Jake the Great

I was having a hard day, It was the first time we lost one of our goat babies and I was sad. Driving home from the vet’s office with tears still in my eyes, I pulled into our local feed store to pick up some needed supplies. As I stepped inside I noticed a box of free kittens, I heard myself say to the lady at the counter, ” I would like to take two of them, a boy and a girl please.” I left with my loudly mewing box of kittens and the feed loaded in the back of my truck.

When I arrived home and opened the box, I was surprised by two very angry kittens hissing and spitting with a fury I didn’t know was possible from two such tiny balls of fur. It took a couple of day but Jake and Abby, ( named for the signatures written in the concrete of our well house floor where they would be living.) warmed up to us and even to our giant Farmdog.

While Jake became our resident rodent killer, Abby preferred to stay close to home. Both cats would obediently come running when we banged their feed dish, so we could close them up safely for the night. When summer arrived Jake and Abby ran off into the woods one night , while Jake was in the well house in the morning, we never saw our sweet Abby again. It is one of the sad realities of living on a farm.

Jake still goes into the woods to hunt but he prefers spending the night in the well house now where he knows he is safe. He is a proficient hunter and is constantly patrolling the chicken and duck yards for birds, moles, rodents and the occasional clean empty nesting box to nap in. For those that visit or drive by you might see him using the bird netting as his own personal hammock. He is smart, friendly, funny and he does an awesome job at pest control, hence his title: Jake the Great!