I love being outdoors. Good thing, huh, considering that certainly comes with the territory here. But truly, I love getting out in that fresh air and seeing what is happening out in nature each day. Plus, we have had an incredibly mild November and it would seem like such a waste not to enjoy it!
The farm has a really pleasant mix of of open fields and trees, and it makes for a pretty nice, low key hike. That is generally where I do most of my thinking and prep for a new post (this one included). I had been in the habit of taking our three dogs with me, but they have been particularly naughty about slathering themselves in fresh horse poop lately(this is the same route I ride Smokey on in the morning), so today they stayed home. Apparently, this provided the perfect opportunity for someone else to join me on my stroll. Enter, Squeaker.
If you have read my previous posts, you know there are more than a few stray cats calling this place home and at this point, I have named most of them. I know, I know. What am I thinking? Who knows, but the fact remains, they have been named and one of them is “Squeaker”. Perhaps you guessed, she is a very vocal cat, which is indeed what earned her the name.
As I began my stroll out to the hills, I looked down and found I had a very small and catlike shadow trailing me. I assumed that once I reached the end of the dirt trail and began traversing the more wild, grass covered ground, Squeaker would turn for home. But I was wrong. That cat kept right on following me. Before long, we had covered a good bit of ground and Squeaker was determined to stay with me, but I could tell she wasn’t familiar with the ground we were now covering. I am not really that certain how far a female cat’s territory stretches in the wild, but I knew I had never seen any of the cats out that far on any of my previous hikes. As Squeaker looked around more and more and we got farther and farther away, I started to get nervous that she might get distracted and lose her way back. I thought to myself “I can’t go letting my wild cat get lost!”. And so, I carried the cat. That’s right. I bent down, picked up Squeaker and CARRIED her for the rest of the hike. I couldn’t believe it. That silly little furball nestled right in, stretched out a front paw and acted like she was born to be carried around sight-seeing by some doting human.
On we walked, just me and my bob-tailed little companion. We passed tiny birds, perching on even tinier stalks of brush sticking up from the ground. The wind whipped around us, fierce but surprisingly warm. Up hills and back down with the sun shining down giving everything around a warm glow. Not wanting to push my luck, I only took us about halfway around the usual loop and cut back down one last hillside. As we came back upon the dirt road, Squeaker started to squirm and so I set her down and she kept pace with me back up to the barn, safely back in her own territory.
One of the most important things I hoped to accomplish in coming out here, was to take stock of the little things and today I did that, while hiking with a cat.
Loving the photos!
Thank you!