Another eagle buzzed the barn this morning. It has now happened so many 
times that I am starting to wonder if the eagles are buzzing ME or not. They 
always show up when I am done work and changing my boots outside. It is 
strange to listen to their thin, piercing cries on a cigarette break. They 
can often be spotted in a bare tree about a half kilometer away. They are 
just dark shadows in the morning mists at that range. At any rate, no kitten 
casualties to date.
    Lynn is getting the habit of following me around the barn. I think she 
may be showing the early signs of being a supervisor cat. Plus, she wouldn't 
want to miss the opportunity to chase bits of dog food that go skittering 
before my mighty broom. And we usually have a good wrestle with some binder 
twine at some point in the day. Today I tried a whole handful of strands, and 
serendipitously re-invented the cat'o'nine tails, with a new twist. Real 
cats. :)
    The mother cat (still no name yet) is getting steadily friendlier. It 
seems that calicos are natural people cats cause I haven't met a psycho one 
yet. Anyhow she is still shy under the touch and takes several passes before 
she is ready for the full treatment. Then she gets a back rub, head 
scrubbies, a roll and tummy rub finishing up with a good back scratch and 
stretch. Then ZING she's gone, time expired, see ya tomorrow, sucker. Nothing 
personal of course, she is just a busy cat with a barn to run and a family to 
raise.
   Today I had one heck of a time clearing out the play, er, hay room of 
cats. What with the flood and the moving of horses to new stalls, the hay 
room now contains spare buckets, a saw horse with a horse blanket on it (cats 
read: play tent) a wheellbarrow and of course several bales of hay. It's a 
cat madhouse in there. I managed to scoot Lynn and Echo down the aisle and 
shut them in the tack room, which left Ariel and Nikita, the two wilder 
kittens. They just kept moving from cover to cover and when I managed to get 
one out, the other would shoot back in. The game was wearing pretty thin as 
entertainment by the time I cleared the place. However, the cats seemed to 
think it was a first rate game. Hurray for them. :(
   Oddly, the kittens that were tamest at first are wildest now and vice 
versa. Does anybody know why this has happened? Are they p[laying subtle 
games with my mind in an attempt to produce obssesive-compulsive cat feeding 
disorders?
--- Maximus 3.01
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