Day Over

 Night before last, I was a restless sleeper, up and down.  This happens sometimes when I have an early rise alarm set and cats in the garage.

I got up for good about 4:30 a.m. and began preparing the cats to load in the car.  I was going to leave about 7:00 a.m.   But all the cats need shifted to clean traps first.

It's a long process with 14 cats.   I put the back transfer door of a clean trap, lined in newspaper and part of a pee pad, against the transfer door of the trap the cat is in.  I open both doors and move the cage cover off the cat inhabited trap to the empty clean one.  The cat generally scoots right into the cage covered trap. 

Then I clean the trap the cat had been in, so I can do it over again with the next cat.   For half or more of the traps, this meant  a trip to the shower, to wash it there, since its down to freezing nights and I don't have an outside hose hooked up.

I left just after 7:00, but hit heavy congestion traffic that delayed my arrival until nearly 9:00 a.m.

After checking the cats in, I headed straight to Karen's place.   She wasn't there but had told me to go on in and do what I wanted.  What I wanted to do was nap and I did, on her couch, two seperate times.   Her house is under remodel but last stages.  I can't imagine living months in her kitchen but she had to during the remodel.  

It is beautiful though, what the remodelers have done to it.  

I remained there until about 3:30 when I headed back to FCCO to pick up the cats.  It was almost 4:45 before I got the call to come pick them up.  The parking lot had been crammed in cars waiting so I was too far from the pickup table for me to carry 14 cats back to my car.

But, in the meantime, while waiting, the people in the car next to me had gone and gotten their cats picked up and loaded.  But when he tried to start his vehicle, it would not start.  He knocked on my window and asked if I had jumper cables.  He thought it was the battery dead because he'd sat there waiting, engine off, but lights on.  I stumbled, not wanting to tell him I did have some, because I was pretty sure they don't work anymore, have broken wires.   They're 25 plus years old.  Finally I told him I had some, but also told him my reservations.  Besides, I was pretty sure it wasn't his battery.   He'd come after I had arrived and not waited that long before he was called to come pick up his cats at the table outside the front doors of FCCO.  How bad does your battery have to be, to go dead in 15 minutes with your lights on.

But that's the hallmark of a bad starter.  It works to start your car, then suddenly doesn't work when you go to restart your car.   I repositioned my car to have the battery close enough to his battery that the cables would reach then came half hour of trying to charge it up enough to start the car.   That never worked.  He was so sure, just five more minutes and it would charge enough to start.  AFter 40 minutes he gave up, with sincere thanks given to me for delaying my departure.  In the meantime, he had loaded my cats back in the car for me.  He said he would call his cousin.  He had teenage kids in the car too.  I hope they got it going somehow.  It could have been my bad jump cables.    I probably should have kept my mouth shut that they were in the car.   

More congestion on the way home.  I got home about 7:00.   It was time to clean my cats litter boxes, feed my cats and feed the 14 guest cats.  That took awhile but I got it done and went to bed.  I have maybe 20 cans of cat food left in the house after all the trapping and then feeding 14 extras.   After I return the cats I will need to head to the store.

Here are photos of the last two, the two I caught out there night before last.   We'd miscommunicated badly about trapping on Wednesday.  They had doctor appointments and were gone much of the day.   I finally went out after dark and caught two more late.

The classic torti is from the second barn.  We are going to try to catch the rest from there next week, for more appointments she got.   Its open on one side and occupied by goats.  The cats live in the loft.  There's really nowhere to set traps except a small walkway as you enter the barn.  We will not get them all the first time around due to the lack of space for traps.  The cats will catch on very very fast.

Us Peasants

 I didn't watch Biden's fairwell speech.  Just like I won't watch the coronation of the next.  

I'm not easily political.    I'd rather pet a cat.   

I am a bit worried about exactly what Biden warned against in his goodbye speech.  I only saw the headlines.  The dark clouds on the horizon of an American oligarchy with too much power and too much time on their hands.

I can bend the knee, to a-holes usually, to try to get their cats fixed or saved.

I've done that.  After the cats are safe, I can tell them what I think.

To see all those billionaires go suck up to the new king makes me want to wretch.  

