Ode to Feather Grass Departed

If Bishrito could write a poem, it would be about Feather Grass.

Mexican Feather Grass. Nassella tenuissima.



Oh baby.

I had a brief love affair with this plant too. But, Bish, oh, he had it bad.

For a long time, we thought his motivation to escape was purely about Feather Grass. At every opportunity he would zoom out the front door, go straight to it and start gobbling it, wallowing and purring like a maniac.

At first, we thought this routine was kind of cute and harmless. Aw! Bish WANT Feather Grass! Awwwww!

WANT is the understatement of the century when it came to the way Bish felt about the Feather Grass. Whenever the front door opened, he would morph instantly from a batcat-shaped bed lump into a 15 lb Feather Grass seeking missile. There were incidents. I dropped a cup of coffee down my uniform and into my nursing bag trying to hold him back with my foot. My husband accidentally shut his head in the door. (This did not remotely slow his grassward trajectory.) He bowled my mom over backwards, clean off the front step.

I worried (because that is what I do), but I couldn't find any real evidence to support my concerns that Bish's Mexican Feather Grass intake might be problematic. Feather Grass doesn't appear on ASPCA's list of plants toxic to cats.  Bish didn't seem any worse off for the amount of the stuff he was consuming. And, my husband pointed out, it did keep him from running up the street when he managed to escape the house. I worried anyway. Feather Grass blades are stiff, faintly barbed, and look entirely indigestible. Every once in awhile, Bish would barf up something vaguely resembling a wicker basket. I'd find long Feather Grass poop trains in the litterbox. And well, like any good nurse, I can't abide disordered poop.

So, I tried to distract Bish from the Feather Grass. I brought home a plastic tub of cat grass. He was not remotely interested. I grew a cat-level pot of cat grass and set it directly in his sight-line to the Feather Grass. He jumped over it. I replaced the cat grass with catnip. Every cat in a three block radius started loitering in our front yard. Over a period of several days, the nip began to look more and more badly used, until one morning I found the plant, dug up completely and laying in the middle of the street. (I mention this as testament to the quality of the nip in question.) But, alas, even homegrown Beet Ranch nip could not divert Bishrito from his devotion to his beloved Feather Grass.

So, finally, I ripped the Feather Grass out.

More about that next time.