Living Life

I got a Panera gift card, for Christmas. I started using it. First one, then a second Chicken Roma Asiago Bagel Stack. It is soooo delicious. $12 left on the card, almost enough for two more times.

It's a limited time offering. Crazy. I used to get gift cards for Panera and always had to bring home what I got to season it up as it was so bland otherwise. Not this offering of theirs! The bird lady loved a certain sandwich there, so I'd get one and we'd split it, but she's gone now. I only go there if I have a gift card. Otherwise its too spendy. When I go, I think of the bird lady. She passed away a couple years ago.

I took three cats up to be fixed Monday. Its from the big Lebanon colony. I thought we were almost done there. I think 27 or 28 we've taken to be fixed now from this colony. But no, she thinks at least 20 more. Oh crikey.

I visited two more colonies. Nice folks both places. The first place, dead end very rural street and I'm going up her driveway and I'm passed by a frantically running cat zig zagging because at her tail, is a snapping charging German Shepherd trying to get ahold of her. She's a goner I thought, but she was able to evade and I'd jumped out of the car to defend her.

The colony lady came out and didn't know the dog. The dog wandered off down the road.  Might be another stray, she said. A dog killed two of her cats awhile back.

That dog came very close to facing the wrath of me. Do you think I'm nice? I can be ruthless in protective mode.

Anyhow, I over stayed there, telling tales, both of us, drinking coffee, and I realized I'd promised the other place I'd be there half hour before the time it was, as I sat there talking with this nice lady. Off I went to second location. Dropped off a couple traps there.

Santiam Sound, which is just a couple of silly guys who like to "report" news in fun fashion around the county, posted a video about what they called a bomb cyclone or tornado up at Sunnyside county park Sunday. Finally the news picked it up and it turned out to be fierce inline winds with severe thunderstorm that took out many many trees. The poor camp hosts there were in the process of moving to host at a Detroit Lake area campground and their truck and new fifth wheel trailer got flipped and ruined. No insurance yet either on it. Now they've got no job, since they have nothing to live in at the campground, and no home.

My friend says the county will have to use their insurance to pay up for that fifth wheeler since they were on the job when this happened. She's probably right.

I hope so because they'll maybe get their lives back.

Anyhow, here are the three cats fixed Monday. Two boys and a girl.

Dennis, a boy

Dingle, a boy

Sylvia a girl

Dingle was the third cat fixed from this colony to be found with an unregistered microchip but not fixed.  I finally called the chip company, to see if anything could be found out about this mystery.   Turns out the chips were bought by the local large private shelter.   I still couldn't figure out how unregistered chips (no info on the cat or owner), bought and placed by the shelter, would be found in three unfixed adult cats at a large rural feral colony.  So I called the shelter who said the cats must have been brought in on their 50th anniversary celebration when they offered microchipping to the public.  She said that was last summer at some point.  Owners would be responsible to register the chip.  But who in the world would bother to take their cat to a microchip event and then not register the chip?  Nobody.   The colony lady then said it might be the kittens she took in to relinquish there, at that shelter, but then they had her take them back because they had ringworm, that they  must have chipped them ,then emptied the info from the chip, since they would not be adopting them out.  I don't have a clue.  Guess its not important either.

The next batch going to be fixed will be Thursday, four from the nice lady, with the killer shepherd in her yard today.  That poor cat, running for its life, that creates an image in the mind.  I hope that dog moves on if a stray.  If she sees it again she'll call animal control.

Fear in the Masses

 What are we supposed to think about our new government.

One day I think I'm going to be living under a bridge soon.   The next I think it'll be ok.

Fear exploitation from one side and from the other, lies, misdirects, blame gaming, media silence and massive cuts and firings to virtually every federal program out there.

Our country is nothing like what it was just a couple of months ago.

We're now the bad guys, in the view of many countries who once were our friends.

Yes, America has been exploited, for its wealth, for its willingness to help other countries, in trade imbalance.  Sure, there is waste in government ways.  I agree completely with removing waste, going after fraud, and making the government work without bloat.  We all see the poverty caused here with cities and counties adding fees to every aspect of our lives.  We don't talk about the root problem in Oregon like we should and that's our overly ridiculously generous public employee retirement plan that has been sinking our ship for decades. 

I have no real idea of the scale of what is going on.   

I can't even list the many things that have ended.  It's a daily barrage.  I don't keep track.  

