Energy Efficiency

My habits have changed, with the extreme spike in power costs. That's thanks to Pacific Power and their greed. I've heard from a lot of people angry over their increase in rates who wonder how they could do such a thing at such a time and how the utility board could approve such a huge increase.

That aside, I now live in the dark for the most part. I use a headlamp flashlight given me by Kate, thank you Kate, for Christmas.

I rarely use my dryer, throwing clothes and towels over doors to dry. I wash every load in cold water.

I take even shorter showers every other day now. I never took long showers to begin with.

I have my tv, and this computer, hooked to a power strip I turn off at the power strip when either appliance is not in use. I use a battery powered alarm clock now.

I hope the new thermostat also helps. I also learned from the HVAC guy, how to use a heat pump combined with a furnace for maximum savings, i.e. never change the thermostat more than two degrees up or down at a time, to keep the furnace coils from kicking in, and, if it is under 30 degrees outside, and the heat pump is staying on too long, to change to emergency heat for small degree changes at a time, for short periods. He also advised never to turn the system off, as getting the house back up to heat costs more than keeping the system on, at say 65 degrees.

Same if it's hot out. Don't turn the "cool" setting off when I leave because cooling a house from 80 or 85 degrees, back down to 75 is far more expensive than keeping it at a lower temp while you're gone, say at 73 or 75 degrees.

I don't know how much my new habits will save, if any, given the rate increase. The less power everyone uses, the less money the power company makes which causes rate hikes. It's a losing battle unless one finds a way to make their own power.

I also learned not to ever leave chargers plugged in, even if the unit you are charging, like batteries or a cell phone, are not connected, because they still suck power. I learned that one of the latest biggest power suckers out there is a plasma screen TV. I don't have one and I'm glad.

My TV is 12 years old and my DVD player is slightly older and I can't believe either one still works. The TV has something caked into the vents on the sides. I'm not sure what that is. It's been through some moves. I think a cat may have at one time coughed up a hairball atop it. Sometimes the DVD player won't play, so I shake it, dust it, blow on the CD tray, and then often, it will magically work.

This computer's function has slowed to a crawl, most days. As long as I can check e-mail and post cats for adoption, I don't care much. I don't do much web surfing anymore.

I do not have a working music system. That's ok too. I have one CD I play in my car. Yes, it gets old, the same songs, but oh well, it's not that bad.

Things could be far worse and probably they'll get worse. But, I don't mind my new habits. I love the little headlamp. Sure I look like "the constant miner" but who cares? The cats don't. My brother who owns this place is struggling too, with the economy so bad, and has to lay off a lot of his workers, who now are also struggling hard. I felt guilt over the broken thermostat but he got it fixed and I am grateful. Everyone is struggling that I know. So, you do what you have to do.

Soon, I can start some seeds, for growing my vegees again.

I get the paper now. Every single morning. Some mornings I forget to pick it up but I like reading the paper with coffee in the morning. How'd I luck into getting the paper every morning. Well, that was Jim's fault, in Corvallis, who signed me up, under some special and it cost him an entire penny, to sign someone up for a year.

That's right. A penny!

I get the paper every day for a whole year for a penny's cost to Jim. I know. What a deal. And I'm making the best of such a gift, that really is a gift from the Gazette Times. No paper can produce a copy a day and deliver it for a penny. Thank you, for that deal offered to newspaper readers like Jim, which resulted in my morning sinful pleasure.

And thank you Jim, for signing me up, instead of someone else. I love my morning paper.

Dumped Millersburg Male and the 19th Kitten

The big orange tabby dumped in Millersburg is being fixed today. So is Miss Jane, a kitten given away by the daughter of the Rock Hill colony, where, in the end, I took in 44 cats total to be fixed and removed 18 kittens. Miss Jane, the torti teen being fixed from there today, was adopted out just before I entered the scene. When the woman who took her split with her boyfriend, the boyfriend ended up with the cat. She's just like all the others turned out, fun and ultra loving.

