cute cats

Backyard Arty Tales

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Furry Feline Tales

Cat Fight Over Storm

Last Sunday, it happened again! I went down to Brighton Central to help set up for our Marion Art Group exhibition. When I came home, Hubby met me at the front door.

‘You left the laundry door open,’ he said.

‘Oh, no! Is Lily okay?’ my only thoughts were for our new cat Lily. Had she escaped and run off never to be seen again?

‘Come and have a look,’ Hubby said.

As we crept up the passageway, Hubby added, ‘Lily’s locked inside.’

Still baffled, I followed him to the family room.

Hubby pointed. ‘What can you see?’

Tufts of fur littered the floor.

‘Gracie came in through the open laundry door and had a fight with Lily,’ Hubby explained. ‘She’s currently under our bed. I had to pick Lily up and remove her from guarding Gracie.’

I examined the mass of fur. ‘From the looks of it, Lily won.’

We eventually extracted Gracie from under our bed, and she returned to her owners next door. Sheepishly. Reluctantly.

I think she secretly enjoyed her tussle with Lily.

All the while, our elderly gent cat Storm kept out of it and watched from the safety of the couch.

[Photo 1a: Window contenders © L.M. Kling 2025]

Here’s an earlier story of one fine autumn morning, a long time ago.

Chaos in Cat-Central

I gazed out the kitchen window one Saturday morning. The sun shone on every blade of the many weeds in our garden, and the neighbour’s cat sat on our discarded toilet near the back fence. I had the beginnings of a nasturtium garden in those old toilets. Can’t have the cat digging up my seeds.

[Photo 1: Our Toilet Garden © L.M. Kling 2017]

I strode outside and the cat scampered off in a flash of black and white.

‘The neighbour’s cat tried to use my toilet garden as a toilet,’ I told my son as he lazed in bed, sleeping in.

‘Ugh!’ he mumbled and then rolled over.

***

We planned to have a family gathering in the evening, so after washing the floors, I left the back door open and settled down to paint.

As I nestled down in the deck chair on the back patio, I heard a growl. Then another growl in reply.

[Photo 2: Outback Storm Brewing (in the MAG exhibition at Brighton Central) © L.M. Kling 2025]

‘What’s that about?’ I muttered and went inside to investigate.

Holly, our tabby, crouched in a tense ball in the passage facing the bathroom entrance. In the freshly cleaned bathroom, Holly’s nemesis, the black and white cat (BW) snarled at her.

Holly’s puffed-up tail twitched, and she hissed at her enemy.

BW emitted a low, menacing growl.

The pussies peered at each other, a slow, silent, Mexican stand-off of the feline kind.

[Photo 3: Mexican stand-off of sorts and of a more recent kind © L.M. Kling 2020]

I nudged my foot at the interloper. She launched at it, claws dragging through my ankle’s exposed skin.

Holly screamed like a banshee and pounced on BW. Fused in a ball of fury, the cats rolled around the tiles, tufts of fur flying out, littering our floor.

My son joined the human audience of the furious feline fight.

I glanced in his room.

Storm, our black cat, shuddered on top of the bunk, his green eyes glowing from his dark face. No way was he going to join in the fray.

[Photo 4: Storm was always scared; he used to take anti-anxiety tablets to keep him calm © L.M. Kling 2016]

I ran to the kitchen and grabbed a broom. While the cats thrashed about, I closed all the doors, except the one leading to the outside through the laundry. Then I poked the broom at the feral ball of furs. The cats flew apart. BW attacked the broom. I shook her off, and she glared at the brush-end, hissing and spitting at it. I pushed the broom at her. She scratched it. Then sped into the bathroom.

I yelled to my son, ‘Get another broom.’

He stared at the black and white intruder that hissed and spat. ‘Where?’

I moved Holly out into the family room and then grabbed the Swish broom from the laundry. I gave it to my son.

As mother and son, we, both armed with brooms, guided BW as if shuttling a hockey puck. We nudged the wild ball, shunting her through the passage, through the laundry, and then out the back door.

