Too Much Water

 Too much rain.  Wind too.   

Flooding this evening all over town and outside town.  All over Oregon actually.  Lots of roads closed.  

Best to stay put.   Inside.

Night before last, was a wind storm, with the rain, that took out power in a lot of places.

I drove a cat trapped by accident to the clinic yesterday morning and wondered why traffic on highway 34 was backed up for miles.  Well two traffic lights near Corvallis were out, so people had to pretend major intersections were four way stops.

The gorgeous Mister Frederick got neutered.  He's from Scio.   

His people picked him up from here later on and are recuperating this beautiful sweetie.  

I have an app on my phone to get local police alerts and they just keep coming in this evening, about flooding.  Like a street flooded two blocks from me.  Well all over town different places, actually.   I'm just staying in.  We still have power, at least.  By we, I mean myself and the cats.  Lol.

In case you didn't know that.

I don't suppose the high water overwhelming rivers streams and streets will vanish as soon as the rain stops since the mountains are getting more rain than the valley and that will take awhile to work down to us in the lower levels.   Nothing to do about it but wait and hope it doesn't do massive damage for a lot of people and infrastructure.

I got bored today and went to a few different stores and walked around a lot, just to get out.   Wind was very strong.  Walking against it back to my car reminded me of childhood walks on very windy beaches in Bandon.   We thought it was fun, to lean into it and be completely supported at an angle by the wind.

This is a boring video but....well here it is anyway.

More Rain

 There's a lot more rain coming this week.   Too much, on top of what we've already had.  I'm done with winter weather and winter has not even begun.

It has not been cold. There is no snow in the mountains in fact.   Abnormal for mid December here.  We might get two more inches or 2 1/2 I don't know, of rain, Thursday alone.   

I'm done with trapping for December at least.  I return the four loft colony cats this morning.  Whiskey and Brandy are girls, while Rum and Tequilla are boys.   The clinic wanted me to tell the old caretaker he's doing a good job, that they are well fed and healthy.   So I told him and the affirmation from clinic staff really made him proud, I could tell.   

The HCC car badly needs a good cleaning.  Yikes, it can make my eyes water, from all the cats hauled.

Christmas is just over a week away.  I haven't sent a single card.  I can't even find them in a store this year.  I guess they're old fashioned now.  Maybe we text Christmas memes instead of sending a Christmas card.  Makes sense I guess in our instant digital crap age.   

The feeder lady stopped yesterday and picked up the little girl cat that had been in the colony with Julius, Moxie and two girls not yet caught.   I'd named her Piper for the records but the clinic wrote her name as Pipen.  Hardly matters.   She'd been in my bathroom for a week.  The feeder lady got a relinquishment appointment at the local large shelter.   We thought she'd have to lay out $100 for relinquishment but they only wanted $20 since she was a stray.  Feeder lady said they really liked her and knew of someone who might want to adopt her immediately.  After her stray hold, that is.  That's good.   She is a sweetie and very adaptible.

Silverton Cat Rescue barn cat placement team sent me update photos of the last two they placed, from Berlin Road, also associated with the Lebanon feeder lady.  These are two of the four I caught while feeding the cats for her while she had hip surgery.  I spent so many hours after Abby and Slabbo, the two adults, and Meeko and Pokey, the teens.  I'd already caught their two brothers a month before, and SCR also placed them.  All four of the teens, Abby's litter, turned out to be boys.  Pokey is now named Jackson and looks very fat and content at the new barn home, with his brother Meeko, who was the last one I caught there.

Here's Pokey, now named Jackson, looking very fat and lazy, in his barn home.   Meeko, who is the last cat I caught at that location is a little shyer.

Lots of violence lately, innocent people getting gunned down or stabbed.   We sure can be a violent species.  But really, its only a tiny percentage of people who are violent.  Most are good and kind or just normal folk living their lives.

Back to the Loft Colony

 I went back out to the loft colony yesterday afternoon.

