Last Three?

 I went out to the loft colony this evening and caught the three I know about that don't have ear tips.   Might have all newcomers caught now.  That would make 7 newcomers caught since mid December.   

I caught 18 already out there 3 years ago to be fixed but didn't return about a third of those.  Five of those 18 I caught mid January 3 years ago were big boys, several of whom had just shown up.  I imagine they were coming in expecting to breed with females there.  He has not seen them since however.

I don't really think these latest 7 I've caught are newcomers although he calls them that.  The first four I caught and were fixed mid December were all teens, like siblings, born last fall teens.  

Then I caught today the large brown tabby long hair and there are at least three or four other tabby long hairs.  Not like this one is an outsider. 

Well, to stop beating around about it, I caught the long hair gray tux tame one.  The cats' hair is too long to tell if its a female or a neutered male.  Acts male, however, but the vet will figure it out. Safely.  Under anesthesia.   

Then I caught the two others I"d seen without eartips--a short hair black adult and a long hair tabby.  

Otherwise its been raining (pouring actually) and miserable weather and makes me just want to sleep all day and all night.

It was kind of a letdown to catch those three cats so quickly this evening.  He hadn't fed the cats so two fixed ones immediately jumped into my car when I arrived to scrounge for food inside it.  They wanted wet food.  They don't get it from him and they know my car now, and know I'll have some with me.

I wasn't even out there 40 minutes.   But those 40 minutes were the highlight of an otherwise tediously boring rainy weekend.

This is the tame newcomer.  Looks like a boy but has no balls and none of the cats have shown up there fixed so far.  This one is relatively new, compared to the regulars at least, but  he has been feeding it many months already and the cat adores him.

Another Year in the History Books

 Today's just another day in a year labeled new.  It's all just numbers.   Humans obsessed with counting.

We just follow cycles of the sun and stars and weather patterns when the sun is at different angles to our personal space.   

Sure its important when to know to plant what so it will grow and all that.

I started out this new numbered year by sleeping in and getting the garbage to the curb so it could be picked up today.  

2026 will be the same, generally speaking, as 2025, in so far as the usual suspects will make the usual promises, distort truth, rip off others, con people.  People will die tragically.   Nothing much will change I'm sure.  There's a security in that thought.  Humans will be humans, always and forever, til some asteroid obliterates earth or something like that happens.

On that thought---Happy New Year!!! 

 Any reason is a good enough reason to party and shoot off some fireworks!  You're still alive, aren't ya?  That's the reason to celebrate.

The Transporter

 Today I'm just a transporter.   Karen from Portland brought down a cat from a large colony her group helped with.   Unfortunately a lot of them needed expensive dentals.   They use a clinic up there, but the last one needing a dental couldn't get in for quite some time.

So they scheduled her at Radpets in Corvallis but don't have volunteers that don't work, so asked if they brought her down, could I transport and pick her up after her dental.

I agreed to do it since I have nothing else going on til next week, cat wise, around here.   Karen was here with her early evening and I took her over to RAD this morning.  I'll pick her up at 3:00 and Karen will come down this evening to get her.   She'll get to go back to her friends and familiar location after she recovers.

Her name was simply Cat Number 13.  But I called her 13, since every cat needs a proper name.

She's very pretty.

I had to find my ice scraper this morning.  Turned cold and my car was covered in ice.

But now the sun is out and  just seeing the sun makes me happy.  Happier, that is.  I had such a nice evening cuddling with my delightful old cats while reading in bed last night.  I thought "wow, this is the life."

I'm drying out, or trying to dry out, the carpet pad in leaky new old car.  The leak is no longer but the mildew smell is worse than the cat car smell.  Pulling back the carpet to expose the pad underneath, that got wet, really exposed the smell too.  Yuck!   I doused the whole area in baking soda and run the heater on high to help the drying process along.  Just what I need--another smelly old car.   

Lovely eh?   Carpet pulled back, baking soda everywhere, glove box still out and in the back of the car somewhere.  It'll get dried out and I'll kill the mildew off and put everything back together.  It's a process.

I could smother that side for awhile in aromatic cat litter, the kind they've added fragrance to, which always makes me want to retch (those fake fragrances), and I may do that and use a clothespin on my nose.   I'll just say yuck again to emphasize my displeasure with fake fragrances.  I can't even walk the laundry soap aisle at Walmart, those smells are so overpowering and icky.

Yesterday at Walmart I passed a lady drenched in perfume of some sort.  After passing her and going down another aisle I could tell she'd been in that aisle too because she left behind that stench.

