Rural Ramblings: Rumours of death greatly exaggerated

Chub the feral feline draws Pippy the farm dog in for an encounter with her claws.

At last our long hot summer is ending. The main sign of seasonal change is that lone bathmat left out longer to dry completely, only to be drenched by the next passing shower and end up wetter than it was straight out of the washing machine.

That's if a brisk westerly hasn't already tugged it off the line and hurled it under a bush in the corner of the garden. Thankfully fly numbers have dwindled — I'm happy because the windows will stay cleaner and the cows will be relieved not to be bitten.

Even the dogs look livelier now temperatures have dropped. Bruce said old Jess the farm dog, at 14, wasn't looking great and maybe he should talk to the vet about letting her go peacefully.

Just a couple of days later I cleared the mail and found a card from the vet offering condolences on the loss of Jess ... gosh, I thought, he really didn't muck around.

He must have called the vet that afternoon, and he hadn't even told me it was happening. But when I mentioned it he said no, it was Tess the dog who passed away, Jess was alive and looking quite perky.

Tess was an old dog we inherited last year, too old for the farm, so Rachel took her home to retire in the suburbs. Tess became very ill with cancer and the vet had put her down earlier in the week.

Hmmm, I said, the writing in the card really makes it looks like Jess. Terry has cared for Jess for years, he's the one who feeds the old girl and lets her out, so I'm not sure what Bruce was thinking when he took the condolence card to the farm dairy.

Rachel walked in to the office to find Terry reading the card, a look of horror on his face and hastily had to reassure him that it wasn't what he thought.

In another case of mistaken identity, the other day a friend asked me how our black cat was. When I replied he was fine, she asked when I'd last seen him. Turns out she had driven past our place and noticed a black cat flattened on the road side and assumed it was ours.

It wasn't — but it was probably one of his relations.

Rachel found our black cat as a tiny fearless kitten in a paddock. He lacks a tail but makes up for it with personality, and the number of tail-deprived black feral cats in the area are testament to his sire's virility.

In the past few months at least four black cats have met their end on the stretch of state highway along the front of the farm, and that's a sign of how many stray cats are out there.

We have adopted another feral feline, Chub, who is spayed and lives at the shed where the rat population has suffered under her reign. Chub only permits Bruce and Rachel to touch her and then only when she's in a good mood.

She toys with the farm dog, Pippy, who is fascinated by cats. She lets Pippy get within a few metres and then leaps at her, hissing and spitting, and making poor Pip howl off into the distance.

Our own cats also enjoy this variation on What's the Time, Mr Wolf?, pretending not to look as Pip sneaks up on them, then turning on her at the last minute, sinking claws into her face if they're lucky. Pip can't help herself — she always comes back for more.