I'd spent the day trying to catch up.  I'm still trap cleaning and doing cage cover laundry from the FCCO trip.

The folks who had borrowed 7 traps for their own FCCO trip on Friday returned them yesterday also.

Between the two of us, we'd used every trap I currently have, except my crooked trap.

Originally I had planned just to take a better look at the newcomers, as he calls them, although they showed up months ago.   But the lady who'd wanted to get cats fixed Monday at Radpets, was going to pay herself, decided it was too much pressure to try to catch three the same day.  She cancelled.  So I still had 3 appointments to fill for tomorrow and its supposed to start raining again today.  Yes, another atmospheric river, aka Pineapple Express, headed our way.  

There are fears with this one coming, since the ground is already saturated and in some places, especially to the north and in Washington state---flooding, terrible flooding.

A landslide has closed one rural road over towards Lincoln City on the coast, for a long long time, the news said, since its still moving and the road damaged.  

I still had the cage in the garage set up.  I figured any cats I caught out at Del's, for Monday appointments, could be held in the cage.

 I'd held Moxie and Julius in it for a few days, after Moxie got fixed, when I'd hoped to also catch the two girls they live with, and get all four to a barn home.  But the feeder lady was unwilling to try to catch the girls this weekend, and I knew I'd be too tired out from the FCCO trip to spend hours trying to catch them myself, so she came and got the boys and took them back.  

 I still have Piper the tame girl, who was hanging out with the other four.   I'm trying to find her a placement.  She's so young and sweet and too white, standing out to predators, to be living in the briars down by the river.

So I went out to Del's place.  The gate was open for me.  He may be in his late 80's, but he's savvy, and had an appointment reminder set up on his phone for my arrival.  He was busy cleaning up his yard, cutting up old wood pieces with a small chainsaw, making burn piles of downed branches.

I set up the drop trap and the hungry cats swarmed me.   I caught four within minutes of arrival.  All the bending over to get them transferreed out however made my stomach suddenly tighten and I knew what was coming.  I'd eaten three pieces of pizza right before I drove out.  It was leftovers from the gift of food my friend had delivered after I got home from the clinic Thursday.   There'd been no time to digest it and bending over, well, the inevitable happened.  I waved Del away, so he wouldn't have to see me vomit into a bag.

He thought I must have seen something disgusting in the barn.  No, I told him, nothing like that bothers me.  But, overeating and then a lot of bending over, yes that will create unpleasant happenings.

I had only brought three traps along, since I have three spay neuter spots Monday.   And now there were four unfixed cats under the drop trap.   I was just going to release the final cat, after transferring the first three to live traps, but the last two ran into the trap from the drop trap together.  I messaged the tech at RAD and told her I now had 4 instead of 3 for Monday and she immediately said they'd do all four.

Last week I took 23 cats in to three different clinics.   In all, spent over $800 on getting 23 done, which is not a lot when you consider what that comes out to per cat.   When HCC, my nonprofit, has money in the bank, we spend it to get cats fixed.  If you wait, to spread out the spending of any money, it only results in more cats being born and needing fixed.    Sometimes its good to spend any money available as long as you keep a constant emergency reserve.

It is nice to have the old car owned by the nonprofit to use only for cats now.   It smells so bad, from hauling so many cats over the years.  It is too old with too many issues, too stinky, too many miles, to ever sell.  I believe now the AC compressor is about to fail on it.  I don't know how many years ago I got warned it was not good by a mechanic.   I want to find a short belt, so the car will run if the bearing gets really bad in the compressor.  I've heard you can find a belt that only goes to the other two pulleys, the alternator and what, the water pump is the other, not sure, but skips the AC compressor.  They're too expensive to replace.  The poor car bucks like a bronco in the morning.

