Broken Down

 I broke down yesterday.   

I get up yesterday morning, clean everything, debate on taking back the Waterloo girl cat, Brambley, before Gleaners, then got lost watching reels and didn't get it done.  Monday evening I returned the three kittens staying out at Berlin Road, after they were fixed.   And the Scio lady trapping the Albany library cats had picked up Marble, the laid back boy, also fixed Monday, to join three other library cats in her barn.  Of the five cats done Monday, only Brambley from Waterloo was still with me and needed returned.

The Scio lady had also caught the mom cat at the library in my massive trap and brought her here, to stay until this evening.  She'll then pick her up to take to Silverton Cat Rescue, who has FCCO spots on Thursday.   It appears of all those cats at the library caught so far, six in all, that only one, the mom, is female.   The two still not caught are allegedly both boys too.  

Off I went to Gleaners yesterday feeling stomach sick.  I'd eaten too much pizza in the prior two days.

A friend had gotten it for me.  And having little else left but some boiled potatoes, carrots and onions, I ate pizza.

But it affected my stomach.   And I felt sick at Gleaners.  I worked about an hour when sleepiness overcame me.   And stomach issues.

I came home, did not stay for distribution even, and went to bed.  I got up around 3:00.  I felt better but now my shoulder was hurting.   It had begun hurting the night before, from the side of my neck into my shoulder blade. Darn it, I thought.   I meant to do more of the heavy lifting with my left arm, you know, give the right one a bit of rest.   When I breached 65 and marched onward, I realized I needed to juggle things, shift the burdens of lifting around, but I do forget sometimes.

The trash debacle with no pick up last week, and dirty litter piling up has led to different solution attempts.  I began shaking the dirty litter through hardware cloth, to sift out the poop and that's a lot of shaking.   Anyhow, there's been a lot of extra lifting work the last week.

I took Brambley, the only cat from Monday I had still, back to the park about 4:00 p.m.   I released her at the residential feeders, because turns out she primarily lives there.  Once released, she ran across the road and up the trail to the park.  However, she stopped half up the trail, turned and looked at me, waiting for me to leave, no doubt, so she could return.

As mentioned, I've had the mom cat from behind the library also in my bathroom, in a huge trap, which I should not have helped carry in there in the first place, had I been thinking clearly and not excited that she caught her.  I was happy that she finally ate in the night last night.

She's a beautiful torbi.

The trap is large.  There's a small litter box at the back, a blankee piece in the middle, then food water.    She's relaxed a lot since first arrival Monday evening.

The Scio lady has now caught all but two of the cats behind the library, despite the pouring rain.  The tenant there at the apartments next door is going to try to get the tamest of the two cats not yet caught into a carrier today.   Thankfully the Scio lady, who came over last night with the one black tux she'd caught, intending to leave him here for last night and today, did not leave him here after I told her I couldn't lift a thing.

Today I have nothing I have to do except get all the darn garbage out to the curb beside my cart, which has been out there since last week.   And remember to use my left arm for the lifting.

Tomorrow evening the couple out on Seven Mile are supposed to start trapping for Saturdays trip to FCCO.  They don't know how many cats are in the second barn, but only see 8 at a time, they said.  One of those I already got fixed.  I don't think they'll catch many.  In the other barn, where 14 have already been caught and fixed, they have my second drop trap set up to try to catch the two who are not fixed.   That barn, although out in a field, is much more open  than the goat barn so they know the cats in that barn better.     

It's atmostpheric rivering here.  I think we're to get near 3 inches of rain in a couple days or maybe its that much through the weekend.  I'm not sure.

Cats and Trash and Broken Sirens

Black unfixed male in the park

 I get lied to a lot in the course of getting cats fixed.  People come up with overly fantastical tales about where cats came from to get them fixed at head of the line.    People promise to donate when I get their cats fixed and then never do.  People promise to feed in traps, to make it easy to catch the cats, then just don't bother.  

On and on, the lies add up.   I can barely believe anyone anymore.  Some people really think I fall for their tall tales.   I just don't let on.  Why would I?  The cats need fixed and I don't have the time or desire to confront their untruths.

Yesterday was cat round up for today.  I have five spay neuter reservations at the Salem clinic, the last for the month.

Collecting three of the five needed was easy.  I knew I would be taking the last three kittens from the Corvallis homeless camp.   The homeless lady, according to her grandma, loves cats.  She'd been caring for this mom cat at a camp, who had a litter last summer. I got three from that previous litter fixed, who ended up as teens at her grandmas' out on Berlin Road.  But she'd been unable to get the mom contained until a few weeks ago.  Then when a situation over in Corvallis where she was living turned south with some guys who kicked out the kittens and mom, she took the kittens to grandma, but couldn't find the mom.  She was on a city bus then, and saw her behind Bimart, got off the bus, ran and caught the mom.   It's not far from where she'd been staying.   So mom joined her kittens out on Berlin Rd.  I got mom and one of the kittens fixed a couple weeks ago.  Today the last three kittens will be done.   

There are two lynx Point boys and a seal point girl kitten.  They hadn't named them yet, since they are not sure what they'll even do with them.   So I named the boys Bumble and Tumble.  The girl is Rumble.

This is the girl--Rumble.

Sunday morning I set out to try to catch two more, to fill the five spots.   I sat in Lebanon outside a house for a long while trying to catch the one remaining unfixed cat there yesterday morning.  They've had my trap for weeks, but keep randomly setting it, instead of selectively trapping for the one cat.  Then they just catch one of the fixed ones, in front of the unfixed female and that makes it all the harder.   But once the trap was set, and I had a bottle under the door with string around the neck to selectively trap for the adult female, the cats all vanished.  I knew then they hadn't been reliably feeding in the trap.   I knew my time there would be wasted and left after two hours to try elsewhere for two more cats.