This is Slurpy, from the Rock Hill colony, still here. She was one of seven Heartland took in. They then asked me to take three back, as they were ill and otherwise would be euthanized. I went and got them immediately. I was told various stories all last summer as to what happened to the other four Heartland took in and I never got a real answer. I suspect they had colds and were killed there.
Keni up in Beaverton, her daughter, and another person fostered 11 others kittens from the situation. LIke the calico above, who was finally adopted.
The 19th kitten, from the Rock HIll colony, Miss Jane, being fixed today.The big guy, dumped in Millersburg, being neutered today. I call him Mr. Big.


I added a shelf to my home made bunk bed and the cats love it. The piece of wood is from the useless Ikea bedframe fiasco.
I got this exercise disc free at a garage sale and I love it. You do the twist on it and it came with a long bar, that you can fit into the hole in the center, and while twisting, hang on to the rod, pushing it this way or that, or you can use the bar alone. The disc is fun!

Poppa Inc. Also Assisting in Yamhill County

Click post title to read an article about Poppa Inc. assisting with cat overpopulation in McMinnville and Yamhill County.

I knew Keni had gone to a meeting with McMinnville cat people desperate to solve the area's cat problem and finding no help elsewhere. I had communicated last summer with a woman frustrated with cats dumped at the Fairgrounds there. She'd finally gotten most of them fixed paying for the fixes herself. Animal Control is located right at the Fairgrounds property also, but they did not help the cats nor help her when she began getting them fixed, which is bizarre, since they are paid animal control people.

The cat people there sought help from Poppa Inc. Keni suggested they go after a grant from the city and cited Albany as a prudent example. It is cost effective, long run.

She also told me she hoped the publicity of helping McMinnville might bring in some donations, so Poppa Inc. could keep helping both cities, Albany and McMinnville.

Target Cat Reunites with Owner

This photo (first one below) appeared on Craigslist lost and found, about Cali, a lost Albany female. Below that photo, is one of a cat who jumped off a truck at the Target store in Spokane WA. The truck was loaded at the distribution center in Albany. Animal control trapped the cat at the store and contacted Albany, hoping the cat had an owner in Albany. The Target truck cat was reclaimed by the Albany owner of the cat in the first photo. It's supposed to be the same cat.

Cat from lost cat post on craigslist.

The Target truck cat.

If it is the same cat, her nose must have been injured in her journey or in the live trap. Hope she's ok.

Typical really, that the owner says the cat will disappear for long periods of time. Wish owners would be responsible with their cats.

I got a call from another colony in Millersburg, the Millersburg Country colony I trapped several years back. I got probably 40 cats fixed there and helped rehome several. They had another big tame male dumped off a couple weeks ago. He was causing trouble and fighting with their cats and they needed him neutered. The old couple live on SS and the daughter is long unemployed, so long she no longer has unemployment and lives on nothing except help from her parents now. She's almost lost hope. They're nice people.

This big teddy bear like orange guy has some got some issues from being dumped but is sweet and will be neutered tomorrow. That's what took me to craigslist lost and found, hoping he was just lost and his photo would be posted by someone looking for him. No posts on him though. He's gorgeous. That makes six cats I know of dumped in the last couple months in Millersburg alone (the mom and four kittens, one of whom died, are the other five).

I took the two gray boys out to the tow truck people this evening. I didn't want to, but I had no choice. They'll be outside cats once acclimated. They're totally beautiful and sweet. They didn't really want them, but felt bad for ever telling me about the cats over there, knowing the business, where they were dumped, would not want them back, but knowing the situation had to be dealt with before a true feral colony arose from them breeding.

Concern for the Future

I see articles about tea partiers and Republicans with plans to cut domestic spending by billions of dollars. They claim its to cut back to pre Obama spending levels but in fact, Obamas spending increases were not enacted, so the cuts would be back to 2008 levels, not 2010 levels as claimed.

These cuts would drastically affect the poor. Housing subsidies would be affected. So would energy grants that help low income households pay power bills. This is at a time when rate increases by Pacific Power in our state exceed 10%. While this is allowed, help to low income households to pay these outrageous increases, will be cut.

The rich get richer. The poor struggle to even survive.

The tea partiers say the poor should work more. Many poor people work two jobs already. Elderly poor often cannot work. The disabled are not allowed to work or their disability is dropped. And there are no jobs to work anyhow.

