8 Cats Fixed Today

I took up 8 cats today. Six of them were arranged last Friday. Then I trapped two at the warehouse, the mother of the kittens the farm workers slid out of the pipe, plus another adult black male. This is the male pipe kitten, now at my place awaiting neuter.
Pipe kitten, one of three black and one Siamese kittens, from a black female fixed today. Farm workers slid two of the kittens out of a pipe into my net, but the other two eluded capture.
Mom of Pipe Kittens, fixed today.
Another black warehouse male I caught last night, fixed today.
Best friends. These two fixed warehouse cats are rarely separated.
Brown tabby climbing down the seed bags. She was fixed over a year ago, as a kitten. I left a message with the farm to feed the mom cats other two kittens, although they already have a bag of food broken open where the kittens were hanging out. The kittens are seven weeks old, I estimate, as the black little hiss fit male weighed in at 1 lb 13 oz. They'll likely be here two weeks, before reaching the magic two pounds. They will be fixed and returned to the warehouse.

I won't have to chase them down later.
Yet another unfixed black cat I need to catch out there, along with yet another Siamese.
The unfixed black heads off into the pipes.
These three fixed friends also are rarely apart.

Although I am quitting the city grant program, I will still trap cats, using Poppa funds until they are gone.

I will no longer feel I have to respond if the city requests I intervene in a cat situation, because of the grant over my head. They didn't intend it that way, but that's how it makes me react.

So, three of the cats came from a nearby family in an apartment and the female cat has 8 kittens. Yup, 8. This is the brown tabby male of theirs fixed today and a handsome guy he is!

Org tabby male, fixed today.And this is the poor mom cat who had 8 kittens!!! 8!!!

That was two males and a female. Then two more males got dumped off at a trailer park. Watchers there called immediately and had them contained for pickup.
These boys were both abandoned at an Albany trailer park, but quickly spotted, and now fixed.

Then the guy over on 13th caught one of the three males there, the one who comes inside and he got fixed today. Here he is!

Lots of male! My car stinks.

Valentino went to the vet today also and got another antibiotic injection and got switched to a different ear med.

The vet thinks he might have to be on antibiotics long long term.

I have to return the warehouse female tonight, to go back with her two kittens, so I am going to take a nap.

Valentino is very grumpy after being in the car with me all day after he went to see his vet, who is a friend of Poppa Inc's president. He took after Sage, when she raced up to him in the bathroom. He lit into her with such lightning speed she screamed in shock. This hurt her feelings. She loves other cats.

Sage is by nature a clown. She engages in coyish and mischievous pranks and has the optimism of Miss Daisy added in. She is not entirely athletic in her tears around the house, but what she lacks in athleticism her enthusiasm more than makes up for.

So Valentino's crankiness from being tired hurt her. Was not long before she went over to try to make up to him and he was nicer, but I was also giving him the evil eye over her shoulder, the eye that says, "make a move on Sage and you die", that look and he caught my eye and well knew.

I did talk to Poppa's president about my decision by phone while in a parking lot today. I didn't have to explain myself to her. She is out of the game, too, mostly, now, and focusing her attention on getting their house ready for the market. It's a lot of work, and then to drive so far to go visit her cats out in that barn. It's hard on her, terribly hard. I know she wants it over with and to be able to move down with her family, down to SoCal. I wish there was something I could do to help.

She trapped a cat though, who was coming around her house. It was an unaltered male. He is altered now. That's the way Poppa Inc's president rolls. And me too.

It's the number one primary mission, always has been and always should have been the mission of those aiming to help cats, in my opinion.

She is now shielded from the horror stories she says and she's glad, because she couldn't take it anymore.

However, she took the time, to arrange foster care for six of the eight kittens from this Albany female fixed today. She still took the time!!! They'll be going through another group once fixed to be adopted and the old woman fostering them is one Poppa's president helped with cats once upon a time.

I told her I'll still use Poppa funds, just can't be doing it daily, and nonstop and doing situations where I'll end up with more and she knows that one, too.

UPDATE: I returned the two warehouse cats. Mom immediately joined her two kittens in the pipes. I saw both and took this photo of the little Siamese pipe kitten.

I Quit the City

I quit. I did it. I told the mayor and the city person to consider this in voting on the budget and the Poppa Inc. grant: I quit. I outlined why. I live on nothing. I can't do this alone. I get a few bags of cat food donated per year. That's it.

I have to come up with the rest, or ask for help from my faraway blogger people, for like Valentino. My day to day life has been hell, with so many here to care for, namely the Albany business cats. That happened because the city requested I intervene. I should have held my ground, but the grant was up for renewal, and I felt if I said "no" maybe we wouldn't get the grant. Now I don't want any part of it.

I can't do this. I'm completely alone here. I have no support at all.

I'd like to trap, but independently, for other groups, who will take in the ones who need taking in, and all I will do is trap. I can't deal with the people, the arrogant assholes who breed and cause the problem to continue without regard for life, for society, for taxpayers, for the little people trying to solve the problem, for the cats.

I can't take the constant verbal abuse either. I can't take the constant exposure to animal abandonment, neglect and cruelty. I can't take Albany. I've never in my life lived in a place where the majority of people do not fix their pets or care for them even minimally.