There are so many birds this winter eating at the feeder.   Usually in the winter the birds, all but a few, vanish.   There are Oregon Juncos (now with a new name but I go with the old one), English sparrows, finches, bushtits and the resident Scrub Jays, to name a few.  Only a couple Mourning Doves remain and they are the constant target of a relentless Coopers Hawk.  

Car Heater System Leak

 The leak from the blower motor, heater core area got to me finally when everything I'd put on the passenger side floor, on my trip back home, got soaked.

Today I took out the glove compartment and pulled back the carpet to find the drain tube.

There was water in the bottom of the blower motor, which is what was producing the gurgling bubbling noise.   And I watched the water spurt from near the drain tube origin at the heater core.

Fortunately the fluid is clear, not tinted red.  In other words, no antifreeze in it, so hopefully no heater core issue.  Just a clogged drain hose, mostly likely.  But also I need to clean out the cowling where the air intake for the HVAC is, to be sure rain can't get in if the vent is clogged in debris.  Rain could actually be causing this too, if air  inside isn't set to recirculate.

Here's a paragraph explaining that:

"Yes, rain can get into the heater/blower system if the external air intake (usually under the windshield cowl) has clogged drains or debris, forcing water up and into the HVAC housing, but modern cars have drains and flaps to direct most rain out, though issues like clogged cowl drains or failed seals can cause leaks, often appearing as wetness on the passenger floorboard. When drawing outside air (not recirculating), the system pulls from the cowl, so if that area floods, water can enter and potentially reach the blower or cabin air filter area, leading to musty smells or actual water leakage."

Here's a video I took of all that water sloshing around where it shouldn't be, inside the heater blower motor.  The  glove compartment is out of the way, and you are looking down into the bottom of the heater blower motor casing.  Second video shows the leak from the heater system, dripping, sometimes spurting off that black round wire wrap, but its actually coming from above and behind that. 

 I pulled off the drain tube from the floorboard, where it goes through, then cleaned it out best I could with a long zip tie back up through towards the heater core,  twisting the zip tie.   Some small rocks came out, then more.   And instantly the water drained from the blower cover bottom and down the tube out onto an already soaked paper towel roll I put under the drain tube.

I put the drain tube down a water bottle for now, left the carpet and pad exposed so I hope they dry out eventually.  But I need to clean out up top too, the cowling just under the windshield.   Until I get that done I'll be sure air is on recirculate.  It's nap time right now.   I didn't poke the drain tube back into the floorboard drain hole because I want to see how much is draining into that bottle and what it looks like because I'm just curious.  I sure hope cleaning that tube out solves the issue.  Tired of everything soaked on the passenger side floor but the gurgling bubbling sound of the water in the blower motor casing didn't really bother me much.

29 Hours

 There was no windstorm Christmas Eve.  Not a breath of it.  Finally I saw a post from my favorite weatherman that the windstorm was cancelled, Christmas is saved.  Yes!

I left mid afternoon to drive to my brothers.   It takes a lot to leave here, lots of last minute clean this litter box, clean that one.  The cats always have plenty of food and water.   I could be gone for a week and they'd be fine except the litter boxes would be exceptionally icky when I got back.

The new old car, the one I now drive for personal use has an issue or two.  Its rare that I drive it since most times I drive anywhere it is when on cat duty.   The car might need front brakes.  I can hear the front ones scraping.  But its more probable small rock is caught in a pad.  Standard fix for that is to backup and hit the brakes a few times.  If it does need new pads, I will do it myself, when we get a stretch of dry weather.   Pads are quick and easy to change.   

The second issue is at the 3rd and 4th blower fan speeds, the heater core behind the dash, sounds like a bubbling fountain or a water pot bowling.   There is water leakage down into the passenger side too.  Its minimal but I need to get drying agent so the carpet doesn't mold.  I can't figure out the connection to fan speed and the heater core bubbling sounds.  My brother tried to think of what it could be also.

He said the heater core probably needs replaced.   I've never had this trouble before on a car.  Of course he mentions "the greatest fear" by saying "maybe its head gasket is bad".   The thought has come briefly into my mind also.   

I took a couple of breaks from the boredom of the drive down.   I stopped at a rest area to walk around a little and I stopped at a store to get coffee a  little while later.  It's 3 hours to drive down there, longer if I stop or if there's slow traffic on the two lane part of the drive.   

My SIL had their place decorated up very beautifully for Christmas.  We had a nice time doing nothing.   I played with their kitty Chester.  I had brought him a wand toy for Christmas.  I enjoyed my great great niece and nephew, 2 and 5 years in age.  They seem way too smart already.

I left about 4:00 yesterday to drive home.  I was very tired already and was happy to arrive home.   My kitties acted like I'd never left.   

