18 Local Cats Fixed Today

18 cats from Linn and Benton counties were fixed today.  Actually, only one came from Benton county, a Philomath female, originally from Albany.

Nine, all females, came from a down town Albany colony, wedged in a block between two two-lane one-way extremely busy streets.  Two lanes go through town and out over the river one way and two come into town the other way.  This is a no good place for cats to live surrounded basically by thorough fares.  It shows in injuries to cats.  One lactating female had nothing but a short skinned stump left of what likely used to be a long fluffy tail.  Another cat, an older calico, has only two legs, one in the front and one in the rear, fortunately, on opposing sides.  She hops along, pretty much at an angle.  One of the nine was already spayed, but had no ear tip.  I had also drop trapped two others from this colony, to find they already had ear tips.  There are 8 kittens, between two mothers.  But I told the college students, advertising them on craigslist, tonight, that there are a total of four lactating females among the nine.  Three others were pregnant.  The girl said she didn't care, because "they're out there somewhere". 

There was also a lactating torti a woman caught over at some Albany shithole apartments.  Tonight, she was nowhere to be found, just like last time I helped her out.  She treated me then like a servant, would not lift a finger herself, is full of words about spay neuter, but man, she doesn't do anything and is so full of excuses and entitled huffiness and outrage.  It took many calls and three trips over there tonight, already drop dead exhausted, to get her to take back the cat.  I explained she should feed her immediately wet food, but as I drove off, in my mirror, I saw her take the trap around the corner.  I backed up.  Sure enough, she let her out, didn't feed, nothing, just dumps her out.  I rolled down my window and let her have it.   She wrote the governor she claimed about a statewide spay neuter bill, is so full of herself but when it comes to doing any work, or taking care of a cat, she is not into it.  Just not into it.

I told her not to contact me again.  She doesn't show any respect, this time by not being there to receive the cat back, making me work to find her to receive it back, then immediately letting her go.

So anyhow, bad day as far as donations.  Only $4, so I'm out quite a bit on gas for the trip and running around to round up all these cats.  Sad.  Really sets me back.

I also took down another Albany female while another was fixed at Heartland.  I took down a Lebanon male, and his sister, a Siamese mix.  I took down an abandoned Albany calico but she turned out to be already spayed.

Screech was fixed at Heartland.  When I got home tonight, he'd somehow gotten out of the trap, by rolling it, in my garage, and he shot out the door, but quickly came back for food and to rub against my leg.  Guess we're best friends now.  He was in a tru catch (ring drop) trap, and those can come open if a cat rolls it on its side, which he accomplished, the rascal that he is.

It was indeed a great day for mid valley cats.  For me, well, the day was very tough.  I'm old and broke, that's all.  But in a few days, maybe I'll get my sleep and my joints will heal and my clothes will wash and I'll be bright and cheery.  You never know.

Scenery and Kittens

I stopped to watch the fishermen by the rapids just beyond the Waterloo bridge after returning Fluffy Butt this morning, to her owners. I also delivered them some cat food. The Santiam River goes by Waterloo.  This spot is often crammed with wall to wall drift boats and fishermen.

Downtown Albany colony kittens, 8 of them from two mothers, Major Mom, a calico, and Minor Mom, her adult daughter, a long hair black.  There were 9 kittens but the renters gave one away.  Another has a home, too.  The other seven need somewhere to go as the renters say they cannot foster them and will return them to the bushes.

Screech really has earned his name! Finally, tomorrow he will be neutered and silence will again reign, in my garage!

Screech is Being a Pain

Sceech, now in my garage awaiting neuter, is trying my patience.  He yowls, howls, screeches, strikes at me, and hisses.  He is noisy and messy, overturning his litter box, carrier bed, water and food dishes.  He slept in the carrier bed, then peed in it then acted outraged that it was dirty.  If ever a cat needed a neuter job, it is Screech.  Hormones are driving him batty.  And his hormones are driving me batty, too!

One moment he's sweet as can be, wanting to be petted.  The next he is a viscous monster out to kill me.  OMG, Screech.

The misery kept me up last night, heart pounding, to hear him out in the garage, yowling, upsetting my cats, tearing up the rabbit hutch, which is super comfortable.  He's on antibiotics because he's sick, too, so he could really use this time out from his hard life to advantage.  But his hormones won't let him.

Right now, thank god in heaven, he's sleeping.  Wish I was!

Last night, I thought about just turning him loose, but he'll come back in my yard and drive my cats mad with his spray marking.  He'd resume tearing up the neighbor's cats too.  He has to be neutered.  Period.

I will survive this.  Somehow.

Screech.  Screech.  You should have been born a girl kitty.

Or born to decent owners.

I have cats who need fixed coming out of the woodwork.

I contacted a person advertising two abandoned cats in Albany.  They're going to be fixed tomorrow. 

