Cat on a (Hot Tin) Roof

Yes, that is a cat on my roof. That’s Pumpkin actually. I apologize for the darkness of the photos as it was dusk and the night camera thing wasn’t working well yet. But Pumpkin climbed onto the roof Saturday night while we were outside grilling some ribs. I think she got confidence from the fact that we were both outside with the girls, especially as they were both pretty bold that night.
The girls had been running around the yard and enjoying themselves, as they love to do at night. Gabby had wandered through a hole in the chain-link fence and into our neighbors yard, the forbidden territory as they have 2 dogs. She couldn’t remember where the hole was though and nearly got stuck coming back over. Hopefully this won’t happen when the dogs are out in the yard but as she loves to antagonize the dogs from the other side of the fence, who knows. She’s trouble, that one.

Pumpkin, on the other hand, decided to climb the fence. There is a tree next to it and she hopped into the tree and the next thing we knew, she was climbing the branches and had stepped onto the roof. She was strutting her stuff along the ridgepole and walked over to the flat part of the roof, where she plopped down and rested for a bit. She was up there for at least 20 minutes. Then she decided to come down, which was a slow process. She almost didn’t want to try it, so we think this was her first time. She tried 3 times before she got the confidence to come down. We were also giving her a bit of encouragement which may have helped. She was extremely cautious and you could hear her claws sticking in the shingles, but she made it down in one piece, and then came running over to us for love and validation. I have a feeling this won’t be the last time that she does this. Gabby was watching closely and worrying (as evidenced by her semi-panicky meows) but wasn’t up to trying it herself.

As for our dinner, well the ribs were FABULOUS. We had a rack of baby back pork ribs and I gave them a dry rub of chili powder, paprika, cayenne, brown sugar, Tony Chacherie’s Cajun seasoning, garlic powder, and fresh ground black pepper. We let that cook for 1.5 hours, occasionally turning and pouring beer over it. We then glazed it with Stubb’s BBQ sauce, which is actually rather good. Not too sweet, with a really nice tartness. That cooked for another 1.5 hours. We served it with corn, ranch style beans, and baked potatoes. There were no complaints.