Crouching Tiger, Hidden Kitten

The Ninja Kitten Chronicles, Episode II

Previously, I’d written about my kitten Kato who is auditioning for the next Ang Lee movie.

To set the stage for her latest escapade, the nights at ranchette have been another stretch of -5, -10, -15F degree nights. The cats’ primary location during this weather tends to be parked on top of the water heater in the barn or next to the propane furnace in the tack room. Mama is a smart kitty and stays put. She will leap off her perch to greet me when I open up the barn for chores, gather pets from her audience and then, sensibly, reclaim her heated throne.

Kato is a bit more, well, dog like. She tends to follow me around the barn while I do chores. Rather I should say she likes to lead the way as I do chores, galloping on her little padded cat feet ahead of me; hiding behind a pallet while I divide hay; diving headlong through the cat door to the tack room and back out again as I measure feed.

So the other night, it was more than a little unusual to not get greeted by her when I brought the horses inside. I thought I’d see a flash of grey tail streaking beside me soon, but there was still no sign of her when chores were complete. I called for her around the barn. Nothing. I called for her outside. Nothing. I called for her by the hay stack in the storage section of the arena. Meows! So faint, but little meows of ‘I’m here! I’m here!’. As I kept calling, the meows were louder at the corner and bottom of the stack.

Now, I never should have written about my nicely stacked hay as you know how this story is going to end from a hay stack perspective. I was certain she’d fallen through a gap in the stack, hurt herself and was unable to get out. I couldn’t stand the thought of her slowly suffering underneath the hay. So, I began to quickly move bales. The meowing continued. I moved more bales. The back section of the stack was fully removed and still meowing.

At this point, DH and Needlenose, the dog, came to the barn on the search and rescue mission for *me*. “Kato’s trapped!” I tell him as I frantically pull up bales. And DH, despite severe hay and cat allergies, started moving bales too. (homemade chocolate lava cake soon required)

DH suggests that we stop to gather more information on the situation. (He’s a computer geek by trade, he can’t help this.) We try to more precisely pinpoint the source of the meowing. Is it coming from the hay? Is it coming from inside the neighboring stall wall? Is it coming from outside?

DH surveils the outside perimeter of the barn. A few big cat tracks in the snow but no kitten. We get out the ladder and peer inside stall walls. No kitten. Even more troubling, now no meowing. I return to moving bales. I decide that I want to finish the job as I certainly couldn’t sleep knowing that if only I’d moved 20 more bales I could have found her in time.

We move all the bales (There are likely 90 left at this point in the winter. This is somewhere between 2700-3600 lbs of hay if I’m doing my math correctly. No wonder my arms hurt.). I tip up all the pallets thinking maybe she got trapped and caught underneath broken boards. No kitten. It’s so cold when we walk outside that my fingers are tingling and my face feels burned. It’s 10:30 at night; I can’t find the ninja and the wind is forecast to increase to 30 mph during the night. Hopeless, DH and I go back to the house. I leave the barn door open a crack in case she is outside and can find her way home.

I am somewhat obsessive. At 11:00, I pull on the winter gear again and tell DH I’m headed out for another trip to the barn. Just a quick one. I want to be sure I’ve checked everywhere she could be. There are no more bales to move, no more stall walls to peer inside, but I need to be sure. I’m responsible for her.

I call for her at the hay stack. I go to each stall. I check each manger under the hay. I stop to pat the ponies and ask them if they’ve seen a little grey ninja. I call again. And then, clear and strong I hear a desperate meow. And another. A clear ‘I’m here!’.

I follow the sound to the side stalls and around to the outside of the barn in the boys’ main paddock. I flash my light around, nothing moving. Meow again. In the corner. There, trapped in the wood corner that boxes in some of the electrical housings, there: 2 green eyes stare up at me.

I wrangled her free, quickly popped her in the cat crate in the tack room and practically skipped to the house. She was cold and shivering and I don’t know how she would have survived the bitter cold night exposed to the wind.

I know the arguments about anthropomorphising animals and people will tell us they don’t have advanced emotions but I’m not buying it. When I peered into her cat carrier in the house and left her some warm milk, she purred just at the sight of me. And her eyes were broadcasting one strong message: grateful.

Tags: artic, cat, hay stack, kitten, ninja, SAR, winter