The Great Egg Miracle!

***Spoiler: This post is only a joke. No chickens were harmed in the making of this post. Do not attempt the following unless you want to kill your flock and/or get arrested for public indecency.***

So the other day, I had a nice little old man give me some tips on how to increase my flock’s egg production. He said that if I gave them some expired Vicodin, a handful of Froot Loops, and dance nekkid to the Hokey Pokey in my front yard it would increase their egg laying dramatically. Well, look what happened! I guess he knows what he was talking about!!! 97 eggs later!!!! :O

I’m sorry! I had to do it! After the great “expired yogurt/increased egg production” post on Facebook that has been making the rounds since last week, I just had to get in my two cents.

First of all, I think that the original poster on Facebook certainly meant no harm and was simply excited to share an odd coincidence where they fed their hens some expired yogurt and seemingly, egg production exploded. One would naturally assume that the two might be related. But let’s get down to the brass tacks.

First of all, chickens don’t really digest dairy products simply because they don’t produce the enzymes to digest lactose. Oh, but some dairy doesn’t contain lactose, or at least very little, you may say. This is true, but I’d just have to ask where in nature would a chicken find dairy products? Now, is the occasional serving of funky cottage cheese or yogurt going to straight up kill your chickens? No. Is the occasional serving of yogurt going to miraculously quadruple your egg production? No.

The truth is, it’s that time of year when the day length is steadily increasing and chickens’ egg laying action naturally ramps up. The above photo (with the 97 eggs) was less than a week’s worth of eggs out of my small flock. About a month ago or so, I was having to BUY eggs! Now see what happens as spring gets closer! So, you can easily see how, if I were to have given my hens some yogurt a few weeks ago, I would naturally assume that it was due to the yogurt that my hens became egg-laying machines, right?

What I found particularly hilarious after reading the comment section on the original FB yogurt/hen post was that people were very, very excited that they actually had EXPIRED yogurt to give their flock. As if the expiration date possessed a magical quality where, the day (or week) after it expired, this yogurt turned into egg makin’ steroids for chickens. There were dozens of people shouting, “I have expired yogurt! Woohoo!” or something similar.

On the other hand, there were some odd comments from some animal rights folks who seemed to think that all of the eggs were laid in a single day. Or something. It would be like looking at my photo above and thinking that I had five or ten hens laying ALL of those in a day.

Let’s clear this up right now: Chickens only lay a single egg a day. There may be the very rare occasion where a hen lays two a day, but I have only had that happen once in eight years. Trust me, you ain’t getting those broodies to lay on your schedule. I bought eggs five times this winter while my hens took a winter break. There is NOTHING I do to “make” them lay eggs. I don’t stand over them with a tiny bullwhip and shame them into making my breakfast.

The only thing that I would personally NOT recommend is using artificial lighting for your hens, which can ‘trick’ them into thinking that the day length is not decreasing in the winter. Even God had to take a day off, y’all. Let those girls take a break for a bit and they will get it going again in the spring. No expired yogurt, Vicodin, Froot Loops, or nude Hokey Pokey required.

Peace out, y’all.

P.S. The original poster of the egg/yogurt post is a fabulous craftsperson, and I’m just going to throw that out because I happened to go over and do some Facebook page stalking. I’d love to own one of their baskets! And in no way am I trying to make fun of them. I just want to clear the air on the matter. Chicken lovers unite!

Spring is almost here!

I can always tell that spring is just around the corner. The henbit is blooming, narcissus are looking at the sky with their bright bonnets, and the bluebirds and wrens are looking for places to lay their eggs.

Another exciting consequence of the day length growing longer is that my chickens begin to lay copious amounts of eggs. So far, my best layers are my mixed bantam flock, which are largely Old English Games with a dash of Silkie, and my Ameraucanas from Clayborn Farms in Waco. Everyone else is getting too old to be a reliable layer.

If your hens are being lazy about egg laying, I have found it helpful to use ceramic eggs in the nest boxes. It seems to flip a switch in their little chicken brains that it’s time to get busy making eggs. I purchased mine at a local feed store.
Here’s to spring!

Random find

You never know what you’ll see in the country. Yesterday, I found this adorable moth outside our shop. The common name is the Large Tolype moth. It reminds me of a fuzzy little puppy. Isn’t it cute? Odd to see it in January, but it’s been so warm lately.

Some days are good for…

A cool and drippy November day is perfect for snuggling up with a friend!

