Well, spring has officially arrived at my house. I know that officially spring arrived at 7:45am on Thursday morning but in my house it arrives a bit differently.

See I live in a small ‘Ontario cottage’ which is a storey and half home. I’ve been told that in days gone by local taxes were assessed based on how many storeys your home was. By not building a full storey, people saved on their taxes while haivng space enough for their family. The half storey was usually used for sleeping space.

I sleep on the main floor and the half storey is used primarily for storage and extra sleeping space if I happen to have guests over, which is pretty rare.

Several years ago, I had my dad make me up a trap door that closes down over the stairs. It’s insulated on the topside so when I close it in the fall it slows down the ability for cold winter air to travel down the stairs running up my heating bill. I run a heater up there to keep the temp around 13C over the winter.

Now, that doesn’t cut my living space at all but it does reduce the range for my three cats. They end up restricted to the main floor over the winter. Makes for some interesting mornings for me when I awake to find that I have three cats sprawled on the bed around me.

Well, this week I opened the trapdoor. The two youngest cats, Dawn and Fawnya, followed me up the stairs watching closely. As the door opened Dawn immediately scooted up the stairs to stand triumphantly at the top. She had that look which told me should I be not intending to leave the door open, she wasn’t going to be easy to retrieve.

Fawnya was a bit more cautious. He stood on the steps looking at me, like, ‘you sure?’. Once he heard the click of the door on the catch that holds it up all summer he scooted on upstairs and started exploring.

The two of them spent the day upstairs, playing, fighting, sleeping and whatever. They came down to the main floor only for the important stuff in their life, food, litter, food, water, food.. you get the picture.

The 17 year old, Cookie did eventually wander up and do the royal walk about. She didn’t linger though, she rather enjoys her dominion over the arm of my chair and during the day, my bed. She’s never been big on expanding her territory.

So, it is official, the door’s open, the cats have their playground back and spring has sprung. Bet you just couldn’t wait to hear that eh?

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