Farewell, Puddy Cat ? - 21.8.2014

"And they've even had the gall to castrate him!!!"

The prettiest kindest sweetest Puddy Cat

Some things you've said stay with you forever. Another is "If I don't like him after a week, can I bring him back?" said to the nice young lady at the Police Pound where we got our first, and definitely most memorable, dog from.
However, back to the now.
So. Soon after we moved to the Old Rectory we decided cats would be a good addition to the family. We had masses of mices and, we suspected, reams of rats. At that time we used to buy our veg from a chap down the road who, every time we went, seemed to have another litter of kittens; many of them grey and white and very pretty. So we asked if, next time he had a litter, could we have 2 or 3. They were all semi feral so we determined that they would live outside all the time and could sleep in the outbuildings.
 In due course, we acquired 3 kittens for nothing - nobody asked for money for cats in those days - after all, they bred like rabbits..... glad to find homes for them. The three kittens were called Harpo, Chico and Groucho. We housed them out in the old coachhouse. When the builders came to rebuild and extend, we tried to contain the kittens but in no time they were running all over the place and we just hoped they'd be safe. One morning I woke up early and, coming downstairs, looked out the window and saw a fox with three kittens gambolling around its paws. An amazing sight, but after that I didn't worry about the kittens..... As they grew, they got bolder and bolder - I remember one morning looking out of the bedroom window and seeing Chico bounding across the orchard.... followed some while later by Groucho. Harpo was always the quieter one.....
In their second year Chico became more and more adventurous... one day he wasn't there in the morning and then he wasn't there in the evening either.... the next day he wasn't there at all..... A while later, Groucho went.
Harpo stayed behind, lazing in the sunshine and generally appearing for cuddles on what we called the "cuddle chair" when we did evening stables.
Then, around harvest time in his second or, it could have been third, year, he too disappeared. I dreaded that he'd been swept up by the combines - it was that time of year..... we looked and called everywhere but he never came back. I ran off photos and put them up in the local vets and feed merchants.
We heard nothing. For months.
We gave up hope of finding him.
I arranged with the local Cats Protection League rep to rehome two semi feral cats. We were scheduled to pick them up on Thursday.  On Wednesday she rang us and said someone had reported a stray cat who looked just like the photo of our cat that we'd posted in the local vet's practice.
We arranged to go visit the men and see the cat if it was around - they'd been feeding it for a few days and had become very fond of it.  We looked, it appeared identical to Harpo. The photo bore this out. The men agreed. We took the cat. It was a little hesitant. Why wouldn't it be. When we got 'him' home he behaved differently.
"Whoever's had him" I said to the Big Boss "Has trained him to the house...." "Why" said the boss. Well he pooped next to the loo so I produced a litter tray and put it there and lo and behold he pooped in the litter tray - we'd never taught him that so someboy in the intervening months clearly had. And

Queen of all she surveys

so it went on; little changes in behaviours - this cat came in happily whereas Harpo never did; this one pooped in the litter, obviously Harpo never did; this one jumped on the table to eat which, clearly, Harpo never would have done..... and then one day as he was eating on the table in the scullery with his back turned towards me I noticed, for the first time, that he had no 'dibblies'.
"Well, would you believe it" I said to the Big Boss in high Dudgeon "not only has someone hi-jacked our cat for months but they've also had the cheek to castrate him" Initially, I thought of contacting the local vets to ask them who might have brought in a strange cat..... but time passed and I didnt do that.... Meanwhile, the cat whom we still called Harpo continued to surprise us with his 'new' habits.
But we thought no more of it - happy to have the cat home..   Months later  I took him to the vet for the annual check up. During conversation and my recounting the story of the cat's disappearance, including the bit where whoever had him, had the cheek to castrate him, .....well, the Vet looked closer and declared Harpo a female, and worse than that, one that had been spayed!
So not our cat at all. I felt awful. We'd had this cat for some 8 months by now and it had settled in. "No" said the vet in response to my question - "don't give it back to the men who found it". "If it's settled down, keep it".
So We did.