I quit. I don't regret it. I've done what I could do and I can't do it anymore.

I've been used. I know that. I let it happen so I could help cats and it was the only way I could but it was nonetheless wrong.

I don't want to be nice anymore. People are not nice to me. When you have a grant, you have to put on a smiley face and take shit. I want to say "fuck off asshole" to most people. Now I can. Now I will.

16 Days Old. Point Colors Darken

16 Days Old Now!! Their ears, originally white, then blue in color, are darkening to classic chocolate points.

As for the Egyptian temple cats people, you never know, one day they might turn into radical cat fixers! Stranger things have happened.

The mayor of Albany didn't use to even like cats. Then something happened one day. A mother cat showed up with her kittens and nobody to help her. The mayor, although then she was not the mayor, was the chosen one, by this mother, so desperately in need.

When the kittens were older, the former cat disliker tried to give them away at a garage sale. She was, however, horrified by the manner of people wanting them, locked them in her house and told people they were all now in homes. Which was true. Her home. Where they stayed and still remain, to this day.

So, people aren't static, they change and the change can be fricking dramatic. So, maybe those people bred cats and give them away unfixed and are hostile to suggestions they fix them. But next week, or next month, or next year, they could be the ones, like me, out there trying to round up cats and get them fixed and protect them. It could happen! You never know.

Life is strange and sometimes the twists and turns are beautiful.

In other kitten war news, another post on craigslist said they had seven or eight kittens from two litters and wanted them and the mother cats gone right now. I called the number. No answer. I called the other number, their mother, who was excited about the possibility of getting them fixed. Alas, the couple didn't care about getting any of them fixed and when they called me back, had already handed out all the kittens unfixed and were not interested in getting the mothers fixed only in getting rid of them.

This sort of thing, going on everywhere right now, is so discouraging, I want to cry, in fact, it's hard for me not to cry just writing about it. It seems very pointless to continue. Nobody cares or will lift one finger to go out of their way to act responsibly. People want their own needs met and right now and fuck everyone else.

And in further kitten news, farm workers hoisted up pipes, to slide two black kittens into my net. The other two, another Siamese and another black, and their mom, could not be located in time. You see, the farm workers had only two minutes left on their break when they saw I could use some help extricating the kittens from the pipes. So they used those two minutes to quickly help catch the two.

They're from the same warehouse as the Siamese comes from, the one with kittens. I want to catch their mom, but also don't want to have to chase down these kittens when they are adults, to be fixed. They are not quite big enough, so they'll have to also stay here until they are two pounds. Then they will be fixed and returned.

You Have Got to be Kidding Me!!!!

Look at this craigslist post---such discouraging ignorance "been in their family for generations" but they haven't the social responsibility to fix them. I am struggling here, with all these rescues, none of whom are getting any adoption interest and I am struggling in part because of people like this, who behave so irresponsibly.

Egyptain Temple Cats (Philomath area)
Date: 2011-05-29, 1:37PM PDT
Reply to: comm-ewzdg-2409593195@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]


We have 15 cats to give to quality homes that want good mousers and bug eaters! These cats have been in our family for more than ten generations of their family lives,and over 13 years with us. They are a small breed of feline ,being a cross of a black , a brown ,or red sable Manx mixed with Siamese. They look like the fine boned Egyptian Temple Cats that are seen in photos. They have been well socialized, and been raised with chickens, geese, ducks and turkeys. They are all incredibly affectionate, and full of personality! I will only adopt them out to people who come here and meet them and connect with them. No Breeders! No cat eaters or medical experimentation ! I do not have good photo capabilities,and these cats are not fixed. PLEASE no emails--Call 541-929-4983 small adoption fee or garden plant exchange to keep CL happy. Have a great day!

I e-mailed this person from a different ad I found on another website. Here is his or her response. Her response is not only ignorant but passive aggressive. It is frustrating. I had told her how breeding cats causes costs for everyone, spreads diseases, but they do not want to hear it. If they want to breed their cats and keep them all there on their property, that's one thing, but when people hand them out unfixed, they begin a chain of affecting everyone. She responded she did not want to hear again from me and I responded back I didn't want to hear from her again either. Mutual thing. The post I'd responded to, not sure where it had been posted, was a claim that her ads were being flagged and she thought free ads sites were the community helping each other. I responded to that on how she could help the community and then she or he probably would not be flagged, if the cats were fixed.

from: "J P"
Add sender to Contacts

For your information. These cats live a very healthy and loved life. They serve a purpose on farms by eating rodents, which are rampant in our areas due to long standing history of properties not being properly cared for. These cats have only been being given to other farms . They are also part of the natural food chain. When felines are allowed to live in their families, they moderate their numbers naturally. This is a well documented fact and can be researched and studied. These cats have been properly cared for all their lives . Perhaps it is yourself that needs more educating. Wishing you well on the furthering of your education! Have a beautiful day!

Living Room Demolition Derby

My living room is a demolition center right now. I'm getting rid of the craigslist couch.

I cannot afford the hefty haul off fee charged by the local garbage company.

This leaves me only with the demolition option. I've dismantled many couches in my day. I can take apart a couch now in a couple of hours.