Its pathetic to behold.   Grown men.

Don't they have minds of their own?  Independence?  Think for themselves?  Are they scared they might lose money or be targeted if they don't go bow down?   I don't get it.  I've never seen the like.  Or is it the opposite, they want to make more money and have more power.  

They all already have enough money to live a hundred or more lives like kings.  How many yachts do they need?

They'll help make laws to govern the likes of us peasants.  Do you think they give a rip about us peasants?  I wonder if they know we exist.  

I feel like they might be bored with their lives and we will become pawns in one of their rich people board games.  

I see the leaders of the world, like unfixed male cats facing off atop a fence, all puffed up and yowling, spray marking their territories.  Or like dog packs and if you can't be the top dog of the pack, you roll over and show your belly to the leader, in a sign of submission. 

I need to go pet a cat.  The oligarchs of America will do what they want.  Hopefully they'll leave us alone.    All I want to do is get these 14 cats from Seven Mile up to the clinic this morning.

Nothing To It

What does one say, to arrive at a new colony, get out of the car to discuss with the cats' caretaker, how we will proceed, when she blurts out "I already caught 10"?

She's over 80 years old too.

I'm not used to this.  I'm used to 20 to 50 year old whiners who claim they can't trap their own, you have to do it, won't lift a finger.

This, that, any excuse.

I think my mouth dropped open when she said that.  I had delivered her a drop trap and a large live trap, a week ago, so she could prefeed in them, get the cats used to going in and out, to get their food.   People often don't actually do it however.   They just say they will.

I'd texted her "on way".  When I got there, 15 minutes or so later, she'd trapped 10.  She had seven under the drop trap, then covered the trap with a blue tarp.  And three were in my large trap.  I had it bungeed open for her to feed in, so the cats were hungry and three younger ones were in there eating.  She just slipped the bungee cord off the front.  

We rode out to the barn through the field in her electric golf cart with a trailer.  I'd loaded seven empty traps on it.   I transferred the seven under the drop trap to the seven empty traps and we drove them back to my car on the trailer behind the golf cart.   I loaded them up in my car, then loaded the other three empty traps onto the trailer and we went back out to the barn.   I transferred the three in my big trap to the small traps, set the large trap and off we went to my car through the field, with the cats.

I drove the ten cats home and unloaded them onto the cat shelves in the garage and by the time I did that, she texted me two were in the big trap.

I went and fetched them.  It was pitch dark by then and she had loaded the trap with the two cats in it onto the golf cart trailer and already brought them to the driveway.  I transferred them into two  traps, gave her four more empty ones and came home.  Since the cart has no headlights, she'll try today for the other four.

What could be easier on me than that?  I had envisioned hours out there, somehow checking traps repeatedly in a distant barn.  

They're beautiful cats.  I'll get better photos at some point. For now, I do have photos of all 12, although they don't do their beauty justice.

Gleaners was fine too.   A couple and another woman jumped in to help fill adoptee boxes.  I did not have to fill all 19 boxes alone.   Thank goodness.   I took Aleve before I went and afterwards had to also take some Tylenol but all good.    I hope she catches the last four cats today out at the colony.    If anyone can, that would be her.

January Moldy

 

  

Big Black is still around.

I put my game cam out for the night, for kicks.  It's kind of fun.

Only two cats on it this time.  One is owned behind me and one house over.  And this guy, I don't think he's owned.   Not fixed, has hair loss on butt end from fleas.   I'll just catch him and get it done, since I now feed him.  

I took five in to be fixed yesterday.   Four girls one boy.   One is yet another from Waterloo park and now the lady who has been feeding them is being harrassed by off leash dog walkers, themselves breaking the law.   How someone breaking a law can be so high and mighty to someone trying to help some strays is bleak to think about.  Someone has an inflated entitlement thing going and lacks a heart.

She asked me to see if SCR can help place the three.  Dog walkers like to complain even when they're the ones breaking rules.   The county does not have the balls to do right by cats.   Or the heart.

We had thought we might have some sunny days.  Instead the fog moved in and the gray.  Maybe today will be better.

Here are the cats fixed yesterday.

