New Cat

We have a stray cat that is hanging around.  We've been without a cat for a couple of months.  Marmaduke, the cat I wrote about here  

http://windyacresnaturalfarm.blogspot.com/2011/05/cat-and-his-nip.html

has disappeared and  I really miss him.  We adopted him from someone who had rescued him from a bad situation.  He was an outside cat.  We tried to keep him inside, but he would sit at the door and yowl.  He just did not like being inside.  And, besides I am allergic to cats and realized pretty soon after we got him that we would not be able to keep him inside.  

Even though he lived outside, once a year we captured him and bundled him off to the vet to get vaccinations and a health checkup.  He seemed to be happy and content and carved out a territory that seemed to include about half of our place, along with our neighbor's sheep shed and out buildings.  He came and went as he pleased.  Sometimes he was very friendly and other times he kept himself aloof.  Sometimes he would disappear for a couple of days, but now we have not seen him since April.  

I like having a cat around.  So, I was very excited when one evening a few weeks ago, I heard a cat outside yowling.  Upon investigation, I found a half-grown gray and white cat.  He was very skiddish and I couldn't get close to him.  I opened a can of tuna and put that out for him hoping it would encourage him to stay around.  The next day Tom set come cat food out and he has been hanging around. 

Here are some pictures of him.

He has some competition from another gray and white cat that is older and bigger.  We suspect this cat belongs to one of the neighbors because we've seen him around before, even while Marmaduke was here.

Tom brings the self-feeder inside at night to keep raccoons and the like from coming around.  We learned a lesson about that when we had Marmaduke.  See the following blog entry about 
the Thief in the Night:

http://windyacresnaturalfarm.blogspot.com/2011/06/thief-in-night.html

I've been calling the new cat a "him" while Tom calls him a "her".  We really need to figure out how to catch him/her and get him/her to the vet.  If "he" is a "she", then we want to get her spayed and, of course, either way we want to get him/her vaccinated.  Wish us luck.