This one was particularly easy.


Sure, be nice to know someone with a burn pile for the wood frame. There is very little wood in a couch. Couches are made mostly of foam, two or three types, cardboard and cloth. The wood involved is stapled together to form a cheap frame. There is clothes hanger thick wire along the back and top. That's it.

If you spill something on a couch, you will never get it out. It will sink into the cardboard and the foam and be there forever. That's why if you have cats and get a used couch you will have problems. The old smells from the home before are there for good.This sheet of foam I will re use for something.This is the foam atop the arm rest.

I have another I need to dispose of, one I got off the neighbors who moved. It had been in their pack rat stuffed moist garage forever and smelled like it. I should have turned it down. I didn't.

I'll use the foam from the old couch, that I can wash in the feral cat houses still in my driveway from that business.

One of those three is likely ruined. They were not painted on the bottom and made of OSB, which soaks up moisture like a sponge. It's been pouring here for days. That one is likely toast. I will put one, when finished in my yard and the neighbor wants one, so that takes care of those. The other one, the one I didn't get painted before all the rain we've had, will have to be disposed of.

I don't mind demolition. It's cathartic! I've been house bound due to being completely broke and that can drive even a soul used to complete isolation, as I am, batty. Or, battier than usual.

Tearing a couch to its part allows for re-use or recycling of most of the old couch. It's kind of a yukky job but goes very quickly. My tools this time were a pocket knife, to cut the cloth, which was the most time consuming part of the job; a screwdriver, to remove the 8 screws holding in the bottom metal and to pry much of the rest of the couch apart. I also used a small pry bar and a hammer. That was it. Mostly the screwdriver, for prying, and the pocket knife, for cutting away the cloth.

The calls have been coming in, as often is the case, as cats begin having kittens and people don't want them.

Those people with issues, for whom I trapped many cats, before she began sabotaging my efforts to catch the last few, called me. One of the kittens from last fall had kittens and she didn't know what to do with them, since the teen mom didn't seem to want them. I know I didn't please her with my answer because she became very mean sounding and hung up on me. I do not know how to deal with her. Nothing pleases her I do or say.

Someone from way out, Stayton or somewhere, called and I could not figure out for the life of me what she wanted of me. She'd found kittens of a mother cat. All died but one. Her daughter, a vet tech, took in that one. I think she wanted me to trap and remove the mother cat but she never said that. She refused to feed her, said she couldn't get near her, at which point I repeated she could be live trapped to be fixed. They had a live trap! But she wanted her released "into the wild" after she was fixed, like "they do".

I said "Hell no, I won't do that. That's cruel. Why can't you feed the poor cat?" She wanted to chat but I repeatedly told her if she would not feed the cat, there was nothing I could do for her. I finally told her to call me back if changed her mind and decided to feed the cat and I hung up.

Then someone called and wanted me to take her cats. I said I couldn't do that and why and suggested she repeatedly try Safehaven, as they have far more resources and community support than I do, that I have nothing, actually. She countered that she had a medical reason to give them up. I apologized for being unable to help her, but told her again I have too many here now to find homes for and no real income and would be unable to take them.

So that's been my day so far: demolition and cat calls!Honey says goodbye to the last pile of debris that once was the craigslist brown couch.Above is my living room minus this old stinky awful couch and good riddance!New look dining room, cleaner and less busy.
New look to dining room area where there used to be two tables but now one is moved to the living room.
Here is the new look to the living room. I had two tables just off the kitchen and so I moved one over to where the couch used to be and put the sick cage on it there. I would take apart the sick cage but Dex loves being in it, with the heating pad on low, up on the upper shelf. Over where it used to be I put the night table that used to be beside the red couch.


I have three piles of material outside. The metal material will be recycled. The wood I hope to give away, to someone who wants it. Some of the cloth is in my compost pile. Most of the foam, after I wash it thoroughly, will be re-used also.

Also, my kitchen mini blinds fell down and were really terrible. That happened months ago. I don't like to feel shut in, so I never replaced them. But now the sun glares in, when it shines that is, so I have T-shirt curtains.



Also, on Household Hacker, one of my favorite youtube sites, there is the following video on how to dissolve plastic packing peanuts in acetone (nail polish remover) to form a goo that you can put into a mold, to re-harden. I don't know if the foam from the couch would dissolve in acetone, but the video is fabulous as are most on this site. I might try it, in my quest to create molds and make my own shoes!

Eyes Wide Open

Guess who is two weeks old with eyes wide open?

You guessed it: three getting very active Siamese kittens.

Want to Cry. Want to Run Away.

The stress of the outlet short out last night, along with hordes more unfixed cats showing up everywhere has me wanting to get out of dodge forever.

Rates are going up on everything, from garbage to electricity, but my income isn't going up and my car is aging. How in the world will I continue to help animals in this area?

People want. People take. People cause problems. People don't give back.

I want to run away.

Today an unfixed boxer from another street was running around. He's after the unfixed lab/pit mix across the street, who keeps getting out. Before that, it was an unfixed male pug running around after her.

