Meet the garden cats

I've mentioned before that we have a few cats that hang out in our yard, or at least visit once in a while. I believe they're all homeless.

Let's meet these cats who apparently have good taste in gardens. ;-)

This is "Whitey". (Remember that we give strays descriptive names only.)

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Whitey is quite afraid of people. He's been around since sometime last year... Spring or early Summer. He got pretty beat up this Winter, as if he'd been in at least one fight. He injured one of his front legs or paws, and limps very badly when it's cold.

Why is he called "Whitey"? Well last Summer there were two cats who spent a lot of time in our yard: "Growly" (who we adopted and is now "Digby"), and "Whitey". Growly was grey, so the 1/2 white cat became "Whitey".

Of course that created a problem when this lady showed up (I've written about her before):

That naming problem was easily resolved by giving her the stupid but appropriate (when taken in context) name "Super-Whitey". She showed up late last Summer, and was very, very shy of humans. She's gotten over that and loves hanging around with us while we're in the yard now.

This guy started showing up a few months ago:

Partially in keeping with the current naming theme, partially as a joke, and partially because it's accurate, he's called "Toe White". He's not as scared of people as Whitey is, and he really doesn't like Whitey too much. Here he is giving Whitey the eye:

Toe White doesn't come around as much as Whitey, and doesn't stay very long, so I think he may not be homeless. He does have a nasty scrape on his nose, which you think his owners would have taken care of, so I don't know. Toe White is pretty laid back, and sometimes eats while laying down. He's not too nervous around me, but won't let me get too close.

I really like having cats in the garden for the most part. I haven't seen a chipmunk yet this year (although it might be too early for them to emerge), and the rabbits don't seem to be lounging around here much, so that's good. Cats do stink up some of the planting beds (a freshly-mulched bed is Nature's litter box!), but I think the good outweighs the bad.

Plus, there's something about cats and gardens that just go together, don't you agree?