Meet our (relatively) new cat. Her name is "Blackie" (aka "Super Cat depending on if you ask Caleb or Thomas). We got her in December and have had her for about 4 weeks now (which is a week longer than we had our previous cat "Schneider"). Blackie seems to be a good hunter - she has caught birds, insects, moths, and lots of gecos (tiny lizzards) like the one she is "playing with" in the picture. So far we have not seen any mice or rats around... so she's doing her job.
You may remember from an October blog that we had a new kitten - Schneider. Well, Schneider didn't exactly last very long, and it's a bit of a complicated story, so we were hesitant to share the news until we got a new kitty.
The short version of what happened to Schneider was that he/she got run over by a vehicle just outside our house. I was looking for him/her one evening because he'll usually be meowing at the door to be let in. When I didn't find him, I knew something was up. At about 5am the next morning (it was already light by then), our night watchmen called to me through the window and said some things in Chichewa (the local language) - the only thing I understood was "mpaka" (cat). I went outside and he took me about 50 metres down the road from our house and there lay Schneider's body. Unfortunately. he didn't have 9 lives. I burried him in our backyard and had everything taken care of before the boys even woke up.
Caleb woke up first and we broke the news to him at breakfast. He was sad for a little bit, but then perked up when we said we'd try to get a new cat in a few weeks. When we told Thomas, it was clear that he did not have any emotional attachment to the cat. "Schneider's dead? You mean he's extinct?" (a new word word he was learning when looking through books about dinosaurs). For the rest of the day, whomever we met, he'd proudly announce that Schneider was extinct. I think he was more interested in being able to use the word, than he was about the cat being gone.