They have the money to fix that female lab/pit bull, but haven't done it. Now she's likely pregnant. Like another neighbors' boxer. They breed her deliberately. Like there are not enough unwanted boxer's already out there, like two unfixed male boxer's being advertised right now on craigslist. Likely one of them is the male who was out free roaming today.

The neighbor who had taken in the white cat turned her back out, fearful she might have kittens hidden away out there who need her. Whether she does or doesn't, who knows. The poor cat was so darn skinny her backbone is prominent. If she has a home somewhere around here, those people need arrested.

There's another white cat, a male, now in the neighborhood, unfixed of course. There's another unfixed brown tabby. There are those 11 two blocks from here, 8 of them kittens from just one litter.

I need to get back to trapping down at that warehouse, but it is so far, and gas so expensive. I'm broke. Completely broke.

I need to catch those last two at the nursing home, also.

Same problem. I am broke.

I have no money for bait right now, or to be driving back and forth, even the 12 miles to Corvallis.

I guess it is three males who need caught over there on 13th, including that big Siamese. And the tabby male roaming in and out on 15th. There's the tabby on white roaming over on 14th and Walnut and Maple, too. I need to take the time to snag these problem males. It doesn't help to talk to people about FIV. Doesn't make them get off their butts and join in this fight, even when it's their cat in danger and endangering other cats. I don't know why.

Guess I've had it. Guess I'm tired of fighting this fight alone.

Guess I'm tired of giving myself and my time away. Guess I wish somebody would give back, maybe help me fix my car, the mirror, the wiper problem, anyhow. The struggle continues.

Joy is getting some needed help with that very sick kitten from a rescue group who also are going to take in a couple of the young males who are tame. She asked if she should do it, accept their help, and I said "Hell yes". The group comes with a veterinarian recommendation.

I watched a movie a couple months back called "Into the Void". It is a re-enactment of a true story. Two ice climbers climb a remote peak. Before that, they hook up with a non climber, who they invite to join them. However, he does not accompany them on the peak attempt. It is a difficult peak, more difficult than they imagined. On the descent, one climber breaks his leg. He understands his friend will likely leave him there, or they both will die. But his friend begins the impossible task of slowly lowering him down the mountain. But on one such leg, the man with the broken leg is lowered off a cliff. His friend has no idea he has been lowered into a void and holds fast his position at the other end of the rope, hoping to feel his friend's tug on the rope, to signal he is fastened to the ice, and he can then climb down to lower him farther. The tug never comes. After a great length of time, the uninjured climber is pulled down the mountain and can no longer maintain his hold. He makes a decision to cut the rope. He knows his friend will die. But should they both die?

The injured climber falls, crashing through an ice layer into a crevice. The other climber continues down, through a glacier field laced in crevices, then across a boulder field, where the snow is gone, and finally to their base camp. He tells the man who had joined them that his friend is dead.

But the inured is not dead and makes his way through the crevice he fell into, pulling himself along with his arms and hands. He makes it out finally and down the glacier, weaving in between the crevasses, following his friends footsteps until snow obscures them. This is slow and terribly painful. He makes small goals for himself and gives himself a set amount of time,to go say twenty feet. He is dehydrated and in terrible pain.

Days go by. The two men at the base camp determine they must leave. They burn the other mans' clothes in a symbolic goodbye and prepare to depart.

The injured man is now in the boulder field which is very hard to navigate with a broken leg. He is starving. He confesses to enjoy the feeling of urinating on himself, and that everything has broken down. He knows he is going to die. A song he doesn't even like bangs through his head constantly and he can't escape it.

During his terrible ordeal, the thing he wants most is not so much to live as he wants to not die alone. He longs to be held in someone's arms and comforted.

He hops one step and falls, on his broken leg, throughout the boulder field traverse. He finally is in and out of delirium. It's been four long days since the rope was cut, but comes to with a sharp acrid smell, which is the smell of his own base camps latrine area. He realizes this and calls out for his climbing partner.

It is the other man who awakens in the night to the sound. He does not think it could possibly be a living being calling out like that. He thinks it must be the dead man's ghost. But when the injured man's climbing friend hears it, he knows who it is and races out to find him. And when he does, he holds him in his arms and comforts him.

That is what I came away from that movie remembering, what that injured climber longed for most and when he got it, how it felt to him.

I think that might be what most people want when they are experiencing terrible difficulties, terminal illnesses, losses, injury, pain, fear--to be held and comforted.

I remember watching the series "The Pacific" and how one soldier lost his humanity during the brutal battles, the deaths and maiming of friends, the constant deluge of rain and muck and illness the soldiers endured. He came to hate the Japanese and look forward to killing them. A blast hit a hut one day. He and his friend were looking through it afterwards. There were bodies, but one old woman was alive. She pointed to her intestines, hanging out of her body, then took the end of his rifle and put it in her mouth, motioning for him to shoot her.

Instead, he picks her up and cradles her against his chest as she expires. This connection, this act of humanity, of dual suffering, two broken beings touching souls briefly, his failure to kill, restored him in some ways.

I watched another movie "Children of Huang Shi". It is inspirational. It too is based on the true story of a young journalist caught in China as Japan begins attacks on China. He is nearly beheaded when the Japanese invaders discover he took photos of a massacre, but he is saved by a group of insurgents, led by a Harvard educated Chinese man, who, after the young man is shot and wounded, sends him off to Huang Shi to recover fully.

