Last week, as this lung infection was getting started, I opened the front door and nearly stepped out on a dead mouse, neatly centered on the doormat.
It was pretty good-sized, and appeared to have been bitten on the back of the neck. I used a piece of scrap cardboard to scoop it up and deposit it in a trash can waiting at the curb for pickup.
As near as I can guess, one of the local feral female cats has seen our two tomcats lounging in the front window, and decided they look a little peaked (they aren't), or perhaps too pampered to know how to hunt. So she left them a treat and a hint, right there at the door. I can just about guess which one, too: there's a munchkin calico who had litter after litter of kittens until she was finally caught and spayed a few years ago. She's sweet as can be, but completely distrustful of people. Our neighbor to the north, who fed her for years, could get close and that was all. Every other well-meaning attempt to civilize the cat resulted in an unhappy cat and a sad would-be benefactor. But she is a nice cat nevertheless, and leaving a spare mouse for the handsome gentlemen-cats of Roseholme Cottage would be just her style.
In other news, I am still sick, and getting tired of it. Last night was another series of dozing off and waking up damp and overheated, then just overheated after I got wise to the pattern, and then chilled, and then too hot, and -- you get the picture. Time. I've just got to keep taking the pills and give it time.
Sometimes, I suspect the gift mouse is left as an insult to the cats at that house. My cat did that to a neighbor's cat.
ReplyDelete"Hey, kitten! Maybe you need to learn how to hunt by practicing on this dead mouse!"
When I lived on the farm (a zillion years ago) there was an outdoor cat that we fed. She would bring us a dead mouse occasionally. I mean, that's why we have cats. She was just reminding us that if it were not for her we would be overrun with vermin.
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