A Hard Working Animal in the Home Orchard

I have to admit, I used to hate cats. The way they stare at humans used to creep me out. I was always happy to announce "I am a dog person". Cats just seem so hard to understand, so I tried my best to stay away from them. I can't say I have had a lot of encounters with cats growing up, so my dislike for them is unjustified, but who cares. I hated cats!

Until one day, this city girl decided to plant fruit trees. I babied my fruit trees until they started producing fruit. How exciting to see fruit grow, I thought. I watched my baby fruit grow larger and larger anticipating the harvest time. We were so excited that we would get to try our first homegrown peach. Then one day (just days away from harvesting), two squirrels showed up and stripped all the peaches off the peach trees. I almost cried when I saw all the almost ripe peaches laying on the ground. They didn't even try to eat them. They just stripped all my fruit for fun. The squirrels did this out of spite. They were sent here to destroy my world.

I stopped planting fruit trees altogether after that experience. I realized we would never get to enjoy the fruits of our labor, so why bother. Then an old timer recommended getting cats. He told me "cats are not pets in an orchard, they perform a job and that is to protect your fruit on the trees from the damn squirrels. Why do you think I have so many cats on my farm?" After that conversation, my husband and I search for kittens to adopt. We ended up being the proud parents of two kittens. We named them Tiger and Panda. Can you tell I have always dreamed of owning a zoo.

The personality of our two cats wouldn't be any more different. One cat doesn't hunt. Even though she is a sweet cat, she doesn't like to be touched and she is not very social. I am not going to talk about this cat. The black cat Panda does not seem to know he is a cat. He likes to chase water from a hose and get super wet. He likes his belly rubbed. He naps on my lap when I am sitting outside. He is super social and loves humans. And the best part is he hunts!

People used to tell me cats that like to hunt would bring their owners gifts. They weren't kidding. Panda has brought me birds, rabbits, squirrels, lizards, toads, snakes ... etc. I get scared now when I hear him meowing carrying something in his mouth. I just never know what kind of "gift" I am gonna get.

My little Panda cat is now my best gardening buddy. He warns me when there is a snake. He eats grasshoppers like mad, so I no longer have grasshopper damage in the garden. The most important part is we have been able to harvest hundreds of peaches every year since his arrival to our homestead. However, he also eats good garden insects like lizards, butterflies, and birds, but to me it is still a great trade off!!

He sits below the shade tarp in the garden waiting for lizards to fall.

The only problem I have now is my Panda cat loves attention. If I have not paid attention to him in the last 10 minutes, he always finds a way to makes sure I know he is still there. It takes me twice as long to plant things now because he constantly wraps himself up around my legs or jump on my lap while I am planting, but it's a good problem to have.

Now it's hard for me to imagine a life without such a crazy, lovable, hard working animal!