Gizmo's tail begins on the warm Sunday afternoon of 09 April 2000. A perfectly beautiful early Spring day, where being outdoors is just about the only place to be...

I have been taking the purrbies out for about an hour or so on the really nice days so they could graze, chase blowing leaves and roll in the dirt. I was staying with them (just 'cause they're purrbies, after all!) and they were on the porch with just the four foot fence and the three foot gate surrounding them.

Top to bottom:

Gizmo, Corky, Misty, Amber

Well, naturally, Gizmo decides that seeing the other side of the fence is just not good enough. So she jumps up on the gate. I'm reaching for her telling her "Not a good idea, sweetie" when she jumps down.

Unfortunately, she jumps down on the wrong side of the fence, and there lay Buffy and Billie, just calmly watching the whole scene.

Everything would have been just fine if only Gizmo hadn't freaked out and ran! Then it hit the fan! I went over the gate and screaming for the dogs to quit; Gizmo is practically flying across the yard. They round the corner and head into the woods. Oh, just great! :o\

The lay of the land slopes down hill all the way to the creek. The Giz takes a fantastic leap and launches herself about four feet up a tree with the fur kids frantically circling the trunk. I am sooo angry at the fur kids I can't even think! In spite of them being canines, I keep hoping for human social graces :::Sigh::: Touching them is out of the question, so I bring my voice down to a moderate growl "In the house! RIGHT NOW!"

I turn to reach for Giz, figuring she's dropped to the ground by now - she has no front claws after all. Hmmm... not so grasshopper! Gizmo is still going up the tree, and up the tree, and UP the tree! I never would have believed she could have gotten up a tree! This is the first time in her precious life she's ever been this close to a tree, let up going up one! It was amazing to watch her hugging the tree with her front paws and using her rear claws to get traction, the releasing her front paws and grasping a bit higher up. You know she was terrified or she'd never have been able to continue. Finally she settles herself comfortably in the first fork of the tree she comes to - about 30' off the ground!

That tiny black spot is The Giz, waaaay up >>>

in the tree!

Okay, nothing I can do with her right now, so I turn on the fur kids who are hunkered so close to the ground you couldn't slip a finger beneath them! In the house, I said! And both girls bolt for the front door. At the door Buffy tries to balk at going inside but soon realizes mom's in no mood. She lowers her head, ears, and tail, and with her body slinking as close to the floor as she can get, she creeps into the house. Billie, on the other hand, was so freaked by my stern growl, she jumped over Buffy and ran into the front bedroom, jumping up on the bed and laying low! Smart girl! :D

Gizmo is almost dead center in this picture

When the adventure began, the other purrbies panicked and bolted for the door that I had held open with a lawn chair. They managed to bang into the lawn chair on their way inside and moved it enough for the door to slam behind them! Way cool! And then they vanished! A check of the hidey holes turned up three seriously fluffed tails and six huge eyes!

Okay - back outside... gotta get Giz out of the tree. Hmmm... way easier said than done. She's about 30' up in a fork of the tree, just crying her heart out! Climbing the tree is a no-go. It's about 8" in diameter and there's not one branch between the ground and the one Giz is perched on. Oh, and... did I mention the tree is dead?

Hmmm... back in the house, open a can of people tuna (her absolute favorite food), then back to the tree. Hmmm... There is just no way this little girl is going to get out of this tree on her own! "Just turn around sweetie, and come down the way you went up" only brings more cries that sound suspiciously like "You're outta your mind!". She sees the tuna fish, but she is soooo high up and the tree is almost straight up! No way she can just "walk down" this tree!

Oh Nutz! Now what?! Neighbors are gone for the weekend... Well, now what, indeed! Call the police. aarrgghh... not too thrilled about that. They practically laughed out loud at me when I called them because Buffy had a bone (didn't know it at the time I called!) stuck in her mouth and I was freaking out. But, I had no choice, Gizmo needed to get out of that tree! The police connected me with the Volunteer Fire Department and an hour later -check it out!-

Volunteer Fire Department coming to the rescue!

a big red fire truck pulls up in front of my house! ROFL

Well, the guys can't get up the tree either, so the plan is to get a huge queen size sheet and the theory is that we're gonna "shake the tree and catch Gizmo in the sheet". Hmm.. Okay.

What happens if she doesn't jump where the sheet is -and you gotta know she won't!? Hmm... what we gonna do then!?

