Sweeping the Cat

So, while at my mother's house, I met Darryl. Darryl is a neutered, de-clawed tom, one of three that my mother feeds. Not her cats, she points out, even though she feeds them thrice a day, and they tend to hang out close to her house. Darryl and Princess belonged to a family that up and moved one day and just left them behind. Gypsy was one of the barn-cats my father used to feed before he stopped walking to the back of the subdivision to do that.

Darryl is old, and he sleeps on a towel on the glider on the patio. My father goes out and sits with him and combs his hair now and then.

Not my mother's cats, but if they don't show up for a couple meals, she goes looking for them. And when the weather gets bad, they sleep in the garage on a blanket she puts down for them.

My mother feeds the cats, along with about fifty varieties of birds -- all I saw when I was there were hummingbirds, sparrows, blackbirds, mockingbirds, jays, crows, woodpeckers, wrens, nut thatches, starlings, bluebirds, and doves, but there are a bunch who come at other times of the year -- and while she's slacked off on feeding the squirrels, there aren't any skinny ones in her yard.

But Darryl: My mother discovered when she was trying to sweep the pine needles off the back walk that Darryl would attack the broom. But here's the fun part: