A CHILDHOOD MEMORY - A KITTEN & BABY SQUIRREL

Yesterday I mowed the yard.  As I came to the barn door to put up the tractor a mama cat ran around the outside.  A kitten ran through the crack between the door and doorway frame under the bottom of the door into the concrete notch guide for the door. (It’s a big door 10 x 16 ft.)  I opened it okay, but when I started to close it I heard two shrieks.  I knew it was the kitten.  Sure enough, it was squeezed between the bottom of the door frame and the concert floor with the notch.  It was dead. I could not close the door all the way because the body of the kitten was wedged in the narrow space (about 1/4 inch) between the bottom of the door and the concrete floor.  It was enough I could not slide the door all the way to close it.  Took me  about 15 minutes to get it worked free from under the door so it would slide closed.  Poor kitten.  I had no way to know it was hiding in the space between the frame of the barn and frame of the door.

Not my cats.  They belong to a neighbor across the road and down about 200 yards.  They have at least a dozen or more.  But the cats are over here much of the time. I don’t have a dog.  They come here to use the barn to have their kittens.  I don’t much mind because they keep rodents, snakes, etc. away from the barn. 

Kind of reminds me of when I was a kid 4 or 5 years old.  My grandpa came to visit.  He brought a baby squirrel as a gift for me.  I fed it raisins.  I ran between the kitchen and the front room to fetch raisins for it.  About the third or fourth trip I ran into the kitchen the squirrel followed me.  We had a swinging door into the kitchen.  As I ran through the door into the kitchen he followed me.  The door swung back catching him between the floor and bottom of the door squeezing the life out of him.  I was distraught.  I cried and cried.  The next day mother helped me bury him in a match box in the backyard.