With new pal Waifa

And renamed it Puddy cat because by then we had no idea what to call it.... it not being Harpo..... And gradually Puddy Cat wove herself into our lives and into our hearts. She soon found the way upstairs and slept every night on our bed curled up in the hollow of my side....She had the loudest purr - quite extraordinary in one so small. Later she became the Computer Cat spending all her waking hours sitting on the Mouse Mat (the only mouse she was ever really interested in, although I think she did catch a handful of her own over the years) or the modem.

Loving the fireside

When the fire was lit in winter she'd often be found sleeping there;she was certainly a comfort cat. Feral was not a word in her dictionary.
In summer she'd be found in the garden sleeping in a flower basket or lazing on the picnic table..... such a small thing, she needed the sun to energise her.... it was a rare sight to catch her running, but

Snoozing in the sun on the picnic table

when she did it was an exuberant hop and skip just for the fun of it..... she'd dash about the house as if she'd been stung by a bee... for no apparent reason. Then collapse on the bed & sleep all day.
She was the sweetest thing.... sure of her place opposite the dogs, she never ran away and would happily spit at any who dared to try and bully her..... Gunner treated her with the utmost respect, daring just to give her the merest sniff and then pass on. She respected that. She never spat at him; she often did at the pups tho. Pilot was never on her radar - far too 'strong'. They had nothing to say to each other.
A few months back she started to look a bit thin. More recently she became fussier with her feeding. About 6 weeks back she moved out of the house and into the old stalls on top of the hay. The pups were too much for her I suppose. I took her to the vet eventually. He found a big lump. Tumour on her bladder - gave her a steroid injection and she picked up immensely. Went back a week later and the lump was reduced to tiny. Another steroid injection and for a few days she was quite bright. It didn't last though and she declined slightly day by day until she was just a skinny thing with such a skinny appetite. After last weekend the weather turned cool so I brought her into the house and put her bed by the aga. At night she moved into the dining room to be quiet and away from the bouncing pups.
The sun set beautifully last night.

When I came back in after 'doing' the animals she was curled upon the 'big'chair.
We had a cuddle; she purred - not quite so loudly. Went to sleep.
This morning when I looked, she had passed on.



Miss you already Puddy Cat.

Gunner & Puddy Cat sharing a thought

Humbug

Andromeda counting the little ones....

"Hello World"
Andromeda is being very protective of her new family, partly because we keep changing her neighbours  but also, we think, because something or somebody (Charlie) has been sniffing around. She is very hesitant about coming out to eat too which is not at all like her.
However, she did let the little ones out to play in the sunshine for a little while on Tuesday so I'm sure things will soon be more like normal. It doesn't help that The Bestest Gundog kept going into her pen to check out the new family. He has now been severely reprimanded and will not do it again!
The piglets have been named "Humbugs" for all these reasons!

Bang on Time!

"Oh What a Wallow for a sWallowbelly"

Remember Andromeda burying herself in her wallow during the unusually hot weather a while back.....
Well, this morning - a very misty autumnal one I must say - she gave birth to 5 little swallowbelly piglets..... on precisely the date we had pencilled in the diary.
Clever Girl.
Pictures of the little ones to follow ....

P.S.to the previous

Just after writing the previous ... literally just after -
I went outside and there by the back door was this little thing...... a perfect tiny bird nest.

Birds nest showing good use of local materials

Looking closely I could see strands of baler twine..... there's a lot of that around here ..... and, lining the inside, what is obviously pig's wool.
Clever bird.
If there's one, there must be more.......................

Don't suppose their wool can be used for anything?

