ROSIE - an amazing
and loving cat
Rosie died in May, 1998 and I dedicate this
chapter to her memory.
RIP
Rosie was a white cat with calico markings. She was petite
and very intelligent. After we bought the farm, we employed
a group of painters to smarten up the walls and do some minor alterations
with doors and windows inside the house. This became rather
awkward as we were both working in Hobart and Middleton was an hour's drive
from our Hobart home, however, we tried to drive down as often as we could
during the week.
Once, during one of these dashes down to Middleton after work
, I was in the kitchen area when I heard Kees call out to me, "Gay, come
and see what I can see." I ran to the sun room and Kees was
pointing outside through the fish net covered window, where I saw a tiny,
little, mangy white cat. She was sitting half under the house
and looked half-starved.
"Oh! Suss said she thought there was a mother cat
in the barn when she came down the other day," I told Kees, "This must
be one of the kittens." The words were hardly out of my mouth
when I noticed two tiny little heads poking out from beneath the white
cat with calico markings and as we silently watched, the kittens cautiously
emerged and I knew then that the diminutive white cat with calico markings
was a mother.
ROSIE - my loving
scrap of a cat
"She's starved, I will have to feed her," I exclaimed to Kees, "The
workmen have left some sandwiches in the kitchen, I'll go and get them."
But at the sound of my voice, the kittens and the mother cat dashed back
under the house.
I went into the kitchen and opened the packet of sandwiches.
Ham sandwiches, perfect! Kees, ever the pessimist, said to
me, "You'll never coax her out from under the house." I thought
he was right but decided to try and went outside carrying the feast.
"Kitty! Kitty! Kitty!" I
called but there wasn't a sound. "Puss! Puss!
Puss!" I called again trying desperately to see through the
spider webs, old tins and bricks that were deposited in the rubble under
the floor of the sun room. Not a sound or flash of white fur.
I broke up some of the sandwiches and placed them on the ground outside
the hole from which the cats had appeared and went back inside.
I stood quietly watching behind the fishing net curtain and was soon rewarded
with the sight of the "kitten- mother" devouring the ham and bread.
"Hello, little cat," I called softly and two green eyes stared
at me through the net. "Do you want some more?" and she continued
to stare. The two little kittens crept out and nuzzled their
way into her white fur for their sustenance. I waited a while
and then moved outside with the rest of the workman's lunch.
As I turned the corner of the house, I saw the tiny ones let go of the
pink nipples and dash under the house. The starving white and
calico mother sat quietly and watched me approach. Not getting
too close, I broke apart another sandwich and threw the pieces close by
her. She continued to gaze fixedly at me and I knew, because
I read it in her eyes, that she was deciding to accept me as a friend.
She realised that this was her Hobson's choice - me or starvation.
The mother let out a tiny "meow" and looked towards the hole under the
house but there was no response from her family. She cried
out softly to them once more and then began to eat and this was the beginning
of a very remarkable relationship between me and a very special cat.
Rosie with one of the first two
kittens
Rosie never grew to be very large except during her many pregnancies.
Those first kittens were never tamed, even though I tried to coax them
inside the house with trails of little pieces of the best gravy beef.
I would feed them at the open door, but as soon as I enticed them inch
by inch into the room and closed the door, they went crazy and ran up the
walls and curtains. But Rosie, Rosie was different.
By accepting the ham sandwich, she acknowledged the formation of our relationship
and she gave her friendship, love and loyalty fully and without reservation.
After that, Rosie had kittens two or three times a year.
At first she made her nurseries in a blackberry clump somewhere in the
one hundred and thirty acres of our land. A ritual was established
that I used to refer to as "The Revelation of the Kittens."
Ten minutes after our car pulled up at the gate on a Friday evening, a
slimmer Rosie came running to the house from somewhere. After
devouring a lot of food, she sat in the sitting room and groomed every
part of her body, completely ignoring my pleas, "Come on Rosie.
Take me to the kittens, its getting very dark. I won't be able
to find them."
