My babies all grew up being licked and loved by two crazy dogs much bigger than their teeter-toddling selves. So it seemed natural that as the kids got older we would take the next step in pet ownership: we bought a gold fish. Things were running pretty smoothly at that point. The kids were responsible for feeding the fish and I was responsible for feeding the dogs. It was simple really. Then, on a cool and cloudy day when I was minding my own business, I discovered a very sick black kitten squeaking piteously under my van. Following equally pitiful squeals from my daughter, “Mama, pwease, pwease can we keep the kitty?” we decided to at least nurse the poor thing back to health. One week later and one bottle of eye drops down, much to the delight of my very responsible four-year-old daughter Brooklynn, we owned our first farm cat. Six months later, our kitten had kittens.
Watching our cat grow round and, for lack of a better word, leisurely, was great fun for us. We remembered seeing a large gray tomcat around the property a month or so back and guessed why our formerly playful, romping kitty was suddenly more interested in lounging on our porch steps. A gentle palpation of Miss Blacky’s belly confirmed our suspicions. We called our vet that very day in order to schedule for the post-pregnancy spaying, and our ultimate lesson in animal husbandry had begun.
Four healthy kittens were delivered in the wee hours of a Friday morning, on a full moon. I remember this only because I had gone to a Harry Potter premiere with a friend that evening, and had arrived back home at 3am to see Miss Blacky standing in front of the garage meowing strangely. Her belly felt especially heavy as I picked her up and I could feel her little ones writhing around in there like earth worms fresh from the soil. I locked her in the garage that night and woke the following morning to the sweetest little peeps coming from the far corner of the garage. I found four squeaky clean kittens, sleek and talking, with one stillborn disturbingly silent and frozen beside them.
As a self-professed dog person, I have come to adore our cats. We still have Mama Cat, as we so fondly call her now, and a couple of her babies. Squirtle and Summer found a new home at a farm one town over, while Little Blacky and Nala continue to roam our property as if they own the place. Mama Cat thinks she is an indoor cat, though she has never spent more than fifteen minutes in the house. My allergies are not conducive to indoor cats and I also prefer to find her dead presents (moles, birds and the like) outside rather than inside.
So in the blink of an eye, our home became a little farm. In the past three years we have experimented with many different pets. We currently have two dogs, three cats, several chickens, a horse, a bunny and various snakes, lizards, turtles and pond minnows found on our property. We had ducks a couple of years ago, but have definitively decided we will never try that again. A Jurassic-sized turtle in our pond picked them off one by one, and I made the executive decision that that circle of life need not be repeated for three small children and a mother with a soft heart. (See my blog post from April 2012 love and lost: our duck hell http://www.todayisagooddayformarshmallows.blogspot.com/2012_04_10_archive.html
This spring we welcomed our first bunny onto our farm. His name is Carlos, and he has taught me the delight of rabbit ownership. Best bunny ever. He jumps around our screened porch from pillow to pillow, eating carrot bits from my daughter’s hands. Mama Cat naps next to the bunny hutch each afternoon, which only seems fitting since they are the two most docile and sweet natured pets that we own. The fact that they both belong to my daughter, the most sweet-natured person I know, also seems appropriate.
Toads hop in our garden, barn swallows nest in the barnyard, and a cute little bird family has set up shop in our fern outside the front door. Even with dogs barking, cats stalking from the roof, and the constant slamming of the screen door as people come and go, the little bird family seems happy enough. When I find myself lounging on my porch, surrounded by this menagerie of pets, loud cacophony of nature, and peaceful laziness of safe animals playing, I realize that this is exactly what I had hoped for when we bought this land. On a daily basis I find nests built with hair from Daisy Girl’s mane, collect fresh chicken eggs for our breakfast, and always have a dog or kitten willing to rest a tired head on my lap. It cannot get any better than this.
Here’s the zinger: when you open your arms and your home to so many animals, and consequently wind up with so many pets, there is bound to be the bit of wildlife that comes home to you that you wish had not. You know the type: slyly held in your kid’s hand or stuffed into their pocket, sneaked in when you are not looking. It is the critter you could have done without. Well... his name was Fuzzy.
It was seven in the morning on a school day, and I was in the shower. My husband was seeing to the last few minutes of breakfast with the kids before I was to pack them in the minivan and take them to school. As I was applying my conditioner I heard the bathroom door fly open with a bang and Brooklynn proudly announced with a happy screech, “Mommy!! His name is Fuzzy!!”
What?!?
I pull the shower curtain aside to find my daughter gripping one of my kitchen Tupperware containers. Inside is a ratty, grey fieldmouse. It seems that on her way out to feed her kitties that morning, Brooklynn heard squeaks of terror coming from the bushes that line the front porch. To her utter dismay she found her cat Nala with a little grey mouse in his mouth, playing with the mouse like a kid plays with a lollipop. Screaming bloody murder, she rushed to her daddy and insisted he save the mouse. He obliged. Then he put the mouse in a kitchen container, handed it to my daughter, and left for work.
From my position in the shower, hair conditioner still in the palm of my hand, I answer her, “Brooklynn...did you say Daddy just left for work?! After handing you a potentially disease carrying rodent to deliver to your mother in the shower?! I thought so.”
Needless to say, Fuzzy (as he was so lovingly referred to due to his disheveled and quite frankly nasty appearance) was dropped off a mile from our home. We found a quiet little spot in the woods with some shady trees, a little stream, and some pretty wildflowers growing nearby, which seemed the perfect place for a mother to convince her three children to offload an unwanted fieldmouse. Of course we still look for him when we find ourselves on that walking trail. He will forever be remembered as part of our farm family, whether he resides here or not.
“Homegrown kids” I call them. Kids who know that their breakfast eggs do not come from a Styrofoam container at a drive-thru; Kids who know that the cats need to be fed rain or shine, on warm or bitter cold mornings, whether you are sick in bed or not; Kids who know the songs of nature as well as they know the Top 40. Giving them these experiences is not without stress or hard work. In fact, it can be extremely stressful and is mostly hard work. No one wake up with the sun and wants to muck a horse stall. Yet our love for these animals endures and the wish for more never ends.
Today I received a letter from my son, Tristan. It read, “Dear Mom, I really want to have a bearded dragon for a pet...”
And so the fun continues.
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