Frankie’s desire to go for walks has not diminished since we moved to our new home. What has diminished is what he considers his territory. I think he believed the entirety of our old neighborhood to be his. I was always picking him up and turning him around to prevent us from wondering too far from home.
Now he seems content to stay relatively close to home. We live on a corner lot next to a primary road running through the neighborhood. The back of the house is on a short, dead-end street. Our homeowner’s association consists of only six houses. We also each own a sixth interest in the large empty lot in front of our homes (see below).
Here is Frankie on a recent walk. So far, he has stayed on our short street or explored the empty lot. As you can see, he is already quite comfortable.
Here is a picture of the area I’m talking about. Our house has a checkmark. We typically Go out the back door by the street and walk past a few houses, sometimes to the end before turning around. We then walk around our house to the vacant lot, explore that for a while, and return home to the front door.
I took Frankie for a walk Thursday morning. At the time I thought I should get him out there before the weather got bad. Unknown to me at the time the weather wouldn’t get bad for quite a while.
I saw on the map that the storm would pass us at its closest point around 3 p.m. We got a little rain and a little wind before then, but I was surprised by how mild it was. Then Frankie started to annoy me because he wanted to go outside. I never took Frankie for a walk twice in one day, but now, during the peak of the hurricane, he wouldn’t stop annoying me. I caved. I looked at the clock. It was 3:45. I looked out the window, saw the rain had stopped, and decided to take him out again.
At first, he hung around under the carport, not sure what he wanted to do, but then he decided to go.
After a while, the rain returned, so I picked him up and carried him home. He only hissed at me once.
To my surprise, the weather got worse after 6 p.m. By 6:30, the wind was blowing hard. Every ten or fifteen minutes, we would hear a loud bang from a tree branch falling on the roof. My next-door neighbor pointed out a tree across the street that had very large limbs broken off. It seemed just as windy at 9:30 when we went to bed.
In hindsight, three things happened that I didn’t consider. First, the winds trailing the storm are stronger than the winds ahead of the storm. This is because those winds travel across the water where no obstacles can slow them down. Second, the storm got stronger as it went farther north, so it was stronger at 6 p.m. than at 3 p.m. Third, the storm was a little slower moving than predicted.
The next morning, my wife wanted to go to the beach to look for shells, which are plentiful after a storm. We went outside before the sun came up, around 6:45. Even at that time I could see tree branches, big and small, scattered about our yard.
We thought there was a chance we would not be able to get to the beach. Sure enough, several police cars blocked access to the bridge. Later, it occurred to me that they needed to inspect all the bridges before reopening them.
We returned home just as it started getting light. On the way, we saw one home with its carport ripped off and lying on its roof. I took some pictures of the area near our house.
After taking pictures, I pulled some of the bigger pieces of debris from our yard and added them to the pile. I then went inside and found Frankie waiting to go outside.
Good morning, everyone. I hope your day is going as good as Frankie’s. He started out this morning rolling around on the dining room table. Actually, he started by knocking my coffee off the table, but the point is, he was a happy kitty.
That was followed by a nice walk where he got to see at least four dogs and a squirrel.
Frankie sometimes likes to go far on his walks. I almost always pick him up and carry him home before we get too far away because I don’t want to have to carry him too far. Earlier this year I let him go to see how far he would walk. I did eventually encourage him to turn left after we reached the farthest point he has ever gone, but I did not pick him up or force him in that direction. Eventually, we walked a very large loop and ended up back home.
Saturday morning we went out for one of the earliest walks ever. I don’t remember the time exactly but I think it was around 6:45. It was about a half hour before sunrise.
You can see the artificial light from the street lamps.
Since it was not hot outside yet I let Frankie take me on another long walk. This time we did a large loop in the other direction. By the time the sun came up, he was ready to “stop.”
But we pressed on and made our way to one of the main streets where Frankie turned left toward home. When we got close, Frankie saw an old friend.
Frankie was interested but she ran off in the other direction. Probably because I was there.
After the first long walk, I checked Google Maps and it said we walked eight-tenths of a mile. I drew both walks on a map and found them to be similar distances.
The blue path was the first long walk and the green path was from Saturday. I looked up how far an average domestic cat travels and found one website that says a housecat will travel between a few dozen feet to a little over a half mile per day. A feral cat will travel farther. Since Frankie walked almost a mile, twice, in about forty-five minutes, I would say he is not an average housecat.
Our neighborhood is having a community yard sale today. We wanted to get rid of stuff and planned to participate but after a long, hard day of work yesterday I told Rose I just wanted to relax and skip the yard sale. I said we could just donate everything and Rose agreed.
Early this morning I was awakened by a loud noise. It sounded like someone was dragging something heavy across the floor. A few minutes later Rose woke me up and said, “I changed my mind, we have too much (stuff) that we need to get rid of. We need to move our cars before all the spots are gone.” I looked at the clock. It was 5 a.m. Ugh!
I hurt my back a few days ago so moving everything outside was a bit of a struggle. Once everything was outside and my chores were done I decided to take Frankie for a walk. We left the house at 6:40, which is probably the earliest we ever went for a walk.
We were out for almost a half hour and ended up about a block from home. I didn’t want to go further because I almost always have to carry him home. So I picked him up and headed home. It was a struggle because not only was my back hurting, I developed a pain in my leg because of the way I was walking with my back pain. It was a struggle getting home and it didn’t help that Frankie was struggling and hissing for half the walk.
We are now sitting outside and Frankie is keeping watch at the window.
Sunday afternoon I was bringing a handful of laundry outside to the washing machine in our shed. I had just fed the cats and saw Frankie in the kitchen with his head in the food bowl. I figured it was safe to open the door, which I did quickly, and turned around to walk out backward so I could catch Frankie if he tried to get out. I obviously did it wrong because there was a second between when I cracked the door open and when I was turned around enough to see Frankie’s tail wiz past me.
He immediately went under a vehicle so I couldn’t catch him.
I talked to him nicely and managed to coax him out a bit.
I should have tried to grab him then but I worried if I missed I would never catch him. Instead, I had an idea. I went back into the house and grabbed his harness. When I got close, I pulled it apart. He knows that the sound of the velcro means he is going for a walk so he came out and let me put it on. Unfortunately, I was rushed and put it on upside down. In the process of trying to reverse it, I nearly freaked him out a little. Before he got too nervous I turned it around and soon we were walking.
We did some sitting too.
We made our way to the clubhouse where I think a bingo game just ended. There was an old lady in a car with the window down marveling at a cat on a leash. I talked to her for a minute but Frankie was interested in the door that was propped open. He stuck his head inside to the delight of another two older ladies.
Eventually, we made it back relatively close to home, perhaps half a block. Frankie decided to take a rest in someone’s yard.
I let him stay for a short time but since he was literally against someone’s house I decided to pick him up and bring him home before we got yelled at.
“Walk” is probably the wrong word to use when taking a cat out because they spend much more time investigating smells or just resting while enjoying the great outdoors.
I want to first thank everyone who wished me well during my Covid adventure. My wife and I are fine now and I went back to work yesterday.
While I was out sick, Frankie hounded me to take him outside. I finally gave in and took him out on Sunday. It is amazing how loud he is until that door opens and then not a peep.
Once we got outside, he first had to inspect Rose’s car.
We then walked around the neighborhood, stopping at every plant that smelled interesting.
When it was Chris’s turn to go outside he did his usual happy roll.
It didn’t take him long after that to find the catnip plant that I am growing.
Now that he knows it is there he will probably make a beeline for it next time he goes outside.
Bad Cat Chris 