Minnie is about 12 years old. Soon after we moved into the New Bedlam Farm, she was attacked in the night by an animal intruder, and her leg was so severely injured we had to choose between amputating it or euthanizing her.

I leaned toward euthanizing but Maria was uncomfortable about it.

We both felt that Minnie seemed to want to live. We amputated the leg, and it was a  long and painful recovery for her.

To this day, I’m not sure amputating her was the right choice. My own animal ethics tell me it is wrong to subject animals to traumatic medical procedures they couldn’t possibly understand or consent to for the pleasure of human beings.

I think it has become a socially acceptable kind of animal abuse. A lucrative one also.

That, I know, is a majority position.

Minnie has done well, after a few rough years.

Once a fierce hunter, she has slowed down, content to grab the occasional mouse or chipmunk or baby rabbit.

She is getting older, and most of the time, she’s happy to sit in the sun on Maria’s Fiber Chair.

Maria and I had just become friends and were having lunch when a waitress in the restaurant came over to me and said a feral cat had given birth under her porch. Would we like one of the kittens? Maria came with me to get her, and the rest is history.

Minnie lived in the big red barn at the first Bedlam Farm, she lived with the chickens, I think she thought she was one. Before she lost her leg, she was often out in the meadow searching for one rodent or another.

Minne loves to be near the garden. She lives outside in the summer and fall, she and Flo come in during the bitter winter nights from December through February.

Maria is closer to her than I am, but Minnie means a lot to me.

Minnie is a verbal cat, she loves to talk to Maria and me, she has something to say every time she sees us. Minnie is the shyest animal on the farm, she runs off to hide when any stranger appears, Born a feral kitten in a feral litter,  she trusts no one but us.