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Archive for September 20th, 2022

Diary #638

Posted in Diary, tagged , on September 20, 2022| 1 Comment »

I’ve become quite fond of our outside cat, Rocky. He was barely more than a kitten when he showed up at Sunset soon after our move was finished in late summer of ’17, and Grace and Chekhov started feeding him, and he’s grown into a healthy, affectionate adult.  The only outside cats I’ve ever had were a few strays which sojourned for a while and then were gone, but Rocky has been around for five years and clearly considers Sunset his territory.  I often see him patrolling around outside or napping in the atrium or outside the front door, and I’ve seen him chase off a black-and-white stray whose territory is south of Sunset.  But it’s as a mouser that he really earns his keep; once a week on average I open the back door in the morning to find he’s left me tribute on the mat, sometimes sans tête, and last week I went out to the new bathroom to work on the shower and found a very dead rat about 1/3 of Rocky’s body mass.  Since these little presents are one of the ways cats express love I’m always careful to praise him and pat his head whenever I find one, however revolting its condition, then I pick it up with a paper towel and toss it into the woods north of the house.  But since it would be appallingly bad taste to publish a picture of one of these little morning surprises even if I had ever taken one (which, as you can probably guess, I have not), here’s a shot of him standing guard atop Chehov’s cottage instead; I’m sure you’ll agree it’s much more appealing.

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