Mural #45
Ray Elementary School
Hutto, TX
Flowers #1,360 - #1,519 of 10,000
Completed October 2021
Chapter 6…Bailey the bus cat.
Three weeks earlier…
At the same time the Hutto fence mural was being prepped and worked on, I was also busy with the 2nd mural in Hutto. Ray Elementary School.
This was one of the craziest few weeks of the entire flower project. After working with the students and teachers all week it was time to start cleaning up the design. As we were doing that, I found a cat. Ok, that’s manageable. Spend the whole day walking door to door asking if anyone lost a cat, no luck. Put up a post on the local Facebook community site, still nothing. Took her to the vet to see if she’s chipped, no dice. “ok” I thought. “you’re going to be here for another few weeks, hang onto her until then and see if anyone comes forward to claim her.” As we were driving back from the store, Petunia the bus started letting out a grizzly scraping sound whenever I taped the brakes. I figured this day was coming. Driving across the country, over the Rocky Mountains and down California's hilly coastline took a toll on my bus and it was time for a check-up.
I brought her to an auto garage in town where they informed me that three of the four disk brakes where completely worn away. It turns out the underside of the bus was pretty rusted out. To replace the disk brakes meant Petunia was “undriveable” and would need to be in the shop for about a week. The problem is Petunia is not only my only means of transport, she’s also my home and currently a stray cat sanctuary. Luckily for me the people of Hutto are awesome and they hit me with so much southern hospitality.
The music teacher at Ray, Miss B, was kind enough to let me borrow her families spare car for a few days. The art teacher, Mrs. Ramirez and her family drove me to and from school, with a cat carrier! I don’t know what I would have had I not had so many amazing, hospitable people around me. On top of that, the guys at the garage said they would roll Petunia back into the parking lot each night so I could still sleep there.
Eventually Petunia was back in business and we were ready to hit the road.
After not hearing from anyone and being told that taking her to a shelter would probably not end well for her, “Bailey” found herself a new mobile home! It wasn’t too hard of a choice, I quickly fell in love with this little tabby cat and she’s become an essential member of the flower crew!
