The cats of Ednovean Farm

Over the years, Ednovean Farm has been home to a small family of cats, descended from our original matriarch Mumma Cat.

Mumma Cat was acquired from a local farmer and delivered in a small cardboard box which containing Mumma and her sister Aunty Cat, two tiny silky black kittens

Jessica walking across the old farmyard to what is now our front door at Ednovean Farm

Jessica, Mumma Cat and Maizie Brown outside what is now the Pink room Bathroom window!

Aunty Cat prove too nervous for farm life and went home to Rosudgeon to live with my parents but Mumma Cat thrived here, producing litter after litter of kittens, like Henry Ford, in every colour as long as it was black.

Her first litter was found tucked under the horses haynet in a stable where the Pink room is now and contained Jessica and her brother Boots who also remained here for all of their days.........After her second litter a small operation was called for at the vets, as although I love cats even I had to admit that it was becoming a bit crowded at feeding time and new homes were becoming harder to find.

Occasionally a feral cat would wander in and add to the numbers that stalked the stables and haunted the hay barn, although dear Esso was found as a minute kitten at the bottom of one of our fields as an elderly neighbour who walked to the village each day to collect their daily paper - Well our hedge = our cat and Boots adopted him immediately; the battered old tom teaching the young cat to mouse in his own unsuccessful fashion. A strange sight the battle hardened tom and the feisty young kitten, prowling together, sleeping together and even cleaning each other as an unlikely couple.

Boots our battered old Tom

As we converted the barn into our home the cats looked on with a world weary eye, little did we know they were plotting their next move as Jessica would scale a builders ladder face pinched with determination one rung at a time to examine the top floor. So when we moved in, so did the cats announcing they were "House Cats" now purring loudly.

The cats Jessica, Boots and Esso liked to range about the front door at night soaking up the evening sun and one such evening a very thin, dirty white tom crept up the yard. Sensing a conquest I rushed out with my dish of "Whiskers" the poor cat shook with fear and excitement at the unexpected bounty. Each night he came haughtily through and each night I waited until at last he stayed.

Slowly George made his home with the other cats joining their basking numbers on the terrace. George, the most prolific mouser of them all , he would slink about the farm with the assurance of a tiger with one of the biggest personalities on the farm.

George a big personality photo taken by Mr L of Texas

George and Esso on the newly built Parterre wall

George and Esso who swore they hated each other, early days for our B&B photo supplied by a German guest thank you - I probably wondered where they were.

George in what is now our garden, towards the end of his life

The years went on and the cats faded one by one until the farm was empty and strangely no cat arrived on the doorstep to check out our home. Charles had always wanted a ginger tom so with a few brief phone calls to animal shelters I located Olley at the RSPCA at St Cullum Major. An interview, home check and £40 later Olley was wailing loudly that "road travel was totally unsuitable for a cat" propped in a Cat basket beside our long suffering Lurcher dog, Blaze in the back seat of our battered Volvo making his way to Ednovean Farm. Actually I think the chief sale point for Charles was the sign on the cage saying "Not to be rehomed with another cat"...........and so we became a single cat household!

Olley airing the laundry "not to be rehomed with another cat"

...........and so we became a single cat household