I used to have friends who gave me no interest loans to get things like the car, and like when I had to build the fence.  But they've all died now.  I have friends who would likely help with getting the nonprofit car fixed but at what point do you say enough, on a very used up car.  That car is dear to my heart because its been wonderful, bought used with issues, but its carried so many local cats to be fixed, thousands upon thousands.  The car, in its way, has helped out my community to such an extent it should be immortalized with a statue I think.

The other car, my own car, which I barely drive, since I go nowhere really, if not doing cat duties for the nonprofit, has one issue I know of, which turned up on my first real drive in it, down to my brothers for Thanksgiving.   It makes a gurgling bubbling noise behind the glove compartment.   That's the heater core.  Air in the lines I guess, I don't know. A friend said its the heater core failing but it still heats ok.  

I reviewed the issue online.  I panicked thinking the head gasket could be leaking, but the fluid level was fine and the oil not milky looking.  I sat on the sloped driveway then for 20 minutes with the radiator cap off, the heat on high, fan on low, as instructed on youtube, to see if the bubbles would work out.  Even a tiny leak in a line can suck in air, I read.   After that it seems better but I haven't driven it much since the trip down.  Again, I never go anywhere really unless working to catch cats or take them to a clinic.

The last  time I trapped at Del's place was in January of 2023.   I caught five and took them to the FCCO to be fixed.  Before that I caught 13 others in December of 2022.  Three of those were fixed at OHSS and the rest were fixed by a vet student working at a Eugene vet clinic and done under the supervision of the vet there.   18 fixed in all before, but only 13 returned.  Lisa and Savannah, my friends who are now in Michigan, took two of the kittens and tamed them and adopted them out.  The vet student kept three to tame or take to a barn, not sure which.  

Only one of these five cats is fixed.  That's the silver tabby tux on far lower left.  The long hair gray tux is very tame but too furry to tell if a fixed male or female.  Female I suspect.  Fixed?  Probably not but who knows.

She went a little possessive aggressive nuts over wet food.

Here are the four I caught under the drop trap.

Rum

Tequila

Whiskey

Brandy

They all seem fairly young, especially the last two in photos, who ran into the trap together.   All four are in the cage in the garage that was still set up.  They're more comfortable held in there until tomorrow morning  when its off to the clinic.

I feel very accomplished over the other thing I got done yesterday.  I hadn't caught Haley, the old calico here, to shave her mats.  I dreaded it, fearing the stress might kill her.  But she was down off the high bed, where she cuddles and sleeps with Huckleberry and Mona Lisa and I netted her.  She almost evaded me.   I got most of the mats off fast, with the battery powered clippers, got Revolution on her, but she slipped away from me before I could trim her nails and clean her ears.   She looks so much better with those mats off. 

Road Trip to Portland with 15 Trailer Park Cats

 

Mona Lisa says Merry Christmas!

The FCCO is a blessing to our state!   I love them.

I may be overly emotional due to wear out but still, I do love the FCCO.

Day in, day out, they're fixing hundreds of cats.   No other animal nonprofit has made such a difference for Oregon cats.   It's the only clinic I know of in our state smart enough to address the root cause of suffering.  Stop it at its source, rather than take in the aftermath as stray kittens or adults.

I'm an admirer of smart efficient effective operations.

I started Tuesday night, trapping at  the trailer park for Thursday's trip to FCCO.  The trailer park had 15 reservations.   By Tuesday evening, I had caught 7 cats.   8 to go on Wednesday.

Wednesday was slow, with trapping.  But with help from several residents, including one who mastered the drop trap, we did it and had 15.  The weather was not that helpful.  Tuesday was wet, windy and wild---downpourings, from a Pineapple Express that went through.  Areas on the coast and north flooded.

I had to be at the FCCO by 7:15 a.m. Thursday morning.  That meant leaving at 5:30 to be sure I got there on time in case of traffic congestion.   I don't mind being up early and on with it.   My back was already sore and by the time I arrived at the clinic, a few minutes early, and began unloading, my brain was screaming to stop, from back issues.  I kept on, to get all 15 carried up to the check in table.  Afterwards I stretched out my back with leg pulls and it was better.   

