Cat Tales, 13

Now came the time of the big birds. They made me so mad!

I could sit inside on my chair, or I could sit with my human on the deck under the awning. Whenever either of us went into the yard, a pied currawong would chase us back onto the deck or into the house. Currawongs are like large crows I’ve heard it said, except they are black and white.

We had some Bangalow Palm trees in our yard, and when their berries turned red, all the currawongs in the neighborhood congregate in our other trees where they wait their turn to eat the berries.

Too bad I can’t show you. My human tried to take a pic and they swooped her. She came running back in under the awning. We had to make do with just the one that lives nearby and sometimes comes by itself.

Yellow eyes. Fierce-looking. It even has a berry in its beak.

There’s another sort of black-and-white bird around, as well. They have red-brown eyes and grey-white beaks, and aren’t as big or fierce. They’re Australian magpies. One of them comes into the yard to listen for worms traveling underground. When it hears one, it pokes its beak into the grass to catch them.

When I chase the magpie, it just jumps up higher than I can jump, and comes down again when I’m not looking. I’ve given up on it. I don’t like worms.

Cat Tales, 12

That big fluffy white rug is me of course, relaxing in the sun, while the pernickety old woman has her coffee and catches up on her social calls.

“Frog eggs?!” she said excitedly. “I have some too.” She laughed. “They’re no problem in my frog pond. I have an old cast iron bath now, that someone was tossing out in the white-goods recycling event.”

I pricked up my ears. Rolled over and sat up. Stared at the frog pond in the back of the yard. Reeds and a yellow flowering plant showed above the rim. On the white ledge nearest lay a bent piece of wood.

My human went on with her conversation. “There’s not a canetoad on Earth that can jump backward and over the lip. And they are not that good at climbing. Yes, I’ll teach my cat not to hunt them.”

Huh, I thought. We’ll see about that. I’ll hunt whatever catches my eye. And something did catch my eye just then. I stared.

The piece of wood on the lip of the pond moved! All by itself! Not a breath of wind!

This I needed to investigate. I hopped down from the deck and stalked silently toward the frog pond using all the cover at my disposal.

“Won’t do you any good,” the pernickety old woman called from the deck. “It’s the Frog Pond Guardian at her post.”

Her words made no sense. Belly to the ground, I leopard-crawled nearer, the nasturtium patch grew densely to well above my head.

I peered around the corner …

A large water dragon stared implacably back at me. I’d heard rumours about this lizard. In the backyard nextdoor it was supposed to have bitten off the head of a hen sitting on a nest of eggs.

The lizard moved! I backed up in a hurry! Waited there in the protection of the nasturtiums. Peered round the corner.

No. It just changed position. Lay there, immoveable.

“She’s just sunning herself,” the pernickety old woman said from behind me. What is it about her? She is always, always, giving away my hunting position.

Cat Tales, 11

Me, Hand-of-God, hunting skinks in my backyard

Finally I could learn to hunt, and me a large middle-aged cat with a low-slung belly. As a kitten, and with my mother and my brothers and sisters, we were ‘contained’ in a cattery yard. Where my mother could teach us only how to hunt flies and cockroaches.

As a teenage cat, I was contained in the basement of a large house. A large basement that meant, but all of it indoors. Cockroaches there, too. Then I came here.

After studying my new territory, I decided that my first prey animals up from cockroaches would be garden skinks. About the length of my foreleg including my paw, and very fast.

These little lizards live on all the fences surrounding my backyard, about one per metre, but come down onto the ground to catch insects. Where I’ll catch them. When I get fast enough.

The first time I was nearly successful the pernickety old woman took a photo of me, as above, and then laughed.

She laughed at me?

“Too slow!” she chortled. “They know all about big black and white marauders, and have evolved to be very fast!”

I set out to prove her wrong. Days later, I managed to snag with my paw a look-alike from the house wall. I laid it proudly outside the laundry for the pernickety old woman to inspect.

“An Asian Gecko,” she said. “Very good! You can eat as many of those as you like. They’re not native and starting to be a real pest, running over people’s faces at night, and the like.”

I ate it but it was nothing like my kibbles. The tail had spines on it. Yuck!

Cat Tales, 10

I love curling up in a warm plastic potplant dish

Escaping from the house, I rapidly got into new habits. I’d sleep most of the day. On weekends, I’d spend the day on the deck with my human.

Weekdays, when the builders arrived at 8.30 AM and went home at 3.30 PM, I slept somewhere warm but out of sight and out of mind.

From about 4.00PM onward, I got to know my backyard. Because, of course, the pernickety old woman put every kind of barrier up to stop me wandering. More on those later.

