Difficult

 I tried to catch the cats for Monday's appointments.  I started early because these are extremely difficult cats to catch.

They live in a very large area and do not spend their time anywhere near where they are fed.  They come up from heavy brush when they hear the feeders truck and her voice.  They do not come up for me.

Feeder lady came with me Wednesday, called to them, then left.  She said she'd be back very soon.  That didn't prove to be true. The pull off was alive in activity.  And trash.  Four flat screen TV's had recently been dumped out there.  It's common for people to dump their trash along rural road pull outs, like pigs.

There were two other cars parked ahead of me.   I caught one teen, the most adventuresome of the five, quickly.  But bees began to swarm the bait and tried to enter my car, where wet cat food had been opened.

A woman came out of the woods up the trail and sat on the cement blocks.  She saw me trying to take a photo, only I was trying to take a photo of a cat coming out of the brush, not her.  She became angry, thinking I was taking her photo.   

Finally two men came walking up out of the area, which is between the road and the river, a very large area where homeless now encamp large scale.

One of them came to my window.   Turned out he was community outreach for the homeless.   He asked my name and I told him.  Then he said "Oh my, you helped my mom." and told me her name.  I remembered her quickly.  She used to work at a convenience store and always was rescueing cats and I'd get them fixed.  She'd died of cancer by now.   That was a long time ago I helped her with cats, several times.  He said he couldn't believe I was still doing this and I said I can't either.   Told him my age and he said "more power to you".

They left.  Next up were two guys I thought were going to break into the other car ahead of me and they kept looking my way and I got worried, locked my doors, tried to text the feeder lady to come back now, no response.   They finally moved on.

More people came and went from the area below, all homeless, some with dogs.  Then a city truck pulled up because by now a lady and a guy or two had come out of the wooded area and unlocked the car and were inside it.   The city truck guy got out and was talking to them.  The car had been stickered for removal. They don't let cars and RV's pile up in pull outs along that road.  I suppose its a constant battle with the number of homeless around.

He'd finally left and I"d caught one more kitten but the rest had vanished.  The feeder lady finally returned.  I wasn't happy with her for being gone so long and not responding.   Finally left when it was apparent the cats would not be back.

I didn't set them up in a cage.  My back was hurting and the cages are awkward and difficult to set up atop a table in my garage.   I turned them loose in the bathroom after initial flea treatment since they were crawling in fleas.   I waited a few hours after flea treatment, leaving them in the traps, so fleas would be dying, before I let them in the bathroom.

They're pretty wild.   I went again yesterday morning.   The stickered car was gone.  The feeder didn't respond however, when I texted her asking her to come and call out the cats.  I tried calling too.   Then when I finally left, I saw her along the road farther along.  I wasn't happy with her at all but only said "can you please communicate on these cats to help at least".   They won't come up out of the large area unless they hear her call them.   I never saw any of them in those 2 1/2 hours sitting there.  She'll have to be involved to be successful catching the rest but she really doesn't want to be.  I don't know why.   It's difficult.  Very difficult.

Someone with the clinic offered to foster three kittens from the big huge Lebanon colony.   I'd told the colony man that Tuesday afternoon but he said he'd be busy Wednesday and didn't respond further.    Last night he sent me photos of two of the three kittens he'd caught and said were ready.   I texted the lady who offered to foster with the photos yesterday, but no response.  Still no response so far.  Hope nothing has changed.  

I was going to go get five Cascadia homeless camp cats to be fixed Wednesday.  this was set up by a dog fixing lady.  I had been at the camp catching cats two or three years ago and found  there were more dogs than cats running there and had contacted her to see if some could be fixed.  She did get a lot of them fixed and kept in contact with one of the dog owners who now said he had a mom and three kittens.  He wanted them gone but agreed to get them fixed. She even was going to pay for it.  I would just pick them up, take them to the clinic, overnight them and take them back. Now he doesn't respond, however, now that its close to the appointments.  She also tried to get him to respond.  No luck so far.  So I'll have to cancel by today with the clinic.  I'm very much hoping his three kittens aren't the ones posted as seen dumped up Quartzville road.  

Here are the two teens in my bathroom.  They'll be fixed Monday.  I hope to catch the other three, but its not looking good.  Silverton Cat Rescue barn cat team will place them, which is awesome.

I'm not too worried about any of it though.  I'm used to this kind of chaos.  And horror.  Sad to say.  I do what I can.

Last Trip to Waldo

 I took off up to Waldo Lake today.  Just a spur of the moment thing.   My flotable was still in the car from when I went to Foster Reservoir, so I threw in a bag with some shorts, towels and took off.

That's my inflatible.  I tried to inflate it with the battery powered pump but the batteries had gone dead so I just pumped it with the hand pump.  It took maybe five minutes.