I contacted a Lebanon woman advertising a mom and deaf four week old white kitten.  The mom, a stray, and her unfixed brother will be fixed tomorrow.  She had three kittens.  Her dog ate one of them just after birth.  The second one, born 24 hours later with a brother, died two days after birth.  The brother is now four weeks old.  The mom will only spend a few moments nursing him, the woman said.

I contacted someone posting on craigslist about "Lots of Cats" in Albany.  Turns out they feed ten adults and there are nine kittens already.  The adults all came from one abandoned calico.  Today I'm off to try to catch all ten adults to be fixed.

I was contacted by a woman I helped with cats before, who lives at an Albany complex where things are now a whole lot better since I got over a dozen cats there fixed over a year ago.  Chessie is still here from that complex.  She's an older torbi, very pleasant and easy.  She was feeding another torti and has been feeding her for a month.  She's feral but not very feral, probably abandoned.  The woman now has her own trap and caught her yesterday.  She also took in an almost hairless (from fleas) teen female who will be fixed at another go around.

The fourth female a woman rescued, from being shot, the other three, plus a male having been fixed over a week ago, will be fixed tomorrow too.  She couldn't catch the fourth female last week.

Two other Albany females, from an apartment complex, one theirs, one they found, will also be fixed tomorrow.  And a stray male out off Peoria road was caught by the people feeding him.  They saw him go onto their enclosed back patio, to eat, and sneaked up and closed the windows from the outside, then went inside and threw a blanket over the panicked huge cat, to get him into a carrier.  Then they revised a rabbit run to hold him until he could be fixed.  Now that's dedication!  

Cats!  Cats!  Cats!  The Albany colony has nine kittens and where will they go and they should be fixed first, to prevent them from starting up the problem elsewhere.  What are people thinking who feed cats without fixing them?  So many cats with no options for getting homes!  Too many kittens born!

But, Poppa Inc. and me are taking a swath out of the problem tomorrow, we are.  Won't be an easy day.  Hasn't been easy the last two days and nights with Screech in my garage. But what is the alternative?  My cats pee marking because he's spraying everything down outside on a regular basis?  My neighbors cats being torn to pieces because he has fighting issues?  Nope.  Screech is getting neutered.  Period.  My pain and suffering could have been spared by his owner, whomever that person was, if they'd only acted responsibly towards him and towards neighbors!  If I knew who they are or were, I'd sue them.

Screech, Latest Yard Stray

I've lost count, but I think Screech, the buff tux boy, is cat number 37 I've trapped in my own yard since moving to Albany.  That's a lot of strays just going through my yard and says a lot about the state of feline overpopulation in Albany.  Or the past state of feline overpopulation in Albany.

Never underestimate the difference one woman with a live trap can make in a short time!

I had gone to bed, but had to get up later and use the bathroom.  I peeked out my kitchen window, and there he was again.  The buff boy with the bad attitude.  Out in my driveway.

I debated myself, wanting to get back under the warm covers.  He'd been through once before.  I had thought the orange tux fighting with the neighbor's black tux was Simba, from the house on the other street.  He always is hanging out in my yard, or one or the other neighbor's yards, being barely noticed at home.  But it wasn't Simba.  So barefoot and in pajamas, I went after him then, a few weeks ago.  What was I thinking?  I tried to scruff him in front of my neighbor's garage, as he was leaving.  The cat came at me, swung at me too.  He missed, but I was duly impressed.

He had a bad cold then, drainage from his eyes, that looked sore, and his nose.  Same thing tonight, snarfling when he ate.  I took a trap out I quickly prepared in my garage, set it right in front of him, knowing better than to try to scruff such a powerful male.

He went right in and the outrage was immediate and loud.

His screaming, growling, hissing and striking out continued.  I tried t comfort him, but he was mad and wanted to kill me.

I decided to kill him with kindness.  He's obviously lacked that in his life.   He's tame but super aggressive towards humans, which indicates to me he has been on the short end of abuse.  And when a cat still tries to strike back, usually means it's been kids abusing the cat.

I transferred him, with great difficulty, to the rabbit hutch.  He doesn't behave normally for a transfer.  He really seems terribly tired and when finally inside the rabbit hutch, when he figured out my intentions were good, he seemed content, happy to be safe, with food, water and a bed, where nobody will go after him.  I'd sprayed the carrier bed with catnip first, to help calm him.

An unfixed male has no friends.

The whole endeavor worried Fluffy Butt, the Waterloo girl, still in my garage, getting antibiotics twice daily and 20 minutes steam jobs thrice daily.  She goes home on Wednesday.  I'm trying to come up with cat food to take with me to give those people, so they'll feed the cats properly at least for awhile.  I'm not Miss Money Bags, however and it's very hard for me to come up with anything anymore.

Fluffy Butt is delightful, very funny and loving.  Screech, the buff tux boy, is about exactly the opposite.

