Sammi’s Animals

 

My neighbor got bitten by a rattlesnake the other day. Judging by the fang marks, it was a small snake, but rattlers are deadly from the time they break out of their eggs. In fact, the younger snakes are often more dangerous than the adults because they pump out their whole wad of venom, while the adults, more circumspect, only shoot as much as they think is necessary to stop an attack or to prevent lunch from getting away.

But Weaver seems all right, even though she’s a little tentative on her foot. The fur is healing over the wound. She’s a cute, if strange little cat, who seems to attract every burr that could matt a coat, and she refuses to allow Sammi to brush her. Another aspect of her strangeness is that unlike most out-in-the-wilds cats, she’s otherwise very friendly, quickly sidling up to strangers. She got her name because she weaves in and out between peoples legs, either being friendly or trying to trip them.

Weaver is one of the many cats who live around Sammi’s place. She also has a coupla dogs. There was once a delightful black ingenue named Gypsy, but we think the coyotes got her. Now Sammi tends to Buddy and Beauregarde, who seem to belong to a family in a trailer up the hill.

Buddy arrived young, as raucous as a teen on hormones and beer, but he aged quickly. It’s like what happens to a lot of people up here in the North State; right after a lusty adolescence, they sag promptly into antiquity. Buddy would come home beaten and bleeding and then take weeks to recover. Recently a girl-dawg in our neighborhood was in her prime propagating mode and sending out signals, and Buddy rose to the occasion. The competition was fierce; he returned with so many scratches and bites Sammi thought he wouldn’t make it, but he did.

Beauregarde is a basset hound, a delightfully-friendly looking critter with enormous ears that drag across the ground and a knob on his head. He’s dumber than a post, but very funny. When I walk down the road to get the newspaper in the morning, he will wait until I’m out of sight and then plunk himself down in dust, lying completely still, waiting to surprise me on my return. Like Snoopy playing vulture in the Peanuts strip.

This is a wonderful place for animals, with all sorts of adventures in the hills -- they have to keep their eyes open -- but they know there’s always a bowl of kibble and a safe place to sleep. Such a deal.

And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.

 

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