Lots of people think they know how Minnie’s new life will turn out, but I don’t think Minnie does, and I sure don’t. We let Minnie out every morning now when we get  up, she has her breakfast alongside Flo, the two are getting re-acquainted with one another. Sometime after lunch, we went out to the barn to check on Minnie, but there was no trace of her.

Eventually, Maria climbed up on the hay bales and found that Minnie had built a hay igloo for herself, a warm and very private and safe hiding place. She had climbed up for stacks of hay bales, burrowed a good sized  hole for herself and gone inside to get warm and get some rest. She eliminates outside again, and also crawls out of the barn through a hole and checks for mice in the stone wall. We came to get her in the late afternoon and she had no desire to come inside, we had to pick her up and carry her.

She is beginning to lose a bit of weight, which is good and seems much more confident navigating the outside world. She stays out of sight, finds safe and quiet places to be.

Once inside, she seems quite happy to snuggle with Maria on the sofa or take over Frieda’s dog bed and nap. But she is re-establishing her life outside, finding safe and warm places before winter,  we will continue this pattern for awhile. I do not believe animals get to make life-altering decisions on their own, I think that is the human’s job, so we will keep going with the outdoor/inside pattern for awhile. Minnie still healing, she is still vulnerable. At first, I was sure she would return to her full life as a barn cat, then I thought she might not, now I just don’t know. As much as we like to think we know what is going on inside of their heads, I think we do not, I surely do not.