Fluffy Butt of Waterloo

And then there's this.  Talk about odd sleeping positions.  Buffy is really too big to sleep in that basket, but she likes the basket.  She overflows and resorted to using a board next to it as a pillow.

Book Review--A Long Way Gone

I picked up a book for almost nothing at the Cat's Meow thrift store in Corvallis a few weeks ago.  I read it immediately.  Visit the book's website by clicking here.

The book is the autobiography of a child soldier in Sierra Leone.  When Ishmael is only 12, he has gone off with a few friends to visit another village, a 16 mile walk.  They are children.  The revolt, rebel armies against the government troops, seems distant although he has heard of the conflict.  But that day, the war comes to Ishmael.

 His village is struck by rebels while he is away.  They rush back, hoping to find their families, hiding in the forest when they hear gunshots.  They find only dead bodies and people dying.  The wounds of the dying are described graphically.  They are spared time and time again, often merely by luck, from death at the hands of the rebels.  But most villagers are not so lucky.  The rebels capture villages, but if the villagers get wind of their approach they will flea.  The rebels want the villagers to remain in the villages as human shields against attack by government soldiers.  When villagers try to flea, they are shot and sometimes tortured first before being killed.

The boys run, from village to village, they traverse the jungle, in search of food and safety.  They are feared themselves, sometimes denied help, because boys in this region are often soldiers for one side of the other, and very dangerous.

Ishmael, the author, describes being separated from his brother, after one village where they have taken refuge, is attacked.  He runs into the forest, becomes lost and finally joins up with a group of six other young boys, also fleeing the violence.  But seven young boys are considered suspicious and dangerous.  It is hard on them.  They end up on the coast at last, but are driven from a village running for their lives because the villagers fear them.  First they are stripped of their shoes, and quickly burn the bottoms of their feet on the scorching sand, until they can go no further.  They find a fishing hut, and a young man from the village provides them refuge until their feet heal, until they are discovered and taken back to the village.  They are questioned and about to be set loose without clothing on the ocean to die when the village elder finds one of Ishmael rap tapes still in his pocket.  Ishmael and his friends had left his home village on that 16 mile walk to attend a talent show, where they performed often, the songs of American rap artists.  Now, on the verge of death at the hands of a paranoid village, he is asked to perform for the elder, and to dance.  He does and they are spared, allowed to leave alive.

Eventually, he and his friends are captured by government soldiers who provide them refuge in their village base.  But quickly, they understand they are there to become soldiers and defend the village, surrounded at that time, by rebels.  They are trained briefly and given AK47's that some of his friends can barely carry, as the guns are bigger than they are.  In the first battle, one friend is blown up against a tree.  He watches him die.  The descriptions of the dying are very graphic.  Big holes leaking blood.  Faces torn half off.  Hands vibrating as the last oxygen leaves the body.  The sickly sweet sticky smell of blood everywhere.

After his friend is killed before his eyes, Ishmael becomes a killer.  The children spend off hours in a tent watching American war movies, like Rambo.  They all want to be like Rambo.  They are given drugs, some a mixture of stimulants and gun powder, which they snort, along with cocaine.  They raid villages and rebel bases to get ammunition, guns, supplies and drugs.  All the soldiers are drug addicts quickly and ruthless killers.

At one point, Ishmael, now also known as the Green Snake, and his friends are in a competition to see who can slash a prisoner's throat so that he dies the quickest.  The winner gets a promotion.  Ishmael stands behind the prisoner he is to kill and quickly deftly slashes his throat, so that he dies.  He wins is promoted to leader of a squad.  Once, when they attack a village, one friend tells him to wait, that he wants to try out his Rambo moves.  He has smeared mud on his face and enters the village with only a knife between his teeth to kill the guards.  After that, his nickname is little Rambo.  Always they are high on many drugs and stay up many many days high, mainly talking about how good the drugs are.

At one point, Ishmael is shot in the foot in a battle.  He survives, although they must carry him back to their old base camp to get medicine.  The bulleta are pulled out while is awake, only drugged up on cocaine and other street drugs.  Later, they capture four rebels involved in the attack where his foot was shot and he is told "these are the ones who shot you."  They shoot the rebels in the feet and let them suffer four days before they kill them by burying them alive.

Suddenly, one day, a UNICEF truck pulls into base camp and there is much talk, then the boys  are lined up and names are read and the people with those names asked to step forward.  Ishmael is one asked to step forward.  They are loaded into the UNICEF truck while the boys wonder what is happening.  Their commander tells them their service is no longer needed and their weapons are taken from them.  What is happening is that UNICEF is "liberating" boy soldiers and taking them to a rehabilitation center.