I know some because they affect me--like the 2 million pounds of food the Oregon food bank will not get because that's been cut.  Like NPB's funding about to be cut, which was inevitable under Trump.    National Public Broadcasting distributes funds to local public broadcasting like OPB in Oregon.  Public broadcasting creates news casts from around the world and interesting series about life around the world and also TV series, that are fantastic (some of them).  Do enough Americans watch and listen to public broadcasting to justify the taxes that go to it?  Good question.

The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was taken over by Trump.  How does that affect me?  It doesn't.  Has always seemed like an elitist's perk. It's not been cut, just taken over by Trump and his crowd.   

The continued push to acquire Greenland is embarrassing.   

What about our daily life survival and recreation?   Recreation is important for mental health.  Maybe some folks like Trump and Musk don't do outdoors.   We do here in Oregon.  It's in our genes, our spirits.   And we don't know if  forest service and or BLM campgrounds will operate this summer since they've been hit with huge cuts.  The feds tell states to thin federal forests to prevent wildfires and at the same time cut the forest services' budget and fire thousands of its employees.  

We seniors do not know if we will or won't reliably get Social Security checks or if those of us who rely on medicaid in various ways will continue to get it.

Meanwhile, our local health care system that stretches from Sweet Home to the coast has announced it is in financial trouble and missed some bank deadline and is open to buyout.   If they go under since they have a virtual monopoly in the two counties, Linn and Lincoln, thousands of us would end up without health care access.  If medicaid gets cut, that might be the nail in their coffin.

The new supreme leader and his crew have inspired debates on what government should and shouldn't do for its people.   I would like government to stay out of our personal lives, like not  making laws that affect women's bodies, and be free of religion.   These are both private personal freedom matters.  Screaming about religious morals while violating those same morals is pretty ridiculous.   People can believe what they want, or should be able to do so, like that comes from our constitution.   Same old, screaming about following the constitution while at the same time violating it makes this new admin seem either supremely stupid or they just think everyone will overlook the hypocrisy.

What can I say?   We may be dooming ourselves.   I have no idea.   

Night Out

 What a great night out I had.  Nothing wild or crazy.

My neighbor invited me, said there was going to be a Beatles Tribute band at a local brew pub.

Ok, great, I thought.   Sounds fun.

Off we went.  Her driving, already with another friend who lives a couple blocks away in the car.  We picked up a fourth.  

However, we soon discovered the Beatles Tribute wasn't until next month.   Oh well.

We decided to get salads and chat in the "outside" room, although it didn't seem outside at all and had stand up heaters.  They were not on.  My neighbor began to get cold after an hour.  The outside room is where the stage is and I think there may have been a bar, I'm not sure.  There were tables all around the room.   Wooden kegs (barrels) lined one wall.  You went back into the small pub area to place a food and/or drink order.  There they had about four dart boards along the wall and people were playiing games of darts.  There were also more tables in that main area.  It is a typical pub.  Food, drink, music, games.....only difference with this one is they brew a lot of their ciders.

I had their house salad.  It was a good mix of greens but the dressing made it tasty.   Or maybe it was the company.  The Fourth (we picked her up 4th and she was new to me) had Ceasar Salad and Free Spirit (who is indeed a free spirit, hence my nickname for her) had a mediterranean salad that looked very good.  My neighbor was the oddball and had soup.   

When my neighbor got cold, that's when we left.  She has three trips going on, one in each of the next three months.   She already went on a cruise.  She's enjoying retirement.  It was nice to get out with some lady friends.  I don't often see any people these days, other than those I help with cats.

I see today we have a flood watch out.  There's just been too much rain.

My two old boys--Skinko and Teddy--fading fast, but they have held on so much longer than I ever thought they could or would.   They pad around the house, following me like faithful dogs now, jumping into my lap whenever and wherever I sit down, stare off into nothingness like they're dreaming of old days or seeing something I cannot see.

It won't be long for either of them, their time, that is, remaining in this material world.

Interesting Weather Afloat

 Update:  It's after 7:00 p.m. now and we've had nothing, nada except a few splatters of rain.  Bust!

I don't watch news anymore, so imagine my surprise when someone warned me about severe thunderstorms forecast for later today.

Here?

We get thunderstorms.  Many of us love them.  But severe?  Not so much.

Severe rain---we have that in bucket loads.   

Dutifully I checked the web about this rumor.   It's true, although the weather people seem confused about this possible dangerous forecast that could include tornados and very large hail.  Accuweather says our first thunderstorm could be in just a couple of hours. Seriously?

