Friday Cat Blogging

Here's a nice photo of Jersey. He's a stray, who has been eating here for five or more years. He lives -- somewhere around here -- sometimes under our lean-to. Often we see him running through the parking lot across the street, out of a garage that is used to store a boat through the winter. The boat is too big for the garage, so the door is always open about a foot.

Portland winters allow strays to survive more easily than other climates, but it's still a long, cold, wet haul for such cats. We have watched Jersey go through long limping periods, favoring one paw or another; the gradual destruction of his left ear; great increases and decreases in his winter and summer coat. Last spring he lost all of his fur in two massive felted sloughs, one down each side of his spine, like a feline snake, or a dreadlocked hippie getting his shave after joining the army. The pelts dragged behind him as he walked around for two or so weeks -- at the end, he looked trim and better than ever, so it must not have been as traumatic for him as for us.

Jersey will not let us near him, and long ago we gave up trying to trap him (to take to the vet's and possibly socialize). Our immediate neighbor used to breed cats; her adult son took Jersey on as a project (although they call him Moochie). That man was a rather creepy human, but he was good to cats. After a few months, Jersey/Moochie was less skittish around us than he had been in four years. The man died last spring, but the cat still eats within a few feet of a human, and he and I have long silent conversations through my basement window late at night. This photo was taken during one of the rare occasions that he's let me stand within three feet of him -- in fact, he walked towards me. Quite an accomplishment.

His name, by the way, should by rights be "Holstein", not Jersey. A household member less-versed in cattle than HomoDomi and I, named the cat for his black-and-white, cow-like, coloring. But Jersey is much easier to say, and has a certain modern edge to it. I suppose after this cat goes to that great Home For Strays in the Sky, we'll adopt another, who can be called "New Jersey".