Unfortunately, there, both rebel boy soldiers and government boy soldiers are housed together and fights break out and several boys are maimed while others are killed, so they are separated.  Then Ishmael undergoes a very long rehabilitation that first must include withdrawal from all the drugs.  They take to sneaking off to Freetown and wandering the big city.  They steal supplies from the center and sell them on the black market.  Always they are told "None of this is your fault."  Over and over by every staff member, they are told that, no matter what they do.  At first, the words make them very angry.  They loved being soldiers and consider this "sissy life".  Gradually some like Ishmael see things could be different.  His family is dead but an uncle with several children is found alive and living in Freetown.  The uncle begins to visit him every week and finally he goes home with him.

After that, Ishmael is visited by a man from the rehab center who asks he fill out forms and compete to go to New York and speak to the UN about child soldiers.  He doesn't think he will be chosen but he is and makes the long journey to America with many other children.  He is shocked by how cold it is in NY city and also surprised the streets are not full of violence, as he had imagined from listening to American rap music.  He has an emotional time at the convention, meeting children from many other countries, many of whom are returning to terribly unsafe conditions.  He meets a NY woman who has been crucial in arranging this conference and works hard to try to stop children from being abducted into soldiering.

Once he is back at Freetown with his uncle's family, the war comes to Freetown, both rebels and government soldiers have joined together now, to mainly loot and kill.  There is nowhere safe.  His uncle dies.  His aunt is too frightened to know what to do, to save her children.  Ishmael faces serious repercussions if he is recognized as a former soldier for the government.  He decides to try to make it out to Guinee.  He rides a bus so far, then all the passengers hide along the road, to wait for another bus.  Bribes must be paid at every turn.  Ishmael has called the only person he feels can save him--the American woman who tries to stop child soldiering.  She has offered him sanctuary with her, if he can make it to New York.

Ishmael makes it out.  Few ever do.  He wrote the book when 26 years old.  He moved to New York when he was 18 from Freetown, Sierra Leone, Africa.

This is a graphic book about how people in war torn corrupt countries live and die, how their peaceful and normal lives are disrupted by people of violence, on both sides of a conflict and how both sides are really the same, that violence is violence, whether one is carrying one flag or another flag and how violence destroys and does not build.

The UNICEF rehabilitation camps were long suffering.  Boys who attacked staff or other boys were still told "None of this is your fault."  Some came out of the camps completely changed back into the people they were before they were swept up into the awful violence, but many never changed or were taken back into the violence.  Maybe we need more forgiveness here, of our own young, swept into violence due to unavoidable circumstance and the nature of the adults surrounding them.

Our damaged soldiers, returning home with memories they cannot bear, maybe we should be telling them, over and over again "None of this is your fault."

The book paints a disturbing picture of violence and drugs and corruption and its affects on everyday people and on children.  It makes me want to kiss the ground of America.  We can't let such violence take over here.  Violence destroys.  It does not build up.  Violence should be resorted to only in the most dangerous of self-defense situations.  Violence should not be celebrated.

Boys and men seem genetically routed to fight.  In the genes, as one would say.  You only have to see so many big male cats squaring off to know this.  Testosterone is a dangerous drug.  I've seen the news documentaries of young men headed off to war eager to face off with the enemy up close and fight and kill them.  Some love it even after seeing the horrors of death and suffering and watching friends die.  Then they're damaged and come home and want comforted.   

I read about one Viet Nam vet who signed up for another tour after his first and talked about how there was nothing like the thrill of hunting humans.  But then he was badly maimed and joined the anti war movement.

The military recruiter who used to live on the block introduced himself then said  he wanted to tell me straight up he loves war, just loves it, that there's nothing like it.  He wanted me to know that immediately.  He couldn't wait to be reassigned in a "hot" zone.

So there are these stories, of the horrors, the desires of many to stop it, but fighting seems to be in the nature of men.  How to mitigate that violence so as not to destroy the lives of those who want nothing to do with death, suffering and destruction.  How to deal with the consequences of those who once loved violence, then were damaged and now want compassion and support, even from those they have harmed?  I don't know.

I don't remember the book Forest People that well I read it so long ago.  It's about the pygmy culture.  I believe they had controlled war games, with other tribes that went on until one died.  If my memory serves me, I believe that is how they resolved the issue of male violence drive.  

Our culture mitigates male competitive, comparative violence somewhat through capitalism, competitions of every kind, sports.  If the middle eastern cultures and African nations offered healthier outlets for male competitive fighting urges like business competition and sports, would there be less violence and unrest?

Male violence in nature is simply evolution's way of ensuring the physically strongest males are left alive to mate and get the biggest territories.  It ensures the survival of the species!  Unfortunately, diseases like FIV in cats, caught and spread by the biggest baddest fighting males, have turned this time honored survival strategy on its head.  Now, the males most unlikely to fight are the ones most likely to survive.

