2460. On logging trucks and cats © Bruce Goodman 17 June 2022

That’s my cat fast asleep on her pillow on the bed. She is now in her eighteenth year. It’s amazing, given the traffic that passes the gate on our country road, that she has survived all those years. She crosses the road frequently while going hunting across the fields in search of a rabbit or a field mouse, or crossing the road to take a shortcut to the neighbour’s half a mile away to visit their cat. This is the fifth cat the neighbours have had in the years we’ve had our cat, and they’ve had so many cats for reasons I’ve hinted at above. But now our cat is safely asleep on the bed, which seems to be her favourite sleeping spot these days. One of the things about this country road is that it is used by massive logging trucks and trailers. There seems to be some forestry going on somewhere down the road. At first we thought it was going to be temporary, but the logging trucks have gone back and forth all these years and they never seem to run out of logs to cart. You can hear a truck coming for miles – such is the quietness of our rural setting. In fact, I can hear one approaching now. These logging trucks zoom around the corner right next to our gate. I swear they don’t slow down one iota as they make their sudden appearance at our blind corner. Goodness knows what would happen if there was something on the road – like someone’s car broke down with a puncture or something. Or even a cow or a horse that had escaped its field. That logging truck is approaching. You can tell from the sound that it’s speeding and huge. One good thing about them not slowing down is that we don’t get those noisy air-brakes (or power brakes or whatever they’re called) all day outside our gate. Imagine if we had to put up with that all the time! Here it is now! Oops! The driver applied those noisy brakes as the truck came around the corner. That’s the first time I’ve ever heard that in all these years. I wonder why that was. These ruthless truck drivers never brake. Anyway, it’s time to feed the cat. There she is, as nearly always these days, still fast asleep on the bed. Contact Author Back to Index Next Story Previous Story