There he finds he has been sent to an orphanage, of starving and diseased boys, left to fend for themselves mostly, except for an occasional visit by a young woman doctor, with issues of her own, including an addiction to morphine.

The most poignant scene in that movie is the doctor jumping off a Chinese convoy truck to give a shot of morphine to a dying Chinese soldier. A superior jumps off after her, slapping at her for wasting morphine on a soldier already dead. He drags the soldiers body up off the ground and then drops him and yells "He's already dead. You wasted morphine." The doctor gets back on the truck and it takes off. She looks back. The "already dead" soldier raises up slightly to look into her eyes.

With the Japanese advancing, the young man, now a teacher of the orphans, who are now clean and free of lice, has only one true ally, besides the doctor. That is a Chinese woman who sells drugs including opiates and also sells herself for sex. The Chinese army sees the boys in the orphanage as soldiers, bodies to be wasted on war. They also intend to take over the orphanage to use as a headquarters. Their teacher wants to save the boys. He concocts a plan to take them 500 miles through the mountains to the edge of the Gobi desert, where no one will bother them, where they will be safe from the war, to start over.

He gives a fond farewell to the red lady, bowing and kissing her hand. She is astounded at such treatment and to be called a lady. She turns, and goes back into her brothel where an officer waits for "servicing". Her head is held high.

When the teacher discovers the doctor is an addict, the warrior, who saved him in Nanjing and who is trekking part way with the group, tells him she is a great woman, who has absorbed deep pain. He goes to her then, and when she expects his condemnation, as she has run out of morphine and is in withdrawals, instead, he tells her she is the most beautiful and brave woman he has ever met. She is restored by these words.

He dies in the end. He dies of tetanus. The children and the doctor bury him with great love. He is remembered to this day for his acts of courage.

These are all inspiring movies. They touch at the heart of what every person needs but rarely gives or gets.

Night of Panic

I drank some Mountain Dew yesterday. I only drank half a small can. What is in that stuff? I could not sleep last night. It was a good thing. Like fate. Might have saved me and all the cats here.

I gave up on immediate sleep about midnight. I had gone to bed early. But I woke up about midnight. I was tossing and turning.

Dex is going downhill again. Her guts sound like bad plumbing, gurgling and popping. I felt bad for her. I gave her fluids then came into the exclusion room to use my PC. I cursed my bad choice in drinking that Mt. Dew, which always causes me sleep problems, no matter how little I drink. I don't drink pop. But yesterday, I weakened. It looked so good, sitting there behind a cooler glass window. It looked cold, and refreshing and thirst quenching. It called out to me. It was fate I made the choice I made.

I was hearing something. I thought it was a kitten mewing piteously, at first. My mind drifted to the cat taken in by the neighbor, at end stage lactation. How could I be hearing her kittens in my bedroom when I can't even hear the Siamese's kittens, in my own garage?

We don't know where she came from, only that every bone protrudes from serious starvation. She had nothing to give kittens, if she had them. They would be dead out there somewhere. I could not be hearing her kittens, I told myself. I went to investigate the sound.

I got near my dresser and heard a crackling fizzling sizzling sound. What in the world? I yanked the dresser away from the wall and to my horror, the sound was coming from the outlet. I do not think I have ever used that outlet. Suddenly the sound escalates and I see orange and smoke bursting from the lower outlet.

Panic sets in!!! I don't revert to my fire plan. Instead, I race for the garage, bare footed, without a flashlight in hand. I shut down the main, fumbling in the dark then, garage door open, I feel a cat whisk by my ankles. Into the garage? I'm then plunged into complete darkness. I cannot find a working flashlight. The sizzling and crackling continues at my wall.

I find my cell phone and punch speed dial for my brother. I don't expect an answer. My sister in law answers. She says, sleepily, "Call the fire department." "No!" I fire back, "They'll ruin everything and my cats will die."

I've seen what happens when the fire department is called on even a small fire. It happened at a low income high rise where I lived in Corvallis. An old woman fell asleep in her chair smoking and her chair caught fire. The fire department came and the fire was put out, but many apartments were ruined by the water, which even pooled in the lobby ceiling before crashing through and ruining that. Many people were forced to live elsewhere until the water damage, not the damage from the small fire, was repaired.

Instead, I grabbed one of two fire extinguishers I have, from the wall, pulled the pin, then the trigger and sprayed the hell out of the outlet and wall. Fine white powder went everywhere, choking me, coating everything. The sizzling continued. In my panic, in the dark, I had turned off the main. I had to turn it back on to find a flashlight that worked. After that, I switched it off again, which stopped the crackling.

My brother said he'd have an electrician there, first thing this morning. I said "Wait." And finally, despite my fear of electricity, pulled out the outlet. One wire, the hot wire, was not connected to the back of the outlet, and was loose and bare behind it. Most likely, a wad of dust, even a bug, touched that bare positive and something else, creating a closed circuit. The outlet box had contained any damage, as it was intended to do.