And we as humans are unlikely to survive as a species with the development of weapons of mass destruction.  It no longer takes physical strength to fight.  You can push a button, build a bomb, make a vile of deadly chemicals, and kill massive numbers of "rivals".  The definition of strongest has certainly changed in our species too.  Violence is now an enemy of survival of the species.

Distant violence is probably safer as a means of controlling threats to our safety here--the likes of targeted drone strikes, missiles, bombs dropped from far away, can kill real threats without inflicting massive peripheral damage, on the enemy and on the psyche of the killer and those he or she encounters later.

Catlandia, a Portlandia Spoof!! Very very funny!

Watch it here!

Cranky, Creaky Me

I'm feeling yesterday today.  Joints creaking up a noxious melody.  And my brain is cranky.  I want to fire off.

My raft came!!!  Have been saving change for 14 months to get a flotation device!  I could have kissed that Fed Ex man this afternoon for bringing it to me.  He drug the box around back for me.  Am too creaky to have done so myself today.  Besides, his muscles were awesome!

I should be in bed.  Cold's back with a vengence.  Maybe it's whooping cough, which is making the rounds in southern Washington and Oregon.  Maybe I've got that and have spread it by now to countless strangers.

I'll dose myself with NyQuil soon.  Takes only a quarter of a sip and I'm out.

What is in that stuff?

I was shocked to near rage returning the Waterloo cats this morning.  I kept one of them here, the sick female, who barely came through surgery alive.  We tested her, negative on FIV/Felk and that was a shock, she looked so bad.

So I return the nine and come home, after telling them the one is still here because she's really sick.  The woman calls me, not long after I get back in through my door,  asking when the tenth is coming back.  I'd thought we covered that.  So I say "When she's well.  She's on antibiotics, steaming, to help her get over that cold."

The woman says she didn't know she was so sick and that she's always been skinny.  I'd already told them about the worms, how their poop was literally half worm larvae.  I urged her to keep them free of fleas and worms when I returned the nine.  I ask what she's feeding them.  She hesitates, then says she lets them feed themselves by hunting but that they also eat her pig's food.  My jaw drops.

"You don't feed them?" I'm mad now, having just spent money to help her and those poor cats out.  She'd also asked me when I picked them up if I had a cat she could have for inside the house.  I'd said, "You already have plenty of cats."

"Yeah, but those are all feral," was her response.  But not one of them is feral.  They're all tame as all get out.   I wondered what was up with that.

But to find out she's not feeding them and then had tried to get another from me, now that's nuts.

I told her she has to feed her cats.  That's neglect if she doesn't.  She says "Well, so many are dropped off."  I don't buy that since she was wanting another from me.  Hard to know what to say to someone who has just told you they don't feed their cats.  Finally, she suddenly changed the story and says she feeds them now and then and that she has food out now on her back porch and they make such a mess eating.  WHAT THE FUCK?

Ok, I'm thinking, trying to calm my wrath, thinking of that poor cat out coughing up phlem and worm larvae in my garage, not even being fed, and that woman wanting another cat from me, for "in the house".

I finally tell her I have to go, and I did.  I don't know what to do knowing what she told me.

The attorney came over wanting a notorized statement from me that I really signed that will some years ago for that poor now dead old lady that now has three sons fighting over a crumbling little shack and the property it sits on in the heart of Albany drug country.  She called me to be a witness cause she didn't have anybody else.  The attorney wanted to know if I knew the other witnesses.  I said "no".  He wanted to know if I signed it at her place.  I said "no" that she would not have known anyone else to come over, that she had nobody, which is why she asked a cat trapper to sign it, a person who helped her out with getting the cats fixed for nothing and sat around and talked to her and played Scrabble with her because she was so lonely.  I said "we went to her bank and those other witnesses were probably tellers there."  I don't remember much about it other than her calling, asking and me going, to help her.    Where were her sons then?

So I signed something else that said I signed it back then.  Then he says I might get called as a witness if this goes to court and I thought oh my gawd whatever.  Might be fun.

Photos of the Cats Fixed Yesterday, from Waterloo and Albany

Albany stray male Bunky was neutered yesterday.  The woman who has been feeding him now intends to find him a proper home, she says.

Blacky, pregnant former Albany stray fixed yesterday.

Poopy, one of two torti sisters, daughters of Blacky (above) fixed yesterday.  Poopy's sister, Patty, was also fixed.

Wally, Blacky's impregnator, was also fixed.

Below are photos of nine of the ten Waterloo cats fixed yesterday, thanks to Poppa Inc.  Because of their extreme tapeworm infestations, I paid for four of the ten to get droncit injections while a clinic volunteer offered to pay for the other six to get treated.

Mischief, black and white male fixed yesterday.  He had a severe ear infection with inflamed swollen tissue and also was a crypt orchid.

Smokey, gray tux short hair female, fixed yesterday.

Seda, DSH gray and white male, fixed yesterday.

Trixie, a young in heat torti, fixed yesterday.

