I wish I knew for sure how old she was, but I don't. We moved to this farm around Eastertime in 2008 and found that there were resident felines on the property. One of them was a White Furbeast With No Tail To Tell. We thought it unusual that a Manx would be loose in the wild and surmised that someone drove past, said 'Look, a farm' and tossed her out the window. We originally thought that Furbeast was a Tom so we named him Robert so that he would be Bob White, then we got a better view and changed her name to Roberta... The abandoned cat theory became stronger as time passed because while other female felines out in the fields became pregnant, White Furbeast never did indicating one of two possibilities, she was either sterile or spayed. Only problem with that last theory is who would pay to have a pet spayed and then abandon it...
Knowing that if you feed a cat they own you, I prevented Mrs. NoC from feeding any of the outdoor critters that wandered through the place (we do after all have an indoor herd of furbeasts of assorted colors and stripes, lately predominately black, that we support.) One evening after arriving home from work, I had a package of soda crackers in the car from a purchase of soup at lunch. There was snow on the ground, so on the way into the house I crumbled the crackers and sprinkled them on the snow for the birds. The next day while at work I get a phone call from Mrs. NoC telling me that the white tailless cat was in the back yard by the walk digging something out of the snow and eating it. I told her that I had sprinkled the crackers there, she said 'the poor thing must be hungry' and fed her.
Of course the effects of that were predictable and white furbeast started hanging around to get fed. We began by placing the food in front of the barn door, and thus I have the earliest photo (below) I can find of her dated Jan. 23, 2009 taken in front of the barn door. Camera is in one hand, food dish in other lest you think that she is posing for a selfie. Those of you owned by a feline will recognize the 'youse gotz foodz' look..
In time the food moved to the back porch because it was a trek in the wind and storm and cold to walk over to the barn, and we built a cathouse for her to escape the weather in beside the back door. (Cat house, unlike the ones in horribleHarry's state, consists of a $4 wallyworld storage tub inverted with a entrance cut out of the plastic, stuffed with straw and old blankets and covered with a tarp to keep the rainsnowglop out. It is still there on the back porch. Blankets have received washings and straw has been renewed. It has a new resident...)
Somewhere in that time frame, I'm thinking winter of 2010-2011 - first photo showing her indoors is dated Jan 2011, it was horrendously cold and windy due to glowbull warmthing, and White Furbeast was hanging by the back door begging to be let in. Mrs. NoC says, 'Ahh.. The poor thing is cold..." That was the last time that the White Furbeast was outdoors. She has had servants ever since. Funeral arrangements are incomplete. I'm thinking that since she was here when we moved in she belongs here and I should dig a hole and put her in the ground with the other residents here who have passed on either by crossing the road in front of the house at the wrong time or killed by stray dogs. Mrs. NoC wants to cremate her remains. The first option is of course the least expensive but must be done before the ground freezes solid due to glowbull warmthing...
Which ever is chosen, it will not be accomplished today.
I was holding her when she died. And I'm trying to pretend that I'm not emotional about it.
