Animals outside the house

Written while we were up at the cabin for a day, just because.

The first pets I remember are the cat Mousie (guess what her job was!) and Duffy, whom we got as a pup from the Carpenters, I recall, when Mom was pregnant with Kimberly. She was perhaps seven months along. I remember driving home with the pup in the front seat of the old Plymouth? station wagon, between Mom and Dad. I leaned over the seat to pat both the pup and Mama's belly. Two babies.

I think it was Mousie who came to a bad end.

When I was little, I slept in a crib just inside the door between the kitchen and what we called the utility room, where the washer and dryer were. I remember looking out of the crib at the linoleum on the wall -- white with red-outlined squares. I was moved to a cot behind the couch before Kim was born. At this point I believe we were adding on to the house, which until then was just one bedroom, one bathroom, the hall, the kitchen, and utility room. Underneath was the basement.

The house was on the side of a little hill, so the basement had a window on one side, into which we could throw the firewood, and a door with steps up to the backyard on the garden side. All the years I lived in that house, the shower was in the basement as well. Not good planning!

Because of the hill, the foundation for the bedrooms didn't have to be very high, but it was felt important to put a door between the basement and the dirt base under the foundation. Then the other bedrooms, one bath (never finished) and Dad's office were put on top. We only opened that door one time that I recall. I guess Dad stored long extra lumber in there, and wanted to get some. Or perhaps wiring needed inspection, or drain pipes or so. In any case, a cat skeleton and some tiny kitten skeletons were found. I'm not sure who told us (or why!) but I remember that feeling of mixed horror, curiosity, sadness and guilt. I'm not sure why I felt guilty, but I did.

Rest in peace Mousie. She never made it into our little pet cemetery that we made for the various pets who died over the years, on the side of a little hill just as you entered the woods at the end of the yard, on the way to the creek there (a little tributary of Issaquah Creek).

A few words about Snowflake, our white cat with one blue eye and one green eye. First, we called her Snowflake because were so imaginative! and her white coat, of course. She was the sweetest calm little cat. We dressed her up on doll clothes and rolled her around the yard in Kim's Chatty Kathy doll buggy. Then came the day that we heard a terrible screaming, only to find Snowflake caught in a trap! There were mountain beavers that dad wanted to catch (why? I don't know) that he set by their hole. Evidently Snowflake had a hunter side too -- and now her leg was broken. We begged Dad to take her to the vet, rather than shooting her, which is what he planned to do. Off we went to the vet, who set HIS leg. Oh, we argued with the vet, it is SHE. No, said the vet, while I parents laughed so hard they couldn't speak!

I have no clue how that cat put up with a cast on his leg, but he did. And my dad removed the trap, and I think never set another.