It is.
The pond is frozen over, the koi are down where it’s warmer, next to their heater—and it is clear and cold today.
We discovered a really strange thing about Shu when we went south—he doesn’t deal with cold. He kept going under the seats, really stubborn about it, and when I picked him up, a little worried about this, he just kept shivering until he warmed up. We provide a fuzzy to sleep on, and he slept and slept and slept, warm and just fine. His ancestry is Bengal: his weight is double that of a domestic cat his size; his metabolism is ‘hot’, and he eats like a horse; his jumping ability is so extreme he threatens his own bones, and he has hair like a dog, doesn’t feel like a cat. He’s just—different. And apparently cold isn’t his thing. Heat isn’t ours: we always have the house between 65-67 in the winter, and love it. But we also can’t have Shu being cold. So I ordered a cat-mat from Amazon…I worry about heating pads: I don’t trust them, safety-wise, and don’t like to leave them connected; but there’s that NASA-type silver stuff, that thermal insulation, and an enterprising (forgive pun) company has made that stuff the interior of a padded pet mat, so it just reflects the critter’s own body heat. I figure while Seishi is Shu’s personal blanket (Seishi’s ancestry is Scottish, where cold is not an anomaly, and he’s fine with the chill) Shu can’t always get Seishi to snuggle down with him—I think Sei gets too hot. So I’m going to plunk this nice pad down in a place where Shu rests and see how it does. It’s not very pricey. Cats or small dogs; there’s a bigger doggie version; and I suppose if anybody has chronic cold at night, it could help people, too.
I’ve been not only writing on the current book, I’m spending my evenings reviewing the very first e-books, The Writing Life, and those will go up with improved text, not enough to warrant another copyright, but enough that certain sentences will now make sense.
The wonder is that we survived all that. The number of times I hit the ice is really quite amazing. Mind, I started skating at 61. And OMG, the computer I was working on, that crashed every hour—and Jane’s nursing the thing back to life…
Easy-to-make warm sleeping place for cats: a double-layered sleeping bag, about the size of a plastic bag. Now Jane is sewing things for Wiishu, she could probably make one on het sewing machine in a very short time. I had one, because I let my house get cold at night, but my Persians with their long hair and thick undercoats found it to be too warm for them; happily the neighbor’s cat likes it.
It was made with 2 layers of a hairy synthetic fake-fur kind of fabric (shorter plushy stuff inside, but you could probably use fleece as well, as long as Eushu doesn’t get his claws caught in that). It was a bit narrower toward the bottom, which was sewn closed. In between the two layers at the top it was reinforced with one long strip of foam, so the opening would stay slightly open and the cat wouldn’t feel trapped inside. It was the sort of foam used for cushions, or for the straps used as a sling to carry your wrist when there’s something wrong with your elbow (1,5 or 2 cm thick, 5 cm wide, twice the breadth of the bag-opening).
Looking for a picture, I see they also sometimes make one side a bit longer, like a pillow stretching out on front of the bag; and that prices range from 6 to 42 dollars! This one’s cheap: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Red-plaid-Fleece-61-40-15CM-cat-pet-bed-cat-sleeping-bag/336495289.html
And this one has the added ‘headrest’ in case he gets too hot when he gets inside all the way: http://www.crazysales.co.nz/i/cat_puppy_sleeping_bag.html
We also have kitties that don’t enjoy the cold, and one of our solutions is multiple SnuggleSafe warmers (http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=snugglesafe&tag=googhydr-20&index=aps&hvadid=3841218561&hvpos=1t2&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=8425686241181313077&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&ref=pd_sl_695sywcb9w_b). They’re available on multiple other pet supplies websites, too.
We heat each one in the microwave, and then place it under the top cover of a kitty bed. If the insulation is good, the SnuggleSafe will stay warm overnight. You can purchase microfleece covers for Snuggle Safes, but we prefer to wrap them loosely in a towel or fleece blanket scrap.
The most favored kitty bed is a loveseat that has a nice sheepskin on it. We put two Snuggle Safes under the skeepskin, and end up with two very sleep-happy kitties!