Nobody will ever be able to convince me that farm life is boring, that's for sure. I raise chickens, ducks, quail, geese, pheasants, goldfish, cats and a partridge in a pear tree. I have discovered through the years that animals have a special charm all their own, and each individual has its own unique personality. The cats are the intrepid mouse hunters of the house, each one fully convinced that there are no other cats on the planet except for the ones they see staring at them from the bathroom mirror. Those cats, by the way, are only allowed to live here because the true masters of the universe, (the cats on this side of the mirror) are kind-hearted to a fault--just as long as the interlopers know their place and stay there.
One day upon walking into a room where one of my cats was, I said, "hello" to the cat, and to my surprise, he said it right back. Talking parrots are one thing but talking cats are quite another. Now the poor cat is going insane listening to me say hello to him every five seconds. Of course he doesn't say it back, not after that first time, and he probably thinks that I need a bigger vocabulary, or at the very least, a hobby. The cat, after all, has a hobby...he drools whenever he's happy. I must say, for a cat he's happy a lot. I guess if he wants to supplement that hobby with a word or two now and then, that's up to him.
I've had other cats "speak" to me before, but none with genuine human speech, so this could set a precedent for other cats around the world to follow, but more than likely, they won't follow anything because cats, as we all know, are leaders, not followers. They prefer to be in charge of the world and they don't particularly care who knows it. Don't let the aloof and distant cat fool you though, they spend their days studying human behavior. They feel they have a fairly firm handle on the human species but there is still one aspect of human behavior that they will simply never comprehend, or tolerate....our unreasonable affection for other animals not of the feline persuasion.
The d-o-g's of the world are barely tolerable but as long as a cat does not have to share his toys, food, water dish, beddy-bye or floor space with the canine, he will allow the interloper into his domain, but just barely. What a cat will never tolerate or understand however, is the human compassion for birdies. For example, I live on a small stock farm where we raise chickens, ducks, geese, quail, and pheasants. My three cats cannot believe that their people are so willing to spend time working so hard just for a bunch of silly birds. The birds, however are unique in their own right believe it or not, with personalities of their own, and they firmly hold to the notion that they are the superior beings of the universe.
We have eight quail and one pheasant that live together in a single room, and these little birds make some rather unusual sounds. For instance, they giggle, which is a totally remarkable sound that makes you want to chuckle along with them. I call them my little chuckleheads. Quail seem to be half duck and half chicken because they muck around in their water just like ducks do and kick around their food just like chickens. They also understand English and will giggle with delight when I tell them their water is filthy.
I have used the word, "filthy" so often with those birds that they have started saying it back to me. I walk into their room and I hear a chorus of high-pitched little “fil-see's” that don't stop until I say it back to them. They just love the word filthy. To them it's a good word, so don't knock it. They tend to get a bit aggressive with each other at times, and when they bite each other one quail will get hurt and cry really loud. That's when I have to tell them to stop eating quail. When they hear that all is calm again. If I didn't know better I would think they do it just to entertain me.
I got my first quail egg today, a tiny little white thing the shape of a fat rain drop. I suppose that now I'll be forced to say the phrase, “where's my egg?” every day for their amusement. When they start saying it back I'll know that I've been well trained. The chickens, who live in the next room of the same coop, stand at the gate and stare at me while I take care of the quail. In fact, the quail spend some time observing the chickens as well, which I discovered when one of them started hopping on one foot just like one hen that I call, “Hoppy”.
Hoppy broke her foot about three years ago, when a big watering tub fell over on her leg. She hopped away from the scene of the accident, and has been hopping ever since. Nobody has ever been able to convince her that her foot is healed now, so she insists on not using it at all. She swings that leg behind her while hopping, and seems to get along just fine. I catch her every once in a while though, putting her weight on her “bad” leg, then she seems to remember her misfortune, and up that leg goes again.
Talking cats, giggling quail and hopping hypochondriac chickens aside, it is really good to know that I have a handle on the whole of our somewhat extended “family”, or at least it's comforting to think that I do when the reality is that the animals are pretty much the ones with the handle on us humans. They make no qualms about who is really in charge of the old “homestead” too. I mean, it's fairly obvious that the cats rule the house and the birds rule the barnyard. I wonder just what it is that we humans think we rule? Whatever it is, I'll bet there is someone in the animal kingdom with first dibs on it.
