Farm Fresh Blog

After you have bagged a dead cat, your day can only get better.

The Barn Cat died today. (Yes, my life is almost sinking into Black Comedy again.)  Karma, my Rat Warrior, announced yesterday that she wanted to come into the house.  I obliged and set her up in the spare bedroom.  She died. It was pretty much par for the course this week.

Last night I announced that I was tired of the flu and I was going to work tomorrow. (I said this in the middle of a wheezing, coughing fit.) Other Half informed me that was Not Gonna Happen.  HAH!  I would show him! So to PROVE to him that I was going to kick this flu, I went to bed without Nyquil.  After what seemed like an eternity of coughing, I realized that the only thing I was proving was that I was an idiot. He finally suggested I take some Nyquil. It helped for about ten minutes.  I still coughed all night, had the sweats, muscle aches, and was otherwise miserable in every possible way.

Other Half headed to work this morning and left me in the capable paws of Border Collie who assured him that she would not let me die in my sleep, but she couldn't do much if I aspirated on puke. I finally dragged myself up to begin feeding animals. First I opened the door to the spare bedroom to let the cat out.  Karma stared at me with dead eyes. You know your day can only go uphill from there.

I called Other Half to inform him that Barn Cat had died.  There was a silence as he waited for the water works, but I just didn't have the energy. We decided to bury her under the apple tree. Since I couldn't have a dead cat in the house until he got home, this meant that I actually had to dig said hole. Fortunately, the flu had not quite taken ALL my faculties and I realized before I buried the cat under the apple tree that there the dogs would have access to a fresh grave.  It didn't take my mind long to run that to its inevitable conclusion so there was a change of plans.  I would bury Karma under the Pecan Trees, in the Porch Ponies' pasture.

This sounds romantic until you factor in the roots. It took a while to dig the hole.  Then I threw up.  The dogs stared at me through the fence, fascinated by this new sport of digging and puking.  Faith, the fluffy calico, supervised.  When the hole seemed big enough, I went inside and got Karma. Bagging a dead cat is the low point to any day.

So I buried Karma.  I tapped the black clay tightly with the shovel, wished her Godspeed, and headed back to the house. On my way across the pasture, I happened to catch the sunlight dancing across the back of St. Napolean, the Porch Pony. It looked so warm. So I stopped a moment and ran my fingers deep into his warm, thick coat.  It was the hug that I needed. Then I picked up the shovel and left.

Vaya Con Dios, little Rat Warrior