Not.
Since Bart isn’t with us any longer, I’m back to opening up the door when I wake up around four to let the cats out and burn off the night steam.
Last night, a series of storms started passing over, and it was wet outside. I don’t know if it was raining or not, it was too early to care. I went back to bed. I got up for the day around 6:30, opened the cat door in the garage, giving out the morning nibbles of Kirkland (CostCo) kibbles. I glanced outside and saw the cats looking over towards the shop, looked over there myself, but saw nothing of interest.
I fed Miss E, then I got a can of food opened and put it in a bowl, mixed in a little water and heated it up to take out front.
KittyMeeze was a no show yesterday, I was concerned for him all day. Last night, we saw Gilligan on the steps by the street. Brian put some food out, but he wouldn’t come any closer. I’d been out with the flashlight, looking around for Kitty with no luck. I walked into the entry, closed the gate and followed Brian into the house. When we looked out, Gilly was gone, never came up for food. When we went to bed at 10:30, the food remained untouched. I was really concerned about Kitty at this point.
During the night, when my bladder let me know I had to get out of bed, I’d check outside to see the food situation. At 2:30, there was a lot gone. When I let the cats out this morning, it was all gone. And when I was up for the morning, KittyMeeze was sitting in the entry way. I fixed him a can of Friskies, figuring Gilligan wouldn’t be too far behind.
Then I checked on Miss, she didn’t like the food I served. I let her out of the bathroom and shortly after that, she made her way to the litterbox in the laundry room, did an eensy tiny poop and went ripping through the kitchen into the family room. Then she came back in and waited, expectantly. She wanted to eat. I got her food and we went back into the bathroom and she started to eat this time.
There were a lot of cats in the house by now and I was wondering what was up. The only one out, actually, was Pancho, he was eating kibble on the patio. But no other cat was outside. Strange. I went out to see why this would be. Over at the side of the yard, on the wood at the fence by the shop, I saw an orange cat. Hmmm….. Looks familiar, but not a resident.
I went out to get a closer look. No wonder Gilly wasn’t at breakfast this morning. He was in our yard. I skooshed Pancho in, shut the doors, blocked the cat door and told Brian that Gilligan was in the yard. Brian got out of bed and put on his sweat clothes. He went outside and started opening gates. Then he asked if I’d seen Gilligan. Someone’s mind wasn’t hitting all the pistons, apparently, too early to think. “No, I dreamed he was back here.” Of course I’d seen him, this question struck me as silly. He got annoyed with my tone and said “Okay, okay…”
Anyway, Brian did see him and Gilly ended up under the pool pump. Brian told me to stand by the steps to the pool area so when Gilly came out, I could herd him towards the front of the yard. Poor kitty was so upset, he tried getting out of the yard at the corner and there was no where to go. I was within four feet of him and his poor little heart was just beating a million beats a minute. He ended up going under the Sago palm by the pool. Brian and I went back in, hoping he’d relax and look for another way out. But he didn’t, he just cowered under the palm. I brought him out some food and he repositioned himself, but didn’t leave. About forty-five minutes after he’d gone under the palm and during a break in the rain, I went back out and spoke with him. Then I went to the other side of the palm tree and started moving the fronds. I heard some rustling from under the tree. Gilly had gotten out from under it and was standing in the pond (it’s empty, it’s part of the filtering system for the pool and it’s shut off because there’s some major water leakage). I told him he could leave. I watched as he made a beeline for the front gate and he was gone.
Whew.
I shut that gate behind him, went to office door, knocked on it and Brian turned around and looked at me (he was on his computer) and I gave him a thumb’s up. He came out and closed the other gate (it’s too heavy for me) and locked the wire at the top and I opened the door for the cats to go out.
Pete was the first one out, I think he wanted to find the introoder kitteh but the IK was long gone.
That’s a big relief to both Brian and me. I was so afraid he’d still be in the yard when the next round of rain came down and even though he was in a dry spot, it wasn’t his safe spot, you know? The ferals have their comfort zones and our back yard is not one of them.
Miss goes in for a renal recheck at 11:30 this morning. I was surprised to hear the vet was going to be open half days on Saturdays this month. Seems he’s going on vacation next month and doesn’t want a backlog of patients. And I would think the additional income wouldn’t hurt, either..
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