The lead man calls his boss and in a few minutes we have reinforcements - sort of... (g)

Boss man says, "Let's get the hose out, spray her out of the tree, and catch her in the sheet". WHAT?! Whaddya say we think this one through - she's 30' in the air, she's eight pounds and you're gonna blast her with a FIRE HOSE and expect to catch her in a sheet?!

Next plan... have one of the guys climb up the huge pine tree that's about ten feet away, toss a rope around the kitty's tree and pull the kitty tree to the pine tree and just "scoop up the kitty". Well, says I, not a bad idea, but... just where do you get the notion that Gizmo is gonna just sit there and wait for you to "scoop her up" while you're bending the DEAD tree?

Next plan -- tie a rope to the tree, cut into the trunk enough to "nudge" (there's that word again!) the tree over while the guys holding the rope let the tree gently (HA!) drop to the ground. Oh dear... Gizmo is 30' up in this tree - the tree goes up another 10' beyond her with a bunch of branches at the top (did I mention we're in the woods?). I've got some serious concerns about this plan, but, we're running out of ideas. They tie off the tree about 15' from ground with two of the larger fellas holding the end of the rope.

Well, now there's the problem of the little saw thingy they have -- it's designed for cutting into a house roof to vent the fire in a house, not for trees. But they are an intrepid lot and don't let the little stuff slow them down! They begin with this tiny chain saw gadget... Gizmo nearly has a heart attack! She can feel the vibrations of the saw in the tree and her bladder lets go!! The guys wearing hard hats were okay, but the four guys who were bareheaded... well, I was laughing so hard I nearly fell to the ground! Wish I'd gotten a picture of THAT! LOL

George, a neighbor, comes home so I go over to ask if he's got a chain saw (the right tool for the job sorta thing). So George is working with getting his chain saw fired up and the firemen are determined to do it "their way".

George finally gets his chain saw fired up and comes to the scene just as the boss man is making his final cut and five guys are pushing on the tree. Yikes!

The tree starts to go, Gizmo is getting "frantic-er", the tree leans a bit more, the top branches of the tree make contact with the huge pine and the whole top of the tree starts to twist - Gizmo totally freaks and leaps from the falling tree!

I'm watching my precious purrbie fly through the air - legs spread like a flying squirrel, toes spread so I can see each toe and letting out the most terrified scream I've ever heard from her! My heart surely stopped - my whole body went numb! She bounced from branch to branch of surrounding trees and WHUMP! landed on all fours!

I'd totally forgotten all about the falling tree and dove into the thick of it... Gizmo just froze for a second - probably not sure she was actually back on the ground again - then tried to bolt. Bolting was not gonna work for her - there were eight people surrounding the area where she landed, so getting her scooped up in my arms was really easy.

Her little heart was jackhammering, her eyes were really huge! But nothing was broken! Yay! She did have a nasty gash on her right cheek (which didn't bleed at all). The fire crew thinks it was from one of the dogs - which would really explain why this docile, claw-less little purrbie managed to scale a tree to a height of 30'. But I don't know... I believe she got the gash while she was falling through the forest canopy or when she landed. I'm thinking the wound could not have been inflicted by one of the dogs because there is no sign of an opposing wound and the cheek wound is too deep to not have an opposing wound. (Did I say that right?)

The whole adventure only lasted two and a half hours but it sure went a long way to messing up my plans for "an easy weekend"! Gizmo is doing fine, but she hasn't learned a thing from this adventure, every time I go near the door, she's ready to head on out again! Hate it for her! The next time she's out, it will be in a totally enclosed playpen that she cannot get out of! We're NOT doing the tree thing again! LOL

Since then, the wound has healed beautifully, you'd never even know she had been injured! Chad came by to see the tree that Giz was trapped in. I asked him if he'd cut out the fork in the tree so I could bring it in the house for Giz and the other girls to play on. Bless his heart, he came by one afternoon with chain saw in hand and we went to the tree. As it turned out, it was a really warm day and even warmer in the woods! He got the fork cut out and we lugged it to the front porch (he cut it way larger than I wanted it and it was just too big for in the house).

Well, after all that you gotta know that the purrbies wanted absolutely nothing to do with that tree! I'm firmly convinced that while Giz was in the tree and the other girls were in the bay window meowing at each other, Giz was telling them that the tree just reached out and grabbed her! They all give the tree a wide berth! LOL

Giz recovered beautifully from her adventure. The wound was right across the white blaze on her right cheek - had the fur changed colors at the wound, it would have made a neat X right under her eye. In spite of being back inside and safe, she carried that spooked look for a few days!