Guess Who Went Swimming!

Me, that's who! I dropped off Blueberry at the home where her mother is confined, for now, with the four just fixed girl kittens of the deceased stray mom. The farmer was concerned that she was still scared and the kittens still hiss at her sometimes. Blueberry was just what she needed. She was very happy to see her and Blueberry was happy to see mom. Now Betty, the mom, will have somebody she knows and will feel better. She felt better seeing me again, too. I could see it in her eyes, although when she was here, she mostly hissed at me, if I even looked at her.

We have a connection, however, and I love her very much.

After dropping off Blueberry, I headed to Lebanon. A woman had called. She had trapped a feral mother, after trapping her five six week old kittens, all boys, then the cat got away from her, twice, when she was attempting to transfer her out of the trap in her shed. So she'd been in her shed, living in the space in the rafter overhang, inside, where it was blazing hot. She wasn't eating and was scared to death, had even pooped all over herself when the woman tried again to catch her. This had been going on for a week.

I netted her in less than five minutes and set her up in a rabbit hutch for the woman. She has an appointment to get her spayed Wednesday and hopes to get the kittens done through the county cat grant and KATA.

After that, I began stopping at every market and gas station, looking for bulletin boards to put up Neuterscooter clinic fliers. I ended up at McKercher Park, had shorts in the car, and so into the water I went.

I adore that swimming hole, although it gets a little tepid late in the season. There are shoots down between smooth rocks of fast water, waterfalls you can stand under, even duck behind. I love standing in the waist deep water against the rocks at the biggest waterfall, and we're talking only three feet of water falling. But the force of the water is very strong and it feels like a massage. I also worked my way up beside an even stronger lower fall, and laid on my back, holding onto rocks with my hands, so as not to be swept away from the gushing water, and let the forceful water act like an extreme jacuzzi. Woohoo I love that.

There's one high rock to jump off of, into the main swimming hole, still deep enough to do so safely. It's about ten or twelve feet down to the water I suppose. That swimming hole on the Calapoia gets low by mid August, so low it often gets closed due to blooms of algae or fecal contamination from houses and livestock upstream.

I went swimming in Brownsville proper in the Calapoia once, during Pioneer days. I was horrified to see the horse people from the Pioneer Days horse event crowd, ride down and into the stream right amidst the swimmers, allowing their horses to poop and urinate right amidst people into the river. I thought it dumbshit hick rude.

Well, at least I can say I got to swim once at least this summer. People told me Foster Reservoir is pretty much closed up, due to the corp lowering the levels to check a problem with the spillway gates. I haven't heard if they found a problem or what it is if they did. People up that way are bummed about it, especially with the big country music festival this weekend arriving in town, the Jamboree. But, not much you can do about it.

I have 12 cats lined up for Wednesday--six for the free Eugene fixes offered me and six for Countryside, although I need to find a transporter. I am counting on doing that, because otherwise, well, I'm up shit creek.

The six free fixes come with sort of a price. The Wag clinic manager says to be prepared, that she will be sending me on a mission. I'm pretty sure that means trapping some untrappable cat.