I’ve been telling people about Spike, the youngest member of our cat family.  He was the only survivor of the nine kittens that were born last fall and he has turned out to be quite a character.  Now that the dogs have accepted him, he has no problem jumping out at them from behind the work bench in the garage or rubbing up against them if they happen to be standing still.  I named him Spike because his tale looks like a spike when he has it pointed straight up.

He likes standing on his back feet and using his front paws to touch you on the face or bat at something hanging down.

Our two female cats (Priss and Danger) meow so softly it’s hard to hear them and I don’t think I’ve heard Bud meow . . . that would take some effort on his part.  But Spike has a very strong meow and he purrs whenever someone is close.  He also like to climb up you leg like a tree.  But that will have to come to an end soon because come summertime when we are wearing shorts he will be drawing blood if he tries to climb up our legs then.

Spike likes bringing pine cones into the garage so he has something to play with and he really enjoys helping Ken rake up the manure in the barn.  Unfortunately Ken doesn’t really appreciate his help.

There is an almost white tom cat that hides out in our barn when the weather gets cold.  He’s a freeloader, he eats the cats food and is able to get out of the weather for a while.  We’re pretty sure that he is Spike’s father because he has a gray ring around his white tail about a third of the way down.

The other morning I headed out to do chores and as always all the dogs came along.  Ruth must have smelled that the tom cat was in the barn because when I opened the door she went charging in.  I turned the lights on just soon enough to see the white tom cat trying to run east out of the barn with Ruth in hot pursuit.  The horses were milling around waiting to be fed and the cat ran smack dab into one of the horses legs, which stunned the cat for just a split second.  That got the horses all spooked and they started snorting and running outside the barn.  Ruth knows to watch out for the horses so while she was making sure she didn’t get in their way, the tom cat was able to run around the outside of the barn to hide under the old pickup by the hay shed.  I had to chuckle at all the commotion.  Like Ken and I say, ‘it’s always exciting living out on the farm!’ I remember reading somewhere the phrase “I don’t know why they call it chores when it is the best part of the day.”