I have 5 cats. I love these cats! And we have a great system. Every morning they head outside to be cats, and every evening they come inside so they don’t face the same fate as poor Luca, God rest her soul. Okay, actually what happens is I call for them and pace the house until each and every one of them is accounted for and safe. Luca being hit by a car clearly has had unfortunate lasting affects on me. But during the day they are allowed to be cats. Feeding 5 cats can get rather expensive. Feeding them, a poodle, 3 growing boys, and a husband is overwhelmingly expensive. So when we hit a financial snag, which happens at an unfortunately staggering amount of times still, the kids will always eat first. It’s not to say that the cats starve, but they survive on table scraps and their pure cat instincts over their regular food. Its how we found out they don’t mind tomatoes, but HATE broccoli. I can’t say I blame them. But sometimes they are sent outside with not quite as full bellies and they would hope, and they are left to be cats. They mouse for the entire neighborhood. And I think its great….as long as they don’t present the leftovers as an offering to their human leaders. Then it just gets gross and there is a lot of screaming and gagging, as well as the kids’ reactions! But sometimes, the prey needs a win. And this is one of those stories.

It was a typical afternoon. I had just picked up the big kids from school and they were doing their regular routine: fight and argue while attempting to complete their homework. I’ve learned if we don’t get it done as soon as they get home it won’t get done! So they’re screaming at each other and I’m doing what I spend 1/2 my life doing….laundry! When all of the sudden Micah says “Mama, Aslan has a bird!” I looked up and saw my gorilla of a cat running through the backyard with a beautiful large bird, flapping for its little life. I don’t know what got into me that day, maybe it was the fact that I knew the cats had regular food, but that poor bird was not going to die on my watch. I bolted out the door barefoot screaming at my unsuspecting cat to drop the bird! Our poodle, Piper chased after me. Now normally she’s a pretty stupid dog. Like barks at the wind, runs into walls, gets smacked around by 5 lb kittens kind of stupid. It’s okay, we didn’t adopt her for her brains! But today Piper was on a mission too! She flew out that door and started chasing Aslan, barking the whole way. When she caught up to him she nipped him right on the butt, which caused him to drop the bird! The bird started flapping and staggering around and I started screaming “Fly for you life little bird! Fly for your life!” And the bird did just that! It collected itself and got the hell out of there! All the kids by that point had gathered on that back porch at that point to see the show, and we started cheering as the bird landed in a high branch in a nearby tree!  Aslan gave us his best glare and wandered away. I have never been so proud of my dog! Which helped her out 5 seconds later when I stepped in her poop still barefoot. I’m pretty sure all my neighbors, people walking through a nearby parking lot, and the people in the daycare on the other side of the fence thought I was nuts! But I didn’t care! I mean, let’s be honest, I usually don’t care! But that day I really didn’t, because together Piper and I saved that bird!