I went to Winco afterwards.  I get breakfast there, in their deli department, a salad usually, maybe cheese and crackers.  Its so affordable.  I walk the aisles too, because the array of products is so fantastic.  I like to look..  And I got a $3 book.   This was my main purpose to stop there before heading to the rest area.   I'd brought my pillow, two blankets and the pad I'm now using which used to be a pool float.  It works really well as a sleep pad.

I had to clean out the back well first, after carrying 15 cats up.   I slept about 3 hours.   I went down to the next exit, when it was time to go pick up the cats, to turn around to head north on the freeway.  The off ramp and freeway there is under construction.   There are always long lines of cars and trucks in the off ramp waiting to turn right or left, at the stop sign. to go to one of several gas stations.  When I got to the stop sign, my left front tire suddenly dropped into a hole, with a clunk, and my car was thrown out of gear.  I'd hit a massive pothole that you can't see until you hit it, because of the line of cars.

Wtf, I thought.   Right there with all the ODOT construction going on.  Why they hell don't they fix that.  

I went up to the gas station to check my car for damage (none) then went inside to use the restroom and get a drink.  I chatted and  joked with a truck driver and also a local who  drives around with her two cats and dog in her car.  I'd parked right next to her, after I saw the fat calico sprawled napping on the dashboard.

I made it back to the clinic right at 4:00 p.m., picked up the cats, carrying them even further this time to my car, since I had to park in their parking lot, not out front right by the check in tables.  Traffic was not horrible coming back to Albany.  I was back home just after 6:00 p.m.

I gave all 15 cats food and water, then came in, did chores here, then settled in to watch Hell's Kitchen and Next Level Chef Christmas edition.  There aren't many shows I watch these days.  Hard to find anything good on TV.   I do watch cooking shows when I can.  My favorite is still the Great British Baking Show.  

A really kind friend had ordered a pizza and salad to be delivered to me at 7:15.   This was so sweet of her.   To not have to scrounge something to eat, in a currently bare fridge, was fabulous, like being pampered.  I felt like a celebrity, to have food brought right to my door!

This morning, it's almost time to return the kitties.  They'll be happy to be out of those traps.  Then its laundry and cage cleaning, but those things can be done at leisure.   I know how these trips go afterwards.   I get up the next morning, like now, feel like I'm rested, but I'll only have energy for about three hours before I'll need to sleep again.

Are you ready to see 15 cat faces?    I must subject you to it.  This is one way I keep records that I might need to see later.

Didn't catch this male.  He has interesting colors, black with white flecks showing through.  He did not see me inside the car, until I moved, then he freaked out and was gone.

Among the 15, 3 brown tabbies, 1 all gray, 2 gray tuxes, 3 black tuxes and the rest all black.

Longer Windy Wet Day

 Yesterday was longer than the day before.  I didn't think that would be possible.

I started the day around 5:30 a.m.  Getting up, getting ready to take the five cats to the clinic.

Finally, just after 6:30 a.m., off I went.   I'm always paranoid now, going to this clinic, like they're going to find something wrong I did and ban me for good.   I no longer get to go there often.  Used to be a highlight to go there, all friendliness and laughter and seeing others I knew.  Now, it's rare I go there and it makes me nervous.

I had three cats under the caretaker I'd registered--the trailer park, but didn't know her last name and when the clinic said the last name, I didn't recognize it until it finally dawned on me who they were talking about, as registered caretaker of the cats.   I'm lucky if I catch the first name of a caretaker.

The other two, from down by the river outside Lebanon, were under my name since I provide the feeder lady food.  

After I left off the cats, I headed straight through Turner, Marion and Jefferson but not home.  I was headed back up to the river location, to try for the final two.  The four--the big orange boy Julius, plus Moxie and his sister, the tabby, and the torti, have a barn home to go to if I get all four.

