A Cat Farm

As a child, I wanted to run a cat farm. It seemed plausible to my nine year old self. People had tree farms and dairy farms, truck farms (I think I did know that they didn’t grow trucks, but vegetables), why not a cat farm? Of course I overestimated the demand, a recurrent problem for the optimistic. I now see that a cat farm is about as likely as a dandelion farm.

But wait. Don’t I see dandelion roots selling for absurd prices dried, at the health food store? Didn’t Plains Indians value the root as a master curative and liver purifier, sometimes traveling hundreds of miles to find them? Don’t we eat the greens in salads and congratulate ourselves on our healthy eating? Yes to all.

The day of the dandelion may be here, but cats could have a longer wait.

I’m not interested in purebreds, beautiful though they are. Human fiddling has done great damage to dog breeds, creating a host of problems along with the supposedly perfect specimens of poodle and Doberman.

I like regular old cats: sculptural, elegant and grotty, utterly unrepentant about napping through a workday. Admittedly independent, they can be won over with years of kindness, and then become subtle and beguiling friends to humans.

Last summer we found ourselves without cats. Our ginger tomcat, Zeus, had had an extraordinarily lucky life. As a kitten, he gnawed through mouse cords of computers and never once hit a live wire. He slept casually in the woods when he felt like it, eluding all predators for ten years.

He was a menace to rodents and birds alike, however. When we got tired of picking up feathers and beaks off the porch, we finally got him a bell, sure that he’d slip its collar in a matter of minutes. He wore it like a medal, and made a point of jingling importantly through the house. After all, did any of us rate a bell? No sir. My son even swears that he saw Zeus in the garden stalking a bird--silently. I can only hope the last minute jingle gave the bird time enough to fly.

In the garden, Zeus was companionable, curled up in a dry fountain, he’d watch me weed with amusement. He enjoyed lounging in our bush of Persian catnip, nibbling, then sleeping off his high. He had a great time, that cat.

One night I called him in. He yowled, pitched over, righted himself, strolled over to his food dish, ate, purred, curled up on a chair, and was stone cold by morning.

We buried him with his bell, cleaned out the litter box, picked up the dish, mourned and gave the dog extra attention. This went on for months. We were aware that rodents would sooner or later decide to move into our cat-free house. Winter was coming.

Then a friend allowed as how she had some youngish cats who might need homes. I went over eagerly and met her cats, part Maine coon. They were very friendly, but resistant to being held. I fell for the mother cat, who was clearly still nursing. I was assured this cat was a mouser, and advised to get her spayed pretty soon.

We named her Minnie Mauser, and for the first couple of days, she found hidey holes in the back of closets, coming out to eat and purr. I detected a certain roll to her gait. She ate like a stevedore (though not mice—not even a raw egg) and we all suspected she was pregnant. She grew huge. We took bets on when she’d deliver.

Yesterday morning at 4:30, she came to get me in bed. I brought a box lined with an old mattress pad and put it into the nest she’d made at the back of my son’s closet. She kept climbing into my lap, purring in between pushes. I kept putting her back in the box and patting her. After lots of purring and some yelling, out popped a huge kitten, followed by another. I left her nursing and purring, wondering if that was it.

It wasn’t. My husband came down to announce that there were four living kittens and one off to the side that didn’t make it. We took out the cold kitten, gave it a quickie funeral and burial, brought a dish of milk up to Minnie, changed the mattress pad.

Here they are—all black and white, like miniature Holsteins. Could this be the beginning of my cat farm after all?