We’ve never had a problem with the cats clawing the furniture, having trained them to use the cat tree in the living room instead.  But after several years of daily scratching, many of the carpeted areas on the tree were pretty ragged and shabby — not the kind of thing you want in the living room when visitors arrive.

   It took several trips to area stores to find a replacement, but at last we found a nice cat tree on sale, and brought it home and put the old one in the basement.  The new one has carpeted areas for the cats to lie upon, like the old one, plus sisal rope and cedar logs for them to sharpen their claws.

   At least, that’s what the cats are supposed to use.  However, Pat came downstairs one morning and found Nicky vigorously clawing some of the carpet on the new tree.  Without raising her voice, she said in mock exasperation, “Nicky, we just got this and you’re shredding it.  If you keep this up, in a month this will look as bad as the last cat tree.”

   She paused in her extra-gentle chastisement and looked at the kitten, who had stopped clawing, but he didn’t appear to be feeling guilt or shame for his actions.  In fact, he was purring contentedly.

   When Pat told me the story, the first thing I thought of was the line from Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass”:  “It is a very inconvenient habit of kittens … that, whatever you say to them, they always purr.”

Pat’s gentle chastisement was also about as effective as the quiet riot act Alice read her own black kitten in Chapter One of “Through the Looking Glass”.  And, this being the Internet and all, here’s the whole book.

So we know that cats purr (especially Good Cats).  The next question is:  Why?  This page might have the best answer of all.

But if you really want to know the answer to something, you need to send your question to Cecil Adams (and his loyal assistant Ed Zotti) at The Straight Dope.

Before she met me, Pat always considered herself a dog person, and I suspect she still is at heart.  More importantly, she is an animal lover and has willingly agreed to adopt and care for each of our 4 cats.  Pat and I don’t disagree on much, but we’re human, and every so often we have disagreements.  Not long ago we were having one, and while I felt we were both handling the situation like grownups, perhaps the strain was showing in our voices anyway.

   Nicky was sitting quietly in the room with us, but when the discussion warmed up, he got involved.  First he stood up and hissed at me, then he approached me and lightly clawed one of my legs.  I’m sure he was warning me that if Pat needed him, he was ready to defend her.

   Both of us stopped talking and turned our attention to Nicky, letting him know he didn’t need to be upset.  It effectively helped us end the discussion and get back to normal.

   People may associate with dogs the words “loyal,” “faithful,” and “brave,” but these qualities also apply to our little black cat.  He also plays fetch, he growls when the doorbell rings, and sometimes he even howls in the middle of the night for no apparent reason.  And Nicky still is a cat, and a Good Cat.  While we haven’t yet heard him bark, all that would mean is that he has the ability to learn a second language.

If you stop in at Mewingham Manor, you’ll see some lesser-known members of the cat family, fantastic little creatures called Flittens.

The calendar says that spring begins later this month, but in this part of the world, it’s making an early appearance. My mother in West Virginia told me that they were going to have a high near 70 degrees, and while we’re not expecting it to get quite that warm in our part of Eastern Pennsylvania, I still wouldn’t be surprised to see robins make an appearance very soon. However, just because it’s March doesn’t mean we can’t get any more snow, so any robins that show up now may still yet find themselves hopping through the falling flakes while wondering where the warm weather went.

As long as the weather doesn’t match the calendar, we’ll keep filling the bird feeders set up just outside the living room window and the back door. We also tried to accommodate ground-feeding birds like juncos and cardinals during the worst winter weather by tossing sunflower seeds on the snow near the feeders. But when the snow cover melted a couple of weeks ago, leftover seeds began growing, and Pat ended up clearing out handfuls of sunflower sprouts.

The feeders also provide entertainment for the cats, who are stuck inside during bad weather. When finches are gorging themselves on sunflower seed just a few inches away, Caitie’s hunting instincts particularly go on red alert. Squawking and her teeth chattering, it’s plain that she would love to invite them inside for a meal.

Still, she’s not the only one at our house with ulterior motives. After one heavy snowfall, we saw rabbit tracks going through our back yard, and we bought a bag of carrots for the cottontail. Yes, we were concerned for the animal, but we were also concerned it would nip off our plants in search of food. It’s true — we were paying protection to a rabbit.