View from the North 40: Tuesday and the safe place

The second winter after my husband, John, and I were married, we took in a stray cat that showed up on our place. She was a beautiful blue-eyed, sealpoint, Siamese-cross with lots of white markings, and at her heaviest she weighed 7 pounds, but she was all sinew, claws and attitude. Mostly attitude.

Except that first month or so.

We were in the middle of a subzero January cold spell when this emaciated thing came hobbling by me trying very unsuccessfully to catch an unimpressed cottontail rabbit. I talked to the cat, and her joy at finding a human, I think, burned up the last of her ener...