Fright Night

Let me start by noting that all of the barn cats are OK. I have seen every one, although they have been a bit shy.

Sheesh, the storm made a mess of things up here. I came up this morning to see what kind of havoc had been wrought. The garage where the 6 cats live had a hanging / sliding 10' X 11' door, locked at both edges by inserted and padlocked steel plates, 4-gauge, doubled. Apparently the wind ripped this door off both hangers and stripped it off one of the padlocks. The other lock held. The door was in tatters, bits of wood and galvanized siding scattered all over the place. That 300+ pound door must have been flapping, twisting, pounding and cracking all night long.

The cats, all beautiful, semi-feral felines, thoroughly equipped to fend for themselves for extended periods - on prey quite nuisance to vineyards and gardens, I might add - yet loving of human company, find refuge behind this door. We store the tractor, the truck, the homebrew, the workshop, and all manner of odd end here, but this building is their lair. That racket must have been awful.

Coyotes and raccoons are frequent visitors. The coyotes do a job on the gophers and rabbits that can't be ignored. But Coyotes are an inherent threat to the cats. Raccoons will make a meal of kittens, but generally are less of a lethal threat to grown cats. However, raccoons are 3-5 times bigger than cats and show no hesitance to remind them of this fact. This building is the cats' safe haven and that door keeps danger out.

The night releasing a torrent of rain and wind that shook the house and smacked and batted the demolished castle gate effortlessly, like it was a paralyzed, defeated field mouse, must have sent terror into the hearts of these cats we love.

We took all day today and built another door, top priority.