Oh I had a game cam up and the black kitty made a lot of appearances on it, so still around, mostly likely he's from one of the houses behind me.

Yowling Cat

 My friend stopped by yesterday, on her way back to her home in WA state.

It was nice to see her.  She's got a great sense of humor. 

Just as she was about to leave, I hear a yowling outside.  I thought it was one of my cats, in the cat yard.  But one glance outside told the story.  There was a young adult all black cat near the garage, yowling like a cat in heat or like a cat looking for a cat in heat.

Wrong time of Year, I said, to a couple of my cats, staring at the yowler, through the window.

I went outside and the cat ran under my car.  Finally I set a trap, but the cat was not much interested.   He or she yowled for awhile at the garage window, like it wanted in and expected to have sex once inside.   I went over to the neighbor's for awhile and when I returned, the cat had vanished.   

I set up the game cam, but this morning, when I retrieved it, I realized it had no SD card in it.   I'd put it in the old Canon, which I dusted off to use to take bird photos.  It's LCD screen doesn't work anymore but I can still use the viewfinder.  I'm fed up with trying to use the phone for photos.

Haven't seen the kitty today.  Or rather heard the kitty.   

We're supposed to get high winds for awhile Wednesday morning, the news said.  The weather person seemed quite irritated it might come through, blow things down, cause power outages and affect travel plans, including his he added.   Great.  

Here's the yowling kitty in video.  Not a big cat.  He wasn't yowling much in this clip.

Soggy Oregon

 Lots of rain came down last Thursday here in Oregon.

With it, came damage.  

One lane of Highway 22, that heads out to Detroit and beyond from Salem (goes west too from Salem) sunk and slid out.

I took the above rain totals for our area from a post by a Lebanon friend that also featured some flooded fields around here.   The waters are receding everywhere, but the threat of landslides continue.   We will have rain off and on the next week except, they say, on Tuesday.

As you can see, our town got over 3 inches.

Scio which is 20 minutes from here, well they got almost 5.

One day!

Part of highway 101 slid out too, just south of Neskowin.  Highway 101 runs north and south along the coast of Oregon (and all the west coast).

Slide on 101

This happens around here.  Can't say its unusual.  Another slide occurred over Quartzville road, where I spent a lot of time last fall before a slide closed it in December a year ago too, near the same spot, catching all those poor cats left up there to die.

Highway 6 is closed indefinitely due to slide that cracked the highway.  I think the crack sunk half the road about a foot, maybe more.  That road is a highly used cut off from highway 26 to Tillamook area.

Major blow downs of trees caused lots of damage too, including closing popular places like Silver Falls State Park.    Anyway, the damage is widespread.  Flooding damaged properties.  I think one guy died driving through high water (past warning signs). But...these things happen here.    And I hear we're in for even more atmospheric river events.

My neighbor is moving.  Her offer got accepted on a mobile home in another part of town.  She says she'll take her time with the move.    I don't know where her roommate is going to move to.   Maybe he'll find another roommate.   I don't know.  He could get a cheaper place around here, but I think he's moving east in his motor home, to live on some friends property.  So I hear.   

I had to repair the barbacue pergola I turned into a cat house, out in the cat yard.  It had a rain resistant cover on a metal frame.  I'd covered the sides of the metal frame in a mishmash of wood.  I put a piece of old floor vinyl over the rain resistant cover.  By now though, years later, that vinyl, scorched and brittled by the hot sun, whipped by wind, pounded by rain, is disintegrating.  And allowing rain to leak inside.   I had half a spray can of flex seal left from when I tried to stop leaks in the gutter.   I sprayed the underside of that rain resistant cover with that two days ago, got it all over me in the process even though I wore rubber gloves.  I had to put rubbing alcohol on my hands and arms and scrub them with a nail brush to get it off.  Yuk.   

I'm going to get a piece of tarp over the top of that little makeshift cat house today I hope, to keep the rain outside so the cats can sleep in it again.  There's a lot that needs fixing around here.

Sooner or later, it being Oregon, wood rots and metal rusts.   Just the way it is.  Cement and decks turn dark slimy slick green with algae.  Moss covers sidewalks a brighter spongier green at least than cement algae.  Yards pop up shrooms of all sorts.  It's not rocket science.  It's Oregon.  What can I say.

It was sunny part of yesterday.   The birds were out and after the leftover apples in the tree.  

The cats have been sleeping a lot.  They would like to kick me out of the house more.  They get more sleep.  

Old old Teddy has lost muscle mass but still going.  He sleeps a lot.  He was old Slinko's buddy and I thought he'd go before Slinko.

And here's Stevie...the neighbors cat.  Playing King of the Cat Yard.