Dwight Calls it Cat Pressure, I Call it Love

Charcoal

The first time I saw the small, black feral cat was when she was running through the pasture. A few days later, she plunked down on our driveway, exhausted, starving and hissing at me. I usually don’t feed feral cats, but I could tell this one wasn’t doing well, so I put out a can of food.

Predictably, the cat came back. 

That was seven months ago. Charcoal—her name because she is a smoky black and gray and brown, like a piece of charcoal, has become a resident of our shed. She has a warm bed. I feed her twice a day, and she lets me pet her. But she won’t look at my face, and if she isn’t hungry, she turns her back to me, as in "I really don’t give a hoot about you lady."

I believe she has been spayed already because she has a notch in one ear, the universal sign of a sterilized feral cat.  

I doubt she will ever be tame enough to join Josephus and Rosie in the house. 

She doesn’t like my hands. She sees them and jumps away—I wonder if she associates hands with pain from being spayed.  I will never know. 

But she is a sweet cat and likes the attention. 

I would love to pick her up and put her on my lap, I haven't quite worked out how. Cat bites, particularly in hands, are almost a medical emergency. 

Any suggestions?