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Jan. 27, 2007 My neighbor has at least two dozen cats and naturally when the females go into heat, tomcats from miles around congregate near and in my yard. I think caring for pets is a nuisance, but I tolerate the forays of these little beasts because they keep my winter vegetable garden from being consumed by rabbits, an annoying occurence that used to happen before this feline population explosion. Now, I can grow broccoli, purple cabbage, bok choy, and turnips every winter knowing they'll be safe due to the cat patrol. The only drawback--my backyard is a latrine, and I'm frequently spending time scraping cat manure off the bottom of my shoes, my daughter's shoes, and her friend's shoes. The cats are under the false impression that I'm feeding them when every evening I carry a bag of kitchen scraps out to the compost pile. It's hard to believe the junk that these cats will eat: stale popcorn, moldy bread, rotten fruit, egg shells. They particularly relish butternut squash skins, baked sweet potato skins, apple cores, melon rinds, and moldy grapes. Whoever classified cats as carnivores must surely be mistaken. Perhaps in the wild, cats are forced to eat meat out of necessity, but in captivity they seem to thrive on a diet of vegetable crud. They do wage war on the local wildlife. I've seen dead moles and shrews scattered about the yard. These, they never eat, but they do like squirrel and song bird which they ambush, murder, and eat, leaving nothing but the tail or the feathers as evidence of the crime. The squirrels are constantly barking from the safety of the trees and are far less numerous around the house than they were a decade ago when a half-dozen used my attic as a nest before I nailed plywood over a hole under the eave. I've come to recognize the different individual cats that consider my yard part of their territory. A big gray tomcat with abnormally powerful shoulders stalks the land, ready to initiate noisy combat with any other male who dares to cross the boundaries he's urinated on. He occasionally sits and watches me exercise as if my striking the punching bag was a pay per view event. His sister (I assume from the identical shade of gray), is perpetually pregnant and always gives me a warm grateful look when I dump the refuse on the compost. Her last year's litter, and year before last year's litter, rush around the corner looking for food whenever I open the back door. There's only one cat I don't like, a ratty-looking Persian that hissed at me for no reason and looked at me with hate in its eyes. Animal behaviorists say we shouldn't attribute human emotions to animals, but I recognized hate. I threw a brick at it and the nasty creature got the hint and never returned. A three legged cat hissed at me too, but I forgave this one. I was walking toward the compost pile once, and it was having trouble getting out of my way, thus the hiss. I sympathized with its disability. I do have a favorite. A gray and white cat, a yearling, is the only cat that allows my daughter to pet it. I'm amused at how bold it is. On evenings I fry sirloin steaks in an iron skillet, it comes to the back door and scratches on it. "Pets are a nuisance. Don't get the wrong idea," I say, yet it takes pieces of fat and gristle out of my hand. This high population of animals together is probably a health hazard. I've seen a bobcat around, I've seen road-killed coyotes nearby. I'd like to see some of these predators exert some natural population control on my neighbor's cats--just as long as they don't catch the one that knocks on my back door. ------------ About the author Mark Gelbart: My book, Talk Radio, is a black comedy about a radio talk show host who gets kidnapped and psychologically tortured by a loser. www.mark-gelbart.com Email: agelbart@aol.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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