Wildlife I

To continue the theme of (ones) human interaction with wildlife, I present to you the riveting story of a cat and his domain.


Next door to us lives a cat, a huge heavy lumpy thing which we shall call Lumpy. I have never seen him do much more than lumber about from resting place to resting place. Well, a couple of weeks ago, we were looking out the window at the neighbors, and saw Lumpy in the front yard. When we looked into the back yard, we saw another cat, obviously a stray, which we shall call Grey Stray. ( There seems to be a family of them about recently, and they looooove my garbage cans, but that is for another day.)


Well, we watched Grey slowly make his way towards the front of the house, wondering if this would rouse Lumpy from his usual torpor. his ears pricked up.... then Grey advanced to the side of the car....

OUT CAME THE POPCORN!!!! THIS WAS BETTER THAN A MOVIE!!!!

Lumpy was definitely engaged now, but it was still too much effort to get up completely, Grey continued under the car....

THE PLOT THICKENS!!! MORE POPCORN FOR ALL!!!!

We were a little concerned for Lumpy, that this interloper might cause some damage to him, and i was wondering if the usual feline instincts concerning territory would kick in. We were wondering if we should tell the neighbor sitting on the front stoop ( and not able to see around the house and car) of the impending potential showdown, but felt this would prove that we were snooping on them, so we decided not to, and to let the fur fly on its own.


All of a sudden, Lumpy leaps up! ( after a fashion) and takes off after Grey. I was so amazed I threw the popcorn container into the air. He actually ran towards him under the car.

At this point, the neighbor caught on, and with our hearts in our throats (and popcorn in our hair) we watched the neighbor go after the cat.

Then to our extreme relief, we saw Grey take off back into the yard, with Lumpy hot on his heels. I ran through the dining room onto the deck to follow this riveting National Geographic worthy story, but by the time I got outside, Grey was gone and Lumpy had collapsed into an exhausted, albeit happy, heap in the back yard, secure in his prowess as the king of all he sees.

I went back in to clean up popcorn.