Buffy

Good morning, dah-links! Just out of curiosity, how old is your oldest chicken?

This is Buffy, the Buff Orpington. Very original name, I know. We bought her with a group of 25 other Buffies in 2009 when we raised them for a friend. So, she is now 7.5 years old. Now I know many people butcher old hens, but you have to realize that Buffy isn’t a hen. At least, SHE doesn’t think so. As a young pullet, she hated to be with the flock. Wherever the flock was, Buffy was not. She stayed as far away from everyone as she possibly could.

One morning, before we had good chicken fences, I heard a knock at the front door. I peered out of the door window. No one was there. Another tiny knock. Again, no one could be seen. Suddenly, at the window, there appeared a little golden chicken head and she knocked on the glass. Of course, we had to let her in at that point. Here was a hen who knew what she wanted in life.

Several times at dusk, when I went to close up the coop, Buffy was missing. I always dreaded the thought of finding handfuls of golden feathers and Buffy bits scattered on the lawn. But no, there she was, roosting in a woodpile. Or on a truck. Or in our shop. Buffy is not one for conventionality.

In March of 2015, she decided she wanted to become a mother. Never before had she wanted to set eggs or even become broody. Mind you, this was at 6 years of age, which is ancient for a chicken. I agreed to let her hatch a single egg to help her achieve her motherhood goal. And a single egg she did hatch! Of course, it turned out to be a rooster (it always is a rooster…), but he did turn out to be gorgeous and she loved mothering him very much. After that, she has yet to become broody again. I guess a single child was all Buffy ever wanted.

Year 8 revisited

October 18, 2016 marks our eighth year of living on the farm. I can hardly believe it. I can hardly believe that I’ve been writing this blog for seven years now. I often wonder if anyone reads it anymore; of course I don’t do it for fame or fortune, but I do hope it gets a little bit of foot traffic!

So, every year, I try to write about things that we’ve learned over the previous twelve months. Usually, I find that it’s the same thing: Keep good fences. Plant what you eat. Live simply. Learn to laugh at your mistakes. 2016 wasn’t much different, and I’m not sure what I will have to add other than telling you that we are seriously cutting down on debt this year. I know I’ve said it in the past, but we really have gotten much more focused in becoming debt-free. One thing that I have fallen in love with is the so-called “No Spend” months. These are months that I choose (almost always a five week month for us since we are paid weekly) and they consist of no-frill spending and only about $100 on groceries. It takes pre-planning and dedication, but at the end of these months, we have found that we are saving an entire paycheck plus some. This extra goes to our debts. Maybe one day I’ll write more about it, but in the meantime, you can get some ideas here. It truly is quite simple, but again, especially in the food department, it does require pre-planning, and meal planning is a lifesaver here.

So, let’s recap the last twelve months with some pictures! Every year, we try to make it to Arkansas. If you have never been, there is a reason it’s known as the Natural State. It is absolutely gorgeous. Miles and miles of countryside to see. Caves, hot springs, mountains, rivers, lakes…Arkansas has it all. We usually go in spring or fall for the best weather, but be forewarned, these seasons also can be very volatile. Tornadoes and flash flooding are not rare occurrences here, so if you do go, be sure to check the weather forecast!

Once place we went last October was Blanchard Springs. The springs themselves are beautiful, but it is also home to the Blanchard Springs caves. I had never been to a cave before. The beauty of it literally brought tears to our eyes!

The river that runs through it all…absolutely breathtaking:

But meanwhile, back on the farm: We caught a hawk! Okay, not true, he caught HIMSELF in our fence while trying to get a chicken. I found him wedged between the chicken wire and the 4 x 4 fencing. Honestly, I thought he was dead. After some very careful manipulation with gloves and a towel, we extracted the little jerk from the fence (he is responsible for all hawk-related chicken deaths over the past year) and we found that he had injured a wing. So, off to the rehabber he went. Although not much larger than a pigeon, this Sharp-shinned hawk ate up about 15 of our birds. They overwinter here. In fact, we’ve already had a hawk attack by one again this fall, so I’m assuming his mate or offspring made it back.

In November, we had the most adorable baby chicks born. Like, EVER. The especially ‘poofy’ one is “Yin”. And yes, we also had a “Yang”. We still have both, although sadly, their beautiful brother died the following spring.

