When We Had a Lot of Cats

When we had a lot of cats, eight in all, years went by before we even heard of voles.

Today, when you mention voles, which is  always with dismay in your voice, people think you mean to say "moles."   And it is true that voles look and live much like moles.   But moles  are essentially carnivores who eat grubs, while voles eat the meaty parts of the roots of your valuable garden plants, and with almost all our cats having left us,  the voles have gone wild with multiplying, and, among other horticultural outrages, they nearly wiped out my ultra-cool bearded iris collection of close to 200 dazzling color combinations that I had amassed with the expenditure of a great deal of money, labor, and love.  But I admit that that is not all bad, because I finally got the idea of putting the surviving irises in large pots.  This spring not one of them sent up a bloom, but in the pots the plants still look good, and promising..

When we had a lot of cats, those ubiquitous inhabitants of the countryside, the field mice, were not at all enthusiastic  about invading our house.   Today, with only one cat around, they have become fonder of the notion.  Not a whole lot, but some.

When we had a lot of cats, one day the behavior of several of them told me that something on the edge of one of my plant beds had caught their attention. The fact that their attention was complete wasn't unusual, but the fact that they all shared in it was a big tip-off. The object of their concerted study was a full-grown copperhead snake, and it was cringing up against the rock edging right where now and then I would pull weeds with bare hands.

I wonder what my chances are now of happening upon a copperhead , when I still have to weed not only there but also all over the place.   But maybe that one would have just gone about his business, as they do now all the time without me ever being the wiser, if the cats had not harried and  cornered him there.

With the leavetaking of most of the cats it has been  considerably quieter and less eventful around here, especially the skunk scenting incidents.  The mysterious thumps and yowls are few and much more easily explained.

When we had a lot of cats it wasn't much harder to feed and otherwise look out for them than it is today with just one.

When we had a lot of cats, we didn't have all that heartache waiting ahead, when all those quaint, furry, four-legged little friends of ours, each with a personality, some even loving, that made them easier to tell apart than did their appearances, began to leave, one by one.

I hope we knew just how favored we were, when we had a lot of cats.

The Lone Survivor^