The Cold, the Cat, and My Concern

I wrote this on Thursday night, January 5. Writing it had a focusing effect on me and encouraged me to seek my strength and direction from the right source.

Reflecting on Myself as a 21^st Century Wimp

                December had some cold temperatures with bitter wind chills. Now January presents us with frigid Arctic readings. Those of us living in this age of overload from advice, alerts, and warnings  may find ourselves inundated. My problem commences when I begin believing everything I hear instead of using my common sense.

                Cats on the farm have always slept in a huddle in the barn or chicken houses or any of 101 other cozy locations on the farm. Since Bob sleeps by himself on the unheated back porch, I began the thought process, in the summer, about providing the orange and white manx cat necessary warmth during the winter months.

                In August, I initiated the first stage of Bob’s winter sleeping accommodations. Preparing for the bone-chilling temperatures of winter, he needed a cozy compartment. Angie brought Mother two large sofa pillows in a huge cardboard box.  I repurposed the large box to house the little sleeping cube that Bob liked. The thin foam packing sheets surrounding the decorative pillows provided an additional insulation for the outside of the large box. I applied the foam sheets to the outside of the box with strong tape and staples.

Bob and Tailer sleeping in the little cube when
they were younger. Bob usually let Tailer in first,
 then got in himself, and put his back to the
 circular opening. This photo was taken in warmer
 weather in 2015. Bob still likes the little cube.

                When September rolled around, the second phase kicked in. I recycled an old long pillow to insulate the back of the box that would face the north side of the porch. A couple of discarded cattle pellet bags additionally shielded the top of the box.

                In October, when the nights began to cool, I placed the little cube inside the box. To my surprise, Bob quickly acclimated to his new “digs.” I was surprised because sometimes he is cautious and a little slow to warm up to changes.

                By November, I had draped an old bathmat on the top of the well-insulated box, so the little circular opening of the cube would be protected from the wind. Bob adjusted well to the “old bathmat” door.

                Then the frigid temperatures and record-breaking wind chills appeared on the long-range forecast. Using recycled newspapers, I bound about ten newspapers together in three bundles. One  bundle was placed on the right and the left sides of the Bob’s little sleeping cube, with the third packet of newspapers placed in front of the cube. Bob made it fine during those freezing nights, always eager to get out to his cozy bed each morning.

                Then the first week of January blew into our lives. I prepared all I could for the care of the cattle during the predicted subfreezing weather. Since it wasn’t going to be as cold as December had been, I felt that Bob would be fine.

                He always comes in to play and eat around 10 p.m. This winter he has every night, without exception, relished going out to his sleeping quarters. Except tonight.

                He had been out most of the day, “running and gunning” so I knew he had tolerated the cold fine. However, when he came in at 10 tonight, he stretched out near the kitchen central heating floor vent to groom himself. Within fifteen minutes, he was ready to drift off. This never happens.

                I coaxed him to the back door, but for the first time this winter, he balked. I carried him out – unheard of. I stood out by him while he drank his water.

                My own concern fueled his hopes to get to come back inside. I checked on him several times, only to find him stretched up on the screen door on his hind legs, as though begging to get to come back in. Finally, my sound thinking returned.

                I left my post at the back door and told Mother, “Dad had colder sleeping quarters for most of his life than Bob -  that is until Dad went to the air force!”
               She chuckled and agreed and said softly, "Bob just wants to be with you." What a crafty little cat he is!

                I reflected on the temperature of the bunk house where Dad and his brothers slept. The bunk house had no heat source in it. Few houses in the Bend had any type of insulation in the first half of the 20th century.

                A faint memory popped into my mind about Dad talking about a frozen water bucket in their house. Mother responded, “I am sure their water bucket did freeze. Even in our house, the surface of the water bucket froze. Daddy tried to put green wood in the wood stove at night so it would smolder throughout the night as the temperatures dipped dangerously low, but often the fire went out.”

Mother said Dad snapped
this photo at the Jefferson
house in the 1950s.

                Curiously, I researched low temperatures for Oklahoma during January at www.weather.gov. A quick glance revealed extremely cold temperatures in January of 1930. Dad would have been 10 years old. I recalled his tales of Arthur Wulf and him ice skating for miles on the Arkansas River. He would usually say, “But you can’t do that nowadays.”

                Then I realized what a wimp I had allowed myself to be by overreacting to all the warnings. I realize our ancestors didn't need warnings to not leave animals tethered outside with no shelter. Nevertheless, Bob had a much cozier sleeping area than my father and his brothers. Yet how strong they grew up to be!

                Mother and I reminisced how Dad never backed down from a job – no matter how cold, how dirty, how dangerous, or just down right hard and physically demanding. Yet neither did he brag about what he had accomplished. Then my mother, Bernyce Smith Gates, the woman who dated him for eight years and was married to him for 67 years, said, “I never heard him complain.”

Dad loved and used the hat from Angie and Ben
for Christmas in 1997. The coat was just too
heavy for him to work in. He politely kept it but
used it only on extremely cold occasions -
maybe when going to town. I chuckle seeing the
tag on the hat sticking straight up. He was so
comfortable in his own skin that nothing ever 
embarrassed him!

                What a reality check on endurance and not being a wimp! This applies in my spiritual life as well. Paul said to Timothy in the last letter before he was beheaded for his faith, “Endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.”

                He continued telling Timothy to endure, suffer, and keep studying the word of truth. Interestingly, Paul warned him to “avoid all empty (vain, useless, idle) talk, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness.” (II Timothy 3:16 – AMPC). In no way, do I equate my fixation on weather warnings for pets to idle talk, but we do have to guard whose words and ideas come into our minds and how we process them.
                 In that same passage, Paul, who was imprisoned in Rome, requested a cloak - no doubt, his body ached from lying on the cold, stone floor of a dank, dark dungeon, He also asked for the parchments or copies of the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament. As we do, the Apostle Paul needed warmth for his physical body and his heart.
                God, may I study and know Your Word well enough to reject empty, useless words that are detrimental. Then may I be strong in You through Your Word and have the courage to do what is right. 

Note: A blog posting that I refer to as Janice's Story really helps me in staying strong in the Lord. It can be accessed at: http://bernadeanjgates.blogspot.com/2016/08/influenced-by-experience.html