My sweetie and I are able gardeners. We feed old compost to the microorganisms (AKA “The Microherd”) that live in the ground and, in turn, the organisms feed the veggies that eventually feed us. It’s a symbiotic relationship.

But our plants are dying and we don’t know why. Wait. We didn’t know why until this morning. Now we know. It’s the fucking cats. They’re killing our plants and it’s not because they’re using our garden as a litter box.

The Lucy we see.

See this dog? Her name is Lucy. She’s a nine-year-old Labradoodle and a recent add to our household.

The Lucy our cats see.

The cats hate her. Hate her. They’re vocal about it, but willing to trust they’ll be safe with us. After all, they live with Jaco Pastorius, a great dog and friend to cats.

Lucy is a cold- blooded killer. She can hypnotize a rat, then grab it, toss it and snap its little neck in midair. Poor rat’s dead before it hits the ground. She has the mad hunting skills of a patient and bold assassin.

Atticus and Shiki Coco Pop – the cats – now shiver through one Siberian night after another in our air-conditioned home because traversing a short span of bedroom floor to reach the backs of our bed-warmed knees poses too great a risk. Poor things. They are being forced to sleep on the broad, cushy back of a down-filled leather sofa. It’s the one scarred by deep claw marks.

Did I mention Lucy sleeps facing the wall? And snores?

“Doesn’t matter,” say the cats. “Dogs like Lucy are born with a sensor on their brain stem. Visualize an internal automatic flood light that flares in the presence of small furry creatures. We see it because we’re extraterrestrials.  You don’t see it because you’re simple humans. In verbiage you can understand, this is our circus. Lucy is not our monkey. Therefore, Lucy needs to join another circus. End of your tired cliche.”

The cats Lucy sees.

Last night, our cucumber plants were thriving, happy and ready for an exuberant climb up the trellis. This morning, they were dying. The whole row looked broken, as if it had been stepped on. What the hell? Of course we inspected and discussed as gardeners do, but found no obvious answer.

Thirty minutes later, I heard Jamie yell and pound on the kitchen window. “Son of a bitch! What the fuck are you doing? Stop that!” Then he ran through the living room and out the front door to the garden…

…yeah. Our garden’s in our front yard.

This is how the garden looks through our living room window…

Front yard farmers

…where Atticus the damn garden-destroying cat sat methodically biting the stems of our patty pan squash plants which happen to be planted on the row just above where the cukes were earlier and, as you can see if you look closely, is now empty, fallow ground because nothing could be saved.

The cats are terrorizing our garden!

You know, it makes sense when I channel my inner cat energy. They feel disrespected by us and victimized by Lucy. At my request, Atticus and Shiki have put their best paws forward and, after two weeks, are resigned to living with a Sling Blade dog. But they are not happy about it. Lucky for us, they chose to attack the garden rather than suck our souls out through our mouths in the middle of the night

Only because Lucy sleeps in the bedroom.

Don’t fuck with me.

Don’t fuck with me, either.