Dreamsicle

In the morning, there are dogs barking from kennels far away, an occasional rooster crowing, and maybe a far-off peacock. Dreamsicle, “our” feral cat, waits in the middle of the backyard, sometimes looking like a dead fuzzy wad of orange and white fur, sometimes standing alert and staring at our back door. Dreamy is usually there between 6:30 and 8. If we’re any later filling his dish with crunchies and dropping a handful of treats beside the bowl, we may not see him at all. But he’s always watching, and when he hears the door close and sees that we’re gone, he comes and eats his treats, then disappears for the day, doing whatever feral cats do.

Dreamy has become our cat, or, rather, we have become his people. He will come within a foot or two of us to eat his treats, and meows derisively when the food’s too late or the water bowl is empty, or the rain has made everything soggy. But we can only look at him (we think he’s male because there have been no kittens) and talk to him. He does not want to come into the house, and he most definitely does not want to be touched. This is good because it’s easy to run him off when he takes an interest in the ducks that visit us every day for food. I don’t worry about Dreamy messing with the adult ducks because most of them are big, burly Moscovies, and can certainly hold their own (or just fly away). But it’s nesting season, and the moms typically lead their babies the quarter mile from the pond to our house, and I don’t want Dreamy to get any ideas.

Like all cats, Dreamy is finicky. After a bit of trial and error, we found that he prefers Meow Mix Gravy Bursts, though he will usually accept anything crunchy (with a glare at us for expecting him to lower his standards). He generally disdains canned food, but will occasionally eat chicken or beef flavors (but NEVER seafood). Speaking of which, I think humans have been trained through the ages by books and cartoons to assume that cats only eat fish. However, our resident opossums (opossi?), The Cleaning Crew makes sure nothing goes to waste and can always be counted on to take care of our dinner scraps, leftover cat food, and any peanuts the crows and blue jays leave behind at the end of each day.

As for the rain, we have provided places for him to stay out of it—an enclosed, waterproof shelter with warm towels inside and a raised, waterproof canopy with an open front and a rear escape hatch —but he ignores both. Fine, Dreamy. Get wet. Stay cold. You’re as free as you want to be. But if we can catch you and get you defleaed, you could have a nice warm place to live—we would even add a kitty door on the lanai so you wouldn’t need to come into the house. Feral with benefits.

We don’t really know where Dreamy “lives.” Maybe in the overgrown space between the vinyl fence we installed when we moved into Casa Azul and the post-and-wire farm fence behind it, maybe in an outbuilding, garage, or carport somewhere nearby. He’s a tomcat—he goes where he wants and comes “home” for meals.

There was another feral for a while—we called him Mr. Tux—but he only came at night, and he never warmed up to us as Dreamy has. He typically took care of any canned food and sometimes some leftover crunchies that Dreamy left before The Cleaning Crew arrived. Mr. Tux was more feral than Dreamy and always ran if he saw us looking at him through the sliding glass door.

Mr. Tux was a scrapper, and nearly always bore the scars and skinnings of fights he had been in. As quickly as a patch of raw skin was finally grown over by a patch of new fur, he would show up with new battle scars.

One night when Mr. Tux was eating his dinner, Dreamy happened by, and the search for an evening snack became a back porch brawl. The two ferals wrestled, bit, scratched, and boxed, screaming and wailing across the yard and between the fence slats into the field behind. Dreamy successfully repelled the invading Mr. Tux with no noticeable injuries, but Mr. Tux was not so lucky and suffered a bite that turned into an abscess. We saw him twice more, and I had just settled on trapping him and taking him to a vet for treatment when he disappeared. I hope he had a home and went home.

Lately, a new cat has been visiting the buffet. A solid white kitten, maybe six months old, whom I have named Snowball through lack of imagination and sheer laziness. I don’t know if Snowball is male or female, but our neighbor says she has seen Snowball following Dreamy around. If that’s the case, Snowball is most likely female because I can’t feature Dreamy allowing another tom in his yard. I hope not, though, because that would mean kittens, and nobody needs more kittens.

We have considered adopting cats or dogs of our own, pets we'll keep inside, that depend solely on us and provide the affection we have missed since we lost our rescues of the past, Karma, Pinky, Bear, Yoko, Bo, and Cosmo. But for now we are content with our ferals and wilds, cats, opossums, ducks, and crows. Maybe, someday.

And that, so far, is the story of Dreamsicle.

Mahalo.

© 2026 Brian G Parker