Two Dinners!

Last night I had dinner with one of my long time Corvallis friends. It was very good to spend some time with her. She is very sad about a cat who died recently of hers, Blackie, of kidney failure.

For a time, she took her in, for sub cu fluids and treatment, but Blackie hated it and fought her over it, and finally she let her be. She was diagnosed in May and lasted until last week. Blackie originates from the river front in Corvallis, one of the cats I trapped, fed by an old woman.

When I was trapping them, my friend came along and was parked in front of me in her mini van. It was only about 8:00 p.m. but along came the Corvallis police. They pulled in behind me, in my old car, which scared me because of previous encounters with the police. I couldn't see them anymore and suddenly one was shining his light into my eyes and asking what the hell I was doing.

It should have been really apparent. There were traps in the back of my car and one outside the car beside it. I'd been harassed recently by Corvallis police while trapping, which is why my friend would not let me trap alone in Corvallis.

They wanted my hands on the dash, the whole thing and claimed only murderers and robbers parked down here. I tried to be funny. I said "How'd you miss the mini van up front there?" I said that because I knew I was being targeted again. My whole car smelled like mackerel which I was using for bait.

My friend tried to get out of her car and come back but the police yelled at her like she was a big threat and told her to get back in the car.

Anyhow, finally they left and I was shaken up again, but did trap that kitten. After that, I was really scared to trap cats in Corvallis without witnesses with me, but because of the police. That's doesn't seem right. The police over here in Albany by contrast seem really helpful and if they contact me when out somewhere alone in the dark, trapping, when they find out what I'm doing they'll even say 'thank you'. That is really a wonderful thing, and makes me happy and feel respected.

R.I.P. Blackie. That leaves only three river cats still alive. They were my family when I lived, sometimes homeless, along the river in Corvallis. I still have Vision here, the grand daughter of Captain Courageous, the angel of the river. And my friend still has Scratch, Captain Courageous' sister and she has HalfnHalf, from the Mater Engineering Alley colony.

They're old cats now, all of them, very old, ancient as the river itself, tough as nails, happy as clams.

I had to tell my friend Adair has died. Adair was one of six cats I trapped in Adair Village, fed by my friend and a couple other people, abandoned by Adair residents. A Fish and Wildlife person happened along and saw those cats and immediately began complaining to the county over the birds they might possibly kill.

I asked my friend if that F&W person also complained miserably about the Frisbee golf course park that took out a lot of bird habitat and she said "not to her knowledge". It's always that way. Things, developments, activities that kill massive numbers of birds are overlooked by these complainers and they focus on killing a handful of pathetic out caste cats tossed like garbage.

Adair and Big Ben, both tame and wonderful abandoned males, were FIV positive. Poppa Inc.'s president, the saint, took them in. Adair got cancer and went to a better place, free of pain and assholes, two days ago. Adair, up at Poppa Inc. president Keni's place.


I stopped in tonight at the Mormon sisters place, just in time for pizza and they immediately welcomed me in and offered me some, even though I arrived unannounced. Their mother lives with them now. She used to live with another sister and her husband, but that sister got early onset Alzheimer's, which runs in their family, and her husband and her moved back east, to their home territory, where she grew up, so she could be closer to her adult children.

So mom lives with the other two sisters now. Another sister and her husband, who live in Lebanon, were there tonight also. I have come to love the entire family like my own. It was really good pizza!

No, they haven't converted me to Mormonism, or even tried. They know I'm a heathen and always will be.

Also I know people who go to all different churches. I know Catholics and Baptists and Lutherans and even Muslims. They can believe what they want. I like people or don't like people for different reasons than what church they might attend.

I am posting photos of the cat house I just finished, remodeled from one built by that Albany business, but there was no way it was usable as built. The bottom, made of particle board, was not even painted. It was not insulated either. Anyhow, long over haul.

For insulation this time I used pieces of the foam cushions from a couch I took apart. I painted and used old fence boards to cover the insulation and for the bottom. I used cut in half plastic planters as covers for the entrance and exit holes. This unit I gave to the cat feeder on the Albany street of strays.




Looking down into the inside, after I covered the insulation layer with old fence boards and added a shelf.

Also I forgot to say, my tow truck friends let me go through the back of an old truck at the wrecking yard and pick out a bunch of bottles and cans. They'd been there awhile and some had labels so faded the bar code would not register, I knew. But still, I picked a lot of cans and bottles out of there. Got half a tank of gas out of that, after returning them for deposit.

I am attracted to wrecking yards. To see those wrecked out trashed cars, trucks, boats, RV's, row after row of them, to wonder how they came to be owned in the first place, someone bought that vehicle with pride and what money they had. Who and where are they now? Then to see them now, rotted, wrecked out, sometimes full of trash, some just shells, and then to wonder about the story each could tell.

They're corpses in various states of decay and wrecking yards are cemeteries.