Yaya, a vocal young tame male gray tabby, fixed yesterday.

Cleo, Long hair torti, pregnant at spay, fixed yesterday.

Gizmo, DLH gray tux male, with bad URI, neutered yesterday.

Marley, DSH torbi, spayed yesterday.

Max, a big brown tabby male, fixed yesterday.

15 More Local Cats Fixed Today

I had an Albany woman who needed help getting four females fixed she had rescued.  Another Albany woman was feeding an unfixed stray male.  I wasn't sure what to do about getting these cats done.  This Friday Heartland is holding a very small clinic.  Already, I lined up one Lebanon male who will be fixed on that day, plus the Alsea woman is taking her two females in to be fixed that day.  They could do no more.

So I asked S/nipped about reservations late afternoon yesterday.  They had room today.  I am tired out, fighting a cold, but like to get things done quickly when I find situations of need.  So I said "Sign me, up, S/nipped, for six cats."  Then the Albany woman said she could only get three of the females caught, but had a male too.  But a Waterloo woman called, referred by KATA.  She had ten needing fixed.  I said, "Are they tame?"  "Yes," she said.  "Get them contained and I'll be out," I replied.

I texted Tamara of S/nipped to see if they could deal with 15, not six.  She texted right back "Bring all you need to bring."

Out to Waterloo I went.  This woman got a bunch fixed through KATA years ago.  A few are still there.  It's a junker property all right.  There was one very pregnant long hair torti, whom, I was told, immediately goes into heat again, right after she has a litter.  She then abandons the new litter.  So we put her in a trap to be fixed.

In all, I loaded up five girls and five boys from the Waterloo property.

Today, they were all fixed.  Eight girls and seven boys.  The Waterloo cats were in terrible shape.  They pooped some, a couple of them, in their traps and it looked they'd been eating straw or something.  Upon closer inspection, however, I saw it was really tapeworm larvae.  Their poo was almost solid larvae!!!  Every darn one of them got droncit injections.  I paid for four of the shots and a volunteer at the clinic offered to pay for the six others.  I didn't have enough money, even with a significant discount, to pay for all ten to get the shots.  One of the females, Fluffy Butt, just barely came out of anesthesia.  She had a terrible cold.  She was tested for FIV/Felk.  I really expected her to come out positive for Felk, but she was negative.  I owe the clinic for the test.  How could she not have a terrible cold, being so run down from worms and reproduction?  She'll be here a couple of days extra.

Getting those ten done so quickly was a lifesaver to them.  Can you imagine how good they'll feel, minus all the fleas, worms and earmites?  Oh my!!

So I'm back.  Had a message from an attorney over that will I witnessed years ago, and signed as witness.  The woman's son recently came by, to inform me she had died, and to write something to say I had indeed signed that will of hers as a witness years ago.  But now his attorney says they need a notorized witness statement from me saying I actually signed that.  Oh boy.  But I'll do it. 

I got a sandwich at Subway when down at S/nipped, for lunch, and went to eat it in a parking lot facing the north spit. I promptly fell asleep and did not wake up for two and a half hours.  When I woke up, the coastal wind was rocking my little car.  It was an Oregon roots feeling to awaken thusly.

Former Albany Stray, Mac-a-roni, three legs, FIV positive, Still Waits for Home at Oregon Humane

He's fourth down on Oregon Humane's cats with special needs adoption list.

 Click the green link above to go that Oregon Humane special needs page.

Spread the word!!! Or go adopt him!  PLEASE!!!!

Killing Time in Portland

Yesterday in Portland, after dropping off the cats at the clinic, on a whim, I took an off ramp labeled OMSI/Zoo.  I remembered both were across the river just up a hill and that there is a pleasant arboretum up there, and trails.  I wanted to eat lunch there and take a walk.  However, the signs kept taking me down strange streets on the east side of the river.  And then I was suddenly in the OMSI parking lot.  OMSI is no longer up by the zoo!  I wonder how many decades behind I am on that news.    I walked along the river boardwalk then, watched Dragon Boat teams practice and tried to stay alive.  The bike riders up there act like the boardwalk is their personal high speed bike race highway.  To hell with pedestrians.  It was scary!  After watching Portlandia and experiencing some Portland bike riders, I stereo type them all as the radical rude bike rider on Portlandia.  Sorry to the kind non killer bike riders out there!

I also tried to eat lunch at Burgerville, an Oregon chain, that serves real strawberry shakes, not fake flavored shakes.  I usually get a small shake, if I'm up with cats, since it is close to the clinic, and I love them.  However, their parking lot was crammed to over flowing.  There were tourists everywhere, coming over from the nearby hotels.  I gave up, after several go arounds of the block (it's on MLK Blvd.) and searched for something to eat anywhere. I had almost no money with me and had not brought a lunch. Neither had I eaten breakfast.  In the end, when picking up the cats at the clinic, I grabbed a couple of cookies off a plate someone had brought in for volunteers.  I had been unable to find a grocery store to buy a piece of fruit or something small and inexpensive like that.  I also have not been to a grocery store to get food for some time.  So I'm out of almost everything here at my place.  Have been eating rice, and broccoli with onions, mainly, then the usual hot cereal mornings.

