an animal safehouse

our house is opening itself to nature. some people might say we're messy and lazy, but the truth is, i like my house to be animal-friendly... whether those animals are domesticated or feral. i leave the doors open all the time, mostly accidental, so all sorts of things get in. we seem to have a family of bats that live somewhere in the house, because often there will be one flying around downstairs... the other day it was roosting on a bear head that's on the wall. the "garden" outside seems to breed lots of treats that the deer enjoy, nearly every day now families of deer wander through the yard grazing. the other day, there were 6. 6 fucking deer, baby deer and everything, recently spotless. but the best part about living in the middle of the poconos, besides all the deer and bats and the bear cubs we see occasionally is the kitten i'm trying to tame.

there must have been a plethora of kittens born recently, all over the area you see cats scampering around. biscuit's taken up the job of cat patrol, running the circumference of the yard to make sure it's feline-free, which is disappointing to me, because of the whole plan to domesticate them. i mean, it's getting cold out, surely they haven't got a warm place to sleep... anyway...

so the other morning will and i woke up and were making tea/coffee downstairs when i noticed faint paw prints on the counter. very tiny, but definitely... well, actually, it could have been anything. but they looked like kitten tracks. maybe that's cuz i really want a kitten. i'd left the door open the night before, and that gave me an idea. i figured i'd leave a little plate of tuna fish out on the counter, and leave the door open, and then see what happened. well, i also had to put a bunch of flour underneath the plate, just to make sure it was the same animal that ate the tuna, and not, say, biscuit, who can sometimes be very crafty and leap onto tables for snacks. clever, clever. but the kitten is clever too, because the whole day passed with no tracks, no missing tuna. she/he knows about the dangers of biscuit while awake. the whole kitchen smelled like tuna fish, but that was okay, because of the animal safehouse thing.

THEN

in the middle of the night! i was sleeping, but i was awoken by a clanging downstairs. i knew it had to be my soon-to-be friend, and the next morning i went downstairs and yes! all of the tuna was gone and there were kitten tracks all through the flour, all over the counter.

so my next step towards a relationship is, i went and got some cat food at the store. i figure if i put the food in the same place on the counter, and leave the door open, the cat will get used to its little feasts. so now there's a bowl of cat food on the counter, no flour, i want a more natural setting. if it seems my plan is working, i'll move to phase 3, which is to implement a snuggling device, like a bed or a pillow or a blanket, and place it somewhere safe and warm. there's no way the cat can resist.