Car in Wednesday

I'm taking the car in on Wednesday. So far, I have not found a ride back. I'm looking at the miles and to walk back home after dropping off the car, it's over 10 miles, one way. To Corvallis, it'd be a four mile walk. So, I think 4 miles would be more realistic one way. Then, in the evening, I'd need to walk the four miles back out there. Suppose I don't like the thought of walking along highway 34 most of the way, but not much else I can do at this point. Don't know what I'll do in Corvallis, all day, but I will think of something, or just sit somewhere, or nap somewhere. It will be like a big adventure outing for me. Yeah I know, but hey, I don't get a lot of excitement or change of routine, outside of the usual angry unfixed cat owner encounters.

It's just for a 60 point check, at this point, of the car. I got to clean it up first. I used WD-40 and got most of the tape goo off. It was left on the car from taping the back hatch lever back on, repeatedly. In the heat, the tape would fail, like every other type of glue or fastener I've tried. Heat just makes it let go. So it's been wired on. Today, since there are two holes through the main metal of the car, behind the broken of latch lever, I might try zip ties. I'd just zip tie around the hatch lever through that tiny hole and around a nail or something else too big to get back through the hole. Might be the simplest way.

UPDATE: After struggling half the day, I finally fixed the wiring on the license plate lights and drilled holes through the back hatch lever and bolted the thing on. Unfortunately, after all the struggle, I could not for the life of me find nuts and bolts of the same size, in the length of bolt I needed. ............

Finally, I used whatever they're calleds. That's right "whatever-they're-calleds". The plastic thingamajigs you pound into a nonstud hole in like sheetrock walls and you screw a screw into the thingamajig and it holds, in hollow walls. I don't know the jargon, ok? I just find something that works and use it, and never know the proper name. "Thingamajig" is a fine term.

I put everything back together and am very happy. I am yelling, in the garage "I win this round, hatch lever. I won this one! Let's see if you fall off now, you stupid piece of plastic!"

Then I load my car with traps, because I've promised to trap at a trailer in Marion, supposed to be 13 cats needing fixed. And the car won't start. The battery is stone cold dead.

It won't jump either, using my Kmart jump cables ages old, and the car of another Albany cat person. I go door to door, seeking better quality jump cables and come up with the mother of all jumper cables, complete with power source included. And, the guy lets me borrow the unit until tomorrow, until I can get a decent battery, so I don't get stranded!!!! I'm in heaven. What a nice guy! (he's married)

I went out to the Marion trailer. There are not 13 cats out there. There are nine. There were 11 yesterday, but the neighbors dog killed two of the four tiny kittens. I net the other two. They're in the car. I AM NOT BRINGING THEM IN HERE. I don't know what to do with them. Hard to look at them, however, and know if I take them back there, they'll be dead within two days. That darn neighbor dog. Dogs kill more cats than anything else, I've come to realize.

There are only four adults and three teens from a prior litter of one of the adults. I trap one of the adults and two of the three teens. I see only the other teen and one other adult, not two more. I leave traps set and instructions. They are only four minutes drive from my vet in Jefferson.

I don't know if the vet will fix the two teens I caught. I believe they're four months or so. He wants them five months. Hopefully he'll do them. Otherwise I have only one spay eligible cat for tomorrow, and others, if they catch them tonight. But they have a skunk out there, lives under a shed. I don't want my trap skunked. I warned them on that.

You know what's horrible, these two tiny kittens are starving to death slowly, too. The people just feed them scraps. The kittens' backbones protrude, it's just so sad. The adult female has now eaten three cans of wet food. She's tame. What is a person supposed to do?

Yes, the two tiny ones, both girls, starved nearly to death, are in my spare bedroom, now, with the other kittens needing homes. What a sucker I am. But these teens, they're starving too, and the mom cat. Oh man, I"ll have nightmares tonight, I will.

They have no car, those folks. The mans' disabled, had a stroke. The only way they get food is to rely on people or walk the distance to the store in Marion. Oh man. They're far out, away from everything, nice folks. Well, there's nothing I can do but take them cat food now and then, whenever I have extra, take them cat food, to feed these starving strays. And get them all fixed, and save these two littlest ones.