Today is the 5th anniversary of the introduction of two of our cats into our household. We got Lilla and Mindu (just don’t ask about the names) on 1st September 2002, as two rescue 4 month old kittens from the Godmanchester branch of Wood Green Animal Shelter. They love life at the Smallest Smallholding – apart from the annoyance of other cat Tom and the late great grandoise Tubby. When I got my fleece tunnels for the veg patches earlier this year, I’m sure that they thought it was just another fun toy put there solely for their disposal. And yet I can’t berate them too much for it!
I often walk by the plots, only to see a flash of fur and a sharp exit from under the tunnels, and when I peel back part of the fleece, I discover that my carrot seedlings have been sat on, and are rather ‘bent back’. They seem to make a speedy recovery though, despite being sat and rolled on at least one or twice a day. In fact, my Autumn King are doing very well at the moment, so it might be possible that I got them in just the nick of time to get a sizeable crop before the winter.
I also captured Mindu using my veg plot as a convenient WC. I know it seems a bit strange, but she had such a stupid look on her face, I couldn’t resist taking a picture as I had already got the camera on me. So I shall have to take some (pleasant-looking?!) measures to stop them using my plots as super-sized litter trays. It’s just the girls that do it – the boys suprisingly are far more private (thank goodness).
