garden cat

Ed note: Dagnabit! The server went down just as I tried to post this! Somehow I think the first posting was much better but here goes.

Chloe likes to hang out with us when we are outside. It's nice to be working in the garden and have her nearby. She wanders off and then wanders back to check on us like a good sidewalk supervisor. When I was working in the vegetable garden she decided to play hide-and-seek. As I was weeding all of a sudden a small white paw darted out from under the rhubarb leaves and tapped me on the wrist. She kept doing this several more times as I came near enough to the plant for her to reach me without my being able to see her first.

Later I was in a different section of the garden pulling a particularly noxious weed that has rather long roots. Chloe peered at the hole and then all of a sudden began digging at it. The next thing I knew she was, I am not kidding, up to her shoulder in the hole batting furiously at something while Steve was cheering her on in the background…"Go Chloe! Come on, get it! Get it!"

Whatever it was she didn't get it (although she managed to get filthy in the process. Thank goodness cats bathe themselves). We imagine it was some poor creature such as a vole who must have been absolutely terrified to find his roof lifting off only to have it replaced by a large white claw. On the bright side this has positive implications for the depredations to the garden caused by the resident rodent population albeit not for the rodents themselves.