Are you really that bloodthirsty!
Once upon a time, long long ago, I was. As a young man I was so frigg 'in nutz that I used to hunt deer with a knife. (Yes, I did!) I lived to hunt and fish. I killed so many animals, so often, that by the age of, about, 30 I actually began to dislike myself. Suddenly outsmarting the rest of The Good Lord's creation started losing its savor. The thrill of the hunt disappeared; and, instead of killing, I began to develop a healthy need to give something back to life instead of always taking something from it. I put the hunting weapons away: The guns, the bows, the knives, the traps, and wire snares. All of it. I always had dogs; so I decided that I wanted to breed and raise litters of puppies - Which I did; and, trust me on this, it was a lot of work! I used to sell the puppies for $1,000.00 dollars apiece; and, to this day, I still think the buyers got themselves a good deal.
Truthfully, it felt a lot better to be raising puppies than killing wildlife. Then, almost by accident, I became involved in domestic animal rescue work. It ended up costing us, 'a fortune'; and my wife and I saved a lot of homeless animals from, either, starving or being put down. (One cat cost us, '$1,800.00 to have its two broken legs fixed; but I enjoyed doing it. We kept the cat; and, wouldn't you know, the cat and I became best friends.)
Last year a stray cat came onto the farm and took up residence living in the crawlspace underneath one of the outbuildings. Turned out she was pregnant; and delivered 4 kittens into the world. I, pretty much, ignore her and the litter until, one afternoon, I sat down on a log next to a large wild rosebush; and, all of a sudden, a little kitten who would have easily fit into the palm of my hand came teeter-tottering out from underneath the bush, and tippy-toed right up to me! I could tell it was afraid; and I decided not to touch it for fear of putting it into shock. When I looked at the bush I realized that there were other (I didn't know how many.) very young kittens hiding in there, as well.
Those cats were completely wild; the mother (A very clever hunter) avoided coming anywhere near us; and she taught the kittens to behave the same way - Except for the one small cat I'd originally made acquaintance with. He continued to show himself whenever we sat out in the backyard. My wife, who has to be one of the gentlest of all God's creatures, decided to feed him. At first he wouldn't eat; but, little by little, she won him over. The end result is amazing! With the exception of the mother who will never be tame, all of the kittens finally accepted us; and, now, we're all the very best of friends! When I'm out and about on the farm I've got four, large, once upon a time, feral cats following me everywhere I go.
They won't go near anyone else, and will go into hiding if someone comes along; but with my wife and I they're perfectly at ease. There turned out to be a hidden benefit in all of this, too. During the first year I live-trapped each of them and had them spayed and neutered. It was time-consuming, difficult, and expensive; but we, finally, caught the mother and got them all done. Like most farms I knew we had a rodent problem; I mean there's grain and feed all over the place - Has been for years. Until these cats became active around the place I didn't appreciate just how many rats, mice, and voles we had. During the first year these five cats were catching as many as 5 to 8 rodents a day, each - EACH!
It's taken them more than 18 months; but, the daily kill ratio has finally started to fall off. Now it's an odd day when I see one of the cats catch more than 2 or 3 vermin. We used to get an occasional mouse (or even a rat) inside the house during the winter; but so far this year there ain't been nothing; and for the first time in 15 years I haven't seen a rat in the barn. The feral cats are now our feral cats; and we're letting them into the house during the coldest winter nights. They were, 'spooky' at first and would hide in the closet all night; but, recently, they've started to simply sleep on the floor.
A couple of months ago we decided that contact between the cats and us was so frequent and so close that they, all, need to be wormed and fully vaccinated. So, off to the veterinarian we went. (Boy, was the Vet happy when he saw the present we'd brought him! His four daughters are in college; and I'm sure we've, now, help pay this year's tuition!) Yeah, it's expensive adding 5 feral cats (The mother still shows up every morning looking to be fed.) to the 3 indoor (show) cats we already had; but, as I said to my wife the other day, '
Perhaps, in someway, this expense will compensate the planet for the extraordinary bloodlust of my youth.' - Perhaps!
(I remember, once, telling a Minister, '
If God doesn't allow hunting in Heaven then I don't want to go!' I actually said that!)
