Blizzard Cats

By the sort of coincidence that delights your Saturday blogger, it so happens that I'm currently reading 'The Blizzard ' by contemporary Russian novelist Vladimir Sorokin. It 's a suitably bleak look at a post-apocalyptic Russia. However, I only mention it in passing, for the real focus of my Blizzard piece is Mount Washington Observatory in the USA. And its cats.

Mount Washington in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, with its bitter cold, freezing fog, heavy snow and the fastest wind ever observed by man, is the home of the "world's worst weather". It also has its share of fine days from April to October. Since its foundation in 1932, the intrepid staff of the Mount Washington Observatory have been there in the thick of it, living and working in one of the planet's most extreme places The mission of the non-profit Mount Washington Observatory is to advance knowledge and understanding of the natural systems that create earth's weather and climate. This is achieved by operating its unique mountaintop weather station, collecting and analysing meteorological data, performing scientific research, delivering educational programmes, and interpreting the heritage of the Mount Washington region. Did I mention it also has cats?

blizzard season at the observatory

In summer, mean daily temperatures are pleasant enough, though not much higher than they are in the UK this December week-end, at 12C to 15C. The highest temperature ever recorded there is only 22C (or 72F if you prefer). It snows for a third of the year, with mean daily temperatures below freezing for the six months from November to April. In the bleakest winters, blizzards are frequent (see above) and temperatures can drop as low as -44C. I've experienced temperatures of -32C in Moscow so I can only shiver at the thought of what -44C must feel like. It's comparable to Antarctica. Needless to say, the area is completely out of bounds to hikers and the Observatory is closed to visitors for those spectacularly cold six months of the year. 

But the cats, you ask. I first became aware of the Mount Washington Observatory Cats when I was working in New York in the 1990s. A colleague had a poster of Inga the cat with icy fur (see below) on her office wall and I enquired where I could get a copy. She told me all about Mount Washington, its weather station and its history of cats, and I subsequently ordered two copies of the lovely Inga poster from the Observatory website, one for my cat-loving elder daughter and one which I still have framed in my house in Blackpool. 

lovely Inga

Inga was perhaps the first Mount Washington cat to gain nationwide fame thanks to the posters, postcards, T-shirts and other promotional items bearing her image, but cats had been a regular part of Observatory life since the institution was established back in the 1930s. They were initially brought to the weather station to keep the local rodent population in check, but soon became indispensable as company and entertainment for the isolated staff of the Observatory.

Tikky was the first resident feline, a tailless cat. Apparently dogs were tried out but were just too much trouble, and within a few years cats reigned supreme, the archives recording a roster of kitties including Elmer, Manx, Blackie and the fancifully-named Ammonuisance (that's scientists for you). 

Occasionally the cats might decide to leave the Observatory in search of a more comfortable existence down in the foothills, but they were usually spotted en route by hikers who would return them protesting to the summit.

Quite often there was more than one cat in residence and pregnancies were not unknown. Crazy Cat, a scamp of a rescue animal, was the Observatory's feline talisman for much of the 1960s. She gave birth to a litter of three kittens (father unknown) and when she finally disappeared one foggy night never to be seen again, one of her offspring, Pushka, took on the role of top feline resident. The other kittens were found good homes down in the valley. Pushka roamed and ruled his summit world for fifteen years and made sure that he sired a successor through Blackberry (whose five kittens were named Strawberry, Blueberry, Raspberry, Boysenberry and Beriberi -scientists again)!

Strawberry it was who became the Observatory's next chief mouser. A huge fluffy beast with a magnificent fox-like tail, she would roam the buildings and neighbourhood to the delight of all who visited the summit.

And then there was Inga, a calico cat of great beauty and intelligence. Of course the Observatory cats were free to wander outside during the balmier months but were kept shut in, often against their better natures, during the freezing periods of snowstorms and blizzards. Inga, however, of all the cats, was the one clever enough to figure how to trip the door-latch and she would often nip out on winter days to take the frosty air, which used to annoy her human colleagues because she never shut the door after her, but which led to the magnificent photograph of her icy fur and whiskers.     

Inga sadly didn't live to celebrate the millennium and her passing was mourned by many who had come to know and love her. The post of resident mouser was taken up by Nin (named after the writer Anais Nin), a stray who had turned up at the house of one of the weather station scientists. He used to run with the ravens, outstare foxes and hike happily around his elevated environs for a decade or so until retiring in 2007.

When Nin stepped down from mountain duties, an election was held to appoint his replacement. A local animal rescue centre nominated three of the cats in its care and Marty won the contest, polling more than half of the 8.000 votes cast. A fluffy black creature with emerald eyes, Marty (see below) quickly became a valued member of the summit community. The story of his tenure, including a short video, is told in this link: Marty  He kept the residents of the Observatory entertained and mouse-free for a decade until he died of a sudden illness during the Covid pandemic.

Marty on a fine day

His successor is a grey named Nimbus. May he live a long and happy life on the mountain. I thought the story of  the observatory cats was worthy of  a poem, and given that Inga was a Calico cat, I've woven in allusions to W.B. Yeats' 'He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven '. I hope you like it.

Mount Washington Observatory Cats

Inga the current observatory cat

cloaked in calico stirs in her sleep

by the stove, twitches to the hiss

and spit of seasoned pine logs,

dreams of Tikky and Pushka,

Blackberry, Strawberry, Beriberi

as the bubbling of the blonde one

interrupts the reading of the saturnine

keeper of all records and locks.

Many evenings go like this.

Mount Washington, what a roost

to rule, mice and thyme in profusion,

no confusion of dogs, just the odd fox.

And Inga, ninth of this nine-lives line,

the only one in sixty years to master 

the trick of the latch can come and go

as she pleases, so rises and stretches

with the blue and the dim of dusk

and lets herself out slinking crepuscular

to roam the night about.

Tread carefully Inga, for you thread

through the snowy pathways 

of the ghost patrol, Blackie, CC, 

Ammonuisance, Elmer and Manx,

and their pale eyes gaze wide 

in frosted witness as by the light 

of the thirteenth moon you ascend

the observatory crest in your sparkling

calico coat to paw at those myriad stars

in the cloth spread on heaven's loom.

As a Christmas bonus, here's a second poem, a whimsical piece prompted by the winds that have been battering the jewel of the north recently. Because of its delta shape and content, I thoughg the title suited.

D-sonic

It started 

before first light broke

when we were mostly snug in sleep,

a distant rumble, thunderous perhaps

which by breakfast time swelled itself

to a constant roar, rattling us as it rolled

through morning streets sounding ominous 

like heavy tanks (and who could forget once felt

and heard that terror) advancing like unrelenting heavy tanks

in invasion formation out on the crush and yet there was nothing to see

when we peered through the windows. That was until bicycles

and bins, mailboxes, fence-posts, broken bushes

began hurtling along, then tv aerials, roof tiles,

dogs, cats, cars, whole trees came bowling

through the air. In a crescendo of  noise

houses, streets and parks all peeled up.

We were being blown away towards

goodness knows where,

Oz perhaps.

Thanks for reading, have a merry old time. 🎄 S ;-)