Gatsby?

For the second day in a row, we woke up this morning to cooler temperatures. Early this morning, it was indeed cool enough for a sweater-- 68 degrees, I think it was. By noon-time yesterday, it was sunny and in the mid-80s, and the television weather wizards are predicting more of the same for today and the rest of week.

When I opened the back door this morning, our mostly-outside cat Gatsby wasn't sitting there on the doormat with his nose pressed up against the screen. Gatsby isn't one to ever miss a meal, so I was worried right away. He's usually right there, ready to dip his face into his food bowl as soon as I put it out there in the mornings.

I looked all around the house and the cottage, my husband looked into and around the barn. Not a sign of Gatsby, and not a sign of any sort of fight or disturbance, either. The first thing that crossed my mind was that a coyote got him, which has happened in these hills before to neighbors' cats, as well as countless chickens. Mostly, though, coyotes go hunting close around the houses only in the winter months if meals in the woods become scarce. We're barely out of September here, so why are the coyotes coming out of the woods already?

I'm hoping that Gatsby has just wandered off, but I can't honestly say that I believe that. He didn't really go much farther than the barn..... and he never even went down towards the pond. Gatsby was just content to be on the porch or under the cottage, watching the chickens, or watching Mickey and Sweet Pea chase the chickens.

We found Gatsby just last year..... alone and starving, walking in the courtyard behind the garage. One bowl of cat food was all it took for him to make himself at home here. For the most part, Gatsby was a very friendly cat until a few months ago when he decided that plowing his super-sized cat body into both Mickey and Sweet Pea was his sport-of-choice. Sweet Pea would fight back with him, but Mickey would just roll over and cry till I got there to rescue him. Gatsby had always slept in the TV room at night with Mickey and Sweet Pea, but once he started being too rough with them, I didn't keep him in there when I wasn't able to watch him.

So out on the porch Gatsby went, and he seemed quite happy there. I let him inside when the temperature got over 100 degrees, but I had to put him on the porch before we went to bed. Last night, I carried Gatsby from the TV room to his favorite chair on the back porch, and that was the last time I saw him.

And then......... just as I was typing that last sentence, my husband called me from downstairs........ he was out in the garage and came out and found Gatsby sitting by the back door. Sitting there looking into the screen door, his usual spot in the morning. He picked Gatsby up and carried him into the house. No marks on that cat, he seems just fine...... not a whisker out of place. As I type now, Gatsby is making his way to the bottom of his food bowl, quite content. In his little cat mind, he's probably thinking Well, this will make her think twice about leaving me out on the porch all night long.