The ablutions would continue until I gave up entreating and moved
off to unpack the groceries. As soon as this happened, Rosie
ran to the door, green eyes glancing at me as she softly cried little meows.
Sighing, I would find the torch, my gum boots and coat and the curtain
was up for the opening scene of "Find the Kittens." We, Rosie
and shivering me, walked together, first through the cottage garden then
through the orchard garden, stopping every few minutes while Rosie pretended
to go to the toilet. After ten minutes of this, my patience
would grow thin and I would snap, "I'm going back, Rosie, its too cold
and dark." Only then came the end of the first scene and Rosie
dug her hole and relieved herself.
The second scene was the "Wild Goose Chase." Rosie
led me on a merry romp through the paddocks, the bush, the blackberry bushes.
This also had its own ritual procedure. She stopped outside
likely places and started the cleaning process all over again, looking
around as she licked her fur. "At last" I would say to myself,
"We are getting close to the climax" and if the weather was warm I would
sit and wait, more leisurely this time for I felt this was a necessary
delay as Rosie was looking out for predators, but she fooled me so
many times. Once, twice, three times it proved to be a false
alarm. Sometimes, I would give up and say to Rosie, "I'm sorry
but it is really too dark, it will have to wait until tomorrow" and walk
back to the house without a backward glance. It was fatal for
me to glance back. If I did, Rosie would come running
towards me, stopping and glancing into a half acre patch of blackberries
with the biggest thorns on any blackberry bush in Australia. When
she was sure she had my attention, she would suddenly plunge into the thicket
with me diving in after her. I usually lost sight of the white
fur after only a few moments but that was enough time to have ugly, bloody
scratches over all the parts of my skin that were exposed and probably
a few jagged tears in my trousers.
At other times when I was following her more successfully, Rosie suddenly
disappeared as if by magic, into the middle of the blackberry bush.
Back through the vicious Triffet bushes I would plough and return to the
house and plead with Kees to come and help me. Sometimes this
was rewarding, other occasions he would refuse and tell me to look for
them in the daylight. I liked to find Rosie's family as soon
as possible to establish a strong relationship with humans so there was
no chance of them becoming as wild as the first kittens.
Rosie and me and two of the blackberry
bush kittens, "Mine" and "Yours"
When we did find the nest it was always a beautiful, tender scene.
Rosie continually made the safest, warmest bed for her new family.
Picture a slightly grumpy Kees, having hacked down some bushes, tired and
hungry, holding a torch whilst I, excited as a child opening her Christmas
presents, lay on a blackberry bush, plunging my hand into the hole and
pulling out, one after the other, a black tabby, an orange tabby, a pure
white, another white, another tabby and a calico. Tiny little
things, as warm as toast in their blackberry bush nursery, with eyes still
closed, the strongest crying out as the big human hand plucked it
from its safe haven. Above the other night noises and my cooing
of "Hello, you are a beautiful little thing," we would hear the loud purrs
of the contented mother.
Rosie likes the look
of produce from the dam, rainbow trout
In the last years, the confinement scene was different, ever since
Rosie had her kittens on my bed. We had known Rosie for about
three years and my daughter, Francesca, known to friends as Suss, was staying
for the weekend. I had stripped the bed to change the sheets
and was vacuuming the sitting room when I heard Suss call out, "Quickly,
come. I think Rosie is having her kittens on your bed," and
indeed, Rosie was in the first stages of labor. She waited
until I put plenty of old sheets under her and we watched while the five
beautiful kittens made their debut. From that time on, if the
birth of the kittens coincides with us being in residence, Rosie quite
happily produces them within the environs of the house.
As she grew older, she quite often chose the warmth of the hay barn
as her birthing place, the hay barn that could be full of four hundred
and fifty bales of hale. Then there was a performance, I can
tell you! I had to pull myself in, through and above the bales,
trying desperately to find the tunnel that would end in a perfect round
hole that contained the kittens. I would follow Rosie as with
the blackberries bushes and she always disappeared as if by trickery down
through the myriad of hay bales.
