Feral Cat Fridays: A Brush With Sage
I’ve mentioned Sage before and now seems like a good time to say a little more about him. Sage, like Rue, appeared on our property without a a mother or littermates. He arrived the same season as Rue and they spent a lot of time together so I remembered them as arriving together, but a check of our records (and Loretta’s better memory for such details) says they actually arrived a few months apart.
Sage was a friendly guy who stuck close to home. If Sage appears in one of our photos alone he is typically on or very near the deck. When he ventured out into the yard as a youngster he was often in the company of Rue. The shade around the water tub was a popular spot on hot summer afternoons.
Here you can see Sage grooming Rue as they relax near a crowd of lackadaisical colony members. The white cat in the foreground is Mud Pie. The others are Dark Darryl with his back to the camera, Light Darryl asleep by the tub, and Motley on the hose. The fuzzy lump with white feet is probably Harley.
When Sage wasn’t with Rue he was often with Fluff or Stoney. We saw Fluff teaching Sage to stalk last week. Here he’s resting on the steps to the deck with Stoney. We came to think of Stoney as the official greeter and comforter of the colony because so many cats sought him out for a buddy.
As Sage matured he became a very handsome guy who had a flair for posing. It was hard to take a camera into the yard without coming back with a photo that included Sage.
Sage really was a handsome cat — and perhaps the sage of the colony. The photo of him beneath the chives is adorable, but of course every kitten appeals to me. I was surprised how quickly the old Simon and Garfunkle version of “the herb song” came to mind when I read your title. I’ve known people named Rosemary, and now I know of a cat named Sage. Did you happen to have Parsley and Thyme in the colony, as well?
Sage was one of the most photogenic colony members and his habit of staying close to the house put him in a lot of shots. Sage and Rue were the only herb related names we had. We might have had more but very few new additions appeared after those two. Our TNR program was taking effect very well by then and most of the few cats that did show up clearly had a history of positive experiences with humans. They ended up becoming our current house cats.