| ||||||||||
 
Dr. Ronald P. Rogers CHIROPRACTOR Support for your body's natural healing capabilities 270-384-5554 Click here for details 
  
Columbia Gas Dept. GAS LEAK or GAS SMELL Contact Numbers 24 hrs/ 365 days 270-384-2006 or 9-1-1 Call before you dig 
Visit ColumbiaMagazine's Directory of Churches Addresses, times, phone numbers and more for churches in Adair County Find Great Stuff in ColumbiaMagazine's Classified Ads Antiques, Help Wanted, Autos, Real Estate, Legal Notices, More... 
|
The Whitehurst Diaries: Willis-The-Cat, Then and Now By Sharon Whitehurst Turning the calendar page to September, 2010, did nothing to lessen the intense heat and humidity of our first Kentucky summer. Locals reiterated, almost in apology, 'summers aren't usually this hot!' With the summers of our native Vermont and the brief mountain summers of Wyoming for comparison we only knew it seemed we had been planting, weeding, harvesting and canning through an interminable span of sweltering weather. A small maple outside the garden fence cast a spill of filtered shade in the area where I scratched about with a hand tool, attempting to encourage a late planting of beets, pulling soil around the stems of broccoli and cabbage. Nearby the tortie barn kittens, Sadie and Sally, chased each other through the hedge of blackberries. Jim had taken the 4-wheeler down the lower meadow to check on hay cut the day before. Given the length of his absence I decided that our neighbor must be working outside also -- the perfect excuse for a manly exchange of complaints re the weather and politics. I lumbered to my feet when I heard the roar of the approaching 4-wheeler, noted that it was running at a much slower pace than Jim's usual full throttle mode. I was through the garden gate, kittens skittering at my heels, when Jim chugged slowly around the barn and turned off the bike. He sat there, one hand on a small stripy cat, who lounged calmly on the seat in front of him. "Where did you find the cat?" I queried. The half-grown feline in question gazed back at me, eyes tawny-green in a bony face sporting classic tabby markings. "He popped out of the grass alongside the road when I was chatting with Dale. It's not his cat, but it's been hanging out there for a day or two, lost maybe, and sure to get run over. I didn't suppose he'd ride on the bike but it didn't bother him, so here he is." The kitten hopped down from the 4-wheeler, stretched, ambled over to rub against my offered hand, considered the lurking sister kittens with lofty interest. Headed toward the house to fetch another cat dish and some kibble, I called over my shoulder to Jim, "He says the name is 'Willis' and he'd like to stay." Within days Willis assumed a proprietary role, striding along the path from barn to house, keeping us company in the garden, treating Sadie and Sally with lordly superiority. Never mean, still he kept them in line by pouncing at them from behind a tree, bowling them over in the grass, chasing them through the garden -- just because he could! Early in winter the three kittens visited the vet for spay/neuter appointments. By spring of 2011 they were full grown, sleek, shuttling contentedly between the hay barn and the house porch. We quickly realized that in Willis we had a cat of remarkable intelligence, unique personality, and a penchant for nosy involvement -- a gift that would result in some troublesome adventures. We thought when we moved to Kentucky in 2010 we were ready for retirement. That didn't prove to be the case. We refurbished and sold a house in Cane Valley, traded the Gradyville farm for an Amish-owned property in the Pellyton neighborhood. There were two large houses to make fit for 'English' living -- kitchens and bathrooms to install, plumbing and electricity to be retrofitted, walls covered with high-gloss blue to repaint in soft neutral shades. Willis and the tortie sisters, Sadie and Sally moved to the Amish farm early on; we moved in with the house cats on a night of blizzard conditions, needing to keep the wood fire stoked. Willis patrolled the wide covered porches on the main and lower levels of the house, appropriated cozy spots for winter naps. He escorted me down the lane and back to the mailbox, got in the way as I struggled to weed an invasion of mugwort from the garden area, lolled on the wooden retaining wall across which I stretched to tend coneflowers and phlox. Sadie, plump and seemingly in health, quietly disappeared one summer afternoon. Her sister, Sally, has grown crochety, guarding the doorstep like a troll, monitoring the entrance and exits of the younger cats. Finally ready to embrace retirement in 2018 we enlisted the help of our son, a skilled carpenter, to build what I optimistically think of as our 'forever' house. Willis paced the gravel lane between his lodging in an old shed and the new house site, supervising construction, serenely adapting to yet another territory. Inevitably a decade has seen the passing of our oldest cats, those who made the journey from Wyoming with us. Of them, my beloved tabby-point Siamese, Teasel, remains, along with dim-witted Chester, the last survivor of a mixed Siamese feline family rescued from the Wind River Indian Reservation and placed for adoption with the Lander, WY Pet Connection. We have the three 'boy cats,' Robert, Nellie, and Edward, dropped off in Gradyville in 2012, dirty, half-starved, but engagingly people oriented. Clancy, a shy and slender black kitten came home with us from the court house parking lot in the fall of 2019. The latest arrival is Shelby, a naughty little minx who has been with us since November. As we enter our 11th summer in Kentucky, Willis celebrates his 11th birthday. Like his keepers he is a little slower than in former years. Like his keepers he also keeps busy, assisting in the garden or sprawling on a warm bench when I tend seedlings in the little greenhouse. He is uncannily aware whenever we step outside, trailing at our heels when we carry in firewood, escorting me to empty peelings and eggshells in the garbage pit, waiting for me at the bend in the driveway when I walk up the lane to the mailbox. We hope that Willis has years yet of cat life; we doubt we could manage the place without his graciously busybody supervision. This story was posted on 2021-05-12 07:45:08
Printable: this page is now automatically formatted for printing.
Have comments or corrections for this story? Use our contact form and let us know.
More articles from topic Sharon Whitehurst - Whitehurst Diaries:
The Whitehurst Diaries: Whir, Whiz, Zoom! Sharon Whitehurst: A Morning Without Rain Letter: expanding cyber acquaintance with Blue the Cat Blue will likely adjust more quickly than we humans will The Whitehurst Diaries: A Cellar Hole in Progress The Whitehurst Diaries: Gardening with Willis Grampa Mac said cats of this soft grey coloration were Maltese The Whitehurst Diaries: Our Doughboy, Uncle Lawrence The Whitehurst Diaries: January Thaw The Whitehurst Diaries: A Sighting At Dusk View even more articles in topic Sharon Whitehurst - Whitehurst Diaries |
 
115 Jamestown St. Columbia, KY. 270-384-2496 
  
   
 Provided by the Adair Co Fiscal Court and the Adair Co. Emergency Mgt. Agency 
|
||||||||
|
| ||||||||||
|
Quick Links to Popular Features
Looking for a story or picture? Try our Photo Archive or our Stories Archive for all the information that's appeared on ColumbiaMagazine.com. | ||||||||||
|
Contact us: Columbia Magazine and columbiamagazine.com are published by Linda Waggener and Pen Waggener, PO Box 906, Columbia, KY 42728. Please use our contact page, or send questions about technical issues with this site to webmaster@columbiamagazine.com. All logos and trademarks used on this site are property of their respective owners. All comments remain the property and responsibility of their posters, all articles and photos remain the property of their creators, and all the rest is copyright 1995-Present by Columbia Magazine. Privacy policy: use of this site requires no sharing of information. Voluntarily shared information may be published and made available to the public on this site and/or stored electronically. Anonymous submissions will be subject to additional verification. Cookies are not required to use our site. However, if you have cookies enabled in your web browser, some of our advertisers may use cookies for interest-based advertising across multiple domains. For more information about third-party advertising, visit the NAI web privacy site.
| ||||||||||