The cat bolted down the path and scrambled over the fence.

[Photo 5: The veggie patch near the back door with “pumpkin tree” © L.M. Kling 2017]

I slammed the door shut and, with a sigh, began sweeping up the aftermath of fur bits from the bathroom. I picked up shards of cat claw, another casualty of the clash of cats.

‘Hey, look, cat claws,’ I said.

‘That cat was feral,’ my son replied.

I swept my eyes over the bathroom and noticed chocolaty nuggets in the corner. I took a closer look.

[Photo 6: Holly in calmer times © L.M. Kling 2007]

‘Oh, no! Cat poo!’ I cried and then collected the poo scoop. I shovelled up the mess. As I scanned the bathroom, I discovered more souvenirs of the feline fight.

‘Oh, Holly, did you have to?’ I said to Holly, who crouched in the corner of the family room.

‘Don’t blame Holly,’ my son said. ‘It had to be the neighbour’s cat, didn’t you say that cat was on the toilet in our garden and you chased her away? It’s that cat’s revenge.’

***

I later heard from a neighbour, that a huge cat, a Jabber-the-Hut of a cat, ruled the neighbourhood with his paw of iron claws. It is for this reason, cats migrated to our backyard. Our land was a haven to them.

© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2016; updated 2020; 2025

Feature Photo: Schrodinger’s Cat © Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2024

***

If you’re in Adelaide, check out our Marion Art Group exhibition in the mall at Brighton Central Shopping Centre (Corner of Edwards Street and Brighton Road, Brighton). Displaying wonderful and affordable paintings you can buy and take home—a great idea as Christmas presents. On until Saturday, October 25.

My Schrodinger’s Cat pastel painting inspired by the photo is there too.

***

Want more? Dreaming of travel down under?

Why not take a virtual journey with the T-Team Adventures in Australia?

Click here on the links:

The T-Team with Mr. B: Central Australian Safari 1977

Trekking With the T-Team: Central Australian Safari 1981…

And escape in time and space to Central Australia …

Out of Time (12.2)

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Time In-Between for the Queen

[The continuation of the Survivor Short Story “project” in the War On Boris the Bytrode series. This time, back in time, 1967, following the adventures of middle-aged mum, Letitia…In this episode (12.2) While flat-sitting in Melbourne, Letitia entertains a most unexpected and frustrating visitor…]

Part 2

Time Out

She arranged herself again to the tune of intermittent mournful mews that wafted from the depths of the laundry. Still, if Letitia had to choose between the meows of discontent and being kneaded to shreds, she would choose meows most days. She was persistent that puss, though. Letitia thought after a certain point, Monica the moggy would curl up in defeat. However, not this cat.

Letitia calmed herself and concentrated on listening to the radio. Was the radio incredibly soft? Or had the whining from the laundry escalated? She could hear the door being scratched. Letitia pulled herself up from the couch, shuffled to the radiogram and placed her ears by the carved-out section of timber with cloth behind it. She assumed that inbuilt part of the radio’s equipment was the speaker, but all she heard was hissing. Then beyond, in the laundry, crashing and smashing.

‘How much fuss can a cat make?’ Letitia said as she ran to the room.

She flung open the door. On the limited span of chipped and cracked tiles, an entire box of laundry powder was dumped. An insolent pool of methylated spirits lurked in the corner. Some other toxic powder, probably borax had landed neatly in the cat litter covering a pile of poo. Monica perched herself on the top shelf, her paw precipitously playing with a plastic bottle of turps.

Letitia shook her fist at the cat. ‘You would, wouldn’t you!’

‘Meow!’ the puss gazed at her, paw hovering behind the turps.

Letitia lunged, catching the toppling turpentine before it too was due to splatter on the unforgiving tiles. She placed the bottle in the sink and from the safety of the passage carpet, groped in the laundry sink cupboard for anything resembling a banister brush and pan. True to the absent Walter Wenke form there was nothing of the cleaning variety. Not in the laundry. Not in the kitchen. Nor the toilet. Not that she looked long enough to see in the loo of disgrace. The stink of months of neglect and lack of sanitation determined Letitia to hold on.

