Zip was no where to be found when I went to feed him last night. It’s the first time he wasn’t around for dinner and when I closed up the chickens for the night,
But since finding the mostly eaten bodies of three dead rats on the farm, we now know for sure that Zip is a hunter. It may have been him who chased the rats from the barn into the house.
Luckily that didn’t last long. We haven’t seen a rat in the house, or found any dead rats in the traps for a couple of weeks.
Last night when I went to bed, I wondered if maybe Zip expanded his territory too far and was eaten by the bobcat or coyotes that live around the farm.
But this morning, there he was, as I opened the barn door, waiting for Zinnia so they could do their dance, then leaping up onto the hay bales where we feed him.
The last years of their lives Minnie and Flo stuck close to home. They were so predictable, I forgot that when they were younger they’d disappear for a day or two. It’s what barn cats do.
I just have to get used to it again now that Zip is here. And always keep in mind that there are certain risks in the life of a barn cat, as there are in any of our lives.
I dunno. Zip strikes me as a pretty self-sufficient savvy survivor. (Didn’t mean to be so alliterative! It just came out that way.)
I like it Jill! Could be a song.
What was that old song, maybe a Disney song? “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay, my oh my what a wonderful day! Plenty of sunshine heading my way…”?
OK, Wikipedia says it was written for the Disney 1946 movie “Song of the South”: the lyrics go on “Mister Bluebird’s on my shoulder. It’s the truth, it’s actual, Everything is satisfactual… Wonderful feeling, wonderful day!”
It actually won an Academy Award for best motion picture song. I think it fits your Zip pretty darn well!
He is bringing us a lot of sunshine Jill. 🙂