I already had the fixed Julius in my garage in a large cage.  Moxie was being fixed.  I just needed to catch the last two.   They could have been fixed today had a I caught them, but I spent six hours there, with a trap set, walking a quarter mile one way each time I went to check it.  At least I got exercise.  I finally gave up at 2:00.  I had to get back to the clinic to pick up the five cats.

Meantime, the feeder lady showed up.  I sat with her in her truck for awhile but things got tense.   Julius is tame but so is the little white and black female caught.   I suggested she hold the tame girl and get an intake appointment at the local large shelter.   It costs money, like $100 for one cat, to get them into that shelter.  It's not easy nor is it really affordable.  But maybe for one cat, so she wouldn't have to live on the banks of a river.  Feeder lady already knows I'm holding Julius and MOxie, have cats of my own to care for and a huge trapping job this week but when I asked her to help out Piper, she said "why can't you hold Piper?"

 She just wants to put out food.  Have no responsibility to the cats she feeds other than that.  She will put down other folks who don't help get their own cats they feed fixed, but she feels she's different and that its all my responsibility since I have a nonprofit.  "You mean to do all the work, pay for it all, hold them all when you don't want to feed them anymore?"   "Yeah," she says.     

I got out of her truck and went to my car.  I didn't want to occupy the same space anymore.   

The worst part of it, the barn home was for the four cats.  Now only Julius and Moxie are here who could go.   I'll have to catch two more at one of the fixed colonies, to go with them and hope they get along.  Julius is very tame but wants to be outside.   I'll be too busy to river trap up there rest of week and god knows feeder lady won't try and it will be impossible to get her to stop feeding anyway.  As for Piper, the tame white girl, she's not a good barn cat candidate and doesn't like Julius, so won't be going with him.

I went directly to the clinic from the trapping location, with one stop to pick up some cat food to drop off on the way home to an old old man.  

Clinic pick up was easy and they were very friendly.  A tinge of hope surged into my soul, after a dismal day, that the clinic would soon be like it once was and maybe I'd have one place to have positive human contact again.

I went the long way home, took the off road I needed to take, and drove up the driveway to the old man's place.  His place really is not livable and he's something like 90.  I don't know how old exactly---very old.  He's bent over from arthritis, still milking his cows by hand, still climbing up into the loft of the barn, on steep narrow steps, to feed the cats there.  

Got all the crew of cats fixed a couple years or so ago.   But he claims a bunch more mostly tame ones showed up this fall or in the summer.    They look extremely healthy, all of them.  I helped him lug those bags up those steps into the dark loft.  I flashed my light around as he put out food for the cats, trying to see how many are without ear tips.   The newcomers look healthy.   He tells me they were likely dropped off but I'm thinking maybe that's not the case necessarily, that maybe he took some in from someone or a relative and is just telling me what he wants me to believe. 

 I don't auto believe what anyone tells me about anything anymore.   

 I have three appointments next Monday.  I told him I'd come out this weekend, trap some, see what's up with the newcomers.   It was dark when I was out there.  Gets dark so early now.

I finally made it home.  By now it was closing on 7:00 p.m.  I unloaded Moxie and Piper from the car.  Piper's now in the bathroom and Moxie is in with Julius.  

Rain pounded down all night.  Supposed to keep at it all day too.   About time to return the trailer park boys.

I've posted videos of this loft before, back when I caught the cats he had then to be fixed.  The newcomers are mostly tame.  When I posted this video on facebook, if the sound isn't on, it auto generates captions of what fb's ai bot thinks is being said, only its so wrong in spots, its funny.  

Long Windy Wet Day

 The weather was wet and wild with wind this morning. 

I wa over at the trailer park by 8:00, but the weather was discouraging any and all cats from being out and about.   Smart cats.