"I know it was in here that she vanished" I would mutter to myself
as I threw the twenty kilo bales of hay down ten feet, trying to dismantle
the whole edifice. After heaving or pulling apart several of
the cursed bales, there was hay through my hair, clinging to my clothes
and my skin was a patchwork of little pink scratches. Pieces
of hay always managed to work their way through every layer of clothing
I wore until they reached the most intimate parts of my body.
Stopping now and again from my heavy toil, I listened for the heavy purring
of Rosie, and swore I would never do it again. Then suddenly
the purr sounded louder, a whisper of a faint rustle of hay and my arm
would find the pathway to Rosie and the kittens. Hurriedly,
I would rush to Kees and ask him to demolish a few dozen bales of hay and
good man that he is, he usually did! Rosie always chose the
very middle of the complete mountain of hay, equal distance from roof,
floor and every wall.
One more story, dear reader, unless you are bored stiff with my
Rosie stories. In that case, please feel free to skip
to the other chapters of the wrinkly gardeners creating Eden.
There has been only one time that Rosie has let me down. Never
mind the occasion when Kees and I had visited our son in Indonesia and
Rosie was locked in the abandoned pickers' hut accidentally and not discovered
until we got back three weeks later. She managed to keep herself
alive for me that time presumably by dining on mice and rats.
There was also the awful incident when she turned up with half her face
eaten away. We, doubting humans, had given her up as dead as
she had been absent for many weeks. We now strongly believe
that she may have been attacked by a Tasmanian Devil but Rosie was a survivor
and never upset me willingly.
The garden Rosie loved to lie
in to smell the flowers. If you would like to read more and see more take
the link at the end of the page
Rosie was due to have her kittens around the 23rd September which
happens to be Francesca's birthday. I asked Suss and her friend
[now husband] David, and my sister, Robin and husband Derry, to come and
have a birthday dinner with us at Middleton. Rosie was very
large with kittens and both Francesca and Robin showed interest in having
one of the little ones. Robin put in an order for a dark tabby
and Suss something similar. After dinner was over and before
I had made the coffee, Robin, Kees, Derry, Suss and I were still sitting
around the dining table in the corner of the sitting room and David, a
quiet kind of chap, had left the table and was sitting on the sofa
on which Rosie had been lying asleep for several hours. I paused
for breath in the middle of the story I was telling and I vaguely heard
David say in a hushed voice, "I think Rosie is having her kittens."
Robin, taking the opportunity to get a word in, began to tell
her story and David repeated his sentence, this time in a slightly stronger
voice.
"Yes. They are due about now," I answered, not really taking
in the meaning of his words and began another long-winded anecdote.
"And here it comes," yelled David at the top of his voice.
I rushed for the baby bath that was always used as a cradle when
the kittens were old enough to bring to the house. We got Rosie
into the bath and on top of my old jumpers before the first little one
appeared.
"That one is not mine" said Robin, all dewy eyed with the miracle
of birth, "I don't like white cats."
"No, me neither" said Suss, busily capturing it all on my video
camera.
For several hours we watched, marveling at the efficiency of
both mother and kittens. The first was a pure white one as
I have already written, the second was a pure white one. And
the third and the fourth and the fifth and the sixth. We could
not believe our eyes. We pushed and strained with Rosie on
each birth, saying confidently, "This will be the tabby. This
one is yours Suss, this one is yours, Robin," but no, this was to be the
one and only time that Rosie was to produce a family of pure breeds.
Six fluffy white kittens only the once all the same colour and the
one and only time that Rosie let me down flat. She loved those
six white, fluffy kittens with an intense passionate pride.
This is the last baby that Rosie has
given me, six weeks ago, the first time she has given birth to a completely
black kitten
Rosie's
pink chair is empty now.
To go to Chapter 1 of The Tale of
the Creation of Eden by the two Wrinkly Gardeners and walk the paths and
smell the flowers click and look at the beautiful
photographs here
