Having animals is many things, some wonderful, some extremely real. We went out on the porch – this is our barn cat Flo’s summer lair –  to feed her and I heard Maria gasp. The porch was covered with the bloody signs of a murderous barn cat rampage.

We can’t be sure – parts of a baby rabbit were in one corner, a chipmunk in another, the heart of a mouse mixed in in between. We can’t really be sure how many different animals were involved, Flo was not hungry and was dozing contentedly on one of the wicker chairs.

Maria got the broom and some hot water, and I got the hose. It took us about 20 minutes to clean the mess up, blood stains and body parts everywhere.  it looked a bit like a horror movie. Hard to imagine one sweet little barn cat could kill so many things and eat almost all of them. Fortunately, she was wormed yesterday.

She lazed contentedly and did not move, even as we moved the porch all around and hosed and mopped and scraped. She may not move for a week. And I always thought of the front porch as such a peaceful, almost spiritual, place.

Barn cats, like all cats, are fascinating creatures, a fierce combination of affection, loyalty, independent and mayhem. Flo is a serial killer in many ways, I shudder to think of how many rodents would be in the farmhouse without her. We feed her twice a day – good stuff – but there is nothing preferable to mouse and rabbit hearts and livers.

One of the many things I love about the farm is that it brings us back to life, and connects us every day to the real world of real animals.