I caught two blacks quickly but the rest had vanished.   I wanted to vanish too, curl up in my bed, read a book, let the weather be outside and me inside.

But then it was off to the other colony, the one with four cats needing caught that the Lebanon lady feeds, because  the four have a barn home to go to.  Three of the four are not yet fixed.  Julius, the big orange tabby boy, is fixed now.  I took him in a few weeks back.

He's tame as many of the strays in this area are.   She took two carriers along, and carried them over across the field to the trees and berry vines near the river.  She quickly got the black teen into a carrier.  He looks full grown now.  She carried him in the carrier all the way back across a field to the parking lot.  I told her not to that with Julius, since her hip had surgery a month ago and Julius is huge.   I saw her pick him up and carry him through the trees to the carrier and drop him down into it.  Like a baby.  Most people have trouble doing that with their house cats inside.   

I then went quickly across the field to carry him back.  He's a big huge boy and that was not easy on my back.

I then set two traps in the brush for the torti and the tabby.   No luck.  Waited a little over an hour. Was raining again by then. Decided to go get the traps.  We get over to the woods and the river and I see white legs in one trap.  WTF.   Yup, a different cat, not one of the two we wanted to catch.  

I was worried about that since people dump off cats all the time in that park.   A girl this time, tame, too, may be in heat, because I checked the sex in the ladies bathroom, thinking maybe its a fixed boy.  I saw a bit of blood at the vulva.   Who knows. Feeder was told by a regular park walker that he saw a cat running through the field  there towards the river with a kitten in her mouth, young but not newborn.   So there are likely even more in the brush there, than the two we're still actually after.  How many more?  Only the traps will tell that tale. When I was feeding for feeder lady a few weeks back, I saw two other adults down in the brush but only got a glimpse,  and they vanished so fast, I only saw the  color of one of them, sort of.   I'll be back there tomorrow, after dropping off the five I've got now, at the clinic in Salem to be fixed.  Who knows who I could catch down there tomorrow.

Moxie, the black teen, will go get fixed tomorrow and so will the surprise girl from the park, along with 3 trailer park blacks.   I caught a third black at the trailer park this evening, just as it got dark, too dark to see eartips so I had to quit.  I was using the drop trap.  

We're supposed to get really wet and wild for another couple days, maybe get a lot of rain too, a drenching, on Tuesday.  At first they said Wednesday also would bring record rainfall, but now it looks like in the valley here, where I am, won't be so bad on Wednesday. I'm always watching the forecast when I have trapping to do.

Blackjack

Stormy

Raggedy

Moxie

Piper

Lastly, in turkey news, I came out of the lady's house in Lebanon after we finished trapping, to see a turkey pecking at bird seed she'd spilled on her bumper.

Christmas Parade

 A few weeks ago, I filled out an application for my nonprofit to enter the Lebanon Christmas Parade.  

I heard nothing back, and finally messaged them to disregard the application.

However, yesterday afternoon, I get an email giving all the parade rules and a map of the route.  Hmmm, I thought.  That's a delayed response.   But then I thought, why not?

With extremely limited time (and money), I started to make signs.  I got a couple vinyl placemats at the dollar store, along with a few decorations and some stick on letter packs.   

I made three signs.  The third I made from the white top of a storage container.   Then I made the main attraction, a Christmas tree, made from three traps zip tied together, for the top of the car.   I strung lights down it and decorated it with a few ornaments.  I put a stuffed cat into one of the traps.  I also hung my gutter lights on the outside of the car.  I didn't put the lights up outside this year due to my back issues.

I used the power bank my brother gave me a few years ago to power the lights and also my light show speaker.  I downloaded a Christmas playlist to my phone, to play on the speaker.

It was fabulous.    I loved looking at the other decorated cars and trucks.  We lined up and waited and waited and after dark, the parade began.  The route was short but oh well, it was fun.

Tomorrow I need to be up and out early to actually do some real trapping, not of stuffed animals.