Here?  For real?

Right now, its 67 degrees and sunny out.   Like yesterday and the day before.  Too beautiful for words. I felt accomplished to get my front lawn mowed on Monday, even with the sleep deprivation involved in caring for seven extra cats.  Was just one night with the seven extras but it wears me down a bit.  It's supposed to drop 20 degrees tomorrow and rain the next five days to two weeks.  Great, more rain, just what we DON'T need.

Well I'll post up tomorrow about the severe and dangerous weather event.  We don't have storm cellars around here because we don't get severe weather like tornadoes.  We are grateful that we don't experience them here.  But will we today? News advises safety first. What, no storm watching?

The Wake Up to Reality Time of Year

 This is the Wake Up time of year.

By that I mean, the people who have or feed unfixed cats suddenly all want them all fixed right now.  They've put it off, over and over, then get an epiphany when they see their boy cats mating with their girl cats and their girl cats starting to round out.   Now all at once, the royal procastinators are desperate.  I'm in their crosshairs---"we need help now".   

Sorry folks I too am hobbled.  Hobbled by the numbers, by me being just one person and by the lack of available affordable options for spay neuter.    

So....I help who I can and refer the rest to the FCCO clinic's online appointment request form and they can take it from there.  Actually most people could get it done themselves.   Many old folks do it.  Seems like its the younger crowd needs hand held.

I'm pretty much older than almost everyone who calls for help now.   How'd that happen.

I have three trips scheduled to the FCCO in April, with about 20 cats each time, plus ten spots elsewhere.  Tip of iceberg. 

Still planning on taking most of the summer off.  Warning folks I intend to do that.  I don't want people hounding me to take their kittens.   And they do, every single summer.   I am dreaming of summer in fact.  Warmth.  Sun.  Lakes.  Rivers.  Maybe the beach.   Dozing, dazing out, sun flickering on the water and through the trees............a campfire.

Wake up, me, wake up.  It's still winter here.  Well, allegedly its spring.

I took 7 cats up to the clinic in Salem this morning.   One of them is from Lyons, where the two girls fixed last week are from.   They had two boys to catch but just caught Fang, the one.  He's huge.  A big brown tabby and beautiful.

Fang

The other six are from a never ending Lebanon colony.   I think HCC paid for 6 or 7 a tech took in from this colony at the private clinic.  Then another Lebanon woman took four to be fixed.  I took 3 in one time, five the next time, and six more today.  How many is that so far?   24 at least.  

There are lots more I think.

Violet, a young black tux, sex unknown

Boots, a female

Ghostie, a young light gray tabby tux.  I think he's a he, but didn't look.

Lady is a girl

Mama K is a gorgeous Torti Point Siamese

Sargent is a black and white boy, so I'm told

So that's the story.   I'll drive, after I pick up the cats around 3:30, directly to Lyons, since those folks will recuperate Fang in their awesome garage, where the two girls have been recuperating for a week after their surgeries in luxury.

Next, I'll head to Lebanon with the other six, as they can recuperate theirs in an enclosed area too.   So no overnighters here, at least, of the seven.   

Not a difficult round up, since both parties trap their own.   I like it that way.    Who wouldn't?

Summer is coming.   I am ready.

The End

 Last night was my final cat adventure up Quartzville road.   I took two game cams along and two traps.

It was pouring and quite windy, but I went anyhow.

It was important to see what was eating the food I've left out a few times since the road opened after the slide.   I did not believe it was a cat eating it, but one can always hope.

I got a couple of tacos in Sweet Home to take along for dinner and got to mp 15 just as darkness was descending, about 7:30.  

I checked for tracks, found none in the soggy dirt, then set one trap at the bathroom and one over across the parking lot by the picnic table.  I set up game cams to watch both, protected from rain in plastic containers I got at the dollar store.   The cameras are water proof but in the rain, the lens get hit by moisture and the view is occluded.

I parked out by the road, to give maximum privacy to whatever was out there.

I'd brought along a book I'd been reading in bed nights.  I had about a quarter left to read.   It's written by a Dane.  A Greenland native, is living in Copenhagen in state supported apartments struggling with her identity.  A young boy living there too has died falling from the roof.  Smilla, if nothing else, knows snow and ice.  She is an expert in fact, and has led scientific expeditions in Greenland where she did nothing but read the ice, for safety.

She becomes convinced the boy did not die accidentally.  The police are not very interested in the case.  She is not an easy woman and begins her own investigation which is wrought with extreme danger as it becomes clear, very powerful and very rich people are involved.

