Yesterday evening, we finally got a good look at the cat stuck in the old kitchen!

I put the big cat carrier on the freezer, with food and water. We had a small packet of a wet catfood treat left from a donation a whole back. Just enough for one cat, so that got squeezed into a small dish and stuck into the back of the carrier. I even put some cat nip in there.

It took a while, but eventually, the cat came out. I spotted it in the carrier, digging around the blanket inside, the food dish empty, and almost pushed out the door! As soon as the cat saw me, though, it ran off.

It didn’t quite run away, though. When I saw a pair of ears, just barely visible behind the kibble bin, I waited. Of course, one of the teenage cats inside wanted attention, and I ended up with Ghosty in my arms.

Well, that got his attention! The pair of ears became a pair of eyes, then a whole head, as the cat stretched its neck to see Ghosty through the window. Which got Ghosty’s attention, too!

For the next whole, I would stand at the window in the door, holding a different cat. The cat in the old kitchen seemed to be more comfortable seeing cats instead of just a human. I could see it was wanting to get back to the food and water on the freezer, so I didn’t interrupt too much. The way the door is oriented to the stairs, my daughters could monitor things from the top of the stairs. We did not try to go into the old kitchen to let it out, though, since we knew it would just disappear again.

This morning, while feeding the outside cats, I made sure to leave both doors between the old kitchen and sun room wide open. A daughter was stationed at the window to see if the cat left.

Of course, there was a major rush of other cats going into the old kitchen, and this time, we just left them. I finished my morning rounds, then checked with my daughter.

She did not see the cat leave, though all the others had left.

In the end, we decided to leave the doors between the old kitchen and the sun room wide open for a few hours. We did have to make extra sure the door into the rest of the house was securely closed. That one has been known to pop open, if we’re not careful!

Well, I just got back from checking the old kitchen. It seemed empty, so I went in.

I moved cat carrier to the sun room for the cats to get used to, since we plan to “trap” a cat in it for cheap spay/neuter day. I had to pull the inner old kitchen door – the one with no window – closed behind me, to keep cats from going into the old kitchen again.

I couldn’t see the cat that had been stuck overnight anywhere, but I didn’t go outside. I did stay to pet the crowd of cats swirling around my legs, vying for attention.

But not this one.

This is the one female we can be pretty sure to be able to catch for the cheap spay day, but she was not allowing contact, today!

She and her two siblings from the last litter are still so tiny! Hard to believe they are 7 months old! I did get to cuddle her fuzzy black and white brother, but her fluffball tabby sibling it the shiest of them all.

While petting the cats, I heard a commotion from the old kitchen. Thinking it could be the stuck cat, I checked. No sign of a cat – until I looked at the inside door.

Mitzy looked back at me!

She had scrambled her way up the door and was hanging off the window! What a monkey!

So it does look like the stuck cat has finally gotten out. We will keep monitoring, just in case.

Come spring time, we will have to empty out the old kitchen as best we can, fpr clean up. There was no litter box in there while the cat was stuck!

At least for now, the room should stay more or less freezing, so we shouldn’t need to worry about smell. We are at only -2C . By the end of the month, we are expecting several days at +3C. Things will be melt7ng outside!

What concerns me about the warm weather is, the ladies might go into heat early… and there’s nothing we can do about it, since we can’t catch them to get them spayed.

*sigh*

For now, though, it at least looks like the trapped cat is no longer trapped.

The Re-Farmer