House Guest

We've had the pleasure of a house guest for the past several days. His name is Bailey, and he was born last year in our barn.

Sandy and Wes, who live next door, adopted him when he was quite small, and now he's grown a LOT and has developed into a very handsome cat under their loving care.



While Sandy and Wes went camping we kitty-sat. After they dropped him off, he immediately wanted to go outside and meet all those potential new friends he could see when he jumped up and hung from the spring on the screen door!



Surprisingly, he was an instant hit with our barn kitties. They're a friendly lot :) The kittens especially enjoyed him, except when he played a bit rough occasionally.

He had to be on a leash in case he decided to run away. It was trial and error before I found the right spot where he couldn't get tangled in the cosmos planted outside the back door, or break off pieces of the container plants on the back patio. The plants suffered a few casualties in the learning process, but nothing major.



His mother, Sheba, seemed particularly curious about him. I couldn't help but wonder if she somehow remembered him. She played with him a lot, which was rather unusual behavior for her. She's usually more sedate, and just a tad stand-offish.



Toby missed him when he was indoors, and would sit on the front porch railing, looking imploringly at the door as if to say, "Can Bailey come out and play?"



Bailey would sit by the door watching, and 'talking' all the while, as if asking to go out. He's quite a talker, like his mother, Sheba. They both make a pleasant little trilling sound.



I let him out quite often, but we had a rainy weekend and a cold Sunday, so he had to stay indoors some of the time.

He has extra toes on both his front and back feet. See how huge they are? Sheba just has the big front feet.



He amused himself (and us) quite well in the house, and didn't get up to too much mischief. One night however, while I was on the computer, I heard him playing on the staircase behind me. When I looked to see what he was up to, I found he'd ripped off a small piece of wallpaper and was batting it up and down the stairs...having the time of his life! I had been meaning to paste that corner of wallpaper down for several weeks....before the grandchildren's next visit. I thought it looked like a tempting thing to pull. Apparently Bailey thought so too.

That'll teach me to procrastinate!

I think it can be patched...



This afternoon Wes and Sandy came to take him home. He seemed pleased to see his 'people' again, but I think he'll really miss his new friends. I know they'll miss him too, but probably not as much as his substitute 'people'.

We enjoyed having a house cat again, if only for a little while, and got rather attached to the little guy :)



But right now it's dinner time...and that's the all-consuming thought at the moment, I'm pretty sure. I'd better get myself to the barn!