The Art of Melanie Eberhardt

Category: House Dweller

Aunt Mel’s animals who share the house

  • Omlete Anyone?

    When Peep first arrived at Aunt Mel’s farm, she had no way of knowing if this beautiful cockatiel was a boy or girl. But Peep soon showed her gender. Miss Peep regularly lays eggs.

    Each egg is smooth and warm and white. They are the size of your thumbnail. She lays between 3 and 7. She clears a spot in a corner on the floor of her cage and arranges the eggs carefully beneath. She sits all day warming the eggs, moving they around with her beak, and serving her role as diligent mother. But they never hatch because they are unfertilized.

    Eggs usually take 21 days to hatch. When the first egg appears, Aunt Mel marks her calendar. On the 21st day, she removes the eggs so Miss Peep thinks her eggs have hatched. This seems to be a good arrangement. Miss Peep often seems relieved of this duty. She spends the next few days talking, preening and eating and enjoying a good head scratching.

    Miss Peep’s eggs are delicate examples of the strength of nature and motherhood.

  • What is That Awful Smell? Oh Dear, It’s Orange Cat!

    One day Aunt Mel was enjoying a hot cup of coffee swinging in her hammock under the big Maple tree. The animals were still eating their breakfast. The sun was just starting to warm for the day. As Aunt Mel enjoyed the peace and quiet, she suddenly caught a whiff of a terrible smell.

    What the heck is that awful smell? It stunk so badly, Aunt Mel couldn’t finish her coffee. She got up and walked around the yard searching for the source of the nauseating stink.

    As she walked around the big blue hydrangea, she spotted a big orange cat that she had never before seen. The cat was watching Aunt Mel and was not frightened. Instead he stood and walked right up to Aunt Mel. He meowed and began to rub against her legs for a pet.

    He was a beautiful, long hair orange cat with green eyes. A very friendly cat but scruffy from neglect. Probably tossed along the road as an unwanted pet, the orange cat had naturally wandered to Aunt Mel’s farm. As Aunt Mel leaned over to welcome the cat, she was overwhelmed by that stink.

    Oh dear. The stink was the nice orange cat. What the heck is wrong that he smells so bad? Aunt Mel breathed through her mouth and she inspected the cat. Maybe he had a terrible infection that was rotten? But that wasn’t the problem, the stink source was simple.

    The orange cat had globs of poop stuck to the long hair on his back legs. His entire back end was caked with wretched smelling poop. Aunt Mel got a pair of scissors and cut the stink away. She took the cat into the house and gave him a bath. As she toweled the orange cat dry, he purred and meowed his appreciation.

    Aunt Mel wondered if the poop smell could be the reason someone tossed this nice cat aside? They were too lazy to help the longhaired cat clean himself? Well he was welcome at Aunt Mel’s Farm. She would help him stay clean and stink free.

    Orange Cat lived at Aunt Mel’s Farm for several years. She took him to the local dog groomer and kept him clipped like a poodle. His short hair prevented the poop from sticking to his legs so he was never again the source of a bad stink.

  • Permission to Board – Welcome Capt’n Crunch!

    Captain Crunch belonged to friends of Aunt Mel’s. Captain Crunch lived in their barn. His job was to control the mouse population. He was very good at his job despite a significant handicap.

    Captain Crunch only had one eye. When he was a kitten, he fought with a raccoon who scratched out his eye. But missing an eye had no effect whatsoever on Captain Crunch’s ability to hunt.

    Aunt Mel’s friends sold their farm and were moving to a new home that had no room for a barn cat. Aunt Mel was happy to offer a home to Captain Crunch. When you live in the country, a good mouse hunter is an asset on any farm.

    Captain Crunch moved to Aunt Mel’s house and lived in the barn with the horses. He was already an old cat, but for many years he did a great job of controlling the mice and rats. And every morning he followed Aunt Mel while she fed the horses. He was a big helper around the barn. He was always nearby keeping his one good eye on everything.

    The last time Aunt Mel was Captain Crunch was a summer morning. He ran to meet her in the morning and wanted to be picked up. Aunt Mel carried the purring cat to the barn and as usual, he followed her around supervising the morning chores. Aunt Mel scratched his back and told him he was a good kitty. She went back to the house to get ready to work.