Anyhow, I finished the book in my car.  The last 20 pages I had to do so with broken reading glasses.  I'd taken a break, after falling asleep at 9:00, to go check the traps at midnight.  Nothing had touched anything that I could see.  So I went back to my car and back to sleep after I finished the book, removing my shoes and wrapping myself in a cozy blanket.   I thought, I could be here forever.  The night was so dark and quiet.  Only the occasional sound of the rain, soft as a whisper, hitting my windshield, and rushing water from Moose Creek plummeting down to the still low extended Quartzville Creek arm of Green Peter reservoir, from beneath the bridge, reached my ears.  

I woke with a start just after 6:00 a.m.  I was groggy and unwilling to leave my cozy cacoon.  I had brought along a thermos of coffee.  By now it was cold, but I poured a cup and drank it down.  Finally around 7:00 I put on my shoes and collected my gear.  I headed home.

There was now a dead deer sprawled across the center line not far from Whitcomb Creek.   Whomever had hit the deer must have had some damage to their car or truck.   But leaving it as a road hazard there was not a good thing.   If I'd not been eager to get home, and already tired, I would have drug it off the road.

I've seen two dead deer in the few times I've been up since the landslide was cleared.   On the Lyons road, between Scio and Mehama, I counted at least four.  Or was it five.

The hotspot for cell coverage at Thistle Creek vanished into the storm.  I could get no reception going or coming there.  

Next week, we could have three days in the 70's.  Everyone is very excited including me.  We've had so much rain this winter.  It's gone on and on and on and will go on all weekend.

When I got home about 8:30 this morning, I checked both cards from both game cameras and was not at all surprised by what I found on them.

Camera number one, at the bathrooms, revealed an all nighter deer mouse party had been held at the bathrooms.  There was no food out except in my trap but the mice had no problem running in and out of it.  The card held over 500 photos of mice, mice tails, mice butts, mice scurrying, blurry.   Must have been fun for them to discover this sudden food source.  Word went out.

The other camera, on the other side of the parking lot, wasn't placed well.  I didn't expect to find anything on its card, but I did.  A fox!   Where there are mice a plenty, there will be foxes.  This is denning season and this fox appears to be a female.  I have another photo which shows her butt end with tail to the side, to know its a girl.  She may have pups nearby.   Its a gray fox and although the image isn't clear you can see the black line down its fluffy tail.  

I'd seen two other foxes along Quartzville road and heard one yap at Thistle Creek when I'd pulled in there once and was stunned to see deer mice pouring from a hole in a dirt berm.

Foxes are very very common around here.  Some years they boom in population, some they ebb.  I had some better photos of the fox, but I edited them on an unsupported google discard program---Picasa.  So they won't upload to the blog.

This fat mouse, who marched into my trap to retrieve a glop of wet food may soon end up food in the mouth of a fox.

I've wondered over the audacity of mice.  Everything in the world is out to eat them, but out they go still, to find food.   "Won't be me gets eaten," they must reason. The optimistic mouse syndrome I call it.

We all suffer from optimistic mouse syndrome.  We have to or we'd just hide in terror.

That does it for cat hunting up Quartzville road for now.  If you know me, you know I have to do things like this, like spend a final night up there with game cams on, so I can sleep well at night.  So I can let things go and move on.

However, doesn't mean I won't be going up to enjoy that beautiful area again soon.

Took a few photos as light began to relieve the darkness of night.

Memory Disk Overdrive

 Have you ever run into someone who knows you, from over a decade ago, but your mind is pulling up "item not found" when you search your memory files.  

Lady called me and said I helped her a long time ago, maybe 12 or 14 years ago, with cats, up near Lyons.  Now she's had more show up, but has moved to another location in Lyons by now.  She still has two of those original cats I helped her catch and get fixed--both now elderly and tame.

She caught two of the four unfixed ones last night.  I went up to get them.   They currently just have a pickup with open bed and its been downpouring here.   The cats will be fixed tomorrow at Alpine in Corvallis.   

So I drove on up to retrieve them.  I drove the usual route to Lyons, up through Scio and on.   She's far side of highway 22 now.   North of it, I mean, for clarity.  Not far from the Gingerbread House.   I wanted to stop there for breakfast and I will have lunch there tomorrow when I return them.  For old times sake.  I've gone to the Ginger Bread House for as many years as I can remember.

