Tiger

Here is a picture I took the other day of a mountain lion! I can't believe how incredibly lucky I was to capture this image!

It was late one night. I heard the deep throated rumbling of its purr. Before I had time to react, it jumped onto the area where I was sleeping!

I froze and s...l...o...w...l...y reached for my cell phone to take a picture.

I lay still as possible and the she-cat curled up near me, the warmth from her body and her rhythmic purring making me sleepy. I was falling under her feline spell...


I have been entranced by this enchantress on more than one occasion.

She is Tiger.

Her name doesn't refer to her stripes, but her temperament.

Tiger is largely an outside cat. She is skittish, but a ferocious hunter. She was the last of the litter of feral kittens. No one wanted her because she was so wild. She wouldn't come when called. She ran away at the least provocation.


So we kept her as our chief mouser.


One day sometime last year she decided I was her person.

She started sneaking in the house at night to sleep with me. If I didn't move too quickly she would even let me pet her.

In the evenings she will come in the house and sit only on my lap and then follow me downstairs to bed at night. She is gone before I wake up - She runs outside when Tom goes to work.

Tiger is opinionated about who she will tolerate and my son Eli is on her Hit List. Whenever he walks into the room, Tiger scrambles off of my lap and hides under the nearest chair. I have to be careful of the angle at which she scrambles because she has been known to leave scratches in her wake. Eli is a gentle giant. He has tried to make peace with the Tiger, but to no avail.