This morning, before the house woke up, I slid out of bed to share some time with Goofy Gus. He is so funny, when he sees me coming, his eyes open wide, he spits and hisses and dives under the bed. But, when I go to his level, make my 6 foot frame as small as possible, he finds his brave spot and inches forward.

I wrote a letter to a dear friend while I was on the floor. I thanked her for being a part of this experiment and described what I was doing within the body of the letter. She won’t think this strange, she knows me to well. By the time the letter was finished, Goof had attacked my toes (although I tried so hard to keep them still) and he was lying by my side content, as long as nothing on me moved other than the pen in my hand.

Yesterday, Quinn got out of the cage inside one of the enclosures and I could not catch him. I just let him be hoping there wouldn’t be a major cat fight before they adjusted to him. He is in with Matilda, Blake, Skeets, Sawyer and Morgan. When I went back later that afternoon, Quinn was no where in sight. I looked everywhere for him. I knew he hadn’t got outside- not even Houdini could escape from this enclosure. I sat on the floor and prayed and looked around and it dawned on me where he might be.

We built this large wooden box for heat and pushed the box against the wall, but the studs still stick out leaving a 6″ space between wall and box. I grabbed my ladder and climbed up. Shining the light down, there he was hissing and spitting and glaring at me. Boy, was I glad to see him. The box doesn’t have four wooden sides and thankfully, the side he was trapped in was only enclosed with insulation of the styrofam type. I untaped the insulation and he shot out like a bullet and dove into the corner. Poor kitty. He’s a beautiful tuxedo boy- totally unsocial at the moment.

We put a board up to block any further escape attempts and this morning when I went in, I could hear him growling in the rafters. At least he only growls and me and not the other cats. It will take time, but he will come around. He just has to figure out that he is safe now.

Well more strong weather is heading our way. Time to batten down the hatches outside so the high winds predicted don’t take anything out of our yard and blow it into the road. The sun is trying to peek through the darkness but it keeps getting beaten back. Hope we can grow a garden this year- wish cats love vegetables as much as the pet food manufacturers try to convince us they do. *G* The wet food is running out and don’t think homemade tomato sauce would be a good substitution!