I got a few envious comments and some compliments.   The paddle boarders like the backrest, which is under my hat in the photo, as it flops forward if I'm not sitting on it with my back against the back rest.   It's a really comfortable backrest.  I can also sit atop it if I want to, like my hat is doing there.

I got out and went for a swim where I took that photo.   No other people anywhere near or even in sight.  It was so beautiful.  No wind to speak of, although I saw at least four sailboats who were getting some wind in their sails.

It's very short, about 8 feet, but plenty long for me.

I only use the rear skeg.  It's removable.  Near the shore at Waldo can be very shallow in many places and rocky.   I finally removed the rear skeg which kept catching on rocks.   I wanted to see how it would handle without one anyway.

It was easy to paddle without any skeg, although any gust of wind would catch and propel it backwards or sideways, so I know to always have my skeg along in case of wind on the water.

I was a  little astonished at the drop in Waldo's water level.  I've never seen that before.    It had to be down a foot, which is a lot of water when you consider its size.   

Evaporation maybe?   I don't know.

There was no smoke in the skies this time, but that sure looks like a fire beyond the NW end.

In many places, especially since the fires, organic matter covers rocks or coats over the once sandy bottom.

Snow on the Sisters.  Not much yet.

There are two of the three Sisters again

I really love this float board.   Less than 15 lbs, blows up in 5 minutes, comfy backrest, easy to paddle, although the paddle isn't going to last, and I need to remember to have another in the car when I take this out.   That's my ancient boogie board beside my photo snapping shadow.  I originally found that in Foster Reservoir.  The foam inside is broken by now in places.  I use it for safety with its wrist strap, when swimming.

Quick trip.  Warm today and I knew there probably won't be another day on such a beautiful lake again this season.   The temperature in Crescent, just up the road from Waldo and lower elevation, was 28 degrees this morning.  Winter.   How dare you raise your head.  I'm not ready.

Cats Galore

I put out game cams last night at the big Lebanon colony.  I had to, since I had no feel for how many cats are there or even what most look like.  I tried to get the caretaker to get photos but it never happened.  I asked for a list, and that didn't happen either.   Hence the need for the game cams.

I'm quite nervous over the job to come end of next week.   It's usually far easier with caretakers if they can leave the premises or go inside while trapping takes place.  It's not a social event.

So yesterday late afternoon I set up two game cams.   I picked them up this morning.

Lol.  Over 4000 photos on the two SD cards.  Inadvertantly I'd placed one camera facing the kitten playground.

I saw Mystic, the black mom cat returned after spay, instead of going to a barn home, due to lactation.

And man alive, does she ever have a brood depending on her, although I suspect she's a better mom than others there and the kittens know that.

Here is Dilly or Dally, one of the two whites fixed and returned, one due to lactation.   Nice profile I thought showing off the right ear tip.

Moonshine, the boy fixed last week

Adult/kitten spat

There's a different black mom and kitten

Guess who

And then there were the oddities:  two cats (that I saw on cam) with LEFT eartips.  They're likely fixed, but who took them and to where, that they'd left ear tip instead of right ear tip?   No clue.

Here's one of the two with left eartip

Here's another

It's a mystery but as long as they are fixed, I'm happy.

So far, nowhere for any of those kittens to go.  Rescues are full.  Keithas Kitties may or may not take some.  

Every day that passes the harder they become to tame.

So I got some feeling at least for the colony.  I had nothing from the caretaker and I don't want to let down the clinic, like if I have 35 spots and there are really only 20 cats.  I still don't have a number since so many are gray or black or gray tux of some sort or black tux.    

Game cams are so fun.

Beautiful Day

 I got enough sleep yesterday, in anticipation of today.   I knew it would be nice.

The reservoir is still full.  I think that is because they don't have to deep draw down Green Peter, which is above Foster Reservoir this year.  It caused too much damage to local water systems, with all the silt.

I checked the level before I left here.

But first, I shaved Blueberry.  She also needed wormed.   Andrew would recoil at the job I did.  Just be happy, Andrew, I live a long long way from you.  You are safe from my clippers.

It wasn't easy, never is.  I have to clip as fast as I can while trying to hold the cat still with the other hand.  Try doing a sweet job like that.

I also gave her half a bath.   Her tail was dirty.

She's a very old cat now too.

More chores then, laundry, cleaning, mopping.  Then I put the inflatible short board, whatever you call it, into the car.  It's lightweight and compact, only 8 feet long blown up. Blowing it up takes only minutes with either a battery pump or hand pump.

Too easy!   I have no idea what I would call it.  It's not a kayak and its not a paddle board.  A water toy!

I got a parking spot too, so felt lucky.

I spent about three or four hours on the lake, having a grand old time.  That little board moves!!!  It's so lightweight.