Skadoo, Growlers kitten, now almost an adult herself.  She's now being held by the lady who fed them, who hopes I can catch Growler and the other kitten (young adult) and find a barn placement through scr for them.

Mama K from 5th street in Lebanon

Pashmina, a girl, from Tennessee Road in Lebanon.  This lady doesn't know it but HCC, my nonprofit, has already paid for several of hers to be fixed.  The Alpine Vet Tech has taken them to be fixed, paid for by HCC.  I think about 9 others from there.  

Taco, a young male

Virginia, a black tux girl

What's in store for the week?   Gleaners today.   I'm wearing out a bit on Gleaners.   I'm picking up the work too a man has done, but he'll be gone three months after knee replacement.   I don't even know if I'll have time with the new duties to get any food myself.   I'm getting a little tired of a few old folks doing most of the harder labor there.   My brother says its the same in every organization that relies on volunteers--a handful end up doing the work that everyone benefits from.   In this case, however, a lot of the old guarders who have done a lot of the work, are out for medical reasons.  Its just three months I'll be doing the extra duties and I'm more concerned about today, than the rest of the time, because of my trapping obligations later on.

After I get home from Gleaners, I load up a bunch of traps and head out Seven Mile to trap.   She has 16 reservations at the FCCO for Thursday.    I hope to catch about half of them tonight.  They live in a rather small area and will quickly catch on to the traps.   The rest I'll have to try for tomorrow.

 I think about my trips to Astoria with cats, how much I love it there, even when I am tired out from getting up so early to head out there.   I haven't gone in over a year now, mainly because my car is so sketchy, with so many miles on it.  The next thing that likely will go wrong, I'm told, is the AC compressor, its bearings.     I'm not sure it will be that or the fuel pump or head gasket and its already using oil.    I joined this facebook first generation scion group, not sure why.  I'm leaving it already.  It's just a bunch of people who kind of look down on those who use them as a working car, not as collector items all pimped out, with low miles.   Whatever.  I know there are lots of people who get cars to be seen in them or so they'll be looked at.   My idea of cars is how useful they are for what you need.   I guess the groupies are the same, they just need something different from their box cars.  My car has been fabulous for what I need--hauling cats, camping.  Cheap to operate and repair, by comparison to newer cars.   I don't know how people afford the sensor laden new cars.  One sensor goes bad and its a huge amount of money to replace it.   Generation 2 scions (2008 and on) have larger motors so get worse gas mileage and are a foot longer.  I forget when Toyota quit making scions.  Maybe 2015 or 2016.

Many folks think I should buy a new used car.  Hand me the money, and maybe I will.  Ha.  They suggest cars like used Subaru's or other all wheel drives.   They do not understand why I politiely say not interested.   All wheel drives are expensive to maintain and if you blow one tire, you have to replace them all.  they get bad gas mileage by comparison because they're heavier and have bigger engines.   Hey, I live on almost nothing folks.  I know what works for me and what doesn't, with a car.   It'd be nice to wind the clock back in a way, make simple cars, cheap to repair and operate, maybe a car home mechanics could repair.  One of the biggest requests on local facebook groups is about cars.  When a car breaks down, people are stranded and can't get to work or get their kids to daycare or whatever.   Constant pleas on facebook for help with car repair costs.  Help with car repair, rent payments, a place to live, and veterinarian bills are the most common requests I see.

Anyhow, I hope I see the sun today.

Onward

Prissy from Quartzville road is very happy here.  After the three I had in my bathroom escaped it she instantly made herself at home.  Tickle and Thistle quickly found the cat yard and while Thistle mostly remains in the cat yard, Tickle would come in and out.  

When Tickle ran into Prissy, who had remained inside, she was ecstatic and now pals around with her again.

 The fires in the LA area are horrific.  I can't even stand to see the devastation on the news.   It hits me in the manner of what if that happened to me.   Where do you go, to live, to somehow start from scratch?  I know this was largely a wealthy area hit, and many of the people have good insurance and the means to live elsewhere and to buy themselves replacement clothes, but still.  Where do you even begin and to lose your security, your home port, your everyday routines....I can't imagine.  It has happened to me, on several occasions, but not through natural disaster or in such sudden fashion.

