Meet Rex and Ginger, brother and sister pair from our neighbour's cat.  We got these two in 2016 when they were still kittens.  Rex is the kitten hanging out of the bike basket on the left, and his sister Ginger is on the right.  These two were a means of entertainment to my family and I, always wrestling and doing funny things.  (Like the time Rex saw the shadow from something my dad was holding, and he pounced on the shadow!)
      When we first got them, Rex was a quiet little guy.  He never meowed about anything for any reason.  But he was sure energetic and would just about always be the cause of a spat between him and his sister, pouncing on her when she wasn't looking.
      As he got older, Rex decided that he wanted to be the king of our farm.  Davy and Psycho had other ideas though, and for a while the three of them were constantly battling with each other.  When Davy died, Psycho pretty much gave up and let Rex become the dominant cat.  To
this day, Rex still acts all regal and king-like.  His royal highness  likes to sit motionless and look down his nose on his kingdom.

This picture backs up how I've described Rex so far.  He's on the top railing, leaning over to scratch his sister.  On the bottom railing, Davy looks up at them like he's deciding whether or not to join in the fight.

We gave Ginger away in 2018 because she wasn't catching mice (which was the whole reason she was on the farm).  I still miss her, but I definitely have good memories of her!
       Ginger meowed a lot from the start - enough to make up for Rex's lack of meowing.  She was always the only one to mew in disgust when Rex decided it was time to wrestle.  And when the two of them were very young, if Ginger got separated from Rex, she would wander around the house yowling until he came back to her.  Then she would stick to him like glue again.
      Ginger's yowling did get kind of annoying sometimes, but there was one time when her loud yowls alerted us that something was wrong.  It was early one Sunday morning in the summer.  My brother and sisters and I were in the living room playing a game, and the windows were open.
       In the backyard, we had the hose turned on and filling an inflatable pool.  And suddenly we heard Ginger's yowls floating in through the window.  Figuring that she'd just gotten separated from Rex somehow again, we all looked out the window to see where she was.
       She'd gotten separated from Rex, all right!  When we looked out the window, we saw a small dark blob going around and around in circles in the pool, carried along by the current of the hose.  Ginger was standing beside the pool, yowling.  It took us less than five seconds to realize that it was Rex who was in the pool, and we all ran outside.  Somehow Rex managed to get in and out of the pool without puncturing it, and by the time I rounded the corner of the house into the backyard, he was running up the hill.  He was soaked, his fur plastered to his skin, and looking none too happy, but other than that he was okay.  Then we were free to laugh about it and wonder why on earth he climbed the pool in the first place!
       Before we gave her away, Ginger had two litters of kittens - but that's what the next post will be about!

Rex and Ginger shortly after we got them.  They did beat each other up a lot, but they were good buddies.

 For us, "rodent control" are the cats.  I have had cats since I was three years old.  I'd barely turned three when we moved to the farm where we are still located, and don't remember anything about the move.  I do, however, remember the three cats that came with the farm.  The previous occupant of the house had left behind her cats, one of which became a good companion of mine.  Although two of the cats (Psycho and Pepper) were skittish and wouldn't let anybody touch them, the third cat (Davy) took to me right away and was very friendly - and patient.  When my brother was very young, he would run and jump onto Davy's back, yelling, "Giddy-up!"
     Poor Davy didn't even react.  He would sit there and let us have our fun with him, and rarely got violent with us.  I only remember a few times when he scratched me (and I probably deserved it).
     Pepper never warmed up to us.  He (or she) caught mice like he was supposed to, but always kept his distance from my family and I.  He died in 2013.
     Davy lived for several more years, always gentle and patient with my brother and I, and later my younger sisters.  In 2018 he got into a fight with some other animal and badly injured his shoulder.  We thought he was a goner, but he pulled through.  His shoulder was always stiff after that and he was unable to move as quickly as he had.  In September of that year, he died after being hit by a vehicle.  Our whole family - my siblings and I especially - were understandably upset, and a piece of wood still marks his burial place to this day.
     Psycho is still alive today, although he's going blind and deaf.  He's started to warm up to us now, and has actually allowed me to hold him a few times in the past years.
     Back: Pepper.  Left: Psycho.  Right: Davy.  

When part 2 comes out next week, I'll tell you about the next two cats we got: Rex and Ginger.