Hunters and Hunted

It's been a busy weekend so far. Friday we had the vet out to examine Hercules, our dominant ram, prior to driving him down to Oregon for stud purposes. For the next weeks or months, his sole mission in life will be to reign supreme over, and impregnate, a flock of strange Soay ewes.

He was not terribly difficult to catch, and we roped him by his horns to a gatepost in expectation of the vet's arrival. The vet pronounced him healthy after an inspection which involved various ignominies being visited upon him, and then he was bundled into a crate with plenty of straw for padding and some water for the trip.


We also had the vet examine Shelley, one of our two remaining housecats; she turns out to have a bad heart murmur and will be put on medication once it arrives. There is presently some room for doubt as to whether she'll make it until then as she has taken a turn for the worse. We are doing our best to make her comfortable and she seems appreciative, purring at us when we stroke her. She's been with us as long as Wimsey was - over fifteen years, now.

By contrast, the barn cats have been in fine fettle and exceptional hunting spirits, daily bringing in strange things with which to shock and perplex the farmers. Friday morning it was a six inch crawdad which was apparently hunted up from the nearby stream - the vet confirmed what it was, and warned us that this should be discouraged as raw crawdad consumption can transmit a lung parasite to cats and humans both. Should we see the barn cats coughing, we should call the vet at once, without delay, so they can be treated.

Last night it was a squirrel of some sort, which they'd caught, killed, and dumped into their water bowl so that it floated there eerily. They are remarkable hunters, but determined to display their trophies in ways which would have gone over as modern art installations in the sixties.