Just One of Those Nine Lives Things

Another day in paradise.

Plan A, bird netting, didn't keep the mother cat and her two kittens from getting onto the roof and running all around and on the solar panels this morning. So I executed plan B. The hose. That worked. They jumped off the roof.

But not all of them jumped off. The daughter, always has to do differently from her mother and brother, must have jumped down the chimney opening. Her brother came to the door meowing like I'd never heard before. Then I heard the meowing inside the chimney.

Chimneys are usually animal proof, with screening up top. There is screening up top but it looks like they put it inside up top. The weight of the kitten jumping in there must have made a section in the screening give way and she dropped to the bottom, which is just above the damper at room level.

I was hoping I could drop a life-line, like when they escape a fire or a prison by tying sheets together, putting a stone as a weight on the end and dropping it down into the chimney. She could then climb out.

But evidently the screen gave way just enough for her drop through but not enough to actually loosen the screen to make an opening and try as I might I could not get the weighted sheets to fall through.
I'll call animal rescue.

Animal rescue said they cannot send anyone. I should call a pest control company since they take animals out of chimneys all the time. ($$$ that I don't have) She also suggested opening the damper and it may be large enough for the kitten to climb out.

Ok. But the fireplace has been all boarded up for 25 years. Looks like I have something to do this morning. Once I got the boarding off, I found a really nice set of fireplace tools and screening. Maybe I should hold onto that. The way things are going I might need it.

I also found a dead frog (mummified).

And lots of soot. (No gold coins.)

There was no damper. It had been removed. There was no kitten. What I think happened was she managed to squiggle out the clean out. There had been some screening loosely placed over the opening.

So it looks like one of those "Nine lives things." Eight more to go.
This is a great time for them to move on to the next lucky homeowner. I won't be heart-broken...