Always an Adventure with Amie and Me!

Today, Amie and I were amazing.  She'll tell you it was me; I'll tell you it was great teamwork.  Yeah, so this may not be very "humble" of me but I sure wish we had had a video camera.  Amie and I make a great team but it does seem as though it's always an adventure.  Today was no different.  We wish we'd started writing these adventures down earlier.  I think it's the animal component that makes everything an adventure.

We were trying to catch the momma kitty and her kittens that had taken up residence in my garage.  They were wild, very wild and I had never been able to get close to them.  So I fed them until we had finally caught up with a lady in Remington who was going to take all our stray cats that had taken up residence at camp.  The kittens were relatively "easy" to catch despite being very very mad to be caught.  Then it was on to the momma cat who was currently laying in the rafters, in the little overhang.  So I climbed up on the freezer and attempted the first of many tries to catch her.  Unfortunately we found out that she could run along the "overhang" under the rafters on the sides of the garage.  She ran back and forth along the rafters from one side of the garage to the other side as we attempted to trap her in one section of the overhang.  At one point, Amie decided that an overturned bucket on top of my cooler would make a good "ladder".  So everywhere the cat went, we dragged our "ladder" to where she was and I climbed up and attempted to block her.  Unfortunately, my ladder wasn't exactly tall enough to get me a good angle on her since I had to reach up and then down into the overhang.  But that didn't stop the two of us.  She had a fishing net to nab her if I was able to shoo her out with my broom.  A few back and forths across the garage and we finally had her in a corner near the door.  I had tried shoving my wreath into the overhang to prevent her from going under.  I was standing on my step stool and decided to try to make a grab for her (wearing my extra heavy winter gloves).  I tried, she ran under the wreath, and I lost my bucket.  In a move you normally see in the movies, I grabbed onto the rafter with my left hand and was left hanging as my bucket fell and cooler slid away,  (I would have loved to seen a picture of this!)  screaming Amie's name because she was following the cat.  I don't remember thinking, "It feels like I'm falling, grab onto rafters".  I just....did.  Just like in the movies when the hero is thrown off the side and they somehow grab onto something at the last second to keep from falling.  I didn't think you could react that quick.  I don't remember seeing the rafter....I just grabbed.  Anyways, that's not the whole story.  After I got back to solid ground and thanked the good Lord for quick reflexes, we were back to catching the cat.  She, by now, is on the garage door side of the garage and the next few minutes find me going from rafter to rafter, using the door to put my feet on, monkeying around the garage trying to find out where in the overhang she was.  I located her, almost caught her again, but she got by me and Amie *almost* had her with the fish net.  So close again....but we missed.  Fast forward a few more minutes and I had her back in the same corner where I almost met the concrete.  This time I stuffed the wreath and a coffee can into the hole.  I decided to forget the broom, forget the towel I was going to wrap around her, and make one last attempt to grab her with my hand.  (The other hand was holding onto the rafter!)  Whenever I popped over the ledge and saw her face to face, I prayed she didn't attack my face.  Anyways, I wait for it, wait for it, and then reached over and grabbed her by the scruff of her neck.  I had her!  Now what?  She is very mad and Amie was screaming at me, "What do you want me to do?  What do you want me to do?  Tell me!"  As I held onto the cat, steadied myself on the bucket, and held onto the rafter, I yelled at her to hold out the net.  I threw the cat into the net, she flipped it over so that the opening was now against the ground, and I grabbed the towel and jumped on top of her and wrapped her up.  Amie and I gingerly carried the cat/net combo to the truck and to the dog carrier.  We finagled the net into the carrier, dumped her, and then wiggled the net back out without her escaping.  Whew!  We had a done it.  Not without frustration, near injury, and choice words though, but we captured her.  It took about 1/2 hour to do so.  Not bad in my book.  Then we were full of laughter and cheers and lots of high fives for one another.  Always an adventure....always.  (Combine that with yesterday's run through the woods to try to cut off runaway ponies).  I wouldn't do it with anyone else though.

A best friend is someone who, when you have a crazy idea, says, "Heck, why not?!"