Early Morning Visitor

We have a nice-sized flower garden in our yard, complete with a pond with a little fountain.  It’s Ken’s pride and joy.  Every year we stock it with goldfish and once in a while, a tadpole or two.  The fish are fun to watch, and will come to the surface if you twiddle your fingers on the edge of the water.
Unfortunately, this has been their downfall.  We start off with two dozen goldfish, the ones that survive the summer are put into our family room fish tank to grow bigger for the next summer season.  By the end of this summer, there were only about 5 or 6 goldfish left…we’ve seen a raccoon several times during the year (I even caught one in a critter trap..but released it…we were trying to catch the rabbits that have eaten our hostas and other flowers down to dirt level) I had always blamed the demise of  the goldfish on the raccoon.
However, this morning, I looked out of our kitchen window and saw a big cat on the back fence..at first glance, I thought, “oh my gosh” there’s a baby mountain lion”….four years ago a big, fully grown mountain lion, aka Puma was taking up residence in our neighborhood park.  He is now living in the Henry Doorly Zoo cat complex.
Anyway, this turned out to be a large, beautiful tan and black Siamese cat.  I could see that it was wearing a collar, so I know it was not a feral cat…it jumped off the fence and walked around the edge of the pool…ha!  Bet I know where our missing goldfish went….kitty breakfast. 
I walked onto the back deck and called, “here kitty” and up he came.  He stayed around for a while but decided to investigate the rest of the yard.  I don’t know if he was a neighborhood cat that is allowed to roam or if he had escaped from home and was exploring.  He didn’t have a name or license on his collar so there was no way to find out who he belonged to.  And, he definitely did not want to come with me into the house…I didn’t want to be scratched or bitten so didn’t force the issue.

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