Two of our cats, Rusty and Dusty, are strictly outdoor cats. They showed up with their mother Chloe not long after we moved in more than eight years ago, but the two of them have probably spent a total of about two minutes in the house since then. They used to stay in the garage, but now when Sylvester and Smokey go out for the night, they chase them out of the garage. When the two kitty terrorists are inside, Rusty and Dusty sometimes come into the garage, especially if we have driven the car somewhere and the engine is still warm. Here’s Rusty soaking up a little warmth Thursday night.

Rusty hangin’ on the hood

The car won’t stay warm long. The big winter storm that’s heading for the East Coast is also going to bring us the coldest weather we’ve had in a long time. It’s supposed to go down to 21 tonight, although Mark says if it’s calm tonight it might not get that cold up here.

Rusty will stay in the cathouse Mark built for them. It’s a pretty nice house. It has two stories with sheltered entrances, and cedar shavings to keep them warm. We have seen both Rusty and Dusty coming out of the house, but we think sometimes Dusty sleeps in a culvert. I hope he doesn’t do that tonight.

UPDATE by Mark — I think Rusty spent the night in the garage in a piece of rolled-up foam rubber. That was probably a good thing, because with the wind, our low was lower than the official for Rome. We saw 13 15 (I rechecked the low) on our outdoor thermometer this morning. It was about 28 in the garage. I’m not sure the thermometer is right. I’m in the process of replacing our old thermometer, and I left the outdoor sensor on the front walk railing, exposed to the night sky. That might have allowed it to cool to a lower temperature than the actual air temperature, although the wind should have ameliorated the radiative cooling effect. I need to put it under the walk where I think it will get a more reliable temperature. On the other hand, even once the sun came up, the temperature seemed to stall at about 17, which is still lower than the official low.

We reached our high for the day at 28.

We missed the normal publication time for Friday Felines, but Mark is scheduling this post for 11:59 pm Friday night so technically we’re still on time.

This is Smokey’s affectionate side.

He hops up on the sofa between us and settles in with his head on one of us, purring away, waiting to get his head scratched. He seems like such a sweet kitty.

And then he goes outside and terrorizes Chloe. He chases her around until she jumps up on one of the deck railings, and then he sits and waits for her to come back down. Sometimes it sounds like he’s killing her. He also chases poor Dusty around. The truth is that the outside cats haven’t had such a good life since Smokey and Sylvester came around.

We are thinking of relocating Sylvester and Smokey to good homes. That seems really backwards, since they are both more like the kinds of cats I’m used to, but since Chloe, Rusty and Dusty were here first, we feel an obligation to them. It would be really hard to find homes for those three, especially the two semi-feral ones. I really hate to do it, since I have a relationship with Sylvester and Smokey (Mark not so much).

Sylvester must have been really tired today.

Sly on his back

He doesn’t usually sleep on his back. In fact, I don’t remember seeing him sleeping on his back ever before this.

You can see a little of his blue collar. He finally let us put it on.

Sylvester was doing his tough kitty act, but the crumbs from the kitty treats on his chin kind of spoiled the effect.

Don’t mess with me. I’m already messy enough.

Chloe didn’t want her picture taken. We tried to get one when she was sitting behind the couch, but she ran away and hid under the entertainment center. She figured she couldn’t be seen under there, what with that big, old cat figurine in the way.

Pay no attention to the cat behind the cat