Mark's "Zoo": Sparky

Sparky had used up several of his nine lives by the time he arrived
chez Lindsay in the winter of 1995...

Winter comes too early to the Bitterroot Mountains in Idaho, and it stays long after Spring has arrived in the more temperate flatlands. In January, when the snow is piled deep along the South Fork of the Clearwater, it sometimes spills over and fans out onto the icy surface of the river. On cold clear mornings, when your breath billows out in steamy white clouds, you can see the occasional tracks of whitetail or mule deer that have drifted down from the higher ridges to paw through the snow along the bank in search of a few blades of frozen grass or a lick of water. Sometimes the wind blows, not singing through the trees as it does in summer, but softly, like a muted instrument. The tamarack and pine boughs are now heavy with snow, caked like white icing, and the usually supple limbs are too stiff to dance with the frigid breezes.

It was the coldest night of the year -- 28 degrees below zero. Down in the basement, I had stuffed "Woody", our wood-burning furnace, with more-or-less 18 inch long pieces of white pine and red fir that I had bucked up with the chain saw and split and stacked last summer. Standing beside "Woody" was the new gas furnace that would kick in about 2 or 3 AM when the temperature inside our log home dropped to 55 degrees. Deb and I would pull the down comforter up to our chins and stay snug and warm 'til morning.

I was far into the delta zone, that deepest valley of dreamless sleep, when Deb shook me awake. "Listen!" she whispered. "It's a cat!" I listened and heard the loud yowl of a feline voice going up and down the scale.

"There's a kitty outside!" she insisted.

The yowls continued. "Deb, that's got to be a bobcat or maybe a mountain lion" -- the yowls were VERY loud.

"No, it's probably a lost house cat..."

"Deb, think! No domestic cat would be outside in this weather. Besides, where would it have come from? We only have a couple of neighbors within miles, and they don't have cats!"

By now Deb had opened the window and was leaning outside, drastically dropping the temperature of the bedroom. "Look! I think I see it! It is a cat! I'm going out to get him!"

"Are you nuts?! It's got to be a wild cat!" But Deb was already down the stairs and out the door, her terry bathrobe dragging in the snow. (At least she had stopped to pull on some boots.)

She came back in a couple of minutes, cold and disappointed. "I caught a glimpse of him, but he ran away." "It's a good thing he did, Deb -- you don't mess with bobcats." We went back to bed and eventually slept.

The next morning at first light, Deb pointed out the window. "Look! There's the tracks, sure enough!" A trail of what looked like cat prints (hard to tell the size in six inches of fresh snow) led from behind the shed to below our bedroom window and off toward the front of the house.

I bundled up for my morning run (today it would be a walk; when it's below zero you can freeze your lungs) and trudged off down the road, heavy boots kicking aside the fresh snow. After a short half-hour walk, I was ready for hearth and home. But before I went in, I gave our outdoor generator a quick inspection. When the power goes of, as it often does up here, the 12 kilowatt generator kicks in and keeps us in business. I walked around the beast, making sure that the block heater was plugged in and the battery was charged. When I got around to the radiator housing, I spotted something -- a long grey furry thing was visible just inside the grill. A squirrel! No, they were all hibernating. An ermine, then! Nope, wrong color -- ermine were snow white this time of year. I looked closer. It was a tail. Following the tail to whatever it was connected to, I came to the rear end of a cat -- a common house cat! The poor thing was perched on top of the radiator cap, shivering, trying to keep warm.

I ran in the house to get Deb. "Quick! Help me catch him if he tries to run away!"

"Catch what?" She had already written off her midnight escapade as a wild goose (or bobcat) chase.

"The cat! I found the cat!"

Back outside, Deb stood by wearing gloves as I carefully pried off the small round access cover and peered inside. The first thing I saw were two baby blue eyes, staring up at me from a white and grey patchwork fuzzy cat face. No, make that a kitten face. It was just a half-grown, half-frozen kitten. The little critter was shivering and scared, but when I reached in, he didn't hiss or try to jump away -- preferring rescue by strangers to staying outside in still sub-zero weather.

We took him inside, and while I held him against me with both hands to warm him up, Deb got a small cardboard box and filled it with a pillow and some towels. I put him inside, but he immediately jumped out and began meowing, wanting to be held again.

Deb (who at one time had thought about being a vet) examined the new arrival. She pronounced it a girl.

"You know we can't keep her," I said, "but until we find the owners, let's give her a name."

"How about Jennifer?" Deb suggested. "After all, we did find her in the generator."

I headed to town to get cat food, litter, and put up "FOUND - KITTEN" signs, while Deb babysat. Little Jenny was pretty hungry, and after gobbling her food, she followed me around like a little pup. She kept wanting to be held, and would purr much louder than her size would suggest. Toward evening, she began to sneeze, and her nose turned bright red. It became obvious that she was getting sick, and probably had frostbite.

