Peanut Butter

No not your average peanut butter that Jif makes and you can spread in between two toast to eat with jelly, this Peanut Butter is a cat, a HUGE brownish-orange cat who is the hero of our neighborhood.

PB comes to see us twice a day, everyday

Peanut Butter was born in Nevada and spent a little while of his kitten days in a shelter when this family (our neighbors) adopted him. Exactly like Garfield, he came as a tiny orange kitten but was quite a handful for this family. He could never be made an indoor cat as he would roam around by himself. In the early days, his mom would worry as she thought he got lost. Lost? Peanut Butter? Huh! He did never get lost, he just found a number of houses where he could get food from! He would visit each of the houses, eat there and come back after a few days. Sometimes he went for hunting trips too.

When the family moved to Washington, Peanut Butter came with them. Even as a tiny kitty, he was never afraid of dogs. He used to fight with a big German Shepherd. Yes, it's true that the dog pinned him down to the ground, but that made him fearless. Arnab says, PB can definitely fight tooth and nail with a cougar too, if needed. He is that brave!

Mota and PB looking at each other

Another anecdote of his brave-heart spirit is that when he was still small, a dog bit him so bad that his back legs and hip were literally crushed. He dragged himself home by his front legs and fully recovered within two weeks. Now, you would never imagine that he had such an accident when you see him climb six feet fences and jump off from them. He roams around the neigborhood scaring dogs. Peanut Butter scared a 22 lb. dog so much that the dog looks out for PB before doing her private business on the grass. He would sit on fences and scare them, sometimes treating everyone's backyard as his private bathroom. You would see him entering people's houses if he sees the door open, irrelevant of whose house that is, if they like him or not. He would roll and scratch his back on driveways and when he sees the people he likes, he'd run to you and rub against you. It feels so cute!!

Enjoying the sunny outdoors

Peanut Butter would wait outside our patio door in the drizzle, sometimes for hours. He is not scared of water. PB runs around Arnab when he waters the grass. He was sniffing at candles, so I concluded he doesn't care about fire either. When we had a lot of snow last year, in the evening not a soul was out but we saw PB's pug marks on the snow. Then he came himself, to see us with frozen whiskers and snow flakes on his ears! What a brave cat!!

I love PB very very much!

He is such a great hunter too! He brings half eaten rabbits and mice to his family. (They have risen above being grossed out!) We have seen bite marks on the tip of his ears, scratches on his nose and dried blood marks by the side of his eyes, but there's no stopping him for sure!

On a cloudy day I saw him sitting silently on the top of a fence, looking towards the natural reserve (his hunting ground), following a prey, the wind blowing gently through his orange fur, he reminded me of a free spirit... someone who is born free and is a worthy soul of the land of the free which is the home of the brave!!