What’s that old joke about the difference between cats and dogs: The dog looks at you and thinks to himself, “You feed me, you shelter me, you love me. YOU must be GOD!” The cat looks at you and thinks to himself, “You feed me, you shelter me, you love me. *I* must be GOD!”
At any rate, my feral cats are quite comfortable with the idea of me serving them their breakfast every morning. It’s funny. I woke up the other morning at my campsite, and all four of my feral cats were waiting for me bright and early. They hadn’t been fed in three days because of the big rainstorm, so they were all raring to go. And they were all lined up in a line down the trail at four different spots, with about five yards of space between each of them (they’re always feuding with each other so they keep a respectful distance between them).
I fixed four dishes of cat food and trotted down the trail and delivered the food to each cat at their particular station. I felt like a maitre ‘d serving four different tables. Ha ha. And they were definitely hungry. Each one polished off an entire 13-ounce can of cat food, as well as a bunch of dry food. They all seemed like they made it through the first big storm of the season in fine fettle.
And then I crawled back into my sleeping bag, and me and Mini Scaredy slept until 1:30 in the afternoon. Getting to sleep in late is one of the big fringe benefits of being a bum (and a cat).
Another winter is coming fast.