The land is locked up, not only because of expense to buy land where you could live, but also because if you can afford to buy land, its use is terribly regulated and you must pay property taxes. How does this affect the poor? Rents, at least in this area, are skyrocketing. That is because in part of the university expanding with enrollments going up and student housing scarce.

The poor then must seek out the least expensive alternatives often ill maintained rat hole slums and if they cannot afford that, even with government HUD subsidies, then where do the poor live? Where do the poor live if housing subsidies to housing authorities are discontinued or cut back severely?

Regulations disallow private people from renting space on their own land for poor relatives or other poor to tent city it or park RV's or cars to live in. Regulations add to the problem of where poor people can survive especially if housing subsidies are cut. Rentals often limit the number of people who can live in one dwelling, further complicating the issue, so that poor people cannot band together and share rent.

I know harder times are coming for the poor of our country especially. I know government must cut back and live within its intake. I think it's insane our country gives billions in foreign aid and cannot take care of its own. I think it's insane our country is fighting wars we will never win, spending billions doing so, and does not take care of its own first. I think it is insane we have hundreds of foreign soil military bases yet cannot take care of our own citizens.

I think it's insane that paying for some domestic programs actually makes things worse because of the beaucracies created that employ, at taxpayer expense, so many salaried benefited workers to implement the supposedly helpful programs.

I think its insane that schools have had to become babysitters and parents to students who virtually have no sane unaddicted parents at home. I think it's insane the blame goes to schools when all you have to do is peer into the home life of many students to see the problem. I think it's insane to pour money into schools without first taking at look inside the student's home and life there. I think incentives to not reproduce might work and help reduce government costs radically down the line.

Well anyhow. Guess I'm concerned for my own future. I'm one of those government supported scumbags, on SSI. I get very little and refuse food stamps and work hard for my community as a volunteer, but I feel the hatred of the poor every single day out there. I try to be a worthy poor person. I try hard to be that, but I wish I could find a job and get off SSI for good. I've been working on a book. I know now is not a good time to find a publisher or sell books, but it's all I know to do. I have no skills people seek from employees. I might be too old to cultivate employment skills.

Social Security is going to collapse because the government has raided the fund forever, because the worker FICA rate has been slashed by Obama, so the fund will lose whats left rapidly, and because medical costs have skyrocketed due to greed by insurance companies and even by large hospitals that monopolize the market and drive out competition tha might reduce rates.

That is why no one on SS or SSI now can rely on continued coverage with a straight face. There seems to be no common sense in WA or a connection understood by those there, between what they do and the fallout to common people or to the future.

I think change is coming all right and woe to those unprepared. I need to prepare somehow. I am scared, I admit. I'm getting old and don't really know what to do exactly. I do my best. That's about all I can say.

North Face

I rented a movie entitled North Face. I'll give it four out of five stars.

The movie chronicles two teams of climbers attempting to scale the rugged icy north face of "The Eiger", hailed then as "the problem in the Alps", unconquered as yet, in 1936, by climbers.

Many teams assemble at the base of the mountain for the competition. Climbers had been called out for the challenge in movie theater trailers and by the press, particularly in Germany. One of the two teams, who made the fateful attempt in this effort, had the best gear, all paid for by the SS. The other team were Bavarians.

The movie followed the affection one woman had for the Bavarian pair of climbers. She grew up with them and at the time of the challenge, worked for Berlin newspaper. She aspired to be a photographer and reporter and was sent by the editor to interview her friends, to see if they would be taking the challenge. They would not accept the invitation to climb. The older man of the pair felt it was not real climbing, and they would be killed.

In the end, they joined the climbers camped at the base of the north face. Throughout the rest of the movie, the scene switched from the struggles of the two teams who set out that day to climb and the uproarious circus atmosphere, of feasting and partying, done inside the lodge at the base of the mountain by the press and the rich--there to watch.

The woman's boss, an arrogant newspaperman, who had lost his humanity, made overtures to the woman (I'm no good at remembering names, even from a movie), and pushed her to get the best story and photos. She was torn, however, because of her lasting love for one of her childhood friends up there climbing on the mountain.

By the second day, the climbers experienced severe problems. One German climber was severely injured. His partner and the two Bavarians, now caught in a vicious snow and windstorm, made the decision to turn around and rope the injured climber down. They had nothing to resemble modern gear. The freezing nights were spent tied to piton along the sheer rock and ice face.

