While I neglect the floppy disk archiving blog post that has been cooking for six months, I'd like to take some time to talk about the long-haired calico cat that has been hanging around my house. The cat, currently dubbed Kitchu Cat by my toddler, has meandered through our yard for about a year-- most often as a phantom passing by without much of a discernable schedule. Her infrequency of visitation, I came to learn, was due to her preference for operating at night.

My first good look at her was when I found her one morning curled up, taking a nap on my cushioned porch loveseat. Of course, when I came to approach with a bowl of what I thought would most appeal to a cat (some salmon purée my son loved when he was a baby), she jumped away. But she didn't run all the way away. As a cat, notorious master manipulator of humans, she paused about 5 meters away from me. She turned back to look at me with that mysterious expression of all felines. She was majestic. More rationally, Kitchu seemed healthy and well cared-for. Having given me enough of a look, she bounded away into the woods. That was it. I was going to get to know this cat.

For some context, I have no housepets aside from a tank of fish and three frog enclosures. In fact, I'm allergic to cats and dogs-- something I learned for certain when I went to college and realized that life wasn't just the scratchy eyes and sneezing of my childhood home. I still found that whenever I visited a cat, be it at a punk house show, a family member's barn, or a bookstore, the pleasure of interacting with the creature outweighed the inevitable physical discomfort.

Since moving out of a one bedroom apartment, I had idly thought about getting a working animal or two-- goats for land maintenance, a Pyrenean Mountain Dog for the goats, a cat for rodent control. But my trial run in poultry had left me a bit disheartened by predation. It wasn't until I had found a mouse had chewed through my car's fuel injector as well as my electric lawnmower's wiring that I truly had a problem to solve with a pet.

If I could talk to my resident rodents and discuss boundaries in exchange for a shared harvest, I wouldn't need to call on a feline mercenary. Unfortunately, I often find my strawberry plants picked clean of leaves before they even bud. Despite my best efforts at non-violent rat mitigation via sturdy storage containers in the basement and thorough hole-patching in the garage, these little guys continue to bring my wrathful attention to themselves. It'd be cool if I could tame a hawk that would properly give the rodents something to fear, but a cat is certainly more conventional. Still, the idea only brewed in the back of my mind. If only I could rent a cat...

Late last year my local library's science-themed book club chose The Cat's Meow by Johnathan Losos for us to read. There was plenty interesting history and genetics of this semi-domesticated species (including the fact that calicos are almost always female). But a large portion of the book is also dedicated to citizen science and the implications of domestic cat populations in the world. While I was aware of the impact that cats had on rodents, I was a bit more surprised about the damage they can do to bird and amphibian populations as well. Even cats that get sufficient nutrition in a day will hunt small creatures for fun. I do enjoy my local mini-fauna so the idea of sacrificing them in favor of a cat began to weigh against my outdoor cat proposal. Nonetheless, Losos' proposed mitigations, mostly fencing and taking the time to play with the cat, didn't seem too burdensome. During the book club meeting, I heard from a number of folks who took in, neutered, and basically spent a lot of time with strays. It's a great public service with sweet rewards.

So when a month later this furtive feline appeared, I couldn't help but be intrigued by the open questions. Was this someone's cat that was double dipping? Was she just passing by or living somewhere on the property? What did she do all day? How does one befriend a cat? To try and answer these questions, I moved a trail cam to the porch so that it faced a bowl that I filled once a day (generally in the afternoon) with wet cat food.

For a month I didn't meet the cat again in person, only noting her visits by the licked-clean bowl. I never found her curled up in the various makeshift beds I tried to put together for her or running out of the bushes as soon as the can-opener penetrated the seal. So every once in a while, I would check the SD card from the trail cam to confirm it was her. Most of the time, it was her visiting. But Kitchu's of course not the only enjoyer of pungent fish in the area. A skunk and what appears to be a stray dog also visited, having snuck through the deer fencing to have a treat.

Fortunately, they seemed to move on and the cat continued to visit.

In December, I was going to be out of town for three weeks but I left my house sitter some cat food in case they wanted to leave something out for the feline transient. I had moved the trailcam so there's a gap in the data but the sitter reported that the cat returned often and was hungry. The fact that she appeared at all showed that she was adjusting her schedule earlier in the day, becoming more comfortable with the area. Looking at a shoddy chart of her visits based on trailcam timestamps, here visits do become consistently concentrated in evening by this third month.

When I came back after the new year, Kitchu and I picked up where we has left off. With her appearing consistently earlier in the day I could offer food directly. On January 16th I was able to pet her for the first time. Surprisingly, she reacted very well to petting and was soon eager to even receive belly rubs. I slowly picked the hedge parsley bristles from her long fur in between bouts of my sneezing. From then on she has even slept right outside the porch door. At the time of this writing, her origins are unknown to me. Her vet appointment is in two weeks from now. Until then, I'll keep playing with her and having my fingers crossed that she doesn't get pregnant before she can be spayed.

Today was the day of Kitchu's vet appointment. At the appointed hour, I wrangled her into a dog kennel as she wasn't about to go into a cat carrier without issuing some major lacerations. She issued a flurry of pitiful meows but once to the vet's office, she was sweet, awaiting her assessment. I informed the doctor that I had no idea who the cat belonged to or her status on vaccinations but that I was happy to cover any of them. Away she was whisked without much fuss. While she was being scanned for a microchip, I befriended a cat owner who shared his own stray cat anecdotes with most of the cats being far more skittish. When the veterinarian returned, she carried a heavy expression and said that the cat had an owner. Kitchu was actually Chex, a 2 year old barn cat belonging to a nearby residence. Her owner was coming to get her form the office. But I wasn't too disappointed. Perhaps I could get the Cat experience without having the responsibility.

When I got home with my empty dog kennel, I got a message from Chex's owner. She was incredibly nice and explained all of Chex's backstory-- being a feral cat raised from birth who didn't get along with the other barn cats and often strayed away from the homestead. She sent me the photo below showing Chex and her litter of kittens. I'll be meeting up with my neighbor this weekend to talk more about whether she wants to live here more permanently or transition to my care somehow. I'm just happy to have an opportunity to meet a neighbor I haven't run into yet!

During the past week of torrential rain, Chex had been staying at my house nearly constantly-- even sleeping in an overturned flower pot like a feline Diogenes. I was trying to keep myself from getting too attached to her even as she followed me around while I was doing yardwork. But if it turns out I can be the owner (or whatever that means for a semi-domesticated species), maybe I will.