Friday, September 12, 2014

Could Not Not

So I'm taking a little bike ride, like I do every day now, for at least an hour.  I love riding.  It was near dark last night I went, waited a bit long so I stuffed a tiny flashlight in my pocket, so I wouldn't get a ticket if total darkness fell before I got back home.

I was somewhere, on a street I did not know, and I see a cat in front of me, crossing the street.  I can tell by its swagger and war wounds it's a big unfixed male.  Sure enough, he turned to mark someone's front door.  I was slowed now, and lecturing the cat, as I often do, mad as I have become, crazy as a loon some might say.  I was telling him "somebody needs a neuter job" almost in a taunting tone.  But I was doing so to slow him down to try to get a look at him and assess porches for food dishes, or ratty houses with trash, where people don't give a crap about anything, including fixing their cats or caring for them.

About this time I passed a cross street and down it I see some teens playing in the street.  Teen cats. Not humans.

I swerve into that street and watch them run up a driveway and I hear kitten mews, from some bushes.  Tiny kitten mews.  I don't look for them.  Instead, I go knock on the front door of the nicely kept house and a woman answers immediately and I ask about the kittens and tell her how I love cats and used to get cats fixed, the whole bit.

She said God sent me, that I'm an angel, that her husband has cancer and the orange and white female showed up pregnant last spring so she's fed her, she had to she said, she couldn't just let her starve, but she's overwhelmed.  She has her own cat and two dogs and the husband with cancer.  The girl had two boys first litter and now has had a second litter two weeks ago and there are seven.  I said "What's your plan for them?"  She shook her head and said she didn't know.

I got her number and rode home and messaged a Portland rescue woman and she said "Yes" to bring them tomorrow and drop them at her vet clinic.  So off I went this morning. I trapped the mother, only for expediency.  She's tame.  Then I pulled the seven kittens from their nest in some bushes atop the rocks and gravel.

Then the woman asked if I could take the teen boys up too, from the female's first litter.  She said they were born first of May.  Last night, she had wanted to keep them, for her grand daughter, who loves them.  This morning she said she and her husband had talked and they'd agreed that God had sent me, so we better not piss off God, she said, by not sending them all off to better lives. I said nothing.  (I'm an atheist) The Portland rescue said they'd take the boys too.  So I dropped both into the one carrier left that I had and off we went.  The woman gave me $25 to cover my gas.

My camera was on the wrong setting so the photos are not great.   Ten cats out of Albany, for good.  That's a victory for all cats.  And these little guys don't have to sleep on rocks.

Rock Nest Kittens---all seven of them.






Awkward family photos---mom tries to nurse the kittens while sideways in the trap.

On watch, at the vet clinic, with kittens.

Red and Toby, polydactyl teens from her first litter this summer.
Stalled in traffic on the under construction Sellwood Bridge I took a photo to the north, of Portland and the Willamette and one to the south.

Portland and the Willamette, from the Sellwood.

South of the Sellwood.
I went for the bike ride.   I ended up half lost on streets unknown and the cats who needed me called me to them.  I could not not help.  What else am I going to do.

5 comments:

  1. Well Hallelujah! Hope I spelled it right. To some, God sent you, or I think you just got lucky. I don't respond to the "god" stuff. I don't believe in "god" either &I have to bite my tongue.
    At least you know what to do and who to call to help for these extra cats and kittens. Your knowledge and experience is a valuable resource. And yay for a little $$ sent your way. That was nice of them.
    I'm still astounded that people are stupid, ignorant, unknowing about spay and neuter! Yep god sent you to educate them ... :-)
    If I had to have a church, it would be the Church of Cats! Cat is my ruler and my guide of daily life! ;-)
    And I 'd have to write my own bible that the cats pee on! Anyway, glad you were there to help you kind-hearted person!
    Take care, Autumn

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  2. Ah yes. The "god" defense. Procreate -and animals are under our dominion. despicable and so predictable.

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  3. I took ten cats to Portland but if she had been spayed when she showed up, it could have been one cat, not ten. That's a thought, Autumn, we could write our own holy book for our own church! Lots of people have done it, not like we would be the first and they have profited from it also.

    Despicable and predictable. Yup. But I'm happy happy the cats led me to these kittens and mom in need. This sounds nuts but they communicate with me in ways probably nobody understands but them. And that's that, they got helped! Yay!

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  4. Of course you had to help. You wouldn't be you if you didn't.
    What did amaze (and please me) was that you got some money for gas. A great start. And those cats will be much better off as well.

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  5. Pretty cool, eh, EC? I didn't even ask and she gave me the gas money, so nothing out of my pocket this time around and I feel pretty darn good about helping those cats out of that life into better ones and also about helping the lady too.

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