They're watching me. I know it. Everytime I look around, at the edge of 
peripheral vision I can see tiny bits of ear or tail disappearing around 
corners. Sometimes they follow me openly in a crowd just to see if I'll 
crack. I pretend I don't know they are there. They are just waiting for me to 
make a mistake, any mistake. Then, then... they will supervise me! 
AAAARGHHH......
    Yup, the mad crew in the barn have taken to following me around en masse, 
without warning and no explanations given. One day they were content to curl 
up in a four-kitten ball and watch me snoozily from high atop a hay pile, but 
not any more. I wonder how long THIS stage will last?
     All the cats are now able to enter and leave the closed tack room at 
will, and what were once terribly awkward kitten acrobatics are smoothing out 
into a regular routine. It's tricky getting up the wall, making four 
calculated leaps, and managing the peculiar reach-up-twist and climb move 
that gets them onto the ceiling takes real skill.
 Some of them are rally socializing big time. Lynn now watches me from around 
corners and is never very far away, and is always ready for a rub and a purr. 
Echo is the same, but only in the safety of the tack room. Nikita and Aerial 
are friendly enough, but only when THEY feel like it.
    Mom is looking a lot less stressed these days and is a lot less jumpy as 
the kittens grow in their ability to look after themselves. She takes time 
out for people now. She won't chase a string for some reason, but the kittens 
are so into it that it is difficult to collect the binder twine in the hay 
room due to the sheer tonnage of attached kitties.
    Both the eagles perched across the street today. They stayed there for a 
couple of hours, so I guess they aren't very hungry. Like the coyotes around 
here they are probably living mainly on road kill, and there is plenty of 
that about.
 
      The rodent population is suffering severely as the new generation of 
hunters comes online. We are looking at a fivefold increase in available cat 
power and they are all hunters to the core. The only mice and rats I see now 
are dried skins that the little murderers use for toys.
    Today I found the hull of a golf ball in a stall and tossed it out into 
the aisle. They whole crew went nuts. My back  was turned and I heard the 
chunk of plastic skitter as it hit the floor, but it just kept on skittering 
and skittering. By the time I had turned around to see if I had invented some 
form of perpetual motion, cats and their new toy were gone. I later found it 
in the tack room under the water heater, where it had apparently taken refuge 
in terror.
    The cats have a new sport, emptying shelves. They seem to think that the 
most suitable thing to occupy a shelf is a cat, and everything else must go. 
That includes dishwashing tubs, electrical equipment, horse medicines, 
scissor and hammers and nails, anything that weighs less than a hundredweight 
and is not nailed down.
    They are even pulling horse blankets of the rack, and those things are 
HEAVY, especially when wet. I have no idea how they do these things, but I am 
getting used to the mysteries...
 
  This will be the last in the series on the barn mob for a little while, 
since I will be out of town for a few days. Stay tuned, same cat-channel, 
same cat-time.... :)
--- Maximus 3.01
---------------