goodnight Mabel

Mabel, my very senior cat, died peacefully at home on Saturday.  I adopted her from Missaukee Humane Society in Lake City, MI in December of 2012, where I understand she had been living inside a linen cabinet.  They told she was "about 13", but who knows what her exact age was.  When I got her back to the farm, she spent the next two years living in my basement; she could come upstairs at any time, but chose to stay down there.  She was a small and delicate cat, with one blind eye.  I believe she couldn't handle the boisterousness of the dogs, and preferred the warmth and stillness of the empty basement.  She finally started coming upstairs, sitting on furniture, sitting on my lap in the evening. That gave way to full time living with the rest of us, and even becoming the dominant of my two house cats, regularly chasing and hissing at my other cat Rudy, squarely slapping the dogs in the face with a clawed paw, sleeping sprawled out on the kitchen rug, and even spending hours outside exploring the farm.  She came a long way from when we first met, and I am glad she got to live at the farm for the last 5 years of her life.  I buried her out in my animal cemetery behind the big barn, next to Pucci and the others, at the edge of the woods.