Adventures With Cloudy

I had some errands to run this afternoon and got a late start on evening chores. It was well past dark by the time I finished. I was out in one of the back pastures in the shed where I keep feed, feedbags, halters and blankets for three of the fields. Cloudy the barn cat had followed me down to the shed from the barn. I realized I had left something down there and had to walk back down to retrieve it and Cloudy followed me. Cloudy pretty much never follows me around during the day but he loves to follow at night. By the time it is dark I am usually just doing things in the barn so this usually isn't a problem.

Of course tonight it was a problem since it was late, it was dark and I was hungry. My first problem was getting Cloudy out of the shed. I don't think he had ever been down there before and he was fascinated checking everything out in the shed. On the other hand I'm in there multiple times a day, was not fascinated with the shed, and as previously mentioned it was late, it was dark, and I was hungry. I finally got Cloudy out of the shed and we headed back up the hill.

Cloudy doesn't always stay right with me, he runs ahead or lags behind as he investigates things. He was lagging behind me as I made my way up the hill. We hadn't made it too far when I heard him howling, hissing and sounding very distressed. I think I might have heard another cat as well, but maybe not. It was very sudden and unexpected so I wasn't exactly taking close notes. I was carrying several feedbags full of feed up the hill. The feedbags were the reason I had to return to the shed, I had forgotten them. We store feed in the barn and the shed and I was low on feed in the barn (feed delivery coming tomorrow!) so I simply filled some of the "barn" feedbags from the feed in the shed. I flung the feedbags down and started trying to find Cloudy.

Finding Cloudy was not that easy. It was dark, I didn't have a flashlight, nor did I know exactly where he was when I heard him, and thought he might have run off in another direction anyway. I wandered around in the dark looking for the cat and finally spotted him high up in a tree, really high in a tree. He was still growling softly which was how I located him. I didn't see anything else in or around the tree. Of course I didn't want to leave him there, we were still quite far away from the barn and he was clearly out of his league. But he wouldn't come down from the tree. I briefly thought about attempting to climb the tree but was smart enough to drop that idea quickly (oh my gosh can you imagine what I would be typing right now if I had attempted to climb the tree and retrieve the cat?? I would probably be typing from my hospital bed). So I just stood there begging Cloudy to come down. "Come on Cloudy, come down and be a good kitty. I'll save you Cloudy but you have to help me save you" etc. All said in a soft, cooing, pleading voice.

Finally he climbed down to where he was about even with my head. I was able to reach up and pry him out of the tree. Then I had to one hand the cat and pick up all of my feedbags, and I carried the full feedbags and the cat all the way up the hill in the dark. Never a dull moment around here.

Jason took about a million pictures of the wild redbud trees around the farm; as I said in my last post he really likes redbuds and the fact that they grow wild here.

Lily and MyLight grazing with Ivan in the background

Clay

Teddy, O'Reilly and Chili

Cuff Links

Teddy

Some of the big boys hanging out; Apollo, Homer, Levendi, Elfin, Trigger, Ivan (napping) and Baby

Alex and B-Rad

Ogie

Faune and Sebastian