routines and crazy kittens

We've settled into a routine in the morning that allows us to spend a little bit of time which each of the animals, but still gets us to work on time. We get up early, set up the coffee maker, get changed into barn clothes, head out to the woodshop to let the kittens outside and feed them, and then head over to the barn.

Cats are absolutely the funniest animals I've encountered.

It's hilarious to watch the kittens in the morning. They haven't yet realized that it's really hard to feed them when they're standing on top of the bucket that holds their food and trying to climb into your arms. Yes, I can hear that you're crying for your breakfast, and that you're starving to death, and you're completely neglected, and no one cares about you, and if you don't get fed RIGHT NOW then you're going to waste away, but how exactly that's supposed to happen when one's climbing into your arms and the other one's trying to trip you by winding around your feet is quite beyond me.

Eventually, though the kittens get snuggles and food to their hearts' content, and we head off to feed the horses. Snickers is always the first one into the barn, and waits impatiently as Blaze carefully picks his way through the mud and frozen ground to the barn. Once in the barn though, he snorts and whickers and stamps his feet until he gets fed. Grains, vitamins, medicine and hay get distributed, heads get scratched, noses get rubbed, and then it's off to feed the ducks.

Normally, the ducks do ok on their own, but recently there's been a bit of snow covering the ground, and the pond is mostly frozen, so we've been supplementing their normal foraging diet with some cracked corn. To get the cracked corn, we need to go into the shed, which is also where the garbage and birdseed is kept, and so the kittens think it's the greatest place in the world. Racu races in and shoves her face in the cracked corn and birdseed, while Miss Adventure tries to investigate the garbage situation. Jim and I each grab a kitten and leave the shed, and then go off to feed the ducks.

For some reason, although the ducks like cracked corn a lot, they really only come if you call them. If, for example, you wave the container around, they'll hop out of the water, but they won't come to eat until you yell, "duckduckduckduckduck!" Then they race up to you, quacking excitedly, and gorge themselves while the kittens stalk them and, right before pouncing, decide that pinecones are much more interesting prey.

Last week, we had a bit of a scare when the kittens began to discover the wonderful world of ice.

Miss Adventure realized early on that she doesn't like water or snow. She's wonderfully athletic, and instead of climbing up trees, she just runs up as though they're a small hill in her way. She can balance on the tiniest of branches, leap from great heights, do back flips when she's so inclined, and contort her body into some very interesting gymnastics. However, when she encounters snow, every footfall is accompanied by a little shake to remove any remaining snow flakes, and her hind feet only go where her front feet have already imprinted the snow. Normally, she leaps onto fence posts, unthinkingly balanced and graceful. Now that there's snow and ice, she leaps onto the posts, slips, and catches herself with her front paws, hanging from the fence posts with a mystified look on her furry little face. She's lost a little bit of her fearlessness, and it's funny to see her eye a branch before she leaps instead of just assuming it'll catch her as it always had.

With that said, she was extremely excited to discover the wonderful world of ice. Both she and Racu had learned that ice was solid when we fed the ducks and they ranged a little bit ahead of us, jumping from hillock to hillock on the edge of the pond, and occasionally slipping on the snow and landing on the ice. Once they knew it was solid, they explored the exterior of the pond, staying very close to the shore.

However, last week, Miss Adventure decided to investigate an interesting sound coming from part of the pond: the sound of flowing water. Her tail held high, she darted out into the middle of the pond, and started heading towards the spring which flows into the pond, and is definitely not frozen. She reached the edge of the ice, and stood for a moment on very thin ice. Jim and I realized at exactly the same time she did what trouble she was in- the ice cracked, she leaped into the air, Jim and I shouted "No!", and she fell into the water with a splash.

I didn't know cats can swim. I thought they were probably able to, but I wasn't prepared for the sheer speed and athleticism that Miss Adventure displayed as she surfaced, and frantically swam desperately through the freezing cold water to the other side of the spring. She grabbed the ice with her front paws, and tried to get her hind legs up, but the stream was flowing quickly and pushed her hind limbs under the ice. Racu immediately started heading right towards her, across the ice, towards the thin edge. Jim ran to try grab Miss Adventure out of the water. I frantically called Racu and started heading back towards the house- normally she follows anyone who looks like they might be heading towards food, but this time, she seemed much more interested in what was going on with her sister.

Miss Adventure pulled herself out of the water, Jim grabbed her and handed her to me, I put her inside my sweater, and held her as she shivered violently and tried to shake her limbs dry. We both ran towards the woodshop to get her inside, and fortunately, Racu changed direction, and followed us back to the house. We got them inside, towelled off Miss Adventure, and watched as she carefully cleaned every drop of evil water off her body with an absurd and completely distraught expression on her soaking wet face. She was completely fine, just quite cold and humiliated. I almost wish Racu had joined her so both of them would have learned what happens when you walk on thin ice...

It's funny, because my cat, Gemini, often seems crazy to me. But really, she's sedate, normal, calm, quiet, angelic, and adorable. At least, when you compare her to nearly suicidal kittens...