My Murderous Cat and My Curious Kid

Today, we took advantage of the break in the rain and took a walk. Luc wanted to go on an adventure, where we tear through the brambles in an old cow pasture, over streams and tripping over quartz boulders. But we had our gigantic puppy Bear with us, so we settled for meandering down our country road. As always, the ol' rottie Shindu and one of the cats, Fish, tagged along.

There we were: baby Elijah in the BabyHawk, Bear on the leash, Shindu and Lucian leading the way, Fish trailing behind meowing. The ragtag mess of us.

We went for a detour in an empty field along the way. Short grass, path along the forest. Seemed safe enough.
And it was. As long as you weren't a bird.

Suddenly, the chubby little knocked-up cat shot past us and into the bordering field. Amazing she could get past the barbed wire without even slowing. Or without going into early labor. (Please don't lecture me on getting her fixed. I know, I know! We've lamented our idiocy with many a great big "D'Oh!"s. "She's too young" my foot!)

So the pleased pregnant kitty caught a bird. A young blue jay, from the looks of it. Hard to say since most of what I saw was belly feathers and twitching legs.

And then? Then Lucian and I looked on in a weird combination of horror and silent interest as she...ate it? Nope. She knocked the thing around a few more times, then left it to saunter back to us and the dogs.

Thanks, cat, for giving me such a lovely, special moment.

Mama? Why Fish killed that bird? Why Fish didn't eat it? Why did its legs shake like that?

Yeah. The leg twitching thing was that disturbing.
I tried to explain that cats eat birds and mice. And that we're happy when we find little rodent corpses scattered across our front sidewalk. That we don't want mice in our house or moles in our yard.
But that killing thing? Without eating the prize? Yep, I let the cat annoy me. I didn't want to have existential discussions with my 3-year-old today. Like: is it right to kill for sport? But such is life.

It made me step back and make a decision. That's where I returned to that vegetarian girl from years past.
Bean soup it is!