The Great Peach Plunder

It’s not uncommon here on the farm for us to have the occasional unwanted visitor. In the old house, there were bats in the attic, mice on the main floor, & salamanders in the basement. Our own veritable pick your own sushi bar. That…thankfully….was long ago & far away though.

Here in the new house, we’ve only had the occcasional mouse or vole–pretty mundane. Or so I thought.

A few weeks ago, I had a box of fresh peaches sitting in my kitchen.

The Farmer & Prairie Kids were doing a pretty good job of eating their way through the juicy fruit…just sliced fresh in a bowl & doused with a little cream for good measure.

The rest were waiting for me to freeze or bake into something edible.  Remember this?
One morning, I reached into the box to pluck a few peaches to slice up for breakfast,… & pulled out these:
Hmmmm… completely baffled.  Definitely not mice. Rats? Raccoons? I shuddered. There were no droppings though, & I was sure no doors or windows had been left open.

My second thought was Prairie Boy.  At 13, one would think he would be beyond stabbing at innocent fruit with his pocket knife.  But I’ve been wrong before.

Then I spied this:

Spike. Our year old, Christmas tree climbing, wicked good mouse hunting (which is why he gets to stay), fetch playing, dish washing… Cat. At the moment, sleeping peacefully. But he wasn’t fooling me. His penchant for mischief precedes him.

Later in the day, I confirmed with the Farmer that early that morning, Spike had indeed been using the peaches in the top of the box as his own personal scratching posts–er, globes?

Needless to say, the remainder of the fruit was sorted & washed, and any pieces with anything resembling a claw mark were pitched.

Spike?  Well, he was properly scolded & given a colorful sermon in the error of his ways.  And spent the rest of his day keeping watch over his kingdom from his favorite window perch.

Check back here often for more mis-adventures of Spike the cat, & his people.  Or better yet, sign up to receive free updates right to your inbox.

I’ll see you on the farm!  -Shauna