However, in her quest for the elusive cleaning equipment, she found a hoard of cat food. The sink cupboard was loaded with packets of dried food and can upon can of cat’s meat. The bottom cans were rusted, while the stash of the dry food was mouldy and soggy from recent assaults of a leaky sink drain.

Returning for a second look, Letitia stuck a tentative toe in the middle of the small room. Monica had not moved from her station. This menacing moggy crouched, peering down at her, ready to strike. There was a tall narrow cupboard with long slatted doors at the far end of the small square laundry room. The room so cluttered the doors had no space to open. She shoved the mop bucket with mop glued to one side and opened one slatted door. The banister brush tumbled out. Letitia then ferreted through the wads of plastic bags for a dustpan.

She found no dustpan but did find a tin of copper pennies. She collected the mess into one pile and began the search for the dustpan or anything that could pass for one. Along the way, she picked up several scratched records, a plate of dried spaghetti, a vacant can of spam (sharp edges still attached), a shrivelled-up slice of pizza, a homeless telephone receiver, an odd shoe, a mouldy sock, and a bagful of stamps. None of these items, even came close to being useful as a dustpan. Although, she did consider using a scratched LP record, but decided against it. Frank Sinatra? Nah, let him do it his way.

© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2022

Feature Photo: Show-off, Holly © L.M. Kling 2006

***

Want more?

More than before?

Read the mischief and mayhem Boris the over-sized alien cockroach gets up to…

Or discover how it all began in The Hitch-Hiker

And how it continues with Mission of the Unwilling

From the Backyard–Fur-Babies

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FURRY FELINE TALES (2)

While Mum is taking a holiday in the Barossa with her siblings, I will be cat-sitting her current fur-baby, Marnie.

*[Photo 1: Marnie © L.M. Kling 2018]

 But, before Marnie, there was Molly…

Molly

Dad sipped his cappuccino, and then licking his lips, he leaned over. ‘I have a mystery concerning Molly.’

A tram rattled past. How the three ladies in their designer clothes and ability to talk through their noses could hear their own conversation, I’ll never know. Maybe the nasal accent was just the right pitch to over-ride the rumbling of trams, and then added to the tram noise, the screaming of toddlers begging for their babycinos.

*[Photo 2: Glenelg foreshore © L.M. Kling 2010]

I waited for the tram to pass. Dad, in his mid-70’s didn’t have such a strong voice. And my hearing’s never been good. ‘What do you mean, Molly? What mystery?’

‘Er, um, I think she’s missing Mum.’

I gasped. ‘Oh, no! You haven’t lost her. Like Zorro. The last time, when Mum went to Sydney, New Year’s Eve 2000 with all the fireworks, Zorro got spooked. He’s never been seen since. You don’t have a good record when it comes to cats and Mum being away.’

‘Oh, no, no, no!’ Dad said. ‘I mean, she’s been sleeping in funny places. Just the other day I found her in my underwear drawer. She was sleeping so peacefully, I left her there.’

*[Photo 3: Strange places one finds cats. Storm, phantom of the bedcovers © L.M. Kling 2011]

‘How cute.’ I paused as another tram rumbled past. The ladies by the window exploded into laughter. When they quietened, I continued, ‘But you said she was missing.’

‘Oh, no, I mean, she’s…’ Dad coughed. Always does when he’s only telling the truth in part. ‘She’s…somewhere.’

‘How can you be sure? Maybe you left her out and she’s run away.’

‘Oh, no, no, no! I put food out for her at night. Inside. And in the morning, it’s gone. She’s eating it. She’s just hiding.’

‘I see.’

‘I mean, I think she’s just found a nice little place to sleep. Where I can’t find her.’

‘I guess.’ I scraped out the last frothy bits of my cappuccino. ‘I’ll have a look for her when I come tomorrow.’

The next day, after school, the boys and I rolled up the driveway, piled out and then entered through the back door of my parent’s old housing-trust home. While Mum’s away, I liked to visit Dad to make sure he was okay.