Every year, we go to the Homestead Heritage Fair in Waco. This is an absolute MUST if you haven’t been. I really can’t say enough good things about it! Due to torrential rain, they opened it for another weekend. Typically, it’s the weekend immediately following Thanksgiving. We brought home these baby Ameraucana chicks to add to our flock. I am happy to say that we have all but one a year later. They lay beautiful blue eggs.

February 2016: Because every chicken needs a bonnet:

And Fran needs a bonnet, too:

March: It was a banner year for frogs and toads. We had so many pollywogs at the pond, it was black along the edges. Unfortunately, we also had an equal number of bullfrogs born here. I have no clue what will happen to the other frogs now that we have about 900 million huge bullfrogs.

March also means baby bunnies. Here comes Peter Cottontail!

The lazy flock of Silkies:

I told you the bullfrogs are huge!

Spring also brings out the snakes. This is a copperhead that we relocated. Yes, they are venomous.

This summer brought the most insane number of Indian Blanket flowers I’ve ever seen. These all came up on their own without being reseeded:

And naturally, flowers bring butterflies. We have SO MANY this year!

Summer also brings mulberries! Delicious!

Summer also brings us…TOMATOES!

Because we had two ‘rainy’ years, the crepe myrtles and all things that flower were absolutely stunning this year! I have never seen them bloom like this before.

The front yard in June:

To catch a snake:

And toads. Toads everywhere!!!

Beautiful summer skies of July. We had some very dry months (including this October…ugh), and then some crazy wet ones! That’s East Texas for ya.

Creating a ‘classics’ shelf in my mini-library, complete with a Brussels Griffon look-a-like a la Hobby Lobby:

Ribbon snakes on the farm!

Life is good for this eleven year old Mastiff:

And this eight year old Brussels Griffon:

Well folks, that about wraps up the last year! I’ll post again about the major yard renovation, but it’s time for me to refresh my (very cold) coffee. I hope you enjoyed the farm visit with us!

Stay golden…

Lipstick & Gizzards

We were watching Jerry Clower one night, and the late and great Mississippi-bred comedian was talking about times when people in the South got together. Oh, there are pea-shellins, corn-huskins, and taffy-pullins, sure. But no one really gets excited about chicken-pluckins. Here’s why:

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times: Broiler chickens are nasty.

I love animals, but broilers AKA meat birds AKA Cornish crosses are just….gross. They can hardly help it, I know, because they were bred to make one thing: chicken nuggets. (Well, other things, too, but “nuggets” is just a funny word.) They eat and then they poop. Continuously. And then they laid in said poop. If you are familiar with chicken poop, it’s obviously gross, but there is no poop like broiler poop. Imagine Old Faithful. Need I say more? Yes, it really is THAT bad. Please see above photo for reference.

Anyway, last fall, my dear friend Big Rig and her husband, PeeDee, brought over a passel of meat birds to send to chicken Jesus in the sky. Big Rig was to the point where so many of us find ourselves with farming: either the chickens had to go or she was moving to a new place where you never had to move a chicken tractor much less see a chicken ever again.

So, because we have chicken processing equipment, they came to our farm and we got everything set up. Now, Big Rig and I haven’t ever done a ‘chicken-pluckin’ together, so this was a whole new experience. You have your cages full of ‘pre-nugget’ AKA live chickens, your ‘killing cones’, a giant pot of boiling water, and then a processing table. Obviously, chickens go in the cones first and that’s where it’s “off with their heads”. But anyway.

Big Rig volunteered to put the first chicken in a cone. They go upside down and their little heads stick out of the bottom of the cone, and their feet out of the top. Ideally, they don’t wriggle around too much, but, this isn’t always the case. As Big Rig went to put the wildly thrashing nugget with legs in the first cone, something terrible happened. Remember the visual of Old Faithful? Yes friends, at the very moment chicken was going IN, something else was coming OUT in a steady stream RIGHT ACROSS BIG RIG’S MOUTH. As I looked up, there was a weird strangling noise and she was wildly gesticulating with her hands, eyes as wide as a turkey platter. Her lips were so pursed, I thought that maybe she had lost them permanently. With arms flailing and loudly throat-screaming, “MMMMMMMGGGGGGGDDDDDKKKKKKKKMMMMMM”, I grabbed a roll of paper towels and threw it at her. PeeDee and Jason had a horrified look on their faces which quickly dissolved into a fit of doubled-over laughter.

It was a day to remember, that’s for sure.

Revenge of the Nuggets.

Then, as if I didn’t get enough of fecal-laced lip balm, when my friend Dubyacee called and said she would have about twenty more nuggets to process, I immediately said, “Yes! Bring them over!” At least I had given myself 6 months to recover.

