The Notary Stamp and the Barn Cat
I leave my notary stamp on the milk house counter, and the barn cat ends up signing off on half the neighborhood paperwork in Hico.
For a while after I retired from the bank, I kept my notary commission going, because folks around Hico still came by with papers to witness. I kept my stamp and ink pad on the counter in the milk house, next to the sanitizer and a jar of pencils. It was a good arrangement until the barn cat discovered the ink pad.
This cat is named Ledger, a gray tabby with one white sock. She naps on warm things, and an ink pad that has been in the sun is a very warm thing. One morning, I found a row of tiny purple paw prints marching across a stack of blank forms I had set out for a neighbor. They went from one end of the page to the other with perfect spacing, as neat as any signature I ever saw.
I would have thrown those pages out, but my neighbor Wilma Pruitt came in just then, took one look, and said it was the best seal she had ever seen on a form. She asked if she could keep one. I said I supposed so, and she framed it. Next week three other neighbors stopped in asking for the cat's stamp on their feed receipts. It was a small but real trend.
I explained as patiently as I could that Ledger was not commissioned. They said that was a technicality. Within a month I had a waiting list of people who wanted a paw print on their grocery lists, their dog licenses, and in one memorable case a pie recipe. I made a sign. It said 'Official Cat Seals, No Charge, Donations of Tuna Welcome.'
The cat retired the next spring, wealthy in tuna and comfortable in her sunny spot. I still keep a few of her prints in a folder. They are a good reminder that not everything has to be official to be loved. For safety around the milk house, the guides at farm safety resources are worth a read, and for stories about Ledger and her friends, farm.FM has a corner for them.
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