Welcome Daisy

Yup that’s her, our little Daisy the kitten.

It is official, the cat hater, me, has been broken down by blue eyes, fluffy fur and cuteness overload. Well that and a mouse issue that keeps coming back.

Daisy is too young to catch mice but she attacks every moving grass blade, clover blossoms and the dogs noses should they get to close!

She is a “wild” cat in the fact she was born to an outdoor farm cat, lived in the hay bales under a tarp. The thing that made her a keeper was that my granddaughter could pack her around, squeeze her, drop her and more…. Daisy was still a kind little cat, she never scratched her or bit her. I was impressed.

When Daisy first laid eyes on our dogs, the deep growling and hissing came out very forcefully. Noses got swatted, and it was evident she was in “friends off” mode. We have been working at it for a week and while the terms “friends “ is too strong, they are tolerant of each other.

I took her down to the chickens but I am concerned about the electric poultry fence. Yes she will only touch it once to know not to do it again but she is so little yet. I think all of us have mistakenly touched that fence, it throws a good zap! You tend to use words not usually in your vocabulary or possibly you did not think you even knew after a good yell when you make contact with the fence. The dogs are very mindful of it. Mocha will not go near it and Mila walks as far on the other side of the path as she can. The chickens give it much respect, only one of them ever had to get close. The whole flock reacted as if each of them had each touched it. I guess the poor one who touched it shrieked impressively enough to let them all know- stay away!

We once found a “hole” in the fence from something trying to get in. A couple of the wires had been cut or chewed. Whatever it was it never got into the chickens. The fence does its job well.

Daisy has been confined to the wood shed, she comes out for visits. I read that doing this for a week lets the cat know where “home” is. I mean really what do I know about cats? Not much. Today we will open the large pen she has been in and see what happens. At this point her favorite place is the greenhouse where so many fun activities can happen.

Because I don’t know what I don’t know and that’s about cats I searched some facts. Male cats life span average is 13, a female is 15 years. The oldest house cat to ever live was 38 years. Her name was Cream Puff and she was cooked bacon and an egg every morning for breakfast plus a cup of coffee. Looks like bacon and eggs for the win!

2 cats have potential to produce 420,000 cats over 7 years. ( that’s if babies get busy as well)

Female cats go into heat around 4 months old, and do this every 2-3 weeks. Male cats will travel miles to find a female to mate with (neat!).

Cats spend 70% of their time sleeping. This is worrisome to me because it cuts into their mouse killing activity. However cats can run at around 30 kms per hour. A good athlete can run at about 27 kms per hour.

Felicette was chosen out of 14 stray cats of Paris back in 1963 to do the honors of cat hood and go into space. She completed her mission successfully.

God made cats thus she has much purpose as all of His creatures do. I guess we will see how Daisy and the farm will handle life together.

I will keep you posted.