Many of our readers have pets and can identify with a personal experience a former reporter for this newspaper has had this January with a much loved cat. The story evolved over a series of days starting with the early January storm which coated Kansas in ice and snow.
The author, Brenda (Huntsinger) Williams, was raised in Mankato. Her husband, Steve Williams was raised near Nelson. They now live in Green, Kansas, a community of about 95 residents. Here’s her story:
I’m very sad tonight because I’m afraid my oldest cat, Fur Tummy (my SnuggleCat, who sleeps with me), has died while out in the storm. Tummy got past me and got out yesterday, the day before the storm, while I was feeding the outdoor cats.
I wish I had dropped everything and grabbed him, but I didn’t, because he has only taken 20-minute walks lately, then wanted back inside. But when he goes farther away, he seems to get lost.
He came back once after being gone for several months, but that was in good weather.
Last night, the night of the storm, the temperature was -15 degrees, and Tummy doesn’t have a winter coat, because he’s usually an indoor cat. The windchill was -20. Right now, at 7 p.m., the temperature is 5 degrees. Tonight it will get down to -3.
I suppose Tummy got into a garage or shed somewhere, but I just don’t see how he could have survived. I’m just heartsick, and wish I had been smarter.
On January 7, Brenda was excited to report:
Steve thinks Tummy is alive!!!
He went to our old house, although I had told him not to bother, that if Tummy’s body was there it would be under the snow.
But there is a hole in the old porch roof where Tummy used to like to get in and hang out whenever he went to the old house, which for some reason he still considered “home.”
There were no pawprints in the snow. Steve called for Tummy, but nothing happened.
A friend flagged him down as he was leaving, and they talked for 10 minutes. Then Steve went back to look at the porch roof again. Just to be sure. And there were pawprints in the snow up there!
So Steve just now left to go back, with food and water.
We both think Tummy is alive! He survived the storm by hiding out inside the roof of the old house!
I am so excited!!
Tummy has to be starving after having no food since Sunday morning.
I should have gone with Steve. Tummy will not go into a carrier, so our good vet once suggested throwing a towel over him to capture him.
Tummy is probably alive!! And I can’t wait to see him.
January 11
We’ve found our cat, Fur Tummy! This feline for some reason believes the old house we moved out of two years ago when we bought our new one is “home” and he’s gone back to it again.
We moved out of the old house because its stone foundation was crumbling. Since we left, raccoons have dug a hole in the porch roof, and that’s where Tummy is hanging out.
All the time I was grieving, thinking Tummy had frozen to death in last Sunday’s ice and snow storm, when the nighttime temperature had hovered around -15 degrees, he was safe and snug in his porch roof retreat.
Several days ago Steve went over there to look and to leave some food and water. He saw pawprints in the snow up on the roof, called Tummy, and the ornery cat came out!
Now the only problem is getting him to come down. He won’t come down for Steve.
Steve has been leaving food and water for him twice a day. Tummy will come down to eat after Steve is gone, but not while he’s there.
So, we’re going to have to borrow a friend’s humane raccoon trap and convince Tummy to enter it. In the meantime we are making regular trips back to the old house with food and water.
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