This day went without any face-painting incidents, but I did learn that I never want to skin a chicken ever again. It was a long, gross, wet, and feathery day, but in the end we had twenty or so little birds in the coolers. The only issue was, I hadn’t bought enough ice. When you are butchering birds, you really need to live next door to an ice factory. I don’t care how much ice you buy, it isn’t enough. You will always, ALWAYS be short by 2 or 3 bags.

So, I got in our truck and drove down to the little general store down the street. Before I got out, I took a look at myself. My mud boots were soaking wet and covered in things we won’t discuss, but that did include feathers. My freebie t-shirt and shorts were sprayed with who-even-knows what. My hair was sweaty and in a tall bun that looked like I had slept in it for two days, not to mention looking like I had grabbed a hold of a bare electrical wire in my sleep. Make-up free, I was the perfect advertisement of how NOT to go out in public. I grabbed my purse and fumbled around in my side pocket. Grabbing my candy red lipstick, I smeared it across my lips. Because, I may be a grubby old chicken processor, but I’ll be danged if I’m going out without my lipstick.

Lipstick & gizzards. Welcome to my life.

A tale of two dogs… Okay, four.

Fran: Let’s play!
Lucy: Cool, I’m down for that!

Lucy: Ummmm…. Help?

Lucy: No, seriously… HELP.

Fran: Is there a problem, officer?

Lucy: Okay, you’re TOO MUCH. I’M OUTTIE.

Fran: Oh, reeeally! I don’t think so! (Grabs Lucy’s ankle with her mouth)

Lucy: AIEEEEEEE!
Rosebud: (the innocent bystander) says nothing.

Fran: I’m over this. See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya!

Hoss: Zzzzzzzzzzz

THE END.

So I have this friend named Rachel…and the dog lived.

Today didn’t start out so hot. I didn’t get a chance to get rid of the hawk that’s been plaguing my chicken yard for the past week, despite getting up when it’s still dark outside. I am NOT a morning person. I have been getting up early for two days now with no success. Then my dog faked me out with an untimely death scare. Francesca Buttons isn’t just any dog. She is like our third furry child who pees on the rugs and loves to eat dirt. So basically, a tiny furry toddler. She has a smooshy monkey face and the happiest personality. Here is a photo: She’s the most awesome dog we’ve ever had, and two days ago she started having a sniffly nose, and I didn’t think much about it since she was otherwise fine. Fast forward to this morning, and when I picked her up, she was sneezing so much, she had doggie snot from her nose to her shoulder. Of course, it’s a Saturday and no veterinary offices are open with exception to the emergency clinic, so with a snotty and sneezing dog in one arm and a phone in the other I frantically call Jason to tell him Fran may have contracted something fatal and horrible and I was at fault.

As I drove through town, I was trying to come up with the correct verbiage on how to break Fran’s imminent death to my children (who, of course, are not at home) and simultaneously come up with a proper dog eulogy and burial procedure. (Would it be odd to invite friends? Are they still cloning dogs? Are people who stuff their dog really all that strange?)

I call my friend Rachel while trying not to choke on my words to see if she can bring some wood shavings to my house since I am on the way with a rapidly declining dog to the town 30 minutes away, and I need those shavings because the stupid hawk won’t leave my stupid chickens alone and now everyone has to stay in their way-too-small chicken houses and my poor chickens will be swimming in their own nasty poo thanks to the dumb hawk and I couldn’t make it to the dumb feed store because my dog is dying in a laundry basket in the back seat of my car.

Rachel says, “Sure.”

As we are leaving town, I notice Fran got quiet. I look in the back seat and she looks back at me as if to say, “What? May I help you?” No sneezing, no lolling tongue, no panicking. As I got to thinking about it, I remembered her only having a runny nose out of one nostril. Hmm.

My rusty brain gears get to squealing and then I thought: Maybe she has something shoved up her nostril? Maybe it isn’t the Parvotemperfluenzatella virus? As we are at the final red light just before turning into the clinic, Fran goes into a violent sneezing fit and I turn around. I see an eighth-inch long piece of green protruding from said nostril. OH. MY. GEEZY.

We pull into the emergency clinic parking lot (a 40 minute trip), and I rip open Fran’s door and extract a good one and a half inch long piece of grass from her nose hole. Sigh. SIGH. And, double sigh.