I passed Hannah Bridge turnoff on the way.  Brings back the memories too.   Hannah Bridge is one of many covered bridges around here.  But there's a really nice little swimming hole pretty much under it.   I've gone there now and then for years too.  The county finally upgraded the parking lot and trail down.  I love it but only go there middle of week to avoid crowds.  It's on Thomas Creek which is swollen right now from all the rain.

We talked about the fires of 2020 when I picked up the cats.  That was the Memorial Day night fire that roared down the Santiam Canyon like a hurricane (other places too) and destroyed so much, from Detroit to Lyons, trapping people, killing people, wiping out homes and beloved wild places.  She had a catering company then.  They delivered dinners that night, up to the forest service folks fighting the fire.  She said the lady who took the delivery was nervous.  She became nervous too, over the wind, with a fire already burning.   She told her friend, "Let's get out of here."  So they came back down to Lyons and she went home and packed her car up, filling every tiny place, loaded her 8 cats and dogs, but her husband wanted to go to bed.  She didn't let him and they evacuated.  Their place wasn't burned.  The fire stopped not far from their place however.

There are two others, both boys, they want to catch and get fixed.   But they were happy they caught the girls.  

UPDATE:  Both were fixed today.  Bobbi actually had suffered a traumatic tail injury and was not born a bobtail.  The wound was still open to the vertebrae and nerves.   So....she got a tail amputation along with her spay.   Now, she's a newly minted manx, as I call them.  She likely suffered the traumatic injury when protecting her kittens last fall, the man told me who cares for them with his wife.  The kittens all vanished and suddenly she was a bobtail.   She's lucky to have survived at all.  

This is Little Fern.  They think its a girl.

This is Miss Bobbi, who is a girl, with a bobtail

After I got home, and got paper lining the traps, and fed them, I came inside and texted the neighbor to see if she wanted to go out for coffee.   She did and off we went.  We were soon joined by another friend.

After that she wanted to go to a meat truck sale in a parking lot.  I said "Meat from where?"  She didn't know.  The truck was a small delivery type, white, no logo, and there was a line.  You couldn't see prices or anything anywhere, or what they had.  You had to stand in line, and one person was allowed under the canopy to buy at a time.  "Yikes," I thought.  "Doesn't seem right," I thought.

I went and waited in her car.  After 30 or 40 minutes, they loaded four boxes in the back of her car.  I asked what she got---a lot.  Too much for her freezer in fact.  She said they were from Missouri.  I thought "uh oh" and I thought "that doesn't sound right."   Lobster tails even.  From Missouri?   

None of my business though, what she buys.  

Despite doing all this cleaning, last few rainy days, there's more to do, because the cats don't stop tracking it in from the cat yard.   

Every bit of ground everywhere is muddy or sogged out four to six inches in standing water.  Yuk.

All next week---more rain, snow in the mountains.  The problem with heavy spring snow is if we get a sudden warming, all that snow melts and adds to the overloaded streams and rivers and flooding happens.

I was bored yesterday and Gigi was demanding, on my lap and mad if not on my lap, so I took snapshots of her close up.

The younger crowd entertained themselves in a couple of empty Chewy boxes.  They're always a favorite toy, while they last.

Otherwise, all is just the same here.  

I'm going to search my blog later on, see if I can find reference to the cats I got fixed 12 to 14 years ago for this couple.   I didn't have a nonprofit back then.  Once she told me the name of the road they lived on back then, I remembered the situation.   I could drive right to it, in fact.  But records from that long ago are now on CD's or thumb drives somewhere.  This was a long long time ago, back when I was hooked up with so many affordable options and was taking in over 30 cats a month to be fixed, often 60 or more in fact.   We don't have all those options anymore.  I looked for them on my blog briefly but became nostalgic looking at cat photos and videos.   I saw my adoption plea video for Blueberry, back in 2012.  She never got a home.  She went to Heartland for a couple months.  I was told she was adopted by a vet student, but it was really someone who wanted to be a vet who returned her after two months.  I was told she'd be euthanized by email if I didn't come over and get her instantly.  I did, racing, heart pounding.  I found her in a carrier in their bathroom, trembling she was so frightened and brought her here, where the moment she realized she was back, she relaxed.  She's 15 now, an old gal, arthritic hip from a fall off a cat run years ago but otherwise ok for one of my elderlies.  

It was gut twisting to see that video of her from 15 years ago. I'm happy she's lived out her life here with me--safe and happy.  Time flies.   

Off to more cleaning.