Dead Things Look Different

Chipper dodges a bullet.

Earlier this evening I was out in the yard puttering around when I heard my boy cat make his "Look Mom I Killed Something For You" noise, looked over to see him standing proudly over a chipmunk that lives in the yard and who I call Chipper (yeah, I know, really original).  My immediate reaction was - oh no, you didn't kill Chipper!  I had grown very fond of the little guy/girl in the many months that he has been hanging around, keeping me company when I'm outside with his constant saucy chatter and that cute way they have of standing up with their little hands folded on their chests - they look like a tiny prairie dog.

So I go over to where the cat is standing over his prize, beaming and waiting for me to tell him what a brave boy he is.  The usual routine after that is that he calls to his sister, and if she comes he gives it to her to eat, but if not he eats it himself.  Crunch, crunch.  But at that moment I caught a certain glint in Chipper's eye. OMG he's still alive!  (See post title for how I knew that.)  I touched him gently to be doubly sure (dead things also FEEL different), at which point, suddenly and miraculously re-animated, he made a break for the little wooden structure that covers my well - that's his house.  So I'm screeching and grabbing at the cat, who of course darted after him. Chipper almost made it to the safety of his little house but something, maybe all the commotion and the shock of whatever injuries he had, made him veer away - more screeching and cat-grabbing - till finally he ran up the big spruce tree in the yard, so high that I couldn't see him.

I just looked out now, about 15 minutes later, and Chipper is standing outside his little well house.  A stiff wind has suddenly come up and five large ravens are cawing and flying around the yard.  Last I saw the cat he was running up the lane, fleeing either from the ravens or from the wind.  Cats don't like wind, or at least they don't like the sound it makes in the trees - maybe they think some monster is in the trees or maybe that the trees themselves are coming after them.  Hard to say what cats think.

But my little buddy Chipper is still alive.  I do hope he gets smarter about the cats.  I've tried to teach them that it's okay to kill mice but to please leave squirrels and chipmunks alone but they don't get it.  It's a cat thing - they are, after all, exquisitely designed killing machines.

The photo was taken about half an hour after Chipper's brush with death.
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