    Life is hard in the country. Often pets disappear with no apparent reason. Sometimes they are sick and go off to be alone, sometimes the coyotes eat the cats. You do what you can to make a good life for the farm animals and hope that in the end, they do not suffer.

    Something happened that Captain Crunch disappeared that day and it mad Aunt Mel very sad. Captain Crunch was a very sweet cat who had a very happy life living in a barn and chasing mice. Missing an eye had no effect on his joyful outlook on life. He never felt sorry for himself. We could all learn a lesson from Captain Crunch’s example – one should be positive and enjoy life despite a physical limitation.

  • Timmy the Terminator Moves In

    Aunt Mel noticed that her neighbors had two new kittens. One was black, the other black and white. The black kitten was always chasing the black and white kitten around the neighbor’s yard.

    One night, Aunt Mel came home from work and noticed the black and white kitten hiding along the fence line in the honey suckle. She got out of the car and called “kitty, kitty”, the cat just looked at her.

    The next night when Aunt Mel came home from work, the black and white kitten was sitting under the front porch. Again, she called “kitty, kitty” but he just looked at her.
    The third night, Aunt Mel came home from work and was watching for the kitten but he was nowhere to be found. She guessed that he finally went home. Aunt Mel went in the house to change her clothes. She walked into her bedroom and there sleeping on her pillow was the black and white kitten. She softly called “kitty, kitty”. The cat opened his eyes, meowed, stretched and came over to rub on Aunt Mel’s legs.

    Aunt Mel thought the black and white kitten had finally gone home after three days of loitering in her yard. But she guessed wrong! The black and white kitten had changed his address and decided it was better to live at Aunt Mel’s farm than next door being chased by the black kitten.

    Aunt Mel named the kitten, Timmy. He was a small cat, much smaller than the other cats at Aunt Mel’s Farm. But his size was a contradiction to his personality. Timmy would soon earn the nickname “The Terminator”.

  • Love at First Sight – Alex

    Alex was that once in a lifetime, very special dog. And how Alex came to be part of Aunt Mel’s life is also special. Aunt Mel and her boyfriend Chris decided they wanted to get a dog. Chris liked to duck hunt so he wanted to find a black lab puppy. So they began to inquire about available puppies.

    One of Chris’s friends, Lester, called to say his old lab dog just gave birth to three puppies and did we want one? This was her last litter and Lester was sad that all the pups were black. His old lab had seven previous litters and Lester wanted a yellow pup. Despite different colored daddies, every puppy came out black. And such was the case with this litter of three all black puppies, two males and one female. Chris wanted a male. Lester picked the smartest pup and tied a string around his neck so we could identify our puppy.

    A few weeks later, the pups were old enough to leave their mother. Chris and Aunt Mel drive nine hours to Alexandria, Louisiana for their new puppy. When they arrived at Lester’s home, the mamma lab and two puppies ran to the car to meet them. But the puppy with the string around his neck was missing. Lester called but the puppy did not come. A search of the yard ensued but the third puppy was nowhere to be found.
    Then Lester heard something under the house. He crawled under the floor and pulled the yelping puppy out by his tale. He placed the squirming pup in Chris’s arms. “Here is YOUR dog”.

    Aunt Mel and Chris named the puppy on the spot – Alex. It was the perfect name for this chubby, peculiar black Lab puppy. All the way back to Atlanta, Alex slept on Aunt Mel’s lap. Aunt Mel and Chris were very happy.

  • Whitey McFly – Wishes Do Come True

    Whitey is a huge, white cat with brilliant blue eyes. And he is completely deaf. Whitey doesn’t hear a thing but this handicap does nothing to deter him from his singular goal in life – to catch a bird. Whitey spends hours sitting below the wild bird feeder hunting birds and he never, ever catches one. He doesn’t even come close.

    Whitey jumps in the air to catch the birds as they approach the feeder, but he’s too fat to jump high enough to snag one. He hides in the flowers and tries to stalk the birds, but he’s white and easy to see. The birds can see him from miles away and aren’t fooled by his attempt at camouflage. Despite every failed attempt, Whitey enthusiastically tries again and again to catch a bird, just one.