It isn't easy where I live to find affordable decent food.  There's Mega Foods, which has about the worst looking meat you could ever see and specializes in severely freezer burned chicken! I went there last week hoping to find some chicken to make cat food for Feather.  Too expensive and awful looking. They claim now to have a huge bulk foods selection in bins, but you would not believe the price!!  Outrageous!  There's Grocery Outlet.  While they are cheaper on a small number of items their produce is limited, expensive and terrible and the store is mostly prepackaged food.   Like most grocery stores nowadays.

Then there are the expensive three:  Safeway, Albertsons and Fred Meyer, beyond my budget capacity.  And besides, it kills me to pay four times what the same item would cost at Winco.  It's like burning money.  But I don't get over to Winco much, so lately, the pickings here in my place, as far as food goes, are often very sparse.   Hope to get some things growing soon in a garden.

Dragon boat team members strain on the paddles.

Display sub outside OMSI on the Willamette.  You can pay to take a tour.

OMSI now sits along the Willamette on the Portland east side water front.  I thought it was still up by the zoo!

Dragon Boat teams practice on the Willamette Friday.

Sky high tram, takes people from somewhere near the Lloyd Center Mall across the river and up the hill to OHSU.

Deaf Miss Daisy loves to snooze on my pillow.  She gets very cranky if I try to move her, so I can use it.

Lately Gretal has been caught playing, with all sorts of cat toys.  She really is feeling better!

Posey is beautiful, soft, and loving.

Old gal Electra, second oldest cat here, catches some sun rays from my bed this morning.

Lebanon Kitten Factory Shut Down!!!

Long tail silver tabby male from Kitten Factory Colony fixed yesterday.

 Muted torti, fixed May 18, at the FCCO clinic from the Kitten Factory colony.

Calico, fixed yesterday, from the Kitten Factory colony.

 This is the tame female from the house across the street, but who wasn't going to be fixed otherwise.  So they agreed to her being fixed at the FCCO clinic and off she went.  She had six kittens.  Heartland now has two of them and KATA has four.  That's her in the photo below also.

 Short tail torbi female fixed yesterday from Kitten Factory colony.

 Long tail torbi female fixed yesterday.

 

Third orange and white male fixed yesterday from Kitten Factory colony.

 Big laid back brown tabby stub tail male, fixed yesterday from Kitten Factory colony.

 This buff female and the Lilac Pt. Siamese long hair female, were both fixed yesterday from the colony.  The buff female was lactating but her kittens had been taken away by the colony caretaker, to tame and care for.  Most of hers are now at Heartland, although two remain with the primary colony caretaker for now.  The Siamese female was just a teen and pregnant.

 This pathetic skinny little gray girl, with red tinged fur (from malnutrition) was last caught at the colony and neither pregnant nor lactating. 

 The gray female again fixed yesterday.

 Second orange and white male, this one half tame, fixed from Kitten Factory Colony yesterday.

 Third orange and white male fixed yesterday from Kitten Factory Colony.  This guy was the oldest of the three orange and whites.

The Lebanon Kitten Factory has shuttered.  No more kitten production will take place there.  Who is responsible for shuttering kitten production?

Me, my live traps, a falling apart drop trap, and the FCCO clinic today in Portland.

There you have it.

13 adult cats from the Lebanon Kitten Factory were fixed today.  Previously (Wednesday and yesterday) 17 kittens have been moved out of there, with seven more needing a place to go, although for now, the seven left up there are safe.  Two are inside with the colony caretaker while her daughter in law has five of them.

Two of the 15 today were dumped off in Lacomb and ended up at a house thankfully, where kind people live.  Now they're fixed and vaccinated.

Of the other 13, all come from the Kitten Factory colony.  But one is tame and lives across the street from the colony but otherwise would never have been fixed.  Her six kittens are at Heartland (two) and with KATA (four).  They were about to get given away way too young on craigslist.

So, considering the 12 from the colony outright.  There were three orange and white boys, a big brown tabby boy with a short crooked tail and a silver tabby boy.  Five big huge boys.

Seven girls--a buff orange, a torti, a torbi, a short tail torbi, a lilac pt pregnant teen Siamese long hair, a calico and a strange little gray long hair, with a cold, the last caught.

They'll go home tomorrow.

So last night, when I talked to the colony caretaker, she says she saw two more cats who need fixed, a black male with multiple toes and hair loss from fleas, then a young gray female.

Three Lebanon Boys Fixed Today

 Salem, Lebanon black male, fixed today!

