Feline Interlopers

Our neighborhood has a lot of stray cats, and through the first few months of us living here, they all wanted to stop by and check out the New Blood, ie: our cats. They would saunter into the yard, and our boys would spring into a huge territorial hissy fit, knocking over lamps and things running from window to window, and it all tends to end in Spook attacking the closest cat he can find who's usually Colin. Of course, the minute I started a photo record of kitten interlopers, they stopped coming through during the day (when I could photograph them).

Earlier this afternoon Kira and Spook were on the screen porch when I heard Spook starting in on his low throated territory yowl. I go out to see a beautiful Siamese standing just short of the porch steps... and another big fat cat on the fence on the other side of the yard. I can't get out the door to run them off since Spook is sitting right there. Kira was on the chair just above Spook's head, and apparently had been silent up to that point. Then she suddenly yowled at the Siamese, Spook went 'CLOSE CAT!' and full on attacked her.

I've never been that close to a fully-armed screaming cat fight. It was pretty intense! Lanse came out (being stronger and having longer arms) and brought them in; Spook had cornered Kira under the chaise lounge, but when I inspected them later, she had more of his fur in her claws than he had hers. *heh* No harm done, apparently, just freaked me right the heck out. We sequestered them in their own rooms until they calmed down, and then I kept them inside for about an hour.

After that hour passed, I scanned the yard, didn't see any cats, so I let them out. As I walked out with them I looked out to the play set to see this:

And in they came again. Lanse went out (being tall) and chased this one off. In case you've not been keeping track, that was three neighbor cats causing a riot at our house in one afternoon. I think a little later on one of us should probably go out there and sprinkle used cat litter around the yard so as to claim the territory.

I do wish I'd gotten a picture of the Siamese. It was so pretty.

Aside from feline negotiations, I've also done a load and a half of laundry and am working on a project to print or save all the resource files from class for my teaching resources binder that I don't have yet.