I have changed most of the outlets in this place. I need to make sure I change every single one of them. It wasn't a fire, the orange I saw, just arcing current. I had over reacted, but at least I reacted and contained a problem that, had I not been awake, might have spelled the end to life as I know it.

I found a new outlet in my supplies this morning and changed the bad one out and turned the power back on. Strangely, now my phone, which has been barely audible, rings loud enough to hear in my garage. I don't know if the outlet it is plugged into is on the same circuit as the bad outlet. I would be surprised if that is true, since one is in the kitchen and the other in the bedroom, but you never know. It could be the phone reset or something, when I turned off the main. I don't know these things. What do I know?

I know I never drink pop and yesterday I did and the result was, I was awake when I needed to be awake last night.

I couldn't find a flashlight in small part because I got ripped off. Things were stolen out of my garage, which has broken my heart. This happened some time ago. I don't know exactly when.

The first thing I found missing was my mag lite. It was then, searching for it, when I knew I had left it in a certain spot in my garage, that I discovered other things missing, among them my spotting scope and the receiver part of my treasured remote control unit for my live traps. I'd had it out, on a table near the front of the garage, working to revamp it to fit all my traps and the drop trap.

These losses, although not of financial significance if some outsider were to try to place a value on the thefts, have devastated my soul. Especially the remote control receiver unit, as it is something that was very useful to me in my efforts, and a concept I came up with myself. I was so proud of that device. It's gone now.

I have suspects in this theft, but no proof. I have nothing left now for them to steal either. They already tore out my heart. It's been tough to get over it, to move on.

I want to trap those thieves, using their own greed and lack of respect for someone else as bait.

I did buy another two cell mag lite. It is hard now to find a decent flashlight. They're plastic and crap and fall apart or break quickly. The switches break. The plastic threading breaks down in one false start when changing batteries. The negative to positive top to bottom strips fall loose or corrode.

It is so hard to find anything built to last anymore. I hate LED flashlights. They are useless for trapping as they have no range to the light offered. Even mag lites are not built as well as they used to be built.

I drank Mt. Dew. I didn't sleep as a result. Because I didn't sleep, I was awake to hear abnormal sound from an outlet. I investigated, subsequently over-reacted, but the problem was contained, as a result, and this morning, fixed.

What's my fire plan, you might ask? For a wall fire, if that had been an actual fire in the wall, not just arcing current, I do have a plan. Chase all cats from bedroom and bathroom, which share a wall. Close those doors throwing wet bath towel beneath, donning a headlamp, which is supposed to be hanging from a hook on my bunk bed. Then I chop up a hole in the wall by the fire with the machete and spray the hell out of it with the fire extinguisher.

Yeah, right.

There's no fire plan that saves the lives of your animals. There isn't any time. Fires travel quickly and by the time they produce enough smoke to set off a smoke detector all you can do is smash a window and get out.

Anything that burns in a house is going to produce toxic smoke, too, and toxic hot smoke kills anything alive very quickly.

Inside cats are not going to be chased outside and if so, they'll try to run back inside to hide. My plan would be to try to stop the fire, and if not realistic, to grab two cats and smash a window. The only fire you have a reasonable chance of stopping is a cooking fire, not an electrical fire that starts as a short in a wall.

That's all you have time to do. Fire plan? You don't need one if you live alone. Smash a window if you have to and get out. Save who you can but if you have a cat rescue you can't save them all. I'd be lucky to save two.

What's With All the Corvallis Murderers?

There have been three murders in the last months committed by Corvallis residents. What is up with that trend?

The first was bizarre, to say the least.

A Corvallis man was chased down by police in northern California after he slashed the throats of a couple living in N. California and growing pot there. He'd known them in Corvallis and when all three lived just outside Corvallis in Summit. He had also slashed the throat of the couple's neighbors. Someone from Corvallis called the sheriff of that county, suggesting they check up on the couple. I guess that call likely came from a family member of the couple or from someone who had heard from the Corvallis man accused of killing them.

Because it is a remote area, the deputy asked a neighbor to check on them. That's when the Corvallis man allegedly slashed her throat, although she survived. Her husband came over and he was attacked but wrestled the knife from the man who then took off on the rural roads in his Volvo. He was later engaged in a high speed chase and died in a crash. Just recently, an autopsy of his body revealed he was not on drugs when he committed this terrible crime.

The next murder involved an OSU student from Peru. He had lived in Philomath, which is on the edge of Corvallis as a high school exchange student. He then came back from Peru on a student visa to go to OSU, in Corvallis. He and a Philomath woman he met in high school were boyfriend/girlfriend and had a baby together. However, he didn't take it well, when they split up.

The couple they lived with had no idea what had happened when they texted him saying dinner was ready. He had gotten cold medicine and drugged his girlfriend and baby. When she was asleep, he slashed her throat. He tried to kill his baby by putting duct tape over his mouth. When the baby tried to pull it off as he suffocated, he put more on. The guy then slashed his own wrists but survived.

The latest murder was very recent. A body was found in a sleeping bag down off I5 outside of Brownsville. He had been bludgeoned to death. Turns out he was the roommate of three illegal immigrants and all four lived in S. Corvallis. All three were arrested today, two on charges of murder and the third on charges of impeding prosecution. All three are on ICE holds and one has extensive warrants out on him for violent crimes in the Salem area including domestic assault.