By the third day, tourists and journalists were leaving the lodge, sure all four were dead. The mammoth struggle to live continued. An avalanche washed the injured German, his friend and one of the Bavarians off a ledge. The other German cracked his head open and was killed. The Bavarian tried to climb back up, but the piton pounded into the rock, failed and he too fell to his death, leaving only the one Bavarian alive.

He was barely alive. His limbs and face were black in frostbite. In the end, he too died. The woman had made a last effort to save him. She had remembered that the train that took rich tourists half up the mountain on the other side to a viewing platform, had tunnels through, by which rock, in the building of the tunnel up, had been pushed out to fall. She and the mountain train keeper went through one of these openings to call to the climbers and urge them on. She spent the night out on a ledge to call to her friend, urging him to stay awake and alive. In the morning, an attempt to get him down failed.

All four climbers died.

The woman refused to return to Berlin with her boss. She said "I am not returning to Berlin." When he asked why, she said "Berlin is full of people just like you."

The North Face was finally climbed in 1938. The problem in the Alps was solved.

Rainy Gets a Home

Rainy went to a home today. It's two women and they live in Waldport. Skye and Pedra. Take good care of her! They already have two other cats and feed another outside.

Always makes me feel terribly guilty to watch them leave, scared, as a kitten would be. I want to cry after one leaves, if they've been here awhile and been through a lot, as Rainy has.

Took six weeks to get her over ringworm. She lost most of her hair. All the baths and stress she went through with that, then the blow drying which she loved, creams and ointments, nail trimming, her sister dying, her brother leaving. Been hard and finally she got spayed then had the incision site problem and it was another ten days before she could go up for adoption. When she did, I got multiple inquiries. I chose these women because they seem to be real animal lovers. But you never really know anyone coming through the door and taking out a life. I only hope, in the end, they are good human beings. There's no test for that and people lie and deceive well. There's no way to know anymore.

They seem really nice. They gave a donation and their application was great.

But you never know for sure. They say they'll send photos and I can't wait to get them. I will be in mourning for a time, because it is terribly hard on me to see one leave to the unknown, to wonder whose hands I put her in, if they are as they seem, wonderful, or if I was deceived.

Good luck, Rainy.

UPDATE: Rainy's adoptors already sent me new photos of her in their home. This just made me want to cry for happiness. She's doing good and got a great home where she will be loved.

Poppa Gets More and More Referrals from KATA

Poppa Inc. gets more and more referrals from KATA. Why? I don't know, but apparently they must not help people fix cats anymore. Maybe they have no money, like so many small groups. I haven't talked to them in ages.

They used to get so mad when other groups or shelters referred people to them. Now they're doing the same. And if I go out to "fix" these places, like with the 5th Wheel colony, also a KATA referral, and end up with kittens in dire straits, they don't help adopt them out, with their adoption venues.

Nobody works together in this area. Never have and probably never will. The little groups try to solve the overpopulation problem and quickly wear out doing so. If resources are scarce, the resentments are larger, between groups, if one constantly refers problem situations to another. The two big shelters, well, they're just shelters that house very small numbers of cats relative to the cats in need out there and in trouble because of overpopulation.

It's usually the small groups out there trying to prevent problems from becoming bigger problems through spay neuter. And most contribute massive time, money and labor personally. That means unpaid! Probably no groups involved in any other endeavor contribute so much on a personal level as the small animal rescues and spay neuter groups and individuals. Those so doing are almost never recognized for their efforts by communities who routinely pass out awards to volunteers whose hours contributed are unbelievably pathetic by comparison.

I wish I could find more grants for Poppa Inc. We sure need some replenishing funds to keep at it. Or a big fund raiser. But it's just me down here working with the funds. (that means spending their money)!!! I'm good at that. Actually I never see a dime of Poppa Inc. money. I just take cats in, and the vets bill Poppa Inc. for fixes beyond any copays I round up to give the vet that day for cats that day.

Getting one male and one female done costs over $100, so you can see, how the money goes fast.

