Again, the gray cat was out there all the while I was working in the backyard. He won't come within reach but he gets as close as he can while still being under something. Since I was working in the back part of the yard, he camped out under the shed. When I moved to another part of the yard, he moved to under my wheelbarrow.
I just read a story about an outside cat. It was the ex-husbands weekend to have the kids. Their mother dropped them off at the father's house. The father had an outside cat and when the kids got out of their mother's car, they spied their dad's cat and ran toward him. The cat had treed a rattle They ran to where the cat had been. The timber rattler bit the five year old girl three times in her right leg. In addition to the danger and damage the pit viper's poisonous bites would cause, she was allergent to the snake's bite. She has been fighting for her life andn has had thirty-seven vials of anti snake medication. It is now believed she will recover. I blame the cat. It should have quickly killed the snake, then run off or it should have warned the kids to watch their step. This took place in Florida.
He used to be someone's kitty. He's not tame but neither is he feral. He's probably not a stray, either. He was probably dumped.
This winter I started feeding two outside strays. I told myself that when the weather warmed I'd let them fend for themselves. It didn't work out like that. This is one of them - Greyman. Neither has had previous human contact. It took months for Lady to let me pet her. She has become very affectionate. Greyman will still only let me briefly scratch his head. Greyman is very protective of Lady. He lets her eat first and only eats when she is done ... a gentleman by cat standards.
He looks like the one in your avatar, so now you have two cats that look almost identical, @Dwight Ward ?
The cat on my shoulder is Felix, who passed away years ago. He was a character. My inside cat now is Barney, whom I've had for over twelve years. I got him when he was grown and don't know how old he is.
A little bit about Felix. I'd seen him for weeks passing by my windows. I already had two girl cats - Maggie and Chloe, and wasn't in the market for another cat. I learned that a lady two houses away had been feeding him and that she had died. When I started leaving food out for him he wasn't shy. I'd feed him in the little porch or vestibule area I had, leaving the door propped open so he could come and go. Felix wasn't afraid of dogs but he was afraid of children, leading me to think he'd been abused by some of them. My girls went into fits over me feeding Felix. They'd both come to the glass while he was eating and hiss and strike the glass until he had left. He wasn't bothered by this a bit. He turned out to be such a sweetheart that I decided to get him his shots and take him in. Felix was a big cat - the biggest cat I've ever had. When I first brought him into my apartment he just sat calmly while my girls came close and hissed at him. They did not want him around. He was too much of a charmer even for them, though. Within two days he was eating right next to them, pausing occasionally to lick the tops of their heads. Maggie would sleep touching him. Chloe kept her distance but she had a standoffish personality anyway. Felix liked to snuggle up next to me, chest to chest, stretched out full length. He was funny and playful. I had a ball on a string hung from the ceiling next to my bookshelf and he never failed to give it a smack as he passed by. Sadly, I only had him a short time. I lost him to an illness he had before I adopted him.
That's funny, because Ella goes nuts when she sees them out there. The place where I feed the outside cat isn't far from Ella's window in the library, and when I am replaying the videos from the game camera that I have pointed at the food bowl, I can often hear Ella growling, hissing, and banging on the window. I don't think she'd over it if I took any of them in, though. She still hates on Bubba and I took him in as a helpless little kitten over a year ago. He still ends up with scratches on his nose from time to time. In her defense, he does like to annoy her, though.
I remember you talking about Ella and Bubba. Are you going to name the outside cat Smoke, as Shirley suggested? Ken, do you think there's something wrong with us for doting on our cats so much? Shirley's 'suggestion' was more of a command, I think. lol