Princess Emma

Emma. The Princess. Emmy definitely has her own personality. She is the smallest of the herd; even smaller than her mother. I think she and Squeak each weigh about 6 or 7 pounds. About half the size of Moose.

I don't know if this is a real cat description but I call her a "Tortoise shell Tabby". She has the classic tabby cat stripes and the M on her forehead, from which she got her name. But she also has some lighter tan spots and streaks on her. She kind of looks like caramel fudge ice cream, with primarily black tabby coloring, enhanced by caramel colored spots and streaks. One of those is on her head, between her ears. That is what I look for to see who I'm yelling at, her or Moose.

Although Moose seems to be the most athletic and it's Moose who's picture in the tree graces my phone, Emma, of the two, is more at home in the trees. I've seen Emma race across the yard, up our big "Hobbit Tree" nearly to the top and then run from tiny branch to tiny limb around in the top of the tree. I've seen her run straight up our young apple tree until she's on such small branches that the tree bends from her weight. In the front of the house are several trees, side by side and she can run and jump from tree to tree, almost as well as any squirrel.

I've also watched Emma run at top speed along the top of our wooden fence, which is only a

couple of inches wide. She, like her mother and Moose, is a bat catcher, leaping four or five feet in the air in her efforts to catch bats on the wing.

Emma is a noisy fighter. When she and Squeak or Moose get into one of their wrestling matches, Emma sounds as if she's really fighting. She hisses and yowls and just sounds terrible. But when I go to break up the fight, I find that she's just playing. She's just loud about it.

I feed canned food to the whole herd every morning and I usually have to get Her Highness Emma and bring her in to the kitchen and put her at her dish. Then, she'll eat.

Emma has been close to me from the very beginning. She slept on my ear for a couple of hours once, when she was a kitten. I wasn't able to sleep because I had a kitten laying on my ear but I didn't move. I just left her there and let her sleep. It was just too cute for me to ruin it.

Now, she comes up and puts her nose under the blankets, wanting in the bed. She's not content to sleep on top of the covers. She crawls under and lays down right next to me. She probably will only stay there for a few minutes as I think it's too warm for her but she has to try, every night. And her purr just makes the whole bed vibrate.

She also likes to lay on top of the books on my bookshelf, right above my head. Once in a while she makes a misstep and I'm rudely awakened by a falling book. Clumsy cats! She'll lay up there, purring loudly.

I put a towel on the counter in the bathroom for her as she would come in and lay on the counter while I'm in there. So, I made her a soft place to lay down while she's watching me at my morning "chores".

As I'm composing this, I'm going through pictures. I just don't have many individuals of Emma. She seems to always be with another cat; usually Moose. I've never been able to catch her tree antics because when she's doing it, I'm not ready with any kind of camera. It all happens so fast!

Princess Emma.

Emma and The Moose