It's a Tough Life...Or Not

I mentioned in my last post that Boot bit our other cat. After Fergie died, we decided not to get any more cats. It was a mature decision. It's HARD traveling with cats anywhere, but especially in the Middle East. (More on that in another post.)

But then one beautiful clear evening, we were taking a walk in our new neighborhood in Jordan. Down the street was an empty field with a trash bin, surrounded by apartment buildings. As we walked toward it, we heard an odd sound, like a small animal crying. Out from the trash bin ran a tiny, filthy, orange kitten, crying piteously at the top of its lungs. It ran right for us.

To this day, I have no idea why, but I knelt down and held out my hands in the street. The dirt-encrusted kitten ran right up into my hands. I stood up, he nestled down into my palms, and we started walking on as if nothing had happened.

As we walked, we decided that he was clearly very ill and we couldn't let him die alone in a garbage dump, so we'd take him home to die in comfort.

We walked by an apartment building where we could hear children playing in the back yard. The dying kitten stood up in my hands, and craned his neck to try to see the children, as if he wanted to go play with them.

Uh-oh.

Okay, maybe he might live, but then we'd get him adopted, since we weren't going to have any more cats.

We got him home and put him in the bathroom, where it was warm, and he had food and water. He was very grateful.



Well, maybe not. But you had to excuse him. He wasn't well.



That night I woke up in the middle of the night to hear him gasping for breath. The mucous had covered his nose, and he couldn't breathe. I held him and kept it clear until it passed. The vet came the next day and said he had a 50-50 chance.

Boot, who was about 8 by then, was hoping for the worst. He didn't need a new friend. He didn't need competition. We had promised no more cats, and he doesn't like liars.

But Gus lived...and Boot decided he kind of liked the little guy.




Sort of. Does he have to sit on Mommy?

And what's with the spots on that tummy? Isn't he kind of...strangely proportioned?

But Gus grew up fat and happy. He had lived in three different countries with us by the time he was three. He's now having a great time out in the country, ruling the household.

Sometimes it just works out...

Our Egyptian Cats...

It's flashback time. See, we had this other life. For 11 years, we lived abroad, in five different countries, mostly in the Middle East. We had a ton of fun, some scary times, and picked up a lot of souvenirs along the way. Some of our first souvenirs were Boot and Fergie, Egyptian street cats we couldn't resist adopting.

Who could resist these guys?



Fergie is the gray cat. She was the best cat ever, but unfortunately she passed away six years ago, in Saudi Arabia. She's buried under a palm tree with one of my husband's slippers. She loved his slippers....she loved everything about him. When she was upset, she'd go to his slipper, push her head in as far as it would go, and even put her paws around the front to pull her head in further...then just inhale his beloved scent. (I mean, I love him too, but I've got to tell you -- not THAT much. Really, trust me on this -- stay away from his shoes. I'm sorry to tell family secrets, but it runs in the family. We were traveling with his son one time, and we passed a small town on the highway. All the way through the town, I was moaning, "Who would want to live in this town? It stinks!" We finally realized that his son had taken off his shoes in the back seat.)

Boot, the black and white cat, was a 'pity' cat. For some reason, I decided I wanted a black-and-white long-haired kitten. You can see in the picture above that he only fulfills the black and white part of the requirement. Not long-haired, not a kitten. But after this very kind lady drove me an hour across Cairo, in rush-hour traffic, and the lady who was keeping him said he was going out in the street if I didn't take him...well, what was I supposed to do?

I took him to the vet on the way home, and he was so wild, the vet said he was feral and could never be tamed. For the first three days, my husband never saw him. He was living under our refrigerator. He would come out at night and rush around the house looking for exits. We'd wake up, and every picture would be askew, because he thought they were windows. We finally decided we were going to have to put him out in the street.

So I tried one last time. He was hiding behind the oven, which was open on the one side. I kneeled down and stretched my hand out to him with some food. He sniffed it and started to walk toward me. As I pulled my hand toward me, and he followed, he finally reached me. He looked up into my eyes, then climbed into my lap and started to rub all over me. He had been so terrified and was so relieved to find a friend. I started crying, and we've been buds ever since.

