Vole-au-Vent and Chips

Where's a camera when you need it?  Tessa the cat loves being at Grundy because her inner huntress can be given free rein.  And speaking of reins, we have her tethered to a 20 foot leash because otherwise we'd never catch her.  She's pretty good about following the rules, though:  we tell her she can't go out without her bra on, so she obediently turns away from the door and patiently waits while we put her harness on her.

We've discovered that the animals at Grundy are not the brightest.  On our first day, Tessa encountered a bunch of grackles and stood calmly by while they stole all her food.  But she's made up for it since then.  Her favorite thing to hunt are chipmunks.  Thank heavens that she's a "catch and release" type of hunter.  She caught the first one by the belly but let it go immediately.  The second one had a bit more undignified fate.

She caught the poor thing by the butt and had it dangling from her mouth for several minutes.  Every time she lowered her head, the poor chippie tried to walk away.  It looked like they were playing a game of "wheelbarrow".  She finally let it go, but then promptly sat on it.  All we could see was this poor little chipper's head poking out from under Tessa.

The weird thing is that, when they were finally released, both chipmunks walked away in slow motion.  You would think that they would high tail it out of there.  That one poor guy probably still can't sit down.  Strangely enough, there have been no other chipmunks on our lot in recent days.  Guess the chippie herd got the memo.

Tessa, undeterred, has now turned her attention to the many voles that live in the bush.  They don't seem to notice her and will carry on doing vole-like things right under her nose.  It's only a matter of time before something bites them in the ass.