- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Xena the Warrior Princess, a 16-year-old tuxedo cat that we rescued from the pound, crossed the Rainbow Bridge today in a local veterinarian's office. We had her 16 years, or if cats have staff, we were her staff for 16 years. She allowed us to feed her, pet her, and love her.
A black outline of a butterfly adorned her left hind leg, the mark of a pollinator partner. She followed me from blossom to blossom as I captured images of bees, butterflies, dragonflies, sweat bees, spiders, praying mantids and every other little critter imaginable in our pollinator garden. She'd sit beneath my garden chair, just glad to be there, just glad to be alive.
That's what a Pollinator Partner does.
Xena the Warrior Princess was part warrior and part princess: a cunning predator and a purring princess. A predator that would delight in showing us her trophies, and a princess that loved to snuggle.
Then on Leap Year Day, Feb. 29, 2016, Xena the Warrior Princess suffered a debilitating stroke. Sixteen short years, and she's gone. She didn't want to go and we didn't want her to leave.
Rest in peace, Pollinator Partner.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
She has no formal training in the science of insects, but she can catch insects with the best of 'em. Plus, her credentials include a butterfly mark on her leg.
Xena the Warrior Princess is a rescue cat. We first spotted her outside a Costco store in the winter of 2000, the same year our son headed off to college to study computer science and mathematics.
A sign proclaimed "Free kitten!"
Not wanting a kitten, free or not (we already owned an adventuresome calico named Indiana Joan), we started to walk away.
But she was calling my name, this scrawny kitten dressed unabashedly in the same tuxedo colors our son wore while playing double bass for the Sacramento Youth Symphony's Premier Orchestra.
Coincidence? Probably. Fate? Perhaps. Serendipity? Certainly.
I thought about naming her "Free," but husband Jim didn't think that would be such a great idea. You just can't step out on the front porch and yell "Free! Free! Free!"
So Xena the Warrior Princess she became: half-warrior, half-princess, and all kitten. At first, Xena repeatedly performed sofa-to-chair leaps in the family room--antics that prompted friend Marilyn to observe: "I think her mother had an affair with a flying squirrel."
Then came the insects. The butterflies, the beetles (not the kind that play music) the honey bees, the sunflower bees, the carpenter bees and the moths.
(We will not talk about the roof rat and the flicker. They are not insects.)
Every night, or so it seems, our feline entomologist snares a hornworm moth and eagerly shares it with us. UC Davis entomologist (and apiculturist) Eric Mussen says the mangled specimen (below) is either a tomato hornworm or tobacco hornworm.
At least it's not a flying squirrel.