Maybe my dog is as frugal as I am; either way, she saved me an $80 visit by sneezing out a piece of Bahia in the parking lot. I tell this story to tell you: It ain’t been a great morning for me. It was definitely a “Boo-Yay” kind of day, but I hate the stress rollercoaster. I hate it a lot. And mornings aren’t my thing, and neither is this cold yucky weather.

Enter my friend Rachel.

Rachel is my funny, thoughtful, list-wielding, introverted friend who never forgets anything. She is the person responsible for me wearing skirts and cardigans. Yes, so I totally stole her wardrobe ideas

. She loves Anthropologie, good wine, and delicious food. She loves books, musicals, coffee, chickens, and gardens. She can’t stand inefficiency (Pickle, pickle, bun, bun—-inside joke there), large crowds (especially festivals), or people who steal her hand soap.

Actually, the first time I met Rachel, she DID forget something, and that was to order some chinchilla food for me(she worked at a feed store). I think that was the only thing she has forgotten in the ten years I have known her.

Anyway.

So with all that mess going on today, I was feeling low. Just snake-belly low.

Then she brought me an estate sale find. A vintage Neiman Marcus coffee mug covered in……mushrooms. I love mushrooms and I love owls. I now have mugs with both! It is strikingly similar to my other favorite mug: Bonus points for the inside of the mug being a perfect shade of a mushroom cap or perhaps a nice mushroom bisque.

Now today has become a “Boo-Yay-Yay” kind of day thanks to an extracted piece of grass and a dear friend who knows me all-too-well!

Much love to my friend who thinks about me at yard sales and brought a little bit of sunshine to me on this cold and dreary day!

For another post about a shared adoration of owls, mushrooms, and snails, head on over to Rachel’s blog post she wrote last month.

See you later, friends! I’m off to make some nice hot coffee in my ‘shroom mug….and hopefully tomorrow will be a lot more boring.

The Cat Who Came for Dinner

I’m not usually a ‘cat person’.

I typically like cats that are dog-like, or at least, just don’t act like in the snobby and stuck up way that a cat usually does. I like cats with distinctive personalities and not the kind of cats that solicit a good rub down then claw and bite you mid-way through when they have had their fill. Or cats that give off the impression that they don’t need you, don’t really want you there, and would, quite frankly, probably be much happier should you drop dead in front of them.

I have had such a cat. Actually, I have had a few cats that I can remember. First was Tinker, when I was just a wee pup of 3 years old. Tinker turned out to actually be a neighbor’s cat, but she was my first official pet, even if I couldn’t claim her as my own. The next was my solid black tom, Blackie, and his adopted ‘brother’, Tiger. Blackie sadly ran off to a neighbor’s house after one of my brother’s ‘friends’ chucked pinecones at him one too many times. Tiger was with us for many years until he decided to car surf (don’t ask) one day down the road and we never saw him again. The next was a cat that I have written about before, Garfield. You can read about Garfield in my posts, Super Fantastic Cat Alarm 5000, Super Fantastic Cat Alarm 2, and finally in his last blog, It Ain’t Always Easy. That was the last time we had a cat that I really loved.

I told myself we would never own another cat. Ever.

Every cat that I loved either packed up and left of its own accord or met their end with an automobile in some way. Cats, for whatever reason, are attracted to cars in the same way that moths and June bugs are attracted to your porch light. I also don’t like the idea of an outdoor cat, because they usually will kill birds, lizards, toads, and all of the creepy crawlies that I enjoy having around.

God, as usual, had other plans.

One day, as we were quietly doing math problems in our homeschool room, in the midst of division problems, the kids scream out, “CAT! IT’S A CAAAAAAAT!” After recovering from my minor heart attack brought on by the piercing screams of 2 children during a moment of silence, I look out the window to see the slinky tail of a cat sauntering (because that’s what cats do…they don’t walk, they saunter) past our barn. I make the kids stay inside and I run outside to try and find said cat. Of course, it’s nowhere to be found. They can do that, you know. Disappear magically without the slightest trace.

About a week later, we were in the barn when suddenly a cat came flying out from nowhere…right by my legs. I’m doing a weird, leaping dance while making strange, unintelligible choking noises with 3 small dogs chasing a stray cat who is running through my legs and a big 100 pound goober dog who is frantically trying to escape the situation unsuccessfully as his claws skate perilously on concrete while doing sideways donuts around the whole of the fracas. Of course the cat made it out. You knew that, though. As Jason says, anyone with any sense at all will yield to a cat.

