Herbie saved up all his money and with B’s help opened a brokerage account and made a killing on some stock options. He then parlayed that and shorted some stock. To celebrate Herbie and Harold went to Reno. Herbie won a huge poker jackpot in a smoky back room game. Herbie learned to play poker with B’s help and he’s quite good, other cats under estimate his skill.
Once they got back home Herbie realized he had a sizeable fortune burning a hole in his pocket. That’s when he and Harold decided to buy a diary ranch just outside of town. They didn’t like how the managers at Goodwill were treating some of the cats so they decided to hire them to milk the cows. That’s how the Double H Ranch came to be.
Herbie and Harold recruit kittens from the local shelter. They also take in pregnant mom cats and take care of them. The kittens start off as Milker I and work their way up. By the time they are 3 years old they should have worked their way up to a Milker Supervisor. Milker I and Milker II just milk the cows. Milker III actually transfers the buckets of milk into a bigger vat where it eventually gets pasteurized. Milker Supervisors walk around and make sure the Milker’s aren’t dipping their paws into the milk and no one is spilling any milk. Sometimes when the kittens are really little they get distracted and start goofing around. Someone has to keep them focused on milking the cows.
All the kittens live on the ranch in Kitten Chambers. They have bunk beds and window perches, cat trees and condo’s. They also have a giant media room with 3 LED TV’s and PS3, Wii and Xbox. There is an after hours Cantina for late night snacks, during the day Hurley & Milton cook up 3 hot meals, plus a snack cart comes around with donuts, hot chocolate, coffee, etc. There’s also a doctor on staff, Dr Katterstein. As you can imagine there are often minor accidents, skinned knees, etc. After the Olympics the kittens were ‘dismounting’ from their bunk beds like the gymnasts and a few missed the mark. One kitten knocked two of his baby teeth out and another one sprained his wrist.
Once they get to be about 3 years old they’ve mostly out grown living in the Kitten Chambers, it gets loud as one would imagine. All those little kittens racing around and wrestling, plus they have the TV blasting and someone is always playing Guitar Hero. There are small studio apartments available for ‘rent’ on the Double H property or if they prefer they can get a housing stipend voucher from Herbie. Some cats choose that because they want to ‘experience’ living on their own. They go in on an apartment together. Other cats decide they would prefer to live with a human so they go that route, they often find humans difficult to live with though after having all the freedom the Ranch offers. Herbie and Harold make sure all the creatures on the ranch are very well taken care of. Nothing enrages them more than an animal being mistreated and that’s why there is an elephant, goat, giant rat, raccoons and a pig that live and work on the ranch. The elephant, Leon escaped from the circus. The giant rat, Rodney came from Southern CA. He had a bit of a rocky start but he’s straightened up and is now head of safety at the ranch. Earl the pig is head of security, he wears a badge and has a belt with a flashlight and a candy bar. Earl means well but he’s not very good at security so Rodney picks up the slack. Billy, the goat was rescued from another farm where he was mistreated. He handles yard work and clean up around the ranch. Pete, the raccoon works in IT. He has to fix all the stuff Lucky breaks.
Over the years Herbie & Harold have branched out and diversified. There are multiple divisions within the Double H:
Taxi service -(this is primarily for cats because Humans are known to be bad tippers and are just plain rude). The drivers are all cats. Herbie prefers using hybrids for his taxi fleet. There is a crew of maintenance workers that clean the taxi’s and make sure they are in tip top shape. In addition to the drivers and the maintenance workers there is a dispatch office. Murphy runs the maintenance crew. He is a 20 pound orange cat with one eye, he grew up on the ranch and learned how to be a mechanic by working on tractors and farm equipment. Little Joe runs the dispatch office. Herbie met her when she was pregnant with 5 kittens. All of her kittens went to school and are in college, Herbie is paying for their college education.
**I have to take a time out here and explain Little Joe. She is a semi-feral cat that came to us pregnant. She had her kittens and brought them into the garage, one by one. I had no idea she hadn’t finished bringing them all in and I closed the garage door on her and the 4 she’d put in a cat bed. She went to the shelter to get her shots and have the kittens worked up. A few days later a lone kitten was found about 20 feet from our garage. Thankfully he survived but I was horrified, she was so upset when I trapped her. I thought it was just because I trapped but she KNEW she’d left one behind. We fostered her and all 5 kittens. Everyone got fixed, the kittens went up for adoption but she wasn’t having it so we brought her back here and she lives in the garage. She likes her freedom and she is good friends with George and Zoila. I’m pretty sure George is the one who knocked her up. He’s Siamese and the kitten that got left behind is also Siamese. Anyway, when she first showed up on our door step asking for food I thought she was a boy, hence the name Little Joe**
Yard work - Herbie uses the old cows that no longer produce milk for mowing services. The cows eat the grass and Billy, the goat handles the hedges and bushes. Gladys supervises the crew. She’s Bessie’s sister, I will get to Bessie later. Gladys makes sure the cows don’t stumble into the neighbor’s yard and that Billy doesn’t eat the side of the house.
Gold melting – You’ve seen those Cash4Gold commercials? That’s Herbie’s operation. Jack is in charge of melting, or ‘smelting’ as they call it on the ranch. When Ernie was alive he would throw bottle caps and other random crap he found into the vat in an effort to ‘help’ Jack. Recently Squirt & Winston were goofing around and they knocked over a pot of melted gold. Jack was FURIOUS.
Herbie and Harold recently decided to buy the chicken factory and turn it into an egg business. They’re in the process of creating an underground ‘chunnel’ to connect the factory to the ranch. The chickens will have to learn not to poop everywhere. Jack is building a big state of the art chicken coop for them. It’s not going to be your run of the mill chicken coop. Herbie and Harold don’t skimp, they like to think the Double H could rival the Google campus.
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