Crazy Critters Cause Consternation

My critters, and others, continue to bemuse me. I say others because I don’t claim ownership of the wild ones who live in my tame ten acres. And, oh joy, I get to add another bird to my bird-watchers list. For those who don’t know, those of us who retire or semi-retire, take up new hobbies. Or, you might say, I have begun to collect hobbies as a hobby. And bird-watching was one of the first. I even bought binoculars, cheap binoculars, because I wasn’t sure how long this hobby would last before I moved on to a new hobby, and a bird-watchers ID manual. Well, bird-watching is hanging in there pretty good. I reasoned that the birds I get to watch are so much like people I know, I could name them. My new bird, spied right on top of Wild Horse Mountain, is the effervescent road runner. And this one was like those seen in the cartoon. They are phrenic, crazy, and this spied road runner lived up to road-runner reputations. It spied me, when I spied it, and ran in circles as though trying to lure me in, into what, I don’t know. Maybe a good chase. I just slammed on the brakes and watched it, laughing all the way. Have a good day bird.

Speaking of birds, does anyone know anything about that big white goose that was waddling around my yard recently? He or she or it was in need of a good bath. Perhaps goose was out all night on a wild goose hunt. But the mystery remains. Where did it come from?

And then there’s my house cat Holly. Good grief this cat is weird. In the past week Holly has begun switching her tail like a mad bucking bronc. Well, I confess. She may be mad at me. That’s because of her latest flea pill. I don’t like flea pills. When you gotta stick a pill down a cat’s throat, the chances are pill pusher is going to bleed a lot more than pill patient. Yes, I bleed every time. But I got that pill down Holly’s throat the last time with little effort, or blood. But then strange things began to happen. Holly went ballistic. It looked like her tail was her motion crank, like that on a wind-up toy. And when it had wound sufficiently, Holly took off like that proverbial bat out of somewhere down below. She raced around the living room. She ran up every chair in the living room. She would pause, then take off again. Round, and round, and round she went. I wondered if she’d been watching road runner cartoons. She raced along the back of the couch. She jumped from couch to love seat. She ran up the lamp, and just launched herself into midair. Don’t worry. She did land on her four feet. Needless to say, I was a bit concerned. But all I could do was watch. I wasn’t gonna grab that crazy cat. Had I poisoned her? I got the flea pill box out of the garbage. And read the fine print. In little, tiny, teeny letters, pill box informed me that pill might cause your cat to itch uncontrollably for a few minutes. Itch? Uncontrollably? For how long? Holly’s uncontrollable itch continued for the entire afternoon. Note to self:  Never buy that flea pill again!

Ah, but Holly got her revenge. Just this past week, she took up a new hobby of her own. I don’t know how she would describe it, since I don’t speak cat. I call it Holly’s revenge ambush. And I never see it coming. For instance, she may be strolling across the living room nonchalantly, or sniffing out a corner for some odor undetected by me, when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, she decides to attack me where I am sitting on the couch, at a dead run. Uh, it’s rather startling. Like, here comes this black and white cat, at supersonic speed, who then launches herself into the air from six feet away, all four legs extended outward and looking somewhat like a flying squirrel, apparently with the goal of landing in my lap. Then my survival instincts take over, causing me to instinctively raise arms and hands to ward off flying Holly. That usually disrupts her flight, but doesn’t do me a bit of good. Consequently I have scratches on my leg, where I deflected her and she tried to grab onto my calf like a tree trunk. And I have scratches on the back of my hands when I did not deflect Holly but she had to grab hold of something, that being my outstretched hands. I bled a lot that time. But there is a solution to this new and unwanted behavior, come upon accidently. When Holly does her crazy flying cat routine at me, I scream. Loudly. It’s sort of a primal thing, like I was being attacked by a hungry lion. I didn’t do it purposefully. It just happened. It turns out that primal scream scares the lion right out of Holly. When scream is heard, Holly turns and runs the other way. And I can relax. At last, I think I’ve learned at least one word in cat language.