Feral Cat Fridays: The Ice Cream Cats
Most of the feral cats that came to our clearing thought the colony was a great place, moved in, and were trapped, neutered or spayed, and released. A few just passed through, some for only a quick single stop and a few for repeat, longer visits. The Ice Cream Cats were among those brief visitors.
They both arrived during a long, hot summer. Ice cream snacks were often on our mind and when we looked out the window at the first visitor we couldn’t help seeing a large scoop of ice cream with caramel sauce dribbling down the sides. Meet Caramel Sundae.
Caramel Sundae came for a few visits and stayed for a few days each time. He might have stayed longer but the current top cats in the colony weren’t interested in the competition and Caramel Sundae insisted on vying for a lead role. Caramel Sundae was outnumbered and all the females in the colony were spayed so the fight wasn’t worth the effort. He always moved on after a refueling stop of a day or so and evaded capture for one of our TNR sessions.
Fudge Ripple appeared around the same time but stayed for even shorter and fewer visits than Caramel Sundae. He kept to himself on the edge of the clearing. We have very few photos of Fudge Ripple. This one is representative of the most frequent view we had of him, returning to the woods after a short snack and a cool drink.
Ice cream? I’m there! Here’s my unsolicited recommendation for these hot summer days: HEB’s Lemon Sorbetto. It’s imported from Italy, and it’s perfect: not too sugary-sweet, and not too sharply lemon. Not only that, an entire pint is only 390 calories. Call it 400 calories and divide by two people on a porch, and it’s true perfection.
It occurs to me that both Caramel Sundae and Fudge Ripple had a tendency to melt away into the woods, making their names even more appropriate.
I hadn’t thought of the “melt away” angle on the ice cream cats, but it’s certainly appropriate. I’ll have to take a look at the Lemon Sorbetto when I’m at HEB. If they have a raspberry version as well I’ll be all in.