To this day, 17 years later, he runs from everyone but me and my husband. He's lived with us in six countries (Egypt twice and the United States twice), suffered through lots of international moves, and is still going strong.

The first time we took him back to the States, and winter came, poof! He became a long-haired cat. He's especially proud of that tail.

I won't show a more recent picture because he wouldn't like it. He's getting a little threadbare, but he's still my boy. He's so protective of me that if I'm around the goats, and he thinks they're getting too aggressive with me, he rushes at them. He's bitten our other cat when he thought he was hurting me. He has no claws, and he lost most of his teeth long ago, but he's not going to let anything happen to me.

Love you too, Boot.

Catch-up Time...and Hungry Goats

Sorry it's been so long since I've written. Work has gotten the better of me this week, and I've also been working on getting pictures on to my computer.

Here's Tina, our little Shetland pony visitor, again. We finally got new fencing put in around the front pasture, which is very good timing, since they've all grazed the back pasture down to bare stems. You can see they've got a nice lush stand of grass now. (The house in the background is our neighbor's.)



Tina is going home today. Her owner is going to pick her up tonight. She's a feisty little girl, and a bit much for us to handle at this beginning stage in our knowledge of horses. She bit me this week -- just a little nip on the underside of the arm, but it didn't exactly make me more comfortable with her. The older gelding, Gus, is a sweetie, though, and he's staying.

The goats don't know what to think about the new fencing.



They're hoping it's all a big mistake and will go away soon. They're not sure why we would want to separate them from all that delicious landscaping.



Could you deny some paltry little landscaping bushes to that face? I keep telling them that Mr. Rick, the builder, paid good money for that landscaping, but they just seem to be thinking "thank you, Mr. Rick."

Down here in the South, of course, adults are Mr. and Miss -- even to goats!

Any idea what this is?



It's goat poop on my front porch.

I guess I should be happy it's not horse poop, huh?

Excuse me, I have to go chase three goats off of my back deck...

The property we bought came with a 30' X 60' unfinished 'workshop.' We decided to leave a third of it unfinished for storage, convert the middle third into a rec room (pool table and music room), and then finish off the last third as a guest area, with two bedrooms, a bath, a kitchenette, and a living/dining area. The windows in the picture above belong to the guest area, and the two big windows are for the living/dining area.

This will be the view from those windows. We'll eventually get it landscaped, but it's still pretty now, isn't it?

The little brown house is a play house the original owner built for this daughter. He tried to move it, but couldn't, so we got to keep it.

We hope to be ready for visitors in about a month.

Horse Pictures...

This is Gus. He's an 18-year-old gelding. Isn't he handsome? He's sweet as can be, too. Our neighbors were target-shooting the other day, and he didn't even flinch at the first shot.



This is Tina Turner. She's a Shetland pony (?) of indeterminate age. She had a bit of an attitude at first, but we're coming to terms, and she's starting to let me pet her and lead her.

The horse feeding went pretty well tonight. Gus saw me at the shelter and came right in to get his. I closed the gate, and gave Tina hers outside in a bucket. Then I went and distracted the goats by feeding them so that they wouldn’t bother her. While I was feeding the goats, the ducks started quacking at me, so I got them some corn and they led me down to their feeding spot. Then I tried to get Tina into the corral, but Gus was blocking the way, so I had to let her stay free for a while until he went into shelter.

It's like a dance that I don't quite have down yet, but we'll get there!

Please excuse the odd spacing in these posts. I'm still figuring out how Blogger works.

Goat Defenses...

The goats are still getting out, but now they go back in on their own. The new goat (Arlene? name not yet set) gets out with Ben, the baby, and Emma, his mama, stays in, which eventually brings them back. Tonight when I hand-fed them, Ben let me scratch the top of his head for the first time, and Arlene ate from my hand for the first time. Emma is starting to let me do tentative pats on her neck.

Some pictures of our primitive goat fence defenses...and Arlene and Ben resting quietly after feeding. They don't look like escape artists, do they? Don't let looks deceive you.