Lovely. The man killed was the only one of the four in the country legally. How so? Not sure. Maybe a work visa. He is a native of S. America.

That's four murderers living in and around Corvallis. One is now dead. And the other three, none American citizens, are in jail. A lot of money will be spent on trials and then on housing them for life. Millions of dollars probably.

Three Albany Cats Fixed Today

Two boys, one adult and one kitten, plus a stray a neighbor fed, were fixed today. The stray, who was just starving, was taken pity on by a nearby neighbor, who wants to find her a home. However, the news from the vet is that she is at end stage lactation, maybe has just weaned kittens. Now comes the dilemma of what to do. She can't have a home, the neighbor says, due to the state of her starvation and I agree. But what happened to her kittens?Above is the white female fixed today that a neighbor has been caring for.

The little orange tabby polydactyl male kitten won over the hearts of staff at the clinic, who adored him. He is from an Albany complex. I got his mother and three other household females fixed a few weeks ago, plus a bunch of free roaming males there.

The big buff tux male had been dumped off at a house by a relative of the occupants who is into drugs. A neighbor arranged for his neuter.

I also spotted two more males as I left the area, after delivering the big boy back home, near a place where I got a bunch fixed before. So I stopped in at that house and made arrangements to possibly get in the little guy. But the big male unfixed Siamese may be more difficult to catch.

I was also called by a woman who has a mother cat who had 8 kittens. That's right, 8!!! I told her to try KATA, on taking in the kittens. The three unfixed adults, including mom, will be fixed next Tuesday.

Here is Mr. Wonderful, Valentino. Valentino has begun drooling infection again. The antibiotic shot wore off and apparently two weeks was not enough. I have him now on oral antibiotics and he goes back in Tuesday to the vet.Miss Daisy, the little cherub, sleeping!
The sly and conniving Sage, who is too smart for her own good, makes a game of waiting at the cat door to ambush the unwary soul emerging.
This time it's Sam.Haley, one of the Albany business cats, rushes out of hiding to meet Sage, who is four times her size. The business cats grew up with cats as family and know no cat enemies.

Haley is courageous and a defender of the others. She will come out all hiss and spit and fluffed out, in defiance of all danger, to defend the younger cats. You can tell she's had to defend herself before from humans and defend other cats from humans. She's something else. Just makes you want to hug her, tell her its ok now.

She has the most personality, along with Sassy, of all the business cats. She is extraordinary. Cougie too is coming out of her shell. They're relaxing. The catnip helps!

Joy's Hell

The farm, where Joy, in Nebraska, has fed cats and got most fixed, was not her farm. The people who owned the farm never got the cats fixed or fed them. But the woman told Joy today, that she needs to do whatever she's got to do there by June 1, because she sold the farm.

This is terrible news for Joy and perhaps for the cats there, now all fixed but one female who had kittens. One of the three kittens has died. Joy had ahold of one of the other ones, she hoped, when she called me just now, needing advice on how to care for a kitten, barely three or four weeks old, and on whether to put this one in a carrier behind a trap. I told her not if the mom has another out there.

So I guess the carrier door had fallen off. She was going to run back over there, to see if the kitten was still in it anyhow. I hope the kitten is.

I feel for Joy. I wish I was there to help her. Now her life is in a turmoil of worry, I bet, wondering who bought the farm and if the new owners will be nice to those cats she has cared for, and gotten fixed, when the previous owners were not.

UPDATE: Well, Joy called back to say, when she went back in, the mother was inside the trap. She is going to be at the vet clinic, in Hastings, a 60 mile drive, before they open, and beg them to fix both the mother cat and the teen male.

My guess is the second kitten is deceased, too. So, she has the one kitten, the mom, and she grabbed up a teen male, not yet fixed, too, to get fixed. She has one week before the new owners take possession and she says she will drop on her knees before them and beg for the lives of the cats if she has to.

She is also worried the new owners might have big dogs, who kill cats.

But, she did good tonight. She was out there crawling around in the rafters, she said, looking for the second kitten and searched seven acres too.

If anyone has any extra bucks, let me know and I will give you Joy's address. She hasn't got any money, and is doing this on a credit card. We little people who help animals all know how this is.

Snare Day

I decided to build a net snare. I once caught the very last cat of 200 plus cats roaming a warehouse using a net snare. I triggered it manually, not with any stick trigger, so I would catch no one but Moby Jane, my obsession, the last cat standing, in a monumental endeavor to seek out, fix, then differentiate unfixed from fixed in a population occupying several warehouse of over 200 cats.

Moby Jane eluded capture. I became obsessed with catching her, dreaming up snares when I should have been sleeping, leaping from bed to sketch snare ideas on tablets in a frenzy when they came to me.

After I nabbed her, life was quite dull for some time.

Now I have a new obsession to keep my blood warm and my brain alive.

Today I pulled out old pieces of pvc, that were once part of a fence that used to totter out back before falling. I'd bought some fish netting from a party store.

It was cheap but will it hold, with a cat struggling in it? Don't know.

Guess I'll find out.