At approximately 5.00 PM, the pernickety old woman would open the screen door and stand there shaking the kibble tin.

The kibbles rattling was her sign that I should come inside for my dinner. She’d lock the screen door after me. Keep me inside during the exciting hours of the week.

After only my second night inside ready for anything, because I’d slept all day, I started planning my escape.

Watching for wildlife with the deck still a bit wet from rain during the night. I’m on the lookout for intruders.

Cat Tales, 9

Now came a bad time in the house. No peace in the daytimes. Builders tramped past all day, talking and laughing when I scurried for my water bowl or my litter box in the laundry.

They took over the garage and used it as their base. I watched them stormy-eyed as they trekked in and out through the screen-door with tools and materials.

I blinked. Didn’t hear the click of the lock that time. Started watching carefully. Listening too. The men grumbled.

The pernickety old woman came in with an armful of dry washing. “What’s the problem?” she said.

“We’re spending too much time looking out for that animal,” said one of them. “It’s maddening having to open and close that damned screen door every trip.”

“Can’t you board her somewhere?” said the other.

I didn’t wait for my human’s answer. Nipped to the screendoor …

Me, Hand-of-God, making my escape

Cat Tales, 8

That’s me looking stoic, prepared to wait it out

Some time later … my human looked at a thing she calls a calendar and had turned quite a few pages … I just knew a lot of days had passed.

In the early morning, the pernickety old woman said, “Ha, I hear the truck. I better go tell them where to park.”

Remembering the whole business in the roof that time ago, I hid.

The pernickety old woman came back inside with two men following her, both grey hairs like my human.

Neither of them took their boots off at the backdoor as is the custom. They walked in and out all through the kitchen, the living room next to it and the sunroom behind both.

The pernickety old woman darted in front of them, rolling up the rugs and getting things out of their way.

When they helped her move the refrigerator into the living room and parked it right in front of my hide-out, I’d had enough.

I scooted out of there and ran zig-zagging like a dervish-cat, circling them, then in front and then behind them. Thinking that if I could trip them over, they’d pick themselves up and go away.

The men just laughed and continued with their flicking measuring devices, pens and notebooks.

You’re surprised? I said they were grey hairs!

My human scooped me up and tucked me under her arm. She slid open a cabinet in the sunroom, took the drawer out completely, and put me in that cave.

“Stay there,” she said. “You out of their way and them out of your face.”

This is me looking taken aback. Did my human just tidy me out of the way?

Cat Tales, 7

The next day, while the pernickety old woman and I sat friendly in the red chair–me on a towel on her lap–I could feel little things crawling around on me. I scratched. Aah! So satisfying. I scratched more. Then I saw them! Little black specks jumping from me to my human.

“Eeeh!” the pernickety old woman said. “Fleas! I should’ve known, shouldn’t I?”

Unexpectedly, she flapped the ends of the towel over me, and started to struggle up out of the chair with me tight in her arms. I was so surprised that she didn’t just push me off, I didn’t struggle.

“Have to take some stern measures,” she said. “Hope you’ll forgive me.”

I couldn’t act out yes or no, because I didn’t know what she meant.

She took me into the bathroom, a hard, shining, tiled place, and shut the door behind us. She opened the taps that make the rain and waited, still holding me, until the water falling from the overhead thing steamed a little.

She stuck her hand under and said, “Well. Here goes. Clothes and all.” She stepped into the warm rain.

Fleas jumped off both of us and were swept down the drain.

When I got water up my nose, I sneezed and started to struggle. I miaowed. Got more water up my nose. “I want to get down!”

The pernickety old woman set me at her feet where I sneezed some more. I walked from the rain stall and shook my wet fur. Brrr. Cold down there at floor level. That warm rain was lovely, I realized. Walked back in.

The pernickety old woman had taken off all her coverings in the meantime and spread flower-scented suds all over herself. Then she let the rain wash it off her. There’s no logic to humans.

She turned off the taps. The rain stopped. She dried herself off with a pink towel, and then me with a washed-out green towel. She slung on her dressing gown and led me into the sun-room at the back of the house. Where she set the little kindergarten chair for me to sit there and continue to dry myself.

She tackled the remains of the flea plague by spraying the red chair and the rug and the couch with an insect-killing fog. She opened the windows and turned on the overhead fan to lift the sickly lemon-scent, and finally she set out a treat for me.

If all that’s what happens as a result of walking in and out and in and out of the warm rain she organizes, count me in next time. Though I will tell you, it will need to be a sunny day, just like it was today.