Brave, Brave Kitty-One

Here are our various pets hunkered down together. Lately the Brier-Rabbit has been hopping her bunny buns into the kichen in the evenings and spending the night on the rug in front of the sliding door. She's been known to do this on occasion, mostly on very cold nights, but recently she's been reluctant to graze in the back yard at all after dusk. We'd taken notice of this but not read into it on any level. After all, she's more than happy to return to the yard in the morning and hasn't been having any accidents. No big deal.

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Then one night she had decided to stay outside for the night. She hopped through the doggy door while I was fixing breakfast the next morning. About a third of her ear was torn off, and the rest was bloody. This majorly got my panties in a bunch. Anyone who has seen my rabbit know that, well, she's a really cute rabbit. I really like my rabbit. This simply would not do.

Then things got worse. The cats began coming in with owies. First Kitty-One developed a nasty open wound on the base of his tail, then we discovered a abscess on Furgus's chest. I dutifully cleaned the wounds and dressed them, applied hot compresses and anibiotic ointments.
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Well, just the other morning, Kitty-One came inside bearing the worst injuries yet. He had 2 puncture holes above his eyes and one baby blue was swollen shut. Great. Just great.



Later on as the boys and I were playing in the front yard I caught a glimps of something furry - and big - laying on lava rocks beside the house:

Yes. That would be a big. dead. opossum. I estimate his (yes, I did check the gender. Don't ask why) weight to be about 12 pounds.

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It seems Kitty-One had valiantly finished off the mysterious threat. I stood there answering the questions that a mother of sons is confronted with upon discovering something dead, such as: "Whoa! Mom! Can I step on it?!" and "Can I poke him with a stick!?"
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As we went into the house I said, "Wow, I can't believe Kitty-One took that thing out. It's huge! He must have understood that it was dangerous and when it got too close to the house, he decided to defend his family."

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Solomon promptly went over to his cat who was snoozing on the couch, burrowed his face into white fur and whispered tenderly, "Oh, brave Kitty-One! My brave, brave Kitty-One!"