'SOcks' - The Kitty with the loud Voice

Details

It was Tuesday afternoon, and I was digging digital ditches for the Man in my office, when the Kat Fone yowled. It was Geanie, and her sister Jewel had a kitty stuck in a tree in Jackson MS. CARA (Community Animal Rescue & Adoption) had given her my name, and she wondered if I could help. I looked at the weather, and noted that it would start raining in Jackson the next day around noon, so I told her that I could do it the next morning. Geanie gave me contact info for Jewel, who I called, and arranged to arrive at 7:00 am the next morning.

When I arrived in Jackson, Jewel led me four houses down the street to the backyard that contained the dastardly tree that had Socks ensnared. During the entire walk, we could hear Socks' pitiful cries as he complained loudly about how miserable he was. Socks was sitting in a squirrel nest about 45 feet up. When we reached the base of the tree, Jewel began talking to him and he came down about 10 feet to a solid limb that jutted far from the main trunk. I was able to install a climbing line on the same limb, and before I started up, I told Jewel that this rescue should be easy -- Socks seemed to be a friendly/traveler and I expected that he would practically jump into my Kat bag. When I reached about half way, I looked up, and could not see Socks on the limb -- he had climbed back up to his squirrel nest. An "easy" rescue just became harder as I did not see a good way of getting close enough to the nest for a grab. I reached my tie-in point, then pulled myself up on the limb using a handy vine. After closer inspection, I realized that it was a poison ivy vine (ooops). In fact, poison ivy was everywhere in this tree, so I took a bath in Technu when I got back home!

After standing on the limb, I noticed a limb directly underneath the squirrel nest that I could pass a climbing lanyard over, but I needed to trim a couple of limbs first. Darius, Jewel's son, had joined us, and he helped pass up a hand saw to me (which I promptly dropped, when he then sent back up). After trimming a couple of limbs, I was able to get a throwline around the limb under the squirrel nest, and then pulled up my climbing lanyard. I detached myself from the main climbing rope, and ascended to the limb on the lanyard. As I drew near, I put the Kat bag on my right hand and pulled out some kitty treats. The treats immediately drew Sock's attention, and he came out of the nest onto the limb with my lanyard, and from there, it was an easy nab and stuff into the Kat bag. Socks yowled loudly in the Kat bag, but better yowling in there than still stuck in the tree. A quick descent, and I handed Socks off to Darius and Jewel for food, water, and loving.

Some pictures of Socks post rescue are below. I do not have any video as the poison ivy vines knocked my camera askew in the later stages of the rescue resulting in great sky video, but no kitty video.