The Peaceable Kingdom

Lions may never lie down with lambs, but possums, house cats, and my trio of adolescent raccoons share my night time porch amicably. The possums have come for several years, as have the coons, but the friendly yellow house cat is new on the scene. He stays under the porch couch when it is cold, but surveys it from the cushions in better weather. The other night he was watching the possum and one of the coons as they sniffed at each other from different sides of the pyrex baking dish full of kibble. There was a styrofoam tray of food from the clinic I work in as well. My visitors ate the dressing and the chicken casserole, but nothing about the mixed vegetables tempted them. I left the tray out to see if they would change their minds about carrots and beans.


They did not. They nudged the vegetables away in disgust. When I told the people I work with about this they thought it hilarious.




I think someone else is feeding the cat. He was not interested in the bologna I offered him this morning. I do think the disappearance of the chipmunks, who used to come for sunflower seeds, is suspicious. And I hope the towhees and mourning doves are faster than the cat is. But I do not think the dog food attracts him as much as the couch does. He balls up on it or stretches out his tail in lazy repose as he watches the coons shove each other around. The trouble with the cat is that he comes both day and night, something that the House Sparrows will not care for. They fuss and complain when I sit on the porch. How will they feel about four clawed feet on a yellow and stealthy cat? But they are safe unless the cat learns to fly up to the feeder. They would be better off worrying about the Cooper's Hawk who hides in the leaves and comes out of nowhere-



As for my Shih Tzu, the watcher at the my window, there can never be too many cats or coons or possums. He announces them all, and he never runs out of barks.