 Lynx, big brown tabby Lebanon male, fixed today.

 

 Boo, DSH black Lebanon male, fixed today.

 Passed this on the way to pick up the boys.

 Snow is still heavy in the mountains.

Today I picked up three Lebanon boys at the usual cat drop off gas station on highway 34 at I5--the Shell.  Gas prices in Oregon are up near $4.20 per gallon and killing us all.  I joked with a gas station attendant that I'm on the drive or eat diet now and have lost about ten pounds.

The lady from Lebanon was half hour late with the two boys she had, making me late to arrive at Heartland.  I was embarrassed.  But further dismayed to find out neither of the women had shown up whom I had scheduled to bring in their own cats.  Each woman was to bring in two females.  The Alsea woman was also going to surrender her cats 11 kittens.  Neither women showed up.  One later told me she got the days mixed up.  I never heard a peep from the Corvallis woman.  I talked to her just yesterday but think she showed up for two free spays or even called to cancel?  Nope.

So it was just the Lebanon boys.

I was exhausted.  I came home then met the Lacomb woman with the two cats she has, both tame and dumped off up there, along a very rural road.  I'm taking them up to the FCCO clinic tomorrow.  She only had one carrier.  She'd put the male in a box, but he got out in the car, so she had him tied in a canvas bag and down on the floor board.  I asked her to put the bag into a carrier I had in my car, then I took my carrier in my car and closed the doors and began to untie the string tying the bag closed. I pulled the buff boy scared and miserable, from the bag and hugged him, then finally put him in the carrier, and gave the folks their bag back.

The woman goes, watch out when you take him from that bag because he'll run.  I held out the bag to her and said "Already done."

Then I tried to sleep a couple hours and finally did doze off.  My cold is roaring back.  I thought I'd got off easy with it.  I caught it last Saturday and have been miserable with congestion.  But after two days it went into remission or hiding or however they kind of half go away, but remind you they are still there in the night, when you wake up coughing with gunk running down the back of your throat.  But it's back full force, clogging up my nose, filling my car with wadded up paper towels scrambled for in a hurry when stuff's dripping down all stringy and clingy from my nose after a sneeze, while driving.

The Heartland surgeries were quickly done.  Off I went to retrieve the boys.  Straight from there I drove to Lebanon with them, to their homes and arms of their owners.  From there, it was off to the Kitten Factory colony.

I've been trapping that colony since yesterday but it seems like months now.  I'm tired out that's why.  And the stress of the colony.  I was told a week ago, when the woman first called me, after KATA referred her to me, that there might be seven females and five litters of kittens, but they had several in the house now.  The colony is fed by one woman.  Her daughter in law helps her out.

They'd tried to get the rest fixed through the FCCO but they'd called the Corvallis FCCO number and those coordinators have an earned reputation of not returning calls, which is what happened to them.  They didn't get called back.  The coordinator had given them her e-mail the first time they took a few in to be fixed there, but she never returned their e-mails after that, about getting more in at the next one.  After several failed attempts, they gave up completely.

I thought the cats would be hard to catch, so I started Wednesday morning, caught a few in traps, then just drop trapped them all and by Wednesday evening, I had all but one wild one contained.  I took 13 of the 25 kittens over to Heartland and tonight, I took four more to KATA.  There were kittens everywhere.  We pulled three out from under a stash of trash and junk in front of a neighbor's house.  There was a fourth, dead and full of squirming big maggots.

Another neighbor said two were screaming from her shed somewhere.  I got down and pulled them out of the cobwebs from under a back shelf.  They were cold and had been left alone awhile.  This was before I had set any traps yesterday morning.  I figure a mother stole them then realized she couldn't nurse them and left them.  Lots of that goes on.

Well, the caretaker caught the last wild one this morning on her own and then got the neighbors unfixed female contained too.  The neighbors handed over the kittens to her already.  Otherwise, they were soon to be given away on Craigslist and they were still so tiny.  Heartland has two of those, and KATA has the other four.

This evening I picked up the tame mom, the four kittens and the final wild kitty, then drove all the way back to Corvallis to hand over the four kittens to KATA, then finally--home, worn out.

I have two females each in two cages, but the rest of the cats are in live traps.  I transferred them all to clean live traps this morning and cleaned the empty traps and now I got to do that again.  It's not easy to trap early and I don't like doing it.

I have 13 cats from the Kitten Factory colony going up to be fixed tomorrow and the two Lacomb abandonees.

But only three Lebanon boys were fixed today, when seven in all were supposed to get fixed.  Four no shows.  Boy how do you like that.  During kitten season, too!  Below are some photos of the Kitten Factory kittens.  13 of these kittens are now at Heartland while another four went to KATA.  Seven remain with the colony caretakers and they will need somewhere to go where they will be fixed and put up for adoption.