Cats- Striper and Midnight

Still have been really busy. I feel guilty for not doing a tea post on Thursday (Sorry tea-drinkers following me!) I have had some really good tea lately so hopefully I'll have a good post about tea on Thursday.

Now: Cats on Tuesday!

I have been away from home so I do not have much to say about my cats, other than they have been cheating on me with my mother. Deep betrayal. So I have some photos of cats from the past.

First up is Midnight, a gorgeous black cat.

Midnight

I did have a slightly better picture of her, but there was a dead chipmunk in the foreground so I decided not to blog it. Midnight was the best hunter I have ever met. Besides chipmunks, a few birds, many rodents (countless mice and voles, a freaky looking star-nosed mole), she would bring home rabbits. Not just baby bunnies but rabbits as big as herself that she would have to walk backwards in order to drag them from the field. One time she brought home some sort of weasel I did not even know we had in Connecticut until Midnight proudly carried one home one day (I think it was a short-tailed weasel). Midnight was a medium-sized cat, if she was any bigger I think she would have brought home deer. Midnight always walked like she was in a great hurry to be somewhere important, that place was somewhere destroying wildlife.Now I do not recommend letting cats wander outdoors, especially not where I live where cars fly by not caring what is in the road. But Midnight did not die until she was well into her late teens, and then it was old age catching up to her. She was one of the rare cats that knew how to cross the road without getting run over and would never be happy as a strictly indoor cat. Midnight also enjoyed a bit of milk every day which is also bad for cats.

We were Midnight's third owners. Her first owners had moved and decided to leave their pets behind. Friends of the family lived nearby and took Midnight in, but when Midnight turned out pregnant they passed her onto us. Midnight had six kittens, 3 black and white, 3 tabbies, 2 girls (both tabbies) and the rest boys.

Striper was the runty one of the litter, but a gorgeous cat. Her pictures don't do her coat justice, she was a classic tabby with a shining silvery-brown coat. The prettiest cat I have ever had and I never found another cat with the same coloring.

Little Striper Night

Striper also spent time outside though not as much as Midnight. She was a laid back and trusting cat, I used to be able to pick her up and stretch her on her back along my arm and she would let me rub her belly.

Striper taking a dustbath in the driveway

She also did not mind getting wet. The hose did not reach all the way to the garden so we would have a bucket where the hose ended filling with water while we lugged a second bucket to the garden to water the plants. When the water started overflowing the bucket before we could get back to it Striper would bat at the overflowing water as if trying to push it back in. If we waved the hose she would chase the stream and get soaked. She was a fun cat.