Winter Cats

It is now New Year's Eve, 2008 and as the snow kept coming, the picnic table has all but disappeared. It is at this time of the year that my thoughts are usually preoccupied with ice fishing. This winter most of the roads to the lakes were drifted in with snow. The county snow plows were kept busy trying to keep the main roads open so access to the lakes was very limited. Besides, even if you could get to the lakes, it was impossible to drive on them because the snow was so deep on top of the ice.


Karen's cats were outdoor cats. Therefore we never had a mouse problem around here. In the winter, the cats had their "well kept" litter box and their insulated house which Karen insulated even more by putting plastic panels around it and packing in an abundance of straw between the house and panels. She also made sure that the snow was banked up around all that too and that their electric water dish was full and plugged in.
But the biggest treat for the cats (and for Karen as well, by the way) was the hot meal they got every evening. Yes, a hot meal! Every evening around dusk, 4:30 or so, Karen made them a hot dish of rice and any left-over meat that we had around. Their dish of dry food got covered with a healthy dose of warm "cat" gravy too. At around 4:30, sometimes even before Karen started cooking their supper, I could look out the window in the door and no matter how bad the weather was out there, the cats were all lined up on the step waiting for their "treat". They knew what was coming and they knew what time it was. So I suppose you can imagine what kind of a stampede we had when the door opened!



After their supper they all got a little -or should I say A LOT- of cuddle and petting time. Oh how Karen loved her cats. And they loved her too.

When it came time for them to go back outside, do you suppose that they knew it? Oh, you betcha they did! Even before Karen would say, "time to go outside", their internal clock went off just like it did when they lined up on the step to come in. So what did they do to keep from going back out into the cold? Well, -----hide under a table of course so no one could see them. Pretty smart cats, eh?

White Sox was always the last one to go outside so she usually didn't have to hide. She did, however, take the time to warm her tootsies (Karen's word) on the register. I've said this many times before, "Karen's cats were not only good cats but smart cats as well"!!! She loved to keep them happy.