A couple of days later, one night I happened to see the cat in the barn snacking on dog food. I call Jason out and as he slammed close one door I closed the other. The cat was trapped. We snuck in. The cat was in a corner, under a workbench and he was not a happy camper. He was meowing in the most pathetic manner you could imagine. Well, as I’m on one side of the barn, Jason makes his way to the other, which in turn is herding the cat STRAIGHT TOWARDS ME. I don’t turn my back on animals I don’t know, and I don’t want to reach for the door because I am terrified that this cat will use me as a human pole vault to escape. Jason is calling, “Here, kitty kiiiiitty!” in his nicest voice and I’m getting slowly cornered as the cat creeps closer and closer. All I can see is the cat attached to my face, I get rabies, and lose my vision.

In one singular motion, cat leaps (flies) through the air and is now above my head on the supporting 2×4 on the wall of the barn. Only a cat can make a 6 foot leap, scale a post, and walk across a 2″ surface without so much as a single false step. Now is my turn to escape. I run back to Jason in the safety zone. I don’t think he notices how breathless and pale I am.

J: Well, what now?

Me: I don’t know. What do you think?

J: Well, I mean, we don’t need a stray cat out here. Should we….

Me: Get rid of it?

J: (frowns and shrugs)

Me: I mean, I don’t want to…you know…he’s such a pretty cat. But we can’t have a feral cat around the kids and the chickens.

J: (nods)

Me: (sighs and looks at cat)

(cat is staring at us accusingly through slitted eyes still balancing on his perch)

Me: Crap. Well, we can’t kill the damned thing, I mean, we just can’t. Let’s just wait and see. Let’s let him out.

A week after that, we lost a chicken to a raccoon. Jason set up a live trap using a can of cat food. The next morning, my oldest comes running in the house. “WE CAUGHT A CAAAAAT!” Maybe I should have used a can of coon food. Apparently, if you set a trap using cat food, I guess you’re gonna catch a cat. Well, there you go. There’s a lesson for you.

Let me pause the story to tell you about cats. After working in a veterinary clinic for a few years, there was one animal that I feared the most. Not a snake, huge hissing monitor lizard, angry dog, or a pissed off parrot with a beak like a set of Vise-Grips. It was the cat that struck up the most fear. Not only does a cat have a very impressive and deadly set of nice pointed teeth, but it also has 4 sets of equally sharp claws. Cats have the muscle tone of a bodybuilder and they can rotate their heads and body something akin to Linda Blair mixed with an owl and a Cirque du Soleil contortionist. You don’t want to tangle with a pissed off cat. You want proof?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMNSVMyxzxA

This woman was trying to keep this stray cat away from her dog which it had just attacked. Note the body language of the cat. It is completely puffed up, including tail, ears are all the way back, in an extremely defensive posture. Do not EVER approach an animal with these signs unless you want to end up with some time in the ER.

This video gives me flashbacks of two cat attacks I have personally witnessed, and one I didn’t. The first was when I was attacked myself. As I was walking past a friend’s bed, her cat who was the spawn of the devil himself, leapt from the bed and latched all of its teeth into my elbow. It was shocking, it hurt, and I was in disbelief. I am sure that the cat was extremely territorial and I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. At any rate, it wasn’t an animal that had any business around children.

The second time was when I was a grooming assistant at a pet store. My co-worker was about to bathe this cat, and I had my back turned. Suddenly, she said my name in a strange and terrified voice. I wheeled around, and the cat was attached to her arm, teeth fully sunk into her flesh, and all 4 sets of claws were also engaged. Wide-eyed, all I knew to do was pop the cat on the head to get it to release. It did, and my co-worker promptly fainted.

Last story I have was about Jason’s aunt. She was going to clean out a storage shed at a new house they had just bought. When she walked in, a feral cat leapt onto her face, attacking her viciously. I can’t remember if the cat was rabid or not, but I’m sure she at least had to get the vaccines.

So, bearing all that in mind, back to my cat story.

Well….

Well, dear readers, here it is that I have to stop my cat story.

Because, you see, I was writing this nice long blog, all about my love for our new cat. I was writing this on a lovely Saturday afternoon. Our cat (whom I named Churchill, and ‘Church’ for short) was contentedly sunning himself on our front porch all day long. That night, I locked him up in the barn and the next day, he was gone.

I guess my words held more truth than even I believed.

Cats really can disappear magically without a trace.

Goodbye, Church. One day, maybe we’ll meet again.