I don't have much, so there isn't much to lose.  Except the sense of home and peace of routine familiarity and knowing ones' neighbors and community and where to get what you need.   

I heard there are flights packed with displaced LA folk arriving at PDX.    

If a lot of wealthy Californians move here it only makes our housing issues worse, more expensive.  I have empathy for those who have lost everything.  On the other hand, I hope thousands upon thousands don't end up here.    We don't have the infrastructure or housing I don't think to handle it.  But maybe they do in Portland, I don't know.  But they are fellow human beings and if need be, we will squeeze them in.

We have no sun to offer the sun loving Californians.

People are politicizing this like rabid dogs on social media.   Of course they are.  It's easier to blame someone.  People do so without thought down to the human beings who have lost so much.   You don't see the blame gaming in the huge Oklahoma and Texas fires or tornados or the hurricanes frequenting Florida.   Because the truth is these are extreme events of nature, resulting in massive human loss of life and property because there are now so many humans and these weather events are far more extreme.

You really can't fight a fire hurricane, which is what these fires are.  No amount of water can fight that.  The Santiam canyon fire was that way.   A river ran where the fire tore through and a reservoir.  There was plenty of water, just no way to fight it until the winds went down.

I had a dental appointment Wednesday, my first checkup in about five years.   Thankfully, no new cavities and the fix of the fallen out filling has held wonderfully.  The inspection yesterday also went just fine.   I worked myself to exhaustion getting all projects done.  I felt accomplished.   Before my dental appointment Wednesday, I went to Lebanon and quickly trapped five cats, left a trap set that caught a sixth.  A friend had FCCO appointments and I wanted to help catch those cats.   We did not catch the mom cat.   

I went yesterday after inspection out to a new colony on 7 Mile and delivered a drop trap and live trap for prefeeding.   It may be difficult there.  The cats are in two barns.  For the first trip to FCCO with these cats, we are concentrating on one barn.  Its out in a field, no vehicle access, no way to monitor traps without walking out there.   That can make it tough, if the others see their comrades in a trap very long.  They have an electric golf cart we may or may not be able to use, depending on how wet the ground is.   Next week is supposed to be dry, but will the ground dry out enough to use the golf cart.  Otherwise I'll take my wagon, but it too might bog in wet ground.

I also have five spots Monday up at OHSS, for different cats.  I was going to take the last three in of the Albany trailer man but he informs me he is busy all weekend.   Ok.   

I'm happy I contacted him yesterday, because he'd agreed to the Monday date when I got three others fixed a couple weeks ago.  I won't waste my time.

Here are some of those five kittens who were fixed yesterday.  I won't post a photo of the young adult girl who died.  Its just so sad and makes me feel bad for trapping her.

I don't have a photo of the 5th kitten.  He or she was caught in my trap after I left to come home for my dental appointment.   Julie drove the six to FCCO plus five others.   I am thrilled that 11 more cats from Lebanon went up.  With any luck 16 from Albany will go next week from the other colony.  And five others I have yet to catch on Monday.   I had such high hopes of finishing that darn Albany trailer, but no.

I hope the winds die down running through the California canyons.   The inspector told me he lived down there briefly and even a piece of broken glass in the brush could start a fire when everything  is dried out and those winds come through.

When I think of the fire size comparisons, like "the size of Miami" or twice that of Manhattan where over a million people live, I think about just how many people live in these huge cities, each with their lives, hopes, fears, possessions, families.    When I expand to contemplate the entire earth and its massive population centers, I can't even fathom the numbers of individuals out there.

Too Busy

 

Prissy, from Quartzville Road.  She loves to play and wants to be a house kitty.

I have an inspection of this place in a couple days.   I should have been preparing earlier.

Ah, shoot.  

 I replaced a few of the stick on vinyl floor tiles.  They were supposed to last 5 years max and now we're on year 18 here.   The sub floor is osb, which, if it gets wet, turns to sawdust and boils up.  So when the elderly vinyl squares fail, first cracking and breaking up in the corners, if water when I mop gets through to the osb, well you guessed it, sawdust.