    One morning Aunt Mel was feeding the horses and Whitey was hiding behind the water tub stalking wild birds. There was a sudden flash of white as Whitey raced to the corner of the pasture. Aunt Mel turned and couldn’t believe her eyes. Whitey had a bird in his mouth! He did it! Whitey caught a bird! But wait…. what kind of bird is that?

    Aunt Mel dropped the feed bucket and ran over to Whitey for a better look. As she neared, the bird got away and flew a few feet to the fence. What the heck kind of bird is that? Aunt Mel slowly walked toward the bird when Whitey raced past her, leaped onto the fence and caught the bird again. Unbelievable! Aunt Mel knew something was wrong with this stupid bird that Whitey could catch it twice. She grabbed Whitey and pulled the bird out of his mouth. It wasn’t a wild bird at all. It was some sort of a parrot – a pet bird. No wonder it could get caught twice by the worst bird hunter in the world – it was a pet and had no sense of survival like the wild birds.

    The bird was not injured so Aunt Mel brought it into the house and put it in a large pet carrier. She goggled birds until she found a photo identifying the breed. A cockatiel. How about that? Whitey McFly finally caught a bird and it was the best bird any of the cats ever caught – a new pet for Aunt Mel’s farm. The bird was named “Peep” and Whitey McFly was rewarded with an extra spoon of wet at food for dinner that night.

  • It all Started with Mama Ed Kitty!

    When Aunt Mel bought her farm she didn’t have any cats. You simply can’t have a farm without cats. They help control the mice and rat population in the barn. A friend called one day and said her sister found a cat in a tree in their yard. They didn’t want the cat but wanted to find her a good home. Arrangements were made to meet at Krispie Kreme in Roswell the next day. The pretty stray cat would come live at Aunt Mel’s new farm.

    This cat was beautiful. She was almost full grown, half white and the other half brown tabby spots. She was very bright and quickly made herself at home. It took a few days to decide on a name – the pretty cat was named “Ed”.

    Ed was a great hunter and caught lots of rats in the fields around the barn. But she was at the age where male cats were starting to hang around. Before Aunt Mel had a chance to have Ed spayed, Ed got pregnant. The decision was made to have one litter of kittens and keep the family together.

    Ed got bigger and bigger and a bed was made from a cardboard box and lined with soft towels. Aunt Mel put the bed in the bathroom closet, a place that was dark and quiet. One night Aunt Mel couldn’t find Ed and looked all over the house. She called and called and finally she heard Ed meowing back. She followed the sound to the bathroom closet. Ed was inside the box and starting to deliver the kittens.

    During the night Ed gave birth to five healthy kittens. She cleaned each one and was very careful to lay so they could nurse. She was a wonderful and loving mother. She licked and licked the kittens, purring and comforting them. Their eyes were closed but they knew they were safe and warm. They did little but nurse and sleep and grow for several weeks.

    When their eyes opened the kittens became more active. They started to climb out of their box and play with one another. They meowed and hissed as they tumbled around the bathroom floor. Ed seldom left. She guarded her kittens and was always there when they were hungry.

    The kittens were so cute. Aunt Mel named the silver tabby, Beatrice. Beatrice was the leader, bold and ready to explore. Emily was gentle and quiet, maybe a little shy. She had beautiful green eyes that well suited her grey tuxedo coloring. Arthur was a big boy, white with a few big grey spots. He always wanted to be right next to his mother and he would purr for hours. Vivian was very opinionated and smart. She was a grey tabby but her stripes were soft and blended. She had a bright pink nose. Waldo was a very handsome, sweet kitten. He was white with black ears and tail and three big black spots on his side that looked like Mickey Mouse. Waldo just wanted to be held. All the kittens were beautiful. Ed was very proud of them.

    Soon the kittens were running throughout the house. They played hard until they were exhausted. Then they would find a sunny spot and curl up together and nap. Ed started to go outside again to hunt. As soon as she came home, the kittens would run to her and nurse. After a snack, she would bath each kitten and sometimes even play tag with them. They drove Aunt Mel crazy racing through the house, climbing up the back of the chairs, darting under tables….but she couldn’t stay made because they were such a happy cat family.

    Finally the kittens quit nursing and ate regular cat food with Ed. Everyone went outside during the day to play and Ed taught them how to hunt mice. It was a very happy time at Aunt Mel’s house. All the animals on the farm enjoyed the fun loving kittens, especially their proud mamma, Ed.