She was seventeen, and her kidneys failed. For the last few days, she nested in a towel on a table on the porch, leaving it only to eat a few bites and pee on the floor. She didn’t appear to be acutely miserable, but she clearly wasn’t well. As hard as it is to put down an animal who doesn’t seem to be in pain, we preferred to do it before she got to that stage. There’s no recovery from renal failure.

She was an excellent cat, the right combination of affectionate and self-sufficient, and she had a good run. She spent her days chasing varmints, basking in the sun, and studiously ignoring the chickens. She wasn’t particularly food-oriented, but she loved popcorn and toast, and would put her dignity on the shelf to beg for them. She liked to hide behind the couch and pounce on us as we walked by. She talked a lot.

We were fond of her. She was our cat. We will miss her.

Here’s to you, cat.

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First we had our sick chicken, Flopsy, who couldn’t seem to stand on her own two feet. Then we had my father, hospitalized with an EKG that looked like one of those seismic meters during an earthquake. Then the cat, who’s become decidedly indoorsy in her old age, disappeared on, of all things, a rainy night. To cap it, I went out this morning and counted five turkeys instead of the usual six.

Flopsy, much improved

Today, though, all is well. Although Flopsy is not one hundred percent, she’s doing much better. She started eating, drinking, and clucking, and stopped nestling down in the straw lining her cage. We took her out today and reunited her with the flock. She’s still slow on the draw, but we have high hopes for her recovery.

My father is out of the hospital, pacemaker/defibrillator successfully installed. He can boast a steady pulse of 60, something he hasn’t seen in at least a decade. His career as a porn star, however, is definitely over.

The cat simply reappeared, pissed on the floor, and left again. We’re thinking it’s the beginning of the end. It is, at any rate, way past the end of the beginning.

And the turkeys? Well, seems I can’t count. When Kevin came to check them mid-morning, they were all there, present and accounted for.

It was the trifecta of crises: livestock, pet, family. I’m happy to report that we’re all stable and optimistic.

The car, though, is making an ominous creaking noise.

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What does a domesticated animal do all day? I understand the wild ones. They’re busy getting food, finding mates, rearing young, and attending Hunter Evasion classes. But pets and livestock have it easy. Food and water arrive on schedule. Mates, when necessary, are procured. Hunters are prohibited.

What occupies their minds?

In the summer, I worry less. The chickens are busy around the property, finding greens, chasing insects, and taking dust baths. Likewise, the cat goes outside to stalk chipmunks and eat things that will make her vomit on the rug. But in winter, everyone stays inside. The chickens are confined to an 8’x16’ run and, while the cat has marginally more freedom, she spends 80% of her time within three feet of the wood stove.

What are they thinking?

They can’t read, or talk. They can’t tell time, either, but are they doing the animal equivalent of watching the clock? Some animals certainly get bored. When you come home to find the toilet paper unwound all over the furniture, you know your dog doesn’t have enough to do. And I’ve heard stories about pigs that make me a believer in really good fencing.

But a cat? Chickens? Can you be bored witless if you’re pretty much witless to begin with?  I can’t imagine not being bored, if you can’t read.

This should keep them busy for about a month

Kevin’s been out of town for over a week now, so it’s just me and the animals. The cat gets fed and scratched, and I try to engage her in conversation; the only time she looks unhappy is when there isn’t a fire in the woodstove. The chickens, though, seem restless. They bunch up at the door when they hear me coming, and seem to want to mill around me even when I don’t bring them a special treat.

So, today, I bought them a Flock Block. A Flock Block is a 25-pound cube of compressed nuts, seeds, and grit, and it’s supposed to supplement their standard-issue feed as it “encourages natural pecking instincts to help reduce cannibalism.”

Mostly, though, it’s what passes for intellectual stimulation, if you’re a chicken.

