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February 22, 2005
Fred's friends
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that when you start feeding a stray cat, pretty soon you're feeding a bunch of stray cats. (Apologies to Amy!) Fred has four regular friends. Two are grey, and two are black. One of the greys is almost certainly a feral, like Fred. One of the blacks is definitely owned—the collar's a dead giveaway. They all dine regularly on our back porch, and some of them are apparently bunking in the barn with Fred.
But as of last night, Fred has yet another friend, a black-and-white one. Never saw it, but we sure did smell it when we went out on the porch this morning. >sigh< Well, we've been sharing our outbuildings with Skunkly for quite some time, so we're quite accustomed to him/her. Tom can even tell the skunks apart and is on speaking terms with them from time to time. I actually tripped over one in the dark once, and s/he just scurried off. Skunks are much like cats, actually. They eat the same things, including mice. One difference is that skunks like bananas, and that's a delicacy I've never seen a cat cotton to. But the skunks regularly dig the bananas out of our compost pile and scarf 'em down. And now, in addition to bananas and mice, the Earlville skunks are grooving on Purina. Well, Fred and his feline friends are going to have to get used to not getting an evening meal. I'm not going to be encouraging the skunks to visit our porch nightly; I don't want to stumble over the one that sprays instead of scurrying!
Posted by senioritis at February 22, 2005 08:49 PM
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Comments
Hey, no apologies needed. As long as the Belly girl isn't running around after black and white stinky things, all is well.
Posted by: aerobil at February 22, 2005 10:05 PM