Lots of people out in speed boats, kayaks and groups of young folks in paddle board flotillas, as usual.  I love to see those.   

I paddled from the SE side of the lake to the middle of the north side, east down that side all the way to Sunnyside, the campground right at the edge of the reservoir and the Santiam's Middle Fork that comes down from Green Peter dam and reservoir.   I paddled up the Middle Fork to the moorage docks, and a bit beyond, but turned around because this time of year, the rivers have lots of algae.

That's the inflated seat back on this otherwise flat board.  I can also plop it forward and sit on top of that seat back, if I want.  It's kind of fun to do that and be higher off the water.

Santiam's Middle Fork runs down from Green Peter into Foster Reservoir.  On the left, some boats in Sunnyside camp ground boat morrage docks.  On the right are a couple of kayakers.

As the river level drops out of Green Peter, wood debris starts to come down into Foster.

Early in the morning, we could get heavy rain, and then off and on tomorrow.

By Monday, any showers should be gone and by Tuesday, we get a very warm day.   Fall, you know, very schizoid.

If you need to know how our country is doing, look no further than the comment made by a Fox News host, suggesting homeless mentally ill people should get involuntary lethal injections.  I didn't believe it when someone told me he said that, but apparently its true.  Our country is sinking and sinking into I don't know what or where we will end up.

Here is the Just Kill Them comment story.

Gracie

 Gracie died on her own terms.

She was Vino's colony mate and very ancient too.   I'd had to shave her of mats earlier in the year.    She was always small, but after that, looked even smaller.  She took to following me around, in the last week, very out of character for a feral.  The day before she vanished, I had picked her up and held her tiny body, the first time ever, as she was a wild thing her years here.

Tuesday I was involved in rounding up cats and didn't get much sleep that night before taking them to the vet Wednesday morning.   I tried to find her Tuesday evening, and really looked Wednesday.  But this house and the cat yard have a zillion spots to hide.

I was sure she had become uncomfortable with me picking her up to hold her and decided to move into the cat yard.  Yesterday I searched the cat yard houses and hideouts better and found her.  She was inside one of the big straw filled cat boxes.  She looked as if she was curled up to sleep.  But no.  She had died there.

I wasn't surprised. She wasn't wobbling or stumbling, however.  She was eating and drinking.  She wasn't hiding or crying out.   Thinking back, maybe her turn of behavior, in the few days prior to her death, maybe she was saying goodbye, to me and to her friends.  Having done that, she went to the cat yard and died.

She is one of the ancient ones here.   However I had thought it would be Teddy or Tugs I lost before Gracie.  

So long little quiet sweetie.  Her best friends at the end were fellow elderlies Haley and Nemo, with whom she'd often be found sleeping.

All her colony mates are elderly.  They are from that horrid huge 60 cat colony, where the lady fed all these cats, unfixed, then moved and left them.  I ended up injured, over a fall in wild turkey crap while carrying a trap with cat in it.   Somehow still built a cage room to house the ones not yet placed in the garage, but then the weather turned brutally cold and I could not keep the garage or those cats warm so I moved them inside.  13 in all I was holding then.  The rest were all placed, and I have no idea how I did that, mostly alone.  

The garage cage room is gone now.  For awhile I connected it to the overhead garage cat run that goes to the garage cat room off the cat yard.  But I finally disconnected that and dismantled the cage room, for space.

Two of the 13 cats from there died within a year.  One of pnemonia, the other of saddle clot.   Who is left, after all these years, now that Gracie has passed?   Muted tortis Mona Lisa and Huckleberry.  Vino's sister Mopsy McMuffin.  The ghandi girl Hawkeye.   And boys Arrow and Willy Wonka, both very feral, who live in the cat yard 99% of the time.  

Gracie's date of birth is written in my records as sometime prior to 2011.  The Olson Lane cats were all adults when caught, so I don't really know how old any of them are.

This was in April of this year after I badly shaved her.  Later on I was able to get a bit more off so she didn't appear so ragged.  I am not known to be good with clippers, especially on the wild kitties.

This was her a 4 1/2 years ago on her way to Astoria to have a dental and other medical care.

In her younger days she was beautiful, kept up her grooming well and loved all the cat runs and hide outs, inside and out.

 She had many friends.

So long sweetie

The Olson lane situation was horrendous.  And seemed hopeless.  I could not get help from anywhere local except Heartland Humane in Corvallis fixed most of them.  That was back when they still helped local groups fixing community cats.  I was not a nonprofit at that time, but worked with Poppa Inc out of Hillsboro.  They funded my spay neuter efforts then.  Big time.  But nothing else.   They have long since closed.