However, by now, the original design has been discontinued.   So the floor is looking like a patchwork quilt.

Maybe one day I'll have saved enough to put in panel flooring at least or find some used and in good shape.

I meant to repaint a couple of walls.  Long overdo.   I haven't yet.   But its in the works.  

I took the Christmas lights hanging off the gutter out front down yesterday.  

We've had such dreary days of heavy rain and gray and dark.  They're depressing.  And icky.  Suddenly, yesterday, the sun comes out and there was no rain.  It wasn't warm but it wasn't raining!

I didn't bother with a coat merely because it wasn't raining.     It was in the 50's I think. Around here, that is shirt sleeve celebrate the sun weather, if its not raining and sky is clear.

Today I wash all the windows.   The inspection isn't for cleanliness, but nonetheless.   I use it as a propellant to get projects done.

My neighbor drove me to Sweet Home two evenings ago.  She wanted to get out of the house.  Bad timing as it turned dark and the rain poured down in buckets.  She was nervous driving in that.  But we made it.  I was nervous riding with her as she struggled and went 40 mph often in the fast lane. She did fine after awhile though.  The drivers around here are known for little tolerance of slower drivers but it worked out.  I needed to deliver a carrier to the Sweet Home lady holding the two Quartzville road boys.  They have a barn home to go to end of week.  They go to the barn home in a carrier and have to be used to sleeping in it, which can hard to get people to understand sometimes.

I asked my neighbor if she missed California during Oregon's gray winters.  She said yes, she missed the sun.   She lived when younger in Ohio and said it would rain a lot there but nothing like it does here with the gray miserable soggy days stretching on and on.  She's taking a cruise in February, out of Florida, ten days of sun, she hopes.  A friend of hers is currently in Belize to escape the Oregon gray.   I worked in Alaska when I was young and noticed there a lot of people made all their money in the 4 to 6 months of spring and summer, then would take off to somewhere warm for the rest of the year.  Most of us are stuck here to maintain through it.   Some claim to love the constant rain and detest summer's sun.   The summers here have changed drastically.  They get much hotter.   It can happen suddenly, the change from rain to extreme dry heat.   With that change, came the danger of massive wildfires that sometimes block the sun weeks at a time.   With summer, we just hope no massive wildfires destroy lives, homes, forests and our hope for a break from the gloom of winter.  January is a gloomy month.   Six more months til summer.  It seems so far away.

Today is Gleaners work day.   I better get a move on because I need to wash some windows before I go.   Cleaning is daily here anyhow, so at least I don't have a lot of extra cleaning to do, just some projects I wanted to get done.   The oven's cleaned, the dryer is vacuumed out and the washing machine hoses fixed.  Got to make sure the smoke detectors are in working order, with that loud test button push that sends all the cats careening and stampeding.  I finally got Muffy on my lap with my failing clippers, that hold a charge less than five minutes.  In two minutes I got a big mat shaved off just above her tail.   Yeah, the clippers are dead again.

Catastrophes

 Today a railbridge collapsed in Corvallis sending two train cars loaded with urea fertilizer into the Mary's River a few hundred feet from where the Mary's enters the Willamette.

That bridge got damaged years ago by a fire caused by a homeless man.

I really am surprised it was still being used.

I don't know how badly urea will affect the river or wildlife drinking from the Willamette, birds, fish.  Or people's water supply.  Albany is downriver to the spill but we get our water from the Santiam. It's about 400,000 lbs of urea lost into the river.   The Willamette river runs all the way up the valley to and through Portland then joins the Columbia to head out to sea.

I suppose we will soon hear a lot more about this.   

Excessive rain has caused numerous road closures due to slides.  The Quartzville road slide is not cleaned out yet.  Hope for the survival of that one gray tux not caught out there is dwindling.

The coast is suffering some of its usual winter slides and and road undermines.

This is a state park photo from the road that goes on past Sunset Bay State Park, which is flooded, to Cape Arago and Shore Acres State Park.

Today has been one of the darkest wettest most depressing days yet this year.  (Lol, doesn't take much when its only the 4th to win that award).