Know what would be cool? One, better yet two, paid people who run around with a van, paid for by whomever pays them, and just constantly round up cats that need fixed, trapping ferals, etc. A phone number, one only, for the two counties, for people who need assistance to call. Cell phones provided to the paid cat wranglers. Gas provided. Bait provided. Endless spay neuter appointments just waiting and paid for. Wouldn't that be just toooo easy? Wouldn't that just solve the problem quickly. Yes it would.

So let's just keep on doing the things that don't work, that are far more expensive than something like the above dream world, because why would we change what we're doing, given it doesn't work and is expensive for everybody involved?

Alley Cat Allies Says No to Relocation and I Agree

I just got Alley Cat Allies newsletter. I don't send them money. They operate a website, basically, and not much else that I know of. They highly paid people. I looked up their salaries. They still think I'm signed up with them as a "Feral Friend". Maybe they did not delete me as one, when I requested that and I will have to request it again.

If you're signed up with them as "Feral Friend" then any requests for help they get from your area, they refer to you to solve.

I don't like big organizations whose staff and leaders are highly paid to refer the real work out to little poor people doing the work completely unpaid. That is just wrong.

But, in this newsletter, they have an article on relocation and correctly advise against relocation. It rarely works to relocate a colony.

In fact, it is horrible on the cats. People think it's nothing, but think about being permanently ripped from everything familiar, all your haunts and hide outs, often to be unceremoniously dumped, without even being cared for, with reassurance, in confinement for a time, somewhere else. How would you like that?

Your friends are gone from your life forever. So is your family. You don't know where the food is, where it's safe, who is safe.

I also despise the practise of adopting out a single feral cat or a single house cat to live alone in a barn. That's despicable behavior. That cat is doomed to lonliness. Feral cats and cats in general are family oriented. People talk about a cat wanting to be the only cat. That's usually a cat seperated from all other cats at a young age, who ended up with issues, as a result.

There are some very unscrupulous cat groups who basically dump cats somewhere and call it relocation. Don't ever even think to hand off ferals to such groups.

They're as good as dead.

Alley Cat Allies is getting the word out, with this article, that relocation is a terrible thing on cats and often means the cats will die. I rarely get involved in relocation anymore and rarely adopt cats out as mousers.

More Photos of Millersburg Four

They're in my bathroom now. I needed to vaccinate them and did all but the short hair gray teen, who is the shyest. The black teen is a little doll, soft, sweet, underweight. The biggest of them is the short hair gray teen, but the long hair gray is huge too, and very sweet, after initial outrage!! The cats are always attracted to the mirror but it freaks them out, the reflections. They don't understand. I have to remove lightbulbs in the panel lighting above the mirror anytime I have cats in there, for fear they'll climb the walls at first and break the bulbs. This wasn't as big a deal before the mecury efficiency bulbs. But now, if one of those breaks, it sends mercury all over the area and is an environmental and health hazard.A beauty, this one.
Mom is sweet and completely tame.

The black teen is the smallest and cuddliest and sweetest! His brother, the blue boy, is the schiziest.

There was a fourth kitten, I'm told, dumped with the mom and these three, but she was found dead, perhaps hit on the road, don't know. People dump animals in areas they are familiar with. Either someone moved out nearby and left them. Or someone travels that road or works nearby, and dumped them.

Well the farmer just came and got the mom and kittens. He held her for awhile before we put both in the carrier. He's such a nice guy. He brought me a whole bunch of perfect looking small eggs from their chickens, which free range. I am boiling some now, to make an egg salad sandwich for lunch.

Means a lot to me, that he brought all those eggs, the fruit of their labor, and I gave him the fruit of mine.

The other two boys will live not that far from where they were dumped. I hope that works out. I hope they don't try going back over there, because that road is dangerous. I wanted them to see their mother leave, which might help.

Glad I Got Involved in the MIllersburg Cats

Fuzzy long hair gray male teen, fixed yesterday, abandoned in Millersburg.
Short hair gray male teen, fixed yesterday.
The tame mother cat, pregnant again at spay, dumped in Millersburg with her kittens, one of whom did not survive.
Black teen male teen, fixed yesterday.
The big orange guy, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's what happens, big guy, when you look for love in the wrong spot. Now, you are minus a couple of organs. Don't worry. Your life will be better. He's beat up and the vet says he's feral but thinks once he was owned, too. He's huge and has not been seen before at the business. They fed only in the morning and I trapped him about 9:00 at night, although I saw him roaming around the porch there much earlier. No doubt he is father to all or some of the kittens bubbles in the barely pregnant mom cat, also spayed yesterday.

