Julius

Julius was a scrawny orange-and-white tomcat.

When we moved here in 2005 and inherited the colony of feral cats, Julius was clearly the leader of the pack. He walked through the pastures with head and tail high, and the other cats gave him a wide berth.

Some of the other neighbors here also care for colonies of feral cats. They multiply, of course. Some have been caught and neutered, but most are too wild even for that. I am sure that Julius sired most, if not all, of the cats that hang around our barn.

Every now and then, a new male cat would show up on our property and try to take up residence. Julius would go into high gear then, stalking and tormenting them until they moved elsewhere.

He was obviously not well, though, in spite of his proud male virility and dominance. He was perpetually too skinny, his coat lacked luster, and his face and ears were badly scarred.

I succeeded in catching another tomcat, whom I'd named Tom, who had managed to coexist with Julius. Tom was semi-tame, and I had the impression he'd been socialized at some point. Once I started putting out canned food, it didn't take Tom long to warm up to me, and eventually he even allowed me to pet him.

I wish I had a picture of Tom. He was grey striped, and he had one ear that always laid flat against his head, giving him a charming quizzical appearance. He was very sweet and I was very fond of him. I also had the impression he wasn't well.

Eventually I caught Tom in a carrier and took him to the vet. I was going to get him neutered and vaccinated and turn him loose again. Alas, we discovered that poor old Tom had feline leukemia, which is very contagious and deadly. I had to make a painful choice. Since it wasn't possible to confine him and there was no treatment, he would spread the disease to the other cats if he hadn't already. It broke my heart, but I had to have poor Tom put to sleep.

I suspected Julius also had feline leukemia. As he grew older, he slowed down and started looking worse and worse. I decided I had to try to catch him. Thus began a long, slow process to try to win his trust.

I had easily caught Tom with canned food, but Julius was a harder case. For months, I put canned food out and never saw who was eating it. But gradually, he started coming into the barn and waiting for it to appear. Little by little, he began to lose his fear and allow me to get closer to him--but never close enough to touch him.

In the meantime, a big black-and-white tomcat moved into the area. He was larger and younger than Julius, and many confrontations between the two tomcats ensued, with Julius clearly coming up the loser. More than once, poor Julius limped for a weak after one of those confrontations.

It soon became apparent that our feral cat colony had a new leader. King Julius had been deposed.

After that, Julius's health deteriorated rapidly. He also continued to grow tamer, but still not tame enough for me to get within six feet of him. He wolfed down the canned food but never gained weight.

I knew I needed to get a humane trap and try to lure him into it, but other things in my life took precedence at the time. I was also pretty sure he was very sick and I would have to have him euthanized, which I dreaded. No doubt I was also procrastinating on getting the humane trap.

The last time I saw Julius, he was so weak he couldn't hardly walk from one place to another. He was crouched under one of the cars, his chest heaving, looking miserable. I thought maybe now he would let me pick him up. In fact, he did let me get almost close enough to put a finger on him, but then he got up and moved away.

That was a month ago, and I haven't seen him since. I'm sure he crawled into the woods and died shortly after that.

I miss the old rascal. I suppose it would have been more humane if I'd caught him and taken him to the vet--or would it? It would have been extremely traumatic for him. When I caught Tom in the crate, he bloodied his paws trying to get out.

Julius lived his life in the woods, managing to avoid death by owls, foxes, and injuries from other cats. In the end, a disease killed him.

I don't like it, but wild animals die painful and unpleasant deaths. Julius went the way of other wild animals. Maybe it's not really kinder to take a wild thing to the vet and have it euthanized than to let it die naturally, the way wild animals die.

Julius is gone, but some of his children remain. I am sure that any new cats who show up in this area will probably now be black and white instead of having orange markings.

Good bye, Julius. I wonder what your life would have been if you'd been tame. I wonder if you would have been happier.

Introduction

From the time I was a child, I always wanted to live in the country. It seems like some people just have a fascination with all things nature, and that was certainly me. I was always after my widowed mother to sell our suburban home and get a farm in the country. She never would, and it was not until I had been an adult for a long-time that I finally realized my dream.

Fortunately, I married a man who shared my dream, and we are now blessed to have a six-acre property in the middle of beautiful and rural Carroll County, Maryland. We are surrounded by dairy farms, woods, and wonderful views. Our property has a stream and an acre or so of woods, so there is plenty of wildlife there. We have a couple of horses and a couple of dogs and a bunch of feral barn cats we inherited from the previous owners. We are privileged to dwell among all manner of interesting critters, from deer to raccoons to foxes to all manner of birds, insects, and fungi.

I am in my element, studying these fascinating critters. Every now and then I wonder about them, asking such questions as, "Where do flies go in the wintertime and how is they can be resurrected on a sunny day in January?" "What do crickets eat?" and "What are those orange and black bugs that are all over the side of the garage?"

And so I've decided to create a blog where I will attempt to answer some of these crucial questions and record some of my day-to-day observations.

If you happen to live in Carroll County and would like to join me in my search or raise a few questions of your own, you are most welcome--just drop me a note. And of course even if you don't live in Carroll County, I hope you find this blog entertaining and educational.