She’s called Miracle, but she can’t walk on water

One worrisome trait, though, is her fascination with our feeder birds. She crouches inside the glass patio door several times a day, staring, tail twitching. “She’s watching TV,” we joke. All very well, but come spring, we’ll be letting her outdoors, rain or shine; what then?

Some of you may recall her, the young barn cat who showed up at our door last fall, asking to be adopted.

Years ago, when our children were small, we were seldom without a pet cat or dog. But once our kids had grown and flown, we two, relishing our new freedom, gave that up.

Lately, though, house-bound by COVID, hungry for company, any company, we changed our minds.

Having adopted her, we quickly learned that keeping a cat nowadays is no trifling matter. Right off, Kiki (my name for her) needed inoculation for ear mites, fleas, feline distemper and rabies, And though we'd rescued her from the dairy barn's hazards of stray hooves and jealous siblings, she was still at risk from lusty roaming toms, which meant neutering, aka spaying.

All this we cheerfully accepted.

Not so, Miracle, my spouse's name for her. It meant several round trips to a town vet and back in a cage, a first for her. She wailed piteously the whole way in, wouldn't be comforted. But, oddly, our return trips were quieter, soothed by meds and, hopefully, by thoughts of "home".

Then, home for her was the roofed 1980s deck of our rambling 19th-century farmhouse. Later, with colder nights, we moved her to our west-facing, 1980s sun porch add-on. Equipped with feeding station and litter-box, and, as a bonus, given access to the basement's earth-floored easterly old part, she was happy. Finally, around Christmas, we gave her the run of the house downstairs. But she still loves her porch/bedroom.

What does Miracle do all day? Mornings not much, except eat - I feed her a meat-and-kibbles breakfast - sleep and explore down cellar.

For lunch, she loves to be hand-feed kibbles beside the woodstove. Supper echoes breakfast. Why three meals? Easier than feeding-on-demand with constant mewing in between.

In between, she likes to play. Her favourite game is chasing noisy marbles. We toss, she sprints, she pounces. Toss one down our long hallway and she's a blur of speed. But she prefers the kitchen with its obstacle course of table, chairs and cupboards. Inevitably, some marbles end up under the stove or fridge. Retrieving them is my job, using a long wire as she watches intently. I collect the other stray alleys before bedtime lest we step on them barefoot at night.

Until recently, the marble game seemed one-sided, us doing all the shooting. Then, to our amazement, shots started coming from her. Hers were short, just tentative nudges - but definitely directed to one or the other of us. So now it's a threeway contest.

Play, sleep, eat. My favourite moment comes just before her breakfast, around 8 a.m. Though she's hungry - we've seen no sign of mouse-kills as of yet - she prefers to cuddle first! Confession: like many pet owners, until lately, I'd deemed cats less loving than dogs. Hence the saying, "Dogs have masters; cats have staff." So this cuddle-andpurr ritual was an eye and earopener for me. All those years, I'd been unfair to our felines. After all, cats have been honoured pets since Egyptian times. It's just that, not being alphamale-led pack animals like dogs, they're individuals, less servile, more subtle.

One worrisome trait, though, is her fascination with our feeder birds. She crouches inside the glass patio door several times a day, staring, tail twitching. "She's watching TV," we joke. All very well, but come spring, we'll be letting her outdoors, rain or shine; what then?

Speaking of rain, our iceplugged roof gutters overflowed last month, causing an overnight mini-flood on the sun porch's cement floor. That night Miracle happened to be down there prowling the dry old part. When she didn't show up for breakfast, I checked down cellar, only to find her hiding wild-eyed on a high shelf, too scared to cross the 'pond' to the sun porch stair.

Later, when I told our vet's accountant this, she laughed. "She's called "Miracle" but can't walk on water?" We're working on it, Juanita.