Dot`sThoughts

January 3 rd, 2008

Tri-colored Wild Cat!!!

This morning I figured I better check to see how much fuel I still have in my 250 gallon fuel oil tank in my cellar. It will be a month on the 11 th since I bought it and I only got a little over 1$ back from paying $600. for just 3/4th of a tank full. But being so cold, I know I will be needing it again soon. Now, here is where the dilemma started!!
When I opened my cellar door I saw this trt-colored cat standing at the foot of the cellar stairs. Knowing this is a wild cat, I knew there was no way I could ever get close to it and that I better be careful so that cat wouldn`t feel trapped. I know a wild cat can be dangerous if it feels it is in danger. Later, I will tell you about the wild baby kittens from a few years ago. I remembered this tri-colored cat when it was a baby kitten and was born under my shop. Since it is the only cat I have seen around my home over the past few years, I figure it might be the same one. She is only tri-colored on her neck and face- so she does stand out.
But to get back to this wild cat in my cellar. First I couldn`t think of any way it had to get into my closed up cellar. Then I suddenly remembered that I had felt a cool draft coming thru the cellar door as I had opened it. So, I grabbed my flashlight in case I needed it to look under the kitchen as it only has a crawl space under it. We added on the kitchen and the kitchen addition years after we built the house and we never built a full cellar under them. But there is a cement block cellar wall enclosing the crawl space so there was no way the cat got under that way.
Well, my problem was soon solved. As I went down the cellar stairs I noticed it was realy cold in the cellar. It is only -1 F outside right now. I found one of my cellar windows was open. I know it was closed tightly because I had checked it when I was down there shutting off the outside water line so the water line wouldn`t freeze and break where it goes to the outside faucet. And living alone, there is noone else who could have unlatched it. Here it is freezing in my cellar, fuel being wasted due to all that freezing weather entering the house thru that opened window.
Now, What should I do? If I shut the window there is no way for the wild cat to escape, if I leave it open I am wasting a lot of fuel and it is way too expensive to waste. Fuel has gone up again since I last bought it. My daughter, who lives next door, just paid about $800 yesterday to fill her tank. If I didn`t get the cat out of my cellar, it could die under the crawl space where I couldn`t get it out and that sure wouldn`t be good for the cat or healthy for me. I knew I had to find some way for that cat to reach that high window to get back outside. So, I hunted around the cellar for something I could put under the side of the window to allow her to reach it. I noticed the rack that goes to the pool table and figured it could be used for steps like a ladder effect, but it was too short. I had the old cellar stairs still laying sideways- leaning against the bottom of the cellar wall under where the window is. The stairs were both too heavy and too long to be helpful as a ladder effect, but I was able to set the pool table racK up on top of the side of the ladder and found other boards to force it to stay put. It reached up to about 1 foot ot the opening side of the window. I knew this cat could easily stretch up that far.
Now, came the problem of how can I tease the cat to use this way back out. I then came uipstairs, opened a small can of tuna fish, splattered a little onto the rack with hopes the tuna smell would draw the cat that way. Then I went outside, shoveled a path in the deep snow from my back porch to the window , where I splattered a little more tuna fish onto the outside of the window , hoping to draw the cat up the fake steps and thru the window to follow the tuna trail. Then of course I knew I would have to still leave the window open, go up stairs and try to be patient to give the cat long enough to again feel secure enough to come out from hiding and hopefully get herself back out doors. All the time I was tryting to be patient, all my mind could think of was how expensive fuel was and here I was leaving a cellar window wide open for a stupid wild cat. But then if she was so stupid, how did she ever manage to shake that window latch open to get inside where it was warmer? If you could see how hard I had to push to shut that latch, you would be left wondering just as I still am. The latch is on the inside of course.
I went back downstairs a few minutes ago and there was that same tri-colored cat looking at me thru the opened window. It had used my fake stairs to climb back outside. Well, It better be the same cat, there better not be a second one still in my cellar. I have no way of knowing how long that cat has been in my cellar, or how long that window has been opened. You can bet I rushed fast across the cellar and shut that window and securly latched it so it wouldn`t jump back in. Thinking about it, I bet that window was opened most of the night as I did feel a little cooler last night and my bedroom is up over that cellar window and the cellar inside door is in a hall just beyond my bedroom door. I might have noticed it sooner if I didn`t keep my bedroom door shut at night to keep out the dog and her shedding hair. But since I had turned down the thermostat a speck last night, I thought that was why I felt a little cooler sleeping.
I noticed the cat never stopped long enough to eat the tuna, so it is waiting there for me to go back down and clean it up. But, still the cat wasn`t glad enough to be free or it should have taken off once outside. Yet it stood there watching me. Outside in front of that window sits my 2 long garden standards-- one on top of the other. I had just tipped them up on their side close to the house for the winter. They are too long and heavy to be stored any place, so I had to leave them there. The snow from the eaves slides off beyond them so they are partly protected from the falling snow and that leaves a small area where animals can get out of the wind and snow. Thats what probably drew the cat there in the first place.
2008 has started off with a bang as usual. Plese let that cat find another place tohide nest time. I am now wondering if she has a litter waiting for her someplace as she sure looks a lot skinnier than when I last saw her about a week ago. Gee, maybe I should go back down and hunt my cellar to be sure she didn`t leave me any late Christmas gifts.