Jake and Jimbo Get Home. I Give Tamara Trap and She Gives Me......!

Check out the kittens I am fostering for Tamara in the photos below. Their story is Coos County weird. Someone saw a flier Tamara had posted about getting cats fixed and called her. She claimed a friend of a friend of her boyfriend had kittens that she was threatening to feed her snake if someone didn't take them instantly. Tamara has since tried to get ahold of the young woman who called, because Tamara wants to get that snake lady's mother cat fixed, so this doesn't happen again. The young woman now doesn't answer her phone. The kittens were crawling in fleas when picked up, were skinny, worm infested and had diarrhea and gunked over eyes. They're now perfectly healthy. Tamara and her friend did an excellent job.

Buff Boy.
Tackle Brat.
Catch that tail.
Serious Torbi.
The Mute and the Buff.

First off, Jake and Jimbo have a place to call home and will go there tomorrow. I'm really happy about that. Secondly, I met Tamara at the vet clinic this a.m., to give her the trap I revamped for her. She brought 16 cats up from the North Bend area to be fixed. So, I give her the trap and she exchanges it for five kittens! Yup, I have five kittens in my bathroom.

I had one tested on the spot and he was negative for FIV/Felk. Two orange tabby males, a buff male, a dark torbi female and a muted torbi female. All are polydactyls about seven weeks of age. One of the orange boys, has polydactyl, an inbred trait, too far, with inturned front feet/legs and "free-roaming" front ankles. The vet told Tamara this causes him no pain, and certainly no dysfunction.

They had already been roundwormed and treated for fleas. I tapewormed them and gave them a first vaccination.

One of the orange males I will name Nesbitt. A cat named Nesbitt, whom I'd known for a long time, died this week.

Nesbitt was dumped at a local grass seed farm years ago. I'd trapped over 200 cats for that farmer. He was a nice guy, but never got any cats fixed, also never really contributed anything to my years long effort there. Well, he couldn't, he was going bankrupt. I tried to relocate as many as I could and relocated, in the end, over a hundred cats, probably more than that. An Oakridge friend was posting fliers for me in the Eugene and Oakridge area.

Larissa saw the ad for barn cats needing homes at the West Fir post office. I didn't know her then, but I took her four--Nesbitt, Emerald, Buffers and Brown Nose. That was five years ago. Emerald vanished awhile back. Last week, Nesbitt disappeared. They searched for him and also watched Buffers, his buddy, who seemed to go back and forth to a small ditch. There, they found Nesbitt dead, apparently hit by a car.

Since Larissa first took in those barn cats, she probably has cursed ever meeting me. She became involved, first volunteering with FCCO clinics. Then she created her own nonprofit to help get cats fixed in Oakridge, West Fir, and often all over the place. She's amazing and works extremely hard.

Nesbitts death is sad, but she gave him a chance and a great five more years of life. From an overrun Linn county seed farm, to the far reaches of Lane County, Nesbitt became a well travelled boy. I know Buffers will miss him.

In respect for Nesbitt and Buffers and for Larissa, two of these boys will take on those two boys names. Buffers and Nesbitt.
Photo of Nesbitt at the warehouse, taken in the side mirror of my car.
PHoto of Nesbitt Larissa sent me after he had moved to their place.

We are very lucky in the Northwest. Thousands are dead and dying in China after the big quake there. Tens of thousands are dead and dying in Myanmar, after the cylcone. Many have died or lost their homes in tornados hitting the midwest.

So far, the northwest has been, over decades, spared these calamities. We have much to be grateful for living in Oregon. I'm sure, one day, another big quake and maybe a tsunami, will hit here. Or even a hurricane. I was a kid when the Columbus Day storm hit. But I remember it. That caused great destruction. I suppose we are most susceptible here to fire, flood, and earthquake. But we are very very lucky.