In the morning, Deb bundled up Jenny in her little box, put a lid on it, and headed to Grangeville for a 100-mile trip to see the vet. They returned four long hours later. The vet had given his new patient a shot of antibiotics, and confirmed that the nose, paws, and tail had been frostbitten. Then he had asked, "What are you going to call the little guy?" She was a he. Hmmm. Jenny wouldn't work, unless we wanted to give him a real complex. I got a bright idea -- how about 'Sparky'? "After all, we did find him in the generator."

Well, two weeks later, as I was taking down our signs from the Post Office and the General Store, I was glad no one had claimed him. In fact, the little guy had managed to purr his way into my heart. (Deb had always been sold.) I couldn't imagine giving him up.

Flash-foward six months. Little Sparky is now big Sparky. He is an excellent fly catcher, and alternates between being loving and mellow to racing around the house at hyperspeed, or zip drive as we call it. His tail is two inches shorter, the only lasting effects of the frostbite, but other than that he seems none the worse for wear. He is now the official mascot, er- mascat of NorthRiver Entertainment.

If you ever see any typos or odd additions to the newsletter, it is
probably because Sparky is:

1. Walking across the computer keyboard
2. Fighting with my pen
3. Playing with Deb's toes
4. Zipping around the office at warp speed (he can see chipmunks from several windows)
5. All of the above (I forgot to mention the time he dove headfirst into Deb's teacup, but that's another story...)

THE CAT WHO (Part 2)
By: Deb

The first night clinched it. I looked over in the middle of the night, and Mark was deep in sleep on his side, with Sparky curled up under his chin, head on the pillow too, all covered up under the comforter. I looked over later, and Sparky had moved to the back of Mark's neck, grooming his hair and ears (Mark's, that is) -- with Mark murmurring a sleepy "No, that tickles!" protestation. I awoke later to hearing Mark talking to someone out in the living room, and I walked in to find him reading an article to Sparky, who was curled up on his lap and gratefully enjoying every unintelligible moment of it.

Then there were the toys. After a shopping excursion, Mark returned with a velvet mouse, a fuzzy ball, and other cat delights. Sparky appreciated them all, but also personally selected a small round hedgehog as well as a bear dressed in reindeer gear from our small stuffed wild-animal collection.

We drove to Portland recently to see Roger Hart and to have Gino Rossi take some new pictures of Mark. At Mark's suggestion (to my surprise), we took Sparky along, laden down with necessary cat accoutrements, and of course, Sparky's "binkies". We stopped and looked at ourselves and thought, "We look just like those parents we see in airports every week, dragging their kids' car seats and diaper bags..!"

And the Great Teacup Incident? Mark was down in LA, and Sparky was zipping up and down the log stairs. I had made a thankfully-not-too-hot large mug of tea, gathered up the TV remote, a book, and Sparky's bear-binky. As I passed under the stairs on my way to the bedroom, Sparky launched himself off the step and dove straight down into my mug of tea, headfirst. All I could think of was the horse that used to dive off the Steel Pier in Atlantic City! After I found Sparky and dried off his completely-saturated head, his embarrassment slowly faded. He's only slightly more careful now...

Gotta go -- gotta furry tummy to rub!

These articles were taken from the July 1996 issue of Steppin' Out!

THE UPDATE... JANUARY 2001
by Diana

Sparky moved to Oregon in November '97 just prior to his parents' move to Hawaii. The original idea was for him to spend his first 60 days of quarantine in comfort and then move on to Hawaii for the final 30 days. Sparky and my youngest feline, Clarice, had become good online e-mail buddies and quickly bonded when they finally met nose to nose. It took him a bit longer to adjust to the other students of "Feline Finishing School" (aka: The Acatemy), but he soon was a much loved member of the house. The decision was made that Sparky should stay at the Acatemy with regular parental visits. After all, what would a Snowshoe do in Hawaii? Yes, we have come to the conclusion that Sparky could very well be a purebred Snowshoe.

Sparky has never divulged his secret of how he arrived in Elk City, Idaho and how he managed to survive such frigid temperatures and unfriendly predators before he managed to find a safe haven. I can tell you he never shows the slightest interest in going outside in any weather, he appears to be quite content to observe the great outdoors from his window perch. He still enjoys a good tummy rub!              

~

The universe continues to revolve around Sparky even in his retirement from active duty.
He was a gracious host to all the feline Zoo members (Kazuma, KeaLani, Monet, and Matthew) when they were evacuated to The Acatemy during the 2006 floods -- that is, if you don't count his reaction when Kazuma made eyes at Miss Clarice.....

Sparky keeping an eye on things

Sparky's best Kitty Idol pose