Sunday, December 20, 2009, 04:36
A Miracle
As of Friday morning, my little black one-eyed cat, Miss Kitty, whom I also affectionately call Kitty Kate, was missing for 11 days. And in that time, it had been below zero, cold, windy, snowing, and a blizzard.
I called and called for her until my throat was sore. I looked and searched and even went up into the big pines across the road to see if I could find her.
It was as if she just vanished into thin air.
Periodically I have been suffering "meltdowns," when I'd think about Miss Kitty and would wonder what had happened to her and how she had died. I knew, beyond a doubt, after all that time and in such brutal weather conditions, she must have died, either froze to death or something killed her.
Friday morning, I measured out horse feed, filled a bucket with warm water for Kajun, carried it across the basement and opened the door. I was intending to set the bucket outside and then go back for another bucket of fresh water for Isabelle. Kajun likes his water warm in the winter but Isabelle only wants the chill taken off it and won't drink the water if it is too warm.
I opened the door, and a black cat ran past my feet and into the basement. "Eeow. Eeow. Eeow."
I closed the door and walked a few steps out in the snow to set the bucket down.
"Hmmm," I said. "Since when does Violet have such a funny meow?"
Violet, Miss Kitty's sister, had been begging to go outside about 10 minutes earlier. It was warmer out Friday morning than it has been for a while, and Violet was begging by the door leading into the house to go outside. She loves to go outside first thing in the morning, but if it is very cold, she will only go out for a few minutes. I had let her in through the house and let her out the back door.
"I hope Violet is all right," I said to myself as I turned around to go back and get a bucket of water for Isabelle. "Her meow sounds so funny, like Kit —"
I stopped short.
Like Kitty Kate.
I hurried into the basement.
"Eeow. Eeow. Eeow," said the little cat who had run inside.
"Kitty Kate?"
"Eeow. Eeow. Eeow."
The little cat looked up at me, and I saw her blind eye.
"Kitty Kate! It's you! Oh, Kitty Kate!"
Miss Kitty didn't know where to turn, whether to run to the kitty food dish or give head bumps (a cat's way of saying hello) to her brother and sisters.
I scooped up the little cat. She had lost quite a bit of weight but was not emaciated.
The tears began to run down my cheeks.
"Kitty Kate! I thought you were dead."
My little black kitty was purring into my ear.
"You'd better get something to eat," I said.
I set the cat down and she ran to the food dish and then ran around to give more head bumps to her siblings.
"Eeow. Eeow. Eeow."
Miss Kitty was clearly thrilled to be home again.
I filled another bucket with water for Isabelle and set it outside.
"Come on, Miss Kitty," I said, picking her up again, "I'm going to put you in Charlie's kennel with your very own can of kitty food."
Miss Kitty loves canned kitty food. Her siblings like canned kitty food, too, but she is especially fond of it.
I put her in Charlie's kennel and closed the door so the other kitties would not come and eat her food.
When I scooped out the kitty food, Miss Kitty began to eat.
I left her to her kitty food while I fed the horses. When I came back inside, she had eaten about half of it and was ready to come out again.
"Eeow. Eeow. Eeow," she said.
I have to confess that before I went outside to feed the horses, I raced upstairs to get my cell phone to call Randy at work. I was crying so hard he could not understand me at first.
Finally I managed to choke out that Kitty Kate was home.
"You know, I *thought* I saw her first thing this morning up by the house when I left for work. But then I decided it must have been Little Sister," he said.
Little Sister is a barn cat, through and through, and is Miss Kitty's mother. Little Sister is also a very mean mother cat who acts like she wants to kill her kittens when they grow up and dare to stick their noses into the barn. The only other cat she likes is the old tom, Squeak.
After I had fed the horses but before I came upstairs, I picked up Miss Kitty again.
"I can't believe you are home. I can't believe it. I just can't believe it."
Miss Kitty purred into my ear.
"I have to get ready to go to the office, but you've got your brother and sisters and kitty food and a warm place to sleep now, so I think you'll be all right."
I set Miss Kitty down, and she ran to give her siblings more head bumps. I knew it was going to take her a while to get all of her "hellos" out of the way. I headed up the stairs. It seemed like something out of a dream. Kitty Kate was home!
From what I can see, Miss Kitty does not appear to have any frostbite on her ears or anything like that. Friday evening she was bright and chipper and eager for more kitty food and wanted to be brushed and purred when I picked up her.
I wish Miss Kitty could talk and could tell me where she was for 11 days when it was below zero and windy and cold and snowing and blizzard conditions.
I will never know where she was or how she survived. But it is enough that she is home.
Miracles really do happen, you know. Even small miracles for little black kitty cats who are shy and blind in one eye and find their way home after 11 days out in the winter weather.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Tuesday, December 15, 2009, 05:49
In The Deep Freeze
It would appear we are going to have a quieter -- and colder -- weather pattern this week at Rural Route 2.
We got a couple of inches of snow Sunday night again, and now the world is very much covered in white.
The temperature Monday night is supposed to get down to 10 below zero. When it is this cold, I pull the horse buckets at night and bring them in the house. For a couple of years, I faithfully carried warm water out to the horses when I checked on them at night -- and just as faithfully carried buckets of ice into the house in the morning.
When it is very cold, Isabelle and Kajun simply do not drink water at night. They apparently pick up enough snow with their hay and that is sufficient.
Good.
I have not yet figured out why, but a full bucket of water does not seem to weigh nearly so much as a full bucket of ice. Maybe it is because there is no "give" to the ice.
Or maybe it is because I secretly resent carrying IN what I carried OUT only a few hours before.
I know it is important for horses to have water, but you know the old saying, "You carry water out to a horse, but you can't make him drink."
No. Wait. That's not it.
"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink."
Well, either way, life is hard enough in the winter when it is below zero, and that's a small plus not to have to carry buckets of ice into the house in the morning.
It does seem a bit early to be this cold. It's more like January weather. The last two winters, we have had day after day after day of below zero temperatures at night and in the single digits or sometimes with below zero windchills during the night. The below-zero cold has started early in December and has continued well into March. That kind of weather makes each week seem like a month long.
The climate scientists are hoping to reach agreements in Copenhagen for countries to reduce their carbon emissions to slow down global warming.
Polls have shown that fewer people now, today, believe that global warming is a reality than they did just a year ago. The climate scientists are baffled as to how they can change public belief.
It may just be that people are less likely to believe global warming is upon us with the record-breaking cold of the past few years. And not only winter cold. Last summer was so cool that my tomatoes sat there and did nothing until they got some warmer evenings in August. And by then, it was too late for them to get much ripening done before the frost hit and killed them all deader than a doornail.
There are two ends to the spectrum, of course. Those who believe that there is no such thing as global warming. And those who believe that 90 percent of all species will go extinct tomorrow and that next summer we will be able to grow tomatoes at the North Pole and at the South Pole.
The truth, I think, is somewhere in between.
LeAnn R. Ralph