Oats!

The night before last the cat was insistent on going into the sun room. She just wouldn’t stop pawing at the French doors. I was sick, and it irritated me because the usual routine is for me to get up and open the doors, she goes out, walks around once and comes back into the living room. Then I get back up and close the door. So I yelled (I never yell at my cat), stomped my foot, and finally threw a pillow at her. She still didn’t give up, but I did, and went to bed.

Last night, she started at it again. This time I just played the game and opened the door for her. But, instead of her playing out her usual role, she paced and cried, and paced and cried. “What is it?" I said. "Did you find a mouse?”

Nope. Didn’t bring me a mouse. (I found out this winter that she’s an excellent mouser! Then was horrified that I had mice!) I just thought to myself, “Crazy cat.” and laid back down to watch TV (I was still feeling pretty crappy) and ignored her.

Well, when I was talking with a friend last night, I went out to the sun porch myself, and there sprouted up nice and big on the bookshelf, were the oats I planted a few days ago and forgot about.

She could SMELL them! And, it was driving her crazy! So I moved them to the floor for her. Now she knows they are there, so when I got home tonight, that was the first place she wanted to go.

Miss Kitty got a bag of Oat seeds for Christmas a couple of years ago (from her cat friend Zima). She is an indoor cat, so they were a special treat. She viciously chewed them down and ripped them right out of the container as soon as they sprouted. So now I keep them away from her long enough for them to take strong root.

The folks that package them have a great label (pictured above) — it made me laugh — even before I knew how my cat would react to them — almost exactly as it was pictured! They really should have a contact info on it somewhere.

See for yourself how crazy Miss Kitty is for oats in this video. I have one from earlier this winter, but I couldn’t find it so I recorded this when I got home tonight.