Pet philosophy

As Claude the cat bounced from floor to bin lid to windowsill and sat stolidly over Fenn the dog's head, Fenn ducked a little nervously but refused to move.
The three cats are boys, the dogs both girls. What I want to know is, do the boy cats know the dogs ARE girls and vice versa? Do they care? Does it make any difference? Would an all male or all female pet household for mayhem make?
Do they show each other little hidden courtesies? Do they have different sets of rivalries? Is this the most steaming heap of anthropomorphism?
Just curious. Perhaps the answer is at the end of the rainbow.

Too bucolic for words

First it was elderflower champagne, then it was strawberries, next tiny and delicious peas and baby courgettes. Then gooseberries for a crumble, wild strawberries as a snack and now more elderflowers, but this time for cordial.
I'm going to disappear up my own gingham pinny.
But to bring me back down to earth I removed a tapeworm segment from the cat's arse. And stuffed a worming tablet down its gob. Oh, and cleared up a regurgitated mouse (from the cat, the cat!). I did a heap of fairly stinky animal pooh related tasks too. Oh, and sat on some tar and made the seat of my pants sticky. It's an idyll.

Monochrome idyll

There's Claude, posing in the gateway. Eustace was probably off catching shrews. A little earlier a squirrel was squawking at the cats. It was sitting on a branch of the oak on the left making angry squirrel noises and shaking its tail. I'm not sure I've knowingly heard a squirrel hiss and chatter before, but whatever he was saying it wasn't polite. Two dogs, two cats and two people didn't frighten him away. When he'd said his piece he swung off from tree to tree to do what squirrels do.
And it's amazing how monochrome can make a hot day cool.

A pair of goldfinches

Ok, there's only one in the photo, but the noise of the catflap being replaced sent the second goldfinch off into the nearest tree.
The catflap had been hammered beyond repair by full tilt kittens running away from the boogie man, otherwise known as the gorgeous trespassing tabby that must belong to someone, but I've no idea who, and it certainly makes itself at home, chasing my three tabbies on their own turf.

War wounds

I think, but I don't KNOW, that this is a speckled wood butterfly. It landed on a bramble and I took a quick snap, because my memory for markings is pretty poor and by the time I'd have had the book in my hand I would be scratching my head over any discernible feature other than the hopeful memory that it was mainly brown.
And now, in the comfort of my chair, and filling the screen, I can see how torn its lower wing is between the two eyes. It reminds me of Smudge's ears, those delicate filigree whorls and thin skinned points that took such a beating from unknown cats. I used to gently finger those healed slits and notches and tell him he was just as beautiful as before, just with added character, like a mother reassuring a daughter with a beauty spot or a son with a significant nose.
I have some temporary wounds of my own; sharp kitten claws rake my legs, arms and neck as
they clamber up me for attention, hanging indiscriminately from zips, buttons, flesh.

Introducing Claude and Eustace

Well, you just try taking a decent photo of wriggly squirming pusscats!
Thank you everyone for your fabulous suggestions for names. It's been an interesting task giving a pair of almost identical kittens monikers that will do well for adult cats. The only difference I can tell at the moment is that one has blue eyes and the other green; but most moggies' blue eyes change as they get a little older, so I'm just going to have to learn to distinguish other features and personality traits.
Claude and Eustace it is then, the twin cousins of Bertie Wooster who turned up far too early in the mornings, perched on Bertie's bed and nicked his breakfast. Trouble was their magnet. Sounds about right. Blue eyes is Claude, green eyes is Eustace (front).

The naming of cats

My wonderful old cat had to be put to sleep a couple of months back. He was very ill but had been chirpy and content til the last handful of hours when it was finally time to intervene. I had hoped to find him permanently asleep on his cushion, but he just wouldn't drift off on his own, and he was clearly feeling really bad. They say you know when it's time, and I did.
He was buried in the orchard under a beautiful thriving cherry tree, and he frequently gets chatted to as we walk past.
The farm needs cats - rodent patrol is essential - and anyway, the house needs more than one cat to keep the dogs on their mettle.
There has been a trip to the Cats Protection League and two tabby boys, six weeks old and orphaned when their mother was run over, have been chosen. They should arrive in the next week or two.
Now it's just a question of names. Bill and Ben, Boris and Ken, Fish and Chips, Laurel and Hardy, Frost and Duffy, Tom and Sam, the possibilities go on and on. Any suggestions?