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Easiest pet ever

Although we had them for years, I couldn’t tell you exactly what their minimal care consists of. My mother, naturally, took care of that. I couldn’t tell you anything about their habits or their diet. I can’t remember what we named them. (Inexplicably, given that her one daughter was grown up, my grandmother also had hermit crabs, and I do know that she named hers Damon and Pythias.) I remember being excited to get them, but I don’t think I was sad when they died.

When I was eight or nine, we graduated to a dog, a gray miniature poodle. Because my mother, like parents of small children everywhere, thought kids should get to name the family pet, the poor thing was saddled with “Tevye.” Until now, the sum total of my animal care experience was limited to taking a cagy, cantankerous poodle for the occasional walk. (“You get the pet you deserve,” my mother always says.)

Now Kevin and I have a cat and eight chickens. In the adult division of the lowest-maintenance animal competition (that’s animals for adults, not animals who are adults), cats and chickens may tie for top honors. They’ve been easy enough that I’ve been almost sanguine about getting more labor-intensive animals, like pigs or goats or Highland cows. Until today.

Today my image of myself as animal caretaker was dealt a blow. It started with the cat.

The cat has been itching for three months. She scratches her chin, ears, and shoulders so often and so vehemently that she’s developed raw, hairless patches. I have assumed this is an allergy, since she did the same thing last year, starting in September and ending in November.

Last year, I assumed she was allergic to flea and tick medicine, which we gave her, prophylactically, early in the fall. It was the kind you apply topically at the back of the neck, and it made her miserable. But, whatever was making her scratch, at least I knew it couldn’t be fleas or ticks.

The cat, not feeling grateful for anti-flea ministrations

This year, at about the same time, she started scratching again, so it wasn’t the flea stuff. A plant that comes up in the fall? A kind of food that we just happened to give her this time last year? I changed her dry food. Kevin applied topical lotion to the itchy spots. Nothing changed. I had started to think we’d have to take her to the vet when the problem didn’t go away in November, the way it did last year. But I put it off.

Meanwhile, the poor cat was clearly unhappy. She scratched all the time, and groomed when she wasn’t scratching. She started vomiting more than she usually does, and her weight dropped. She lost her joie de vivre. And then, this morning, when she was sitting on my lap trying to get warm, I found a flea. I was horrified. I had let my cat wander around with fleas for three months without doing a bloody thing about it.

We combed her thoroughly with a flea comb and we gave her a bath with baby shampoo (oh and didn’t she love that). We’ll comb her again tomorrow, and if things don’t improve in a day or two we’ll call the vet and get industrial-strength flea meds.

Three months!

Hawk was here

So I wasn’t feeling like a particularly caring or careful caretaker when I heard the chickens sound the alarm.

We were outside, doing stony things. I was working on the stone base of the wood-fired oven and Kevin was laying a stone path to our outdoor shower. All of a sudden there was a huge kerfuffle and the chickens went running for shelter, crowing for all they were worth. We looked up in time to see the hawk – a big one – flying low next to the rhododendrons.

We went up to investigate, and found an alarmingly large pile of buff Orpington feathers, but no buff Orpingtons. My heart was in my mouth as we peered under bushes, trying to find all eight birds.

Baldie

We did find all eight, seven completely intact and one with a big bald spot on her back. There was no blood, so I assume our hen wasn’t injured, but it made me think – again – about whether we’ve been doing our chickens a disservice by putting them in harm’s way. If they stayed in the run, they’d be perfectly safe, but not nearly as happy, and we’ve opted for happiness. I’m beginning to wonder whether we’ve been wrong.

I know that neither the fleas nor the hawk brands me as an unfit animal owner. In the first instance, I was overly committed to the idea that flea medicine prevents fleas. In the second, I made a choice that some would undoubtedly disagree with, but others would, I’m sure, support. I’m not breaking out the hair shirt or forswearing animals for all time, I’m just thinking long and hard about pigs or goats or cows.

Hermit crabs, though … I could handle hermit crabs.

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