I cut them in three different lengths. I used the hack saw I got at the dollar store until both blades broke, which was rather quick, come to think of it. I then had to hold a broken blade to saw through the pvc to length.

The cats stared. Sage tried to take off with my new party net, fresh out of the bag, but I caught her.

I assembled the pvc pieces using tri corner connectors I had bought to use to repair broken pipes.

They fit!

After that, I laid out the net around the frame and began sewing it together with Dollar Store coated laundry line. After that, my bus driver friend stopped by and I became distracted. Then my neighbor stopped by and I was further distracted.

After that, I forgot all about finishing my snare, but it's all in my head, the big plan, that might work, could work. I have three more plans to implement after that. Heck, I think I'll implement them all, except I'll have to get more bags of beach party decor net. I bet it holds for my purposes.

Then I'm tying cat lures, with feathers.

Well, soon enough I'll do that.

I do not intend to bait this snare with food. I'll just get raccoons that way. Big raccoons. I intend to exploit kitty curiosity to catch my nemesis--Little Black. After that, I'll catch Nemesis Two--Fat Fluffy. Then I'll be done.

So, besides planning out the latest snare of three, I actually had a visitor today, which is extremely rare, I could say. So that was something.

I also tried to think of people to call on my net10 cell, which has only two service days left and about 300 minutes. Minutes don't carry over. I hate to waste anything.

I bought a $25 one month 750 minutes card. I don't call that many people. Next time, I'll go with the cheaper 500 minute card. Or even the 350 minute card.

I didn't have a big day. I searched online about how to fix the car wiper problem. My latest car problem is that both the intermittent wiper function and the auto complete function quit working. This means when it rains I have to time the turn off of the wiper blades perfectly or they stop somewhere in the middle of the windshield.

I learned online it is likely a relay on some little box circuit inside the dash. I learned online if you know how to remove a relay from a circuit board and attach a new one, and can get the new one somewhere, then you can fix that problem without being charged the massive buck price from a dealer for that part. I learned I would also need to know how to test relays by shorting them out to find the correct relay, the one that is not working.

Sounds complicated and fun and possibly disastrous as a DIY by me. I'll read more about it.

I believe I also looked up other repair how to's, but I can't recall right off. That was my big day. There you have it and you have heard it all.

I am very happy not to have been visiting Joplin during that horrible tornado.

My heart goes out to those people.

Did any of you see the video, taken after a previous tornado, where an older woman was being interviewed at her destroyed house about how she survived. A wall had fallen on her and her three cats. One had disappeared not to be seen again, but as she was being interviewed, the lost cat wandered up behind her. I lost it watching that.

Two Corvallis Cats Fixed Today

Before I describe the two cats fixed today, I have to show off garage mom Siamese, whose three surviving kittens are now showing point colors at nine days old, but still have closed eyes.




Below are photos of the two Corvallis cats fixed today.Midnight, black female from Corvallis fixed today. She has four six-week-old kittens who will be fixed in a few weeks.Buddy, beautiful brown tabby male, from Corvallis, fixed today. And boy, did he ever smell like a male!

I took up a black female and a spotted tabby male, who was just gorgeous, both owned by same Corvallis family who also have the female's latest litter, of four tabby boys. They will be fixed in about three weeks.

Meanwhile, this woman's sister, who lives in Alsea, has quite a few cats that need fixed. She has been given my number.

Last night once again I failed at the nursing home to catch either of the two cats left needing caught. Not surprising, however. The raccoon population is resident and virtually tame and hang out in the parking lot like the cats used to. Boy, could those raccoon use a spay neuter program.

I saw both cats but not for long. They wandered off quickly. Any food put out now goes directly into the mouths of raccoons. That's what happens when you feed strays improperly.

It's also why snap together stray feeders need built and sold at Kmarts and Walmarts and Petcos. Stray feeders, as I dubbed them, exploit the fact raccoons, possums and skunks cannot jump vertically, but cats can. Therefore, cats can be fed atop a platform too high for such critters to get on.

I gave the idea over to my vet, told him it is a money maker, and a needed product, because he had a guy he said could build and manufacture them, but seems it all fizzled.

This is a needed product. I don't have manufacturing capacity or start up money or I'd do it myself.

I saw a cat along I5 two weeks ago, sitting in the grass along I5 south at the Ankeny Hill exit. I knew he or she was likely dumped, the look on the cats face, as I passed at 65 mph. It was a short hair black tux. I posted about the cat on craigslist. Several people responded that maybe it was their cat, lost in Albany or Corvallis or wherever. Neighbors around here who hate cats often take neighbors cats out and dump them. None of the responders were interested in going out to help this cat, or even see if it was theirs.

Today I see the cat again, farther south, right off the south bound freeway. The cat has given up waiting, probably in dire straits by now, will die or be killed by cars or coyotes without intervention. I have hemmed and hawed all night, feeling terrible for that poor soul out there and doomed. But trapping along I5 is highly dangerous. Night is the least dangerous in some ways and even more dangerous in other ways. This is best done with two people. But where would I find another.

I probably need to accept the fact the cat is doomed. Two other cats dumped in the same location both died along the freeway eventually. Someone else, who lived up that way, promised to intercede and help but that person turned out to be a compulsive liar.