When a terrible situation presents itself, a person can throw up their hands in despair or just give it their best shot and I chose the latter approach.   How can you turn your back on that many cats in dire circumstance like that.  It certainly was not their fault.   

So yes, I took on 13 of those cats in the end here, due to my injury and a nasty turn of weather, unable to look for further homes.  And I don't regret it now, so many years later, not one bit.  None of those left are tame cats but they love their lives, and have many friends.  I enjoy watching them interact, if you ask why a person would keep cats that are not tame.  Just an excuse I give to those people who only think there is value to other lives if you get something from it, like loyalty or companionship.  Bah.  I'm not one of those people.

Little Gracie---it was a privilege to give you a safe and happy life with many friends.  Rest in Peace, my dear.

Exhausting Day

 I didn't sleep much last night.   Got involved when I got up to use the restroom.  Involved, you ask?

Yes, watching cat videos.   Among other videos.  My addiction, when under stress.

I love watching only the funny and inspiring reels and vids on FB and Instagram.   Some of the creators are sooo funny.   I like to laugh these days.

So the alarm rang, the one to wake me up this morning.  Only I'd already been up for hours.  Even then I dallied on with the cat reels.   

Until forced to rush, to label all the cats, clean out dirty carriers, load the 8 adults, get the two tiny kittens packed up too, cause the clinic said bring them along, which I did, but they didn't return.  They found a foster for them.  Since two or three of Peppers tinies had already died, I thought this very appropriate and got proper relinquishment from owner too.   

I came home and cleaned, until I couldn't stay awake and then nodded off for an hour in bed.  Probably was drooling.  

Worth it.  Cat videos really make me laugh when I need to laugh.

I somehow made it through the day even though my brain was dead.  I faked it.

I returned the four tame cats to their various Lebanon and Sweet Home people.

I came home and plopped like an inanimate object.  Which I am right now.

Garbage day though, have to get the cans to the curb.

The four ferals are here recuperating.  Sadly one of the white ones is not a teenager but adult enough to have been impregnated and now lactating.   So they all have to go back, since that would leave only one lone eligible, from the four. Two of the females are lactating and he wants the boy back.  The boy is a holy roller.  He tries his best to exit the trap, rolling around biting the newspaper lining it, that alone makes him not a candidate for relocation, even if he was eligible which he is not.

The good news is, the three I had tested for FIV/Felk were all negative.  That's a good statement about teh colony.

Pepper, mom of all the rest from this location

Her only two still alive from latest litter, now with a foster through the tech at Rad

Jupiter, Pepper's adult girl kitten

Snickers, Pepper's adult boy, and a very sweet one too.  Heck, all three of those adults are sweet as all get out.

Well anyhow, Holly went home too, the muted torti. The lady whose house Holly broke into apparently has found her a home.  Or is keeping her.  I'm not sure which.  (brain dead and didn't register latest info)

All for now is quiet on the cat trapping front.  For a little while.  Shhhhhh, I'm napping.

First Outs

 I went over to the Lebanon colony this morning.  I have four spots at RADpets for them tomorrow.

I set the traps I'd left and caught two white teens instantly.  They are siblings and I groaned inside, wondering if SCR barn team could find them a  place.   Its much harder to place white and orange cats safely in barn homes because they stand out to predators.

Next caught--Moonshine, a favorite of his, a young skinny gray male.  He wants Moonshine back.

Next caught--the last I could take today--a black female.  Sadly, lactating.  While she can be fixed, she can't go to a barn home, since we don't know which kittens or where are hers.  

So only two qualifiers, if they test negative for FIV/Felk, for barn homes through Silverton Cat Rescue barn cat team and they're white, not exactly the perfect barn cat candidates.  I sent Dilly and Dally's photos to their team and they said they will find them a place.  I was thrilled.  They're the best.  First up though---off to the clinic tomorrow to also be tested, besides being fixed and vaccinated.

While I was there, I watched four or five goats run across the street to eat grass in a yard.  When I looked their way and they saw me looking, they raced back across the street, off to I don't know where, beyond a fenced a yard.   Ha!

I asked the caretaker man about it and he just shrugged and said "It's Lebanon" like that was explanation enough.  It was.

Dally, the larger of the teens

Dilly

Moonshine (I think that's his given name, by the caretaker.  Moon something)

Mystic the lactating girl.  She is not happy but at least will be well fed when she goes home.

I'm waiting on the other three, coming from a different location in Lebanon, all tame, all owned by same folks.  Their neighbors contacted me.  Hopefully they get them into the carriers I loaned them.

Lastly the Holley area muted torti was caught.   She'll be brought down this evening.

But the first out of the Lebanon colony will be Dilly and Dally.   Lucky lucky kitties.   Lots of food coming their way.  They need it.  Everybody is skinny from there so far.  They seem healthy however.