I wander among them and sense histories passing, friendly chatter and the laughter of children when I pass this one, screaming and fighting, the smashing glass when I touch that one. What might have been before, the roads traveled, the sights seen, the occupants and their lives, as they age, live and love, laughing, crying, yelling, and finally, this twisted metal and the end of a sequence, like a scene ends in a play with a characters death. But then the play goes on.

What mysteries and stories reside deep within the past of these twisted shells. If I could only speak their language and unlock the living intersecting tales.

I went to Corvallis today. I wanted to post cat adoption fliers, which I did. I was also going to attend the Fall Festival and listen to the bands. I walked around and looked at the booths full of fabulous crafts and art of all kinds. There is no lack of creativity exhibited at the Fall Festival. There were beautiful crafted items of all kinds. But I had not checked the football schedule.

Why? Because I'm not into football. I should be, because of the traffic snarls home games create both in Corvallis and on every freeway and highway when the Ducks or Beavers play homes games. I forget every year. I got in the fray of extreme traffic exiting Corvallis when the Beavers once again lost a football game at home. Then comes the patience thing, because you just have to wait it out. Nothing else one can do.

I hope the fliers produce some calls. I made two different fliers, one advertises Rumby, Pebbles and Suri and the other--Sage.

It's really too much to dream about, but I do really wish I could find some magical person who would desire to adopt all three VV colony kittens still here. Would that not be absolutely wonderful?

Well, I lucked out with that Corvallis couple who adopted Kenji, Pepper and Peter Piper!!! So they're out there. It's not totally impossible.

My big problem in adopting out cats is marketing. I have to market them better. I have some great cats here. I need to study up on marketing.

I still hope that grass seed farm I helped out will take a few of the business cats. The problem with warehouses that have cats is workers talk, tell their friends, or just mention it to friends, and then assholes go out in the night and dump their unwanted cats. So they end up with more.

I don't regret getting them fixed out there, because the kittens landing all over the place, and then reproducing with the people who took them in, creating a bigger peripheal problem.

I've always seen the cat problem as supply and demand. Reduce the supply of unwanted cats and kittens through targeted spay neuter efforts and you get more demand for rescued cats and kittens, sitting in shelters waiting.

Thought I could make a bigger dent by now, and really increase adoptions for everybody in this area in so doing.

The people who took in the sister of the Siamese teenager who ended up in trouble after spay, with the last group I took up to the Wilsonville clinic, they called me, wanting her fixed. I couldn't believe it and was happy.

Those two, plus an orange male kitten, were offspring of a female owned by another tenant. He had four unfixed females. I got them fixed but the kittens were too small and when I checked back, he had handed out the two girls to other tenants. I got the boy fixed, then the one Siamese, who had the problems. And now, the other will be fixed before she ends up also producing more cats there. I filled all my traps too there, into the night, catching five stray males, roamed in to impregnate the man's females. They too were fixed. This woman when she called said she didn't see any more unfixed strays roaming. That is at least a bit of good news.

The cats there, most of them, never will see a vet again, although I usually give the owners a hand out about vaccinations and the four most common parasites. I always hope they'll take their cats for checkups and vaccinations. Nobody has any money.

There's another spot I see different cats all the time, outside this one house, along a street. Normally, I'd stop and talk to them, but it's been harder lately, since I can't take the cats in immediately if they need help getting them fixed.

I am wary now of trapping, because so many people expect me to take them away and not bring them back, and if I get involved at all, I start getting weak, feeling so sorry for the unwanted cats. But if I don't at least get them fixed, this leads to those cats breeding and the problem just expanding.

I wish there was an answer. This is a widespread issue among cat trappers--what to do with the kittens or tame strays, when no shelter will take them in. It'd be so nice to combine efforts with a hot shit shelter that would immediately tackle getting feral kittens tamed, fixed and adopted out, or other unwanteds, working with those doing the door to door round up, so that the cat wrangler doesn't also end up burdened with adoptions.

Many cat trappers, doing massive service to their communities and to the shelters by reducing the numbers brought through their doors, have had to stop, because of this exact problem. I'm one of them. I've scaled way back on round ups in attempts to figure out a solution on finding homes for the cats here.

I heard from another couple in Albany, advertising a cat they'd found, who also get cats fixed and have taken in many many strays. Sound very nice.

I don't know what is going on with that NE Albany colony. I took in three of their cats to be fixed, then returned them. Then helped them catch ten more, that they took to an FCCO clinic to be fixed. I told them about going down the last time, but they never caught any others. There were seven or eight more adults and hordes of kittens still needing fixed between the two houses. Maybe they took another load up to the FCCO clinic. They were quite enthusiastic about the program after that trip.

Many of the very young kittens living outside the other house involved were really ill, with gunked shut eyes, and just a cardboard box to sleep in. No towel even in the box.

I also ran into some guy, who lives on a street near Heatherdale Trailer park. He said he was like me two decades ago, and took in maybe 2000 cats to be fixed from a four block area over there in about ten years time. He said, in the end, he didn't care if the cat was owned or not, he got so disgusted with people and would just get it fixed. Also in the end, he and his wife gave it up.