The Owl and the Pussycat

A strange and wonderful thing happen to me the other night. Let me tell you about the owl and the pussycat.

My cat Baby isn't the toughest cat on the street but she's very protective of her little patch and will stand her ground if need be. This night her young male nemesis Tinkerbell Tom was on a spraying trip around our neighbourhood and took it into his little head that the friendly house known of in his youth would be a desirable place to scent. Not that he was thinking of Baby, she's friendly to no one but me and my partner John. Baby wasn't having a bar of Tinkerbell Tom's insolents and so with his approach she growled and growled but still he cautiously padded up the steps to our balcony. He obviously crossed a line at one point because suddenly it was on and the cry of my Baby in a fight stunned my grandmotherly nerves into action and defence. I rushed out the front door and into the night to see the rebel cat fly into the street. That's when something unexpected happened.

Swooping in out of the blackness over the back of our house came a night creature. Tinkerbell Tom reared up to swipe at it, claws out, arm extended, with the fervour of instincts still in defensive heat. When the creature settled on the telephone wire across from us, I was shocked to see it was not a Flying Fox fruit bat, which are common here, but a rare owl! "An owl? An Owl? It is indeed an owl," I thought. I had no idea that owls lived in our area and I felt like I was looking at something unreal or uncanny - a spirit of the unconscious flown into view or a god in disguise.

I have often been inspired to make toys based on the local wildlife as they intersect my life but rare indeed is it that the toys precedes the animal. Perhaps some inner devotion has granted me a special view of itself as it wings its way silently in the dark: with wisdom on a wire, four hunters in the dark.

The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat.....And hand in hand on the edge of the sand they danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.

*****

image 1 graphic using MajicCatsMini

image 2 graphic using Look and See Owl

Tags: cat, owl, pussycat, The Owl and the Pussycat, toys, handmade, story telling, folk tales, Flying Star Toys, craft, windbagandthunder, Windbag and Thunder, Florence Forrest