JOE THE CAT

Yesterday I buried Joe.  Not sure how old Joe was as like many of our cats he was a stray that found his way to us 12 or 14 years ago.   He may have been 2 to 4 years of age when he showed up on the hillside above the house trying to make his way into the cat colony we had at the time.    All the cats that had taken up residency with us, maybe 14 or 15 at the time, were not too accepting of new comers, so Joe had to be aggressive to gain his place in the pecking order.   Finally after a few days Joe was accepted and took up his place for his dally ration of food and a cat bed in the shop.    Eventually Joe and another cat, by the name of Fat Boy became friends and would follow me around the woods in search of a rat or some other small critter to go after.   To them it was like we were going hunting as I would cut brush.    Fat Boy died during the heat spell at the end of this last June and Joe was kind of lost after that and never developed a friendship with my surviving cat, named Clarice, who had been aggressive toward him.   Joe did not care to be petted on his head and we suspected he may have been abused, maybe by a neighbor that lived up the hill and died leaving Joe on his own.   A few weeks after Joe settled in, we found him on the edge of death laying in the garden.   It was a weekend and off we went to Bailey's in Roseburg, where Joe was diagnosed with crystals in his urine that required a special diet and few other procedures, none of which were cheap.   Over the last year Joe's thyroid became dysfunctional and required an ointment applied to his ears.   This did not really help him and he began to lose weight followed by kidney failure.   Clarice did sense Joe's decline and did befriend him in the last dew days.   He past away peacefully by the wood stove Sunday morning and joined Fat Boy over the Rainbow Bridge.  Now it is just me and Clarice.     

Picture taken in 2008.