He looks so much like the cat I caught and got fixed for another business, less than half mile from there, that I took him over there, to see if he was their cat, before heading to the clinic. They couldn't tell if it was Sam or not. Sam was neutered in 2009, but they did not want the cats eartipped. This guy wasn't neutered, turned out, but he is a dead ringer for the other cat and maybe they're brothers. He sure is getting well fed somewhere.

I released the orange tabby male this a.m. The business, despite my message yesterday, informing them the two teens boys will also have to return, has taken up the nailed down food dish on the porch, like a statement the cats will not be fed there.

The orange tabby male was probably only visiting, to impregnate the black female, so he likely will go back to wherever he came from originally. I don't worry about him so much not being fed there. But the two teen boys, they need fed.

But wait, just as I type this post, the tow truck people, who told me about them in the first place, swoop in, say they'll feed the gray boys at their place, and of course they confine them for a time, because they're not stupid. They will confine them in my former shed, the shed I gave them when I was evicted from the slumshack in Corvallis. I didn't want my own shed to be taken by the slumlord, so he came, and smooth as silk, winched it onto a flatbed and they have it now. I built a wide shelf into it, and a cat door. So they'll be confined on the shelf in a containment cage for awhile, then released and fed there. These people are even going through a death in the family right now, and still will take them.

I am overwhelmed in gratitude to them. I changed the title of the post immediately, from "I shouldn't have become involved with the Millersburg cats" to what it is now, because it might all work out ok.

The black mom and black teen are leaving first. Then Rainy is going to a home later this afternoon, to a couple on the coast. One of the women works one day per week, today, in Albany. I think it's a good home for her, a good match. They have two cats now.

I hope to get the gray boys to their new location before black mom and son leave.

The gray boys needed to see their mom and brother, before they are seperated for good. It's a closure thing, so they won't wonder, won't look for each other and that happens.

It is hard on a family to split. It's hard on siblings to seperate. I only learned this when I started dealing with cats. It's terribly hard for families to be split up. When you think of kittens going alone to some white trash household, where kids do what they want and run the show and parents or parent is involved with a multitude of angry issued up partners and there is general chaos, addictions, and no cleaning, how dismal that must be, for a child, for a kitten, alone.

If they at least have a family member, a sibling to cling to, it's so much easier on them.

If you want to adopt a cat, please don't adopt a single cat unless you already have cats who will accept the new cat into their family. That cat will have issues and be lonely. If you can, adopt a pair of family members or close friends. They'll be happier and healthier and far less trouble if you want to go on a short vacation.

Farmer Will Take Only Two of the Millersburg Family of Four

Bad news. The farmer I thought would take all four of the cats from the Millersburg family, orginally dumped off there by some asshole, can only take two (wife is firm on only two).

I caught all four. The mom is tame. The kittens, one black, two gray, are all boys, teens. I'll have to take two back, am not keeping more here. I don't find any homes, is the problem, and can't support the ones I have now.

I also caught a free roaming huge orange tabby male when trapping the other four. He got neutered and he's going back too. The little mom, not much more than a teen herself, was pregnant already again. Just barely. Guess we know who daddy of at least some of those kitten bubbles was.

Too bad these teens have to go back, live that life, probably get killed on the road, but I can't care for more cats here. I left a message with the business that two of the teen boys will be returning but that I can recatch them if they can find them a home.

The sad thing, the pathetic thing on my part, to try to make the deal sweeter for that farmer, who is a heckuva nice guy with a great setup, I'd paid for all four to get rabies vaccines. And here, I am giving each a three-way vaccine. I wanted it to go through for the little family, to remain together. I understand, however, if he can take only two. I misunderstood.

I wish some people around here would step up and help out a little. I'm overwhelmed in costs and labor.

And click the post title to see a Canadian companies brutal slaughter of sled dogs, when business slowed post Olympics for dog sled tours. It's really horrible.