[Photo 4: Mum holding another fur-baby © L.M. Kling (nee Trudinger) 1984]

My sons raced off to the computer room but I lingered in the kitchen where I cleared away a day’s worth of coffee cups and stacked them on the sink.

‘Have you found Molly?’ I asked Dad.

‘No, but the food’s eaten. I think she’s hiding under the bed in the spare room, so I put the cat’s meat there and in the morning, again it was all gone.’

I followed Dad to the spare room to witness the evidence of an empty bowl with a few morsels of dried fish flakes remaining at the bottom.

I sniffed.

A nasty, festering sort of smell lingered in the air.

Calling my eldest, I decided we should start our Molly-search in the spare room. ‘Would you help me lift the bed-base?’

My son joined me in the small room. Two single beds, a dressing table and a large wardrobe crowded the room. We manoeuvred ourselves around one bed and lifted one end. No Molly.

‘What’s the stink?’ my son asked.

‘Not sure, but it doesn’t bode well.’ I remembered the dead mouse I’d found in that very same room, when I shifted to move to Melbourne. ‘Come on, I reckon Molly might be under the other bed.’

My son and I edged around the bed and taking hold of each side, we hoisted up one side of the base.

Molly crouched in the corner and snarled. Dried blood had matted her fur.

‘Mum! I can’t hold up the bed much longer.’

*[Photo 5: Molly enjoying her new home © L.M. Kling 2006]

Reaching, I gently lifted the tortoise shell-tabby from the furthest corner from under the raised bed-base. Around her neck and in the pit of her front leg, the fur had been rubbed away exposing a raw wound. Sticky ooze stained my sleeve.

My son put down the bed and dashed to the linen cupboard in the passageway, where he grabbed a towel. We wrapped puss up in the towel and stood in the passageway.

My younger son had extracted himself from his computer game and met us in the passage with Dad. ‘What’s wrong with her?’ he asked.

‘She’s been injured, that’s why she was hiding,’ I said.

Molly narrowed her eyes at Dad and growled.

‘Wasn’t me,’ Dad said. ‘The last time I saw her, she was fine.’

‘We have to take her to the vet,’ I said.

So swaddled in the towel like a newborn, and weak from her injury, Molly rode in my arms in the car without resistance.

*[Photo 6: Swaddled Storm—they really are fur-babies © L.M. Kling 2010]

At the vet, the nurse ushered us in to see the veterinary doctor without the obligatory wait. The vet-doctor, a fresh-faced man in his 30’s, unwrapped the towel from Molly.

‘Oh,’ he said with a grimace, ‘it looks like she got her collar stuck under her front leg. Must’ve been like that for a while.’

Dad blushed and coughed.

‘You didn’t notice?’ the vet-doctor said looking straight at Dad.

‘Yeah, well,’ Dad said as he shifted around the table, ‘my wife’s gone…’

The vet’s eyes widened with that look of pity. ‘Oh, I’m sorry—’

‘No, I mean, she’s gone to Sydney—on holiday.’

‘Oh.’

We all laughed.

‘Molly is my wife’s cat. And she took to hiding when my wife went away.’

*[Photo 7:  All boxed up. Fur-baby Spike attempting to hide © L.M. Kling (nee Trudinger) 1984]

We’d found Molly just in time. The veterinary doctory treated her with antibiotics and a stay in the animal hospital. She made a full recovery.

Not sure that Dad ever fully recovered from the wrath of Mum when she returned from Sydney to discover he’d almost lost another cat in his care.

***

In Memory of Molly who lived to the respectable old (cat) age of 18.

As the Good Book, the Bible says in Matthew 6:26-27

“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”

© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2016; updated 2021

Photo Feature: Molly enjoying her new home  © Marie Trudinger 2004

***

Want more, but too impossible to travel down under? Why not take a virtual journey with the T-Team Adventures in Australia?

Click here on Trekking With the T-Team: Central Australian Safari 1981…

And escape in time and space to Central Australia 1981…