous hour trying to decide which cat would become the newest member of the Unfarm. There were all manner of choices: sleepy kittens, playful kittens, striped kittens, spotted kittens, solid kittens, male kittens, female kittens and every combination thereof. Holding kitten after kitten was a tiresome, tedious task but we somehow managed to persevere, eventually settling on a small, black kitten who was in a kennel by himself, sitting quietly beside the door. (We had learned our lesson, you see - we chose Aspen because he was the "spunky" kitten in the litter, and I am pretty sure that most of his adult life was spent plotting ways to inflict harm upon his human captors, so this time around we went for calm and quiet.)  Acknowledging that this would be a companion for our Mynxy cat, we were also looking for a younger, male cat who might pose the least possible threat to Mynx. 
 

Max loves to play with plastic bags

The name Maximus was settled on in part because it went so well with Mynx and we headed home with our newest family member, bracing ourselves for the fallout: we had not asked permission to adopt Max knowing that had we asked we would have been told no. Mom's reaction was fairly predictable: she feigned dismay but spent an awful lot of time cuddling with something that "we can't possibly keep." Dad's reaction was exactly as predicted. We told him to close his eyes and hold out his hands. He did as requested and the second we set Max into his hands he burst out with, "Oh no!" and looked crestfallen to say the least. 
 

Max enjoys kitten food, long walks on the beach, and watching TV

Despite the odds, my parents came around to the idea of Max becoming a permanent fixture here on the Unfarm (this process was likely easier for Mom than it was for Dad) and part of the deciding factor may have been the effect Max had on my sister. She had been in something of a bad mood - which is putting it mildly to say the least, and she can be quite scary when she's in a bad mood - earlier in the day and Max was more effective (and faster acting) than Prozac on her sour mood. Kitten adoption fee: $10. Kitten food, toys, and assorted supplies: $54. Changing my sister from a fire breathing dragon to a cuddly teddy bear: Priceless.

Footnote: Thus far, Mynx has not appreciated our efforts to give her a companion to spend her days with and looks upon Max as some kind of tiny terror with ADHD whose main goal in life is to ruin hers. 

Despite what Mynx thinks, Max really does look up to Mynx. He is often seen making a careful study of her and trying to follow in her footsteps.

Kit Kat

Kit's grave, and the view from it of the ocean.

A few weeks ago I decided to take a mini vacation up along the Puget Sound. I went for a walk on the beach and made something of an unusual discovery. Most of the time when I am at the beach I find seashells or seaweed or the shells of dead crabs (none of which I take home, by the way - I am not a fan of beachy smells) but that day I came across a cat. Or rather, the cat found me. And, as you may have noticed by now, I can not resist an animal, especially an animal in need. So I scooped her up and took her with me into the house. (Was there ever any doubt?) As soon as I picked her up I realized just how much trouble she was in. She was covered in fleas, had enormous mats in her long fur, and she was light as a feather - I'm pretty sure that you could see just about every bone in her little body, and she was extremely dehydrated. She must have been trying to survive on her own out there, without any food - and probably precious little fresh water as well. As I had not planned on finding a cat I neglected to bring with me the basic necessities: litter and a box, as well as food. Every cat - every animal, for that matter - needs a name so I dubbed her KitKat (the inspiration was a KitKat bar that I found in the house sitting on the kitchen counter), secured her in the bathroom so that the dogs wouldn't bother her, and took off in the car for the 12 mile drive to the nearest market to pick up some litter and much needed food. I got back to the house and spent the rest of the day neglecting my homework in order to take care of Kit. I gave her some food - she couldn't eat much though, as her stomach must have shrunken during the weeks she had been without food. The dogs, being fairly accustomed to my habit of bringing home strange creatures, took little notice of Kit after the initial introductions, although they were careful to give her space on the couch or bed and not crowd her. I set up a litter box and showed Kit where it was, although she hardly needed it - she couldn't have let out more than a tablespoon of urine. A couple hours later I decided that Kit needed a bath. This was somewhat of a difficult decision to make - on the one hand, getting her wet might force her to use more energy to stay warm, but on the other hand, she had so many fleas on her that I worried they were sucking out any nutrients she might have and weakening her further. In the end I decided to try the bath - I soaped her up in the kitchen sink, washed her down with warm water and wrapped her in soft towels to try and dry her off. When I noticed her shivering I put her under the covers in the bed and snuggled her next to my chest to keep her warm. I tried to get her to eat something later in the afternoon but she wasn't feeling up for it and her movements became less coordinated. I let her sit on the couch with me when she didn't want to be held, and cuddled with her when she did want to be. Her breathing became a bit labored in the evening and I let her rest against my chest and cuddled her to try and comfort her. Around 10:30 that evening I felt her stretch and was relieved that she was finally feeling better, and that her breathing was finally quieting. I took me a few seconds to realize that I wasn't feeling her breath much at all. I shook her gently and said her name to get her attention. Once. Twice. A third time. But she was gone.

Usually, I am not much of a crier, but when it comes to animals I have a soft spot, so I will admit that I did cry for about an hour after she died. Partly because I felt guilty that maybe the bath had pushed her over the edge, but mostly because I didn't want her last weeks of life to be so miserable. I wanted her to be safe and warm and loved and happy before she died. Full of good memories to take with her. I wanted her to have enough good life that it would make this hard time a distant memory. Instead of being cold, hungry, thirsty, lonely, and looking for help but unable to find it. I can only imagine her going from house to house, looking for someone to help her, but at that time of year there are fewer people at the vacation homes. And even worse - what if she had found someone but they had refused to help her?

I wrapped her in a towel and, because it was beyond dark out, put her on the bed in one of the back bedrooms and shut the door. I couldn't bring myself to put her body outside for the night, all alone, but I also realized that I needed to separate her in some way from the dogs because the fleas would start jumping ship now that she was gone and I had to protect them from the fleas as much as possible. In the morning, I found a spot on the hill above the house, in the sun, with a view of the ocean and dug a hole as best I could in the rocky ground. I laid her inside and covered her back up, feeling guilty that I would be leaving her there on her own when I went back home again.

Had Kit lived, I fully intended to bring her home with us and make her a permanent member of the Unfarm. After what she had to go through, trying to survive out there on her own, looking for help but unable to find any, until me, I wanted to know, without a shadow of a doubt, that she would never have to go through anything like that again. The only comfort I could take in the situation was in knowing that she was, on her last day, warm, and safe, and very, very loved.

And so I have decided to add her, posthumously, as a full fledged member of the Unfarm family. In addition, because I was unable to save Kit, I decided to make a donation in her honor to a local cat shelter. I have recently started drawing pet portraits for friends as gifts and so I decided to give a gift certificate of a pet portrait to the cat shelter, and they would choose one of their less adoptable cats to give the certificate to. The certificate would be an added incentive for someone to adopt the cat, giving that cat a chance at the life that Kit should have had.