Five minutes peace

I can't believe how tired I am, and lambing has only started and there are just a couple of dozen ewes to deal with; how friends with 500 manage, I can't even start to imagine. Either way, you're in and out of the lambing shed like some crazed self-winding clockwork toy, checking behaviour, changes in eating patterns, signs of water bags, general atmosphere, and topping up one set of triplets with bottled milk as their first time mum hasn't really got enough of her own. Neither me nor far more experienced farmers I know have ever come across a first-timer having triplets - what was she thinking? Luckily the lambs are evenly sized and full of energy and survival instinct, so no larger bully is benefiting over the others.
Mini and major dramas are enacting themselves all over the place. The first batch of incubated goose eggs are starting to pip, so I am hoping there may be goslings under the heat lamp in a couple of days. One of the geese is sitting on her own full nest, au naturale, as proud and protective as can be. An Aylesbury duck suffered from a prolapse of the oviduct, so she has been dispatched, plucked and is in the freezer, my clean lambing Dickies boilersuit now covered in white down. A ewe gave up trying to lamb after some sterling effort, and intervention brought out one malformed lamb that had blocked the cervix causing another perfectly good lamb to die, leaving the mum with one good healthy ram (this run of triplets is ridiculous - that's three sets so far). Saddest of all, the matriarch, Mrs Longtail, succumbed to pasteurellosis, something the flock had never suffered from until last year when two ewes were also lost to it in the final stages of pregnancy. They are all vaccinated against this lethal pneumonia, have been well fed and are in a well ventilated barn, but you can't avoid the inevitable stress to the body caused by lambing or stop cold windy weather. I'll have to discuss future planning with the vet.
My old cat is getting scrawnier, but still eating, drinking, purring, strolling, mock-hunting, and as you can see, happy to share a bed with Mopsa on a filthy welly-boot dirt strewn kitchen floor. And I am off to check on the ewes, again.

Too much on your plate?

On the days you wonder if you have just too much to do and much too much to think about, or have an over-complicated life that just can't be fitted into the days available, it can help to know that others in Devon have taken on even more.
This morning ten lambs and 2 cull ewes went off to the butcher. I come back and sort lamb sales and then start looking at tenders for work and draft something to titillate a potential funder. I pay the wages, look at the cashflow and try and get everything sorted for taking a day out tomorrow to do a cattle course with Dexters.
It's noon, I've achieved a lot, but I haven't had to deal with an escaped wolf, a jaguar that has found its way into the wrong big cat enclosure, a boss who doesn't know when it's time to put down an ancient arthritic tiger, or a bear with horrendously overgrown claws.
Ben's Zoo is Jimmy's Farm with claws. I feel much better now.

My old cat

I'm not one for cutesifying cats, like some, but I have two tabbies to keep the dogs in their place. The eldest is over 16 and not in good health. Eighteen months ago he was diagnosed with a hyperactive thyroid and once he made it clear that his life would be unbearable on a regime of permanent tableting or invasive treatments, was sent for an eyewateringly expensive stay at the Bristol University Veterinary Hospital to be made radioactive. Some huge percentage of cats (and people) are cured with this treatment - not so Smudge.
He is, by now, a pretty ill cat. He is skinny, demands food and is fed constantly, and can wheeze abominably. But he also enjoys most minutes of his day; he still hunts, he sleeps, he seeks out company and warm laps. He is clearly not in distress, and in most ways he is unchanged and relaxed. Best of all, he doesn't engage in avoidance tactics for fear of a pill.
This is the fourth house Smudge has shared with me. He was a brightly blue-eyed terror of a kitten, much taken to sleeping curled up in man-size tissue boxes after exhausting frequent dare-devil antics had him hanging by needle-like claws from the dining room ceiling (ghastly walls covered in hessian eased his vertical travels). He has taken to Devon and its many trees with gusto.
There is a dent in the cushion on the floor of my office where he usually sleeps. I can see him crossing the frosty garden in search of choice vole.