Hide and seek.

Mickey Kitty has discovered new hiding places around the yard these past few weeks. When the days were colder, he was sleeping right on the back porch chairs, and I made sure to put warm pillow-beds there so he wouldn't get a chill. (No, my cats are not spoiled.)

Now that the weather has turned warmer (close to 80 degrees) Mickey has decided to go into hiding.  He's either taking his naps under the porch steps or he's squished in under the rose bushes and the wild blackberries near the coop. Why he chooses to lay in the dirt in that particular flower bed is just beyond me..... I'm hoping that he doesn't come out covered in ants one day. Or worse, fire ants.

This morning before I went into town, I looked around for Mickey and couldn't find him in his usual spots, so I walked over to the barn to see if he had found yet another hiding spot.  Once I got into the barn, I started calling him, but the meow that came back to me was definitely not Mickey. (Each cat has a distinctive meow, and if you know your cats well, you can recognize them by the sounds they make.)

I called out to Mickey again, and that same high-pitched meow came floating down from somewhere above my head.... and that particular meow was Orange Kitty.  I know that meow very well because it's the same meow he uses to announce his visits to our back porch. I followed the sound of Orange Kitty's meows and I could see where he's been spending his days..... on top of the laundry room that's on the first floor of that barn.  We don't use that room, but the water heater is in there for the barn's guest rooms, and when they enclosed that little room, they didn't go all the way up to the higher ceiling of the barn...... there's a ten-foot ceiling in the laundry room, and Orange Kitty must have climbed up the wood siding inside that barn and found himself a nice cozy spot up there.  So that's where he's been hiding all of these weeks....... sleeping during the day, then coming to the back porch around dinner time to get his Meow Mix.

While I was in the barn, I saw some fluffs of gray and white fur..... my guess is that those tufts of fur once belonged to mice.  Orange Kitty must be earning his Meow Mix by hunting down the field mice that no doubt go in and out of the barn on a daily basis.  As I looked up at that flat wood ceiling, I saw two little orange ears sticking up over the trim.... and a teeny tiny meow came from up there... but Orange Kitty never raised his head enough to let me see the rest of his face. Protecting his hiding spot, no doubt.

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Orange.
Orange who?
Orange you glad I'm catching all those mice?