Cat Food and Critters

First off, my camera or computer won't download my pictures again, so sorry-=I had pictures for this blog that were really cute!

Well--last month I spent over $100 on cat food and we have two fairly small cats! So, you might ask, "why do they eat so much?" I can tell you that if I only fed 2 cats, I could get by on about $24 a month. But, living somewhat in the country, I feed cats and an assorment of critters. We have fed in the garage, but we have about 6 stray cats on our property and so I started feeding them in the mud room--leaving the door open during the day so they can eat. Our traditional critters have been magpies, racoons, mice and stray cats.

Anyway, we came home from the 480 2 nights ago right after it turned dark, and went in through the mud room. Unknown to us, we both walked right by a new critter. Lola was acting strangely, but being tired, I dragged her into the house. Lola and I went in the house and Ron came in last. I heard him yell for me to come see, and a critter was just exiting the mud room. I missed it. So, I went into the house and a few minutes later the phone rang--it was Ron. He said, "Get your camera and look out the window and try to get a picture of the new critter eating the cat food." So, I grabbed my camera, looked out and saw a SKUNK in the mudroom. I opened the door a crack and stuck my arm out only far enough to click the camera. It captured the tail in the picture. Ron started to come out of the office, thinking it would run, but it didn't. Hunter was sitting 4 feet away--by the chair, watching it eat. Again, I opened the door a crack to try to get another picture. Lola was in a tizzy and litterally pushed me out of the way and dashed out the door into the mudroom! So, scene: Running out of the mudroom was a skunk, followed closely by 2 cats, followed closely by LOLA! I thought I would never see Lola again as she raced into the dark night in hot persuit of a skunk! And, I feared, if I did see her she would likely smell very bad!
but, she did come back about 10 minutes later, feeling very proud of herself indeed! And, lucky for her and the rest of us, she didn't get sprayed!
The next morning, Ron said he laid awake about 2 hours thinking of what could have happened if the skunk would have sprayed in the mudroom--us, the cats, or Lola. Or, Lola the mighty chaser, or the cats in the garage! All kinds of interesting possibilities there! So, now we close the mudroom door as soon as it starts to get dark and hope we don't see that skunk again! But--everytime we have to be gone, we feed the cats (and the critters ) in the garage! We'll hope for the best! Ahhh, country living!