I wish I had a £ for every time somebody asks this question....(and if I had another £ for every time someone said "It  looks like a sheep..... or is 'it' a pig I'd be a millionaire by now!)
The next question is: "Do you have to shear them like sheep?"
 Well - The answers to the above are:
 "Yes" their coat does have uses
and
"No" the pigs don't have to be shorn.
Just as well because I cannot imagine who would be strong enough to toss a pig over on its back and get to work with the shears - assuming, that is, that the creature in question would be so obliging! Fortunately, nature has a more sensible method! Once a year the coat moults of its own accord. Having said that, it is not guaranteed to moult every  year. The unusually wet summer of 2012 passed with hardly any loss of wool from the entire herd of 70 or so. We never see a sodden pig, even in the heaviest of rain, which would seem to indicate that the coats are extremely water repellant.

A group of gilts in varying stages of moult

The coat is a mix of coarse, fibrous hair intertwined with short, soft 'wool'. It is difficult to knit in the traditional way, having to be mixed with something like merino to produce a 'piece' of fabric.
Nonetheless, years ago, when woolly pigs were prolific, the coats were gathered and transformed into 'vests' for the farmworkers - presumably the original 'hairshirt'. The water repellant properties may have acted much like the modern day fleece. This quality may also explain its use for fishermen's gloves in Scandinavia. Records also show that the wool was woven into the uniforms of the soldiers fighting in the American Civil War. Sadly no examples of any of these objects exist today.
What do we use it for today then?
Read on.....
If we don't shear the pigs, how do we gather their 'wool'?
We use a very simple and unscientific tool.

The wool gathering tool

 A dog brush.

We wait until the coat is starting to drop out and then brush the pig in much the same way as you would brush a dog. Except most pigs will not keep still no matter how much you tell them to do so! You can't just walk into the pen, ask them to keep still and then start brushing. As soon as you touch them, most will dash quickly away and once their suspicions are aroused there is no way they are going to come back and let you try again. So we have to be a little bit sneaky. Since we feed them mostly vegetables they get quite carried away when we change to hard feed for a meal. That's the time to be ready with the brush and grab a quick few brushstrokes before the pig realises it's not its neighbour rubbing alongside during the feeding frenzy. In this way it is sometimes possible to garner some wool from each member of the group before they all get wise and start jiggling away again. Hence, it is a slow and frustrating job. The most frustrating bit is being able to see the coat almost fall out on its own but the pig won't let you near! And no - for some reason it does not lie around on the ground when it falls out just waiting for us to pick it up. I don't know where it does go. Perhaps the birds take it to line their nests? Lucky them. Warmth & waterproofing in one go!

Packs of cleaned & dyed Mangalitza wool

Finally, when we have gathered all the wool we can - which, in view of the size of the herd, is really not such a great amount - we give it a quick clean: i.e. we put it altogether in an empty feed sack and give it a good shake!
This gets rid of much of the dry dirt and miscellaneous debris.
We then package it up and send it over to the States.
Where a lovely man (who 'found' us via the wonders of the www soon after we got our first pigs) separates wool from hair, cleans it properly (!) and dyes it into many colours using natural vegetable dyes: And then packs it into lots of little transparent bags.
"And then what happens to it? "  Well may you ask.
Thanks again to its water repellent properties, this material is highly sought after by fishermen the world over for fly-tieing!

Flies made, inter alia, from Mangalitza Pig Wool

A couple of years back Bill (he the Man in America) enlightened us, gifting us the wonderful collection shown here. I know absolutely zilch about fishing and even less about 'flies' but I can appreciate the beauty of these amazing bits of kit. Apparently the addition of the pigs' wool enables the flies to float at the optimum level for longer than would otherwise be possible......
Who would have thought that something so beautiful would result from the mix of fibres shown in picture 2 above which derive from the pigs who lounge around here in their wallows in summer..... or pure mud in wet winters.....
Not only beautiful but £ for pound, the most precious part of the pig......... 
"Everything but the squeak" as the saying goes.......

Oh! And if we could gather enough 'wool', the coarse hair which is not used in fly-tieing could be used to stuff our Sofa or mattress!