In my time there yesterday morning, this is the only cat I saw, a fluffy already fixed teen I'd caught several weeks back.

I went up to the park, where there are at least four unfixed cats.  The feeder lady was there.  We are not on the best of terms anymore.

After she left to go home,  I caught the teen.  The teen is a relatively new arrival and hangs out with what the feeder lady calls her mom.  He or she was with their mom when I caught her.  The mom is massive and fuzzy, but I never caught her, partly because it began to pour down rain.  There's also an unfixed black roaming male who is also fed in residential.  I went over to a residential feeder afterwards and unloaded two cases of wet food for them.  They're poor but try hard to not be a burden by requesting cat food.

So Brambley, from the park, became the 4th cat for today. Brambley turns out to be a girl.  I'm getting him or her tested because I'm actually hoping to place the new show park cats and no longer have to interact with folks who have grudges against me.

Brambley, a teen, sex unknown

I went  and helped a Scio woman trapping near the library yesterday evening.   She had a friend with her.  They're young and a lot of fun.  They got involved trying to catch half dozen or more cats, after exiting the library and seeing kittens in the field behind it.  She already caught two of the kittens a week ago, who briefly stayed in my garage.  They were fixed through SCR spots in Salem and now will be barn cats at the Scio ladies place.  She's determined to get the rest fixed too.

She wanted to catch the mom of the kittens only last night, since I have a drop trap but I'm taking it out to the Seven Mile colony today and she'd only have access to use it last night.   So I took it over and set it up, beside where the cats are being fed.   I sat in my car, she and her friend in the smoke shelter for tenants of the apartments.  They feed the cats.

The other cats there are easy catches compared to the adult female.  The Scio lady has FCCO spots later in the week for them to be fixed.  I had one spot left open for my appointments.  I could take that female in to be fixed if caught.  

But mom never showed up.   She selectively caught a young male, that I thought could be a female the way a big black long hair male was following it all friendly like.   We put the cat in the trap in my car.  I could take the cat to be fixed if we didn't end up catching the adult female.

 And then this happened.....lots of sirens, two ambulances and a firetruck go by, but the firetruck's siren is broken and just screaming.  It was ear piercing and went on and on, since it turned up the street by where we trapping and stopped shortly after, siren still screaming.   The screaming ear piercing wail did not stop when the truck stopped, but went on and on.  We covered our ears as it hurt our ears, joked about it then knew we had to get out of there.  Just as we were leaving, the firetruck finally drove off too.  We knew the cats would not come out after that for a very long time.

The fifth cat going is the boy Marble, who I thought might be a girl, due to the overly friendly overtures of the big black long hair male, towards him.  He's getting fixed today and she'll catch the rest, hopefully, this week.  It's good she caught him, because then came the whacko siren incident and all the cats vanished.  If she hadn't caught Marble when she did, I would not have had a 5th cat for today.

Marble, from the library colony

There are two or three black tuxes to catch, another orange tabby teen, the black long hair adult, the mom, who looks from a photo to be a torbi, and maybe a Siamese male too.   There may be others.

Someone was feeding the ducks in the parking lot

My friends loaned me a small rolling garbage can, to put some of the litter in.  This is because the garbage company did not pick up trash last Thursday as usual, because of our one inch of snow. The trash route for Thursday will not be picked up again until next Thursday.  The loaned cart is about a quarter my usual cart size but will help a lot.   I can load it with bags but will also label it "TRASH" for pickup, so the garbage people have no excuse to ignore it.   My neighbors son forgot to put out the trash week before the no pickup Thursday and now they are overloaded too.      And a cat rescue in LEbanon did not get picked up either, due to some snow, on Thursday, and they're in the same boat I'm in---trying to find options for dirty litter.

Last night, the Scio lady came back to my garage with me to borrow another trap, and took a bag of dirty litter with her as a relative had some room in her can.  That was very helpful.

Back to the Usual Yuk

 Our winter weather is short lived.  

By this evening, back to the usual dreary yuk of rain.  

We never got the freezing rain predicted, in the night.   The slush left from yesterday morning froze overnight and is currently melting.   Roads just wet and a bit slushy in spots this morning here.

The worst result of the weather for me is that the garbage company cancelled pickup yesterday.  Yesterday was my garbage day.  The cart sits full at the curb and will not be picked up til next Thursday, leaving me in a big messy bind, with nowhere to dump dirty cat litter.   I called the garbage company over it and they said next week I could put bags out equal to my cart size, but that isn't really doable with cat litter. Where to store the bags, hard to get it into large bags, don't even have a lot of larger size plastic bags.  

Since the stores quit providing plastic bags, I'm hard put to find one around the house.  I used to reuse the grocery plastic bags specifically for dirty cat litter, but I just don't have any now.   I save and use bags groceries come in, like bread loaves, but since using gleaners for most of my food I no longer get much in plastic bags of any sort.  It's all probably quite a good thing, to keep the bags out of the landfill. They last forever and a day.

I'll probably have to make a dump run.  I don't need more work around here, have enough already.  I'll try to get the garbage company to reduce my bill by the amount of the dump bill.  Fat chance.  Ha!  Like these big huge multi state utility companies give a rip.  But if they're broken down into single people, I'm sure they would see the fairness in that.  

I went out early and got a few ice photos.   

It is quite ugly and messy out now, with all the melting slush.   My neighbor leaves today for about two weeks of vacationing, most of that time on a cruise out of Florida.   She said she'd take photos of sunny days and send them to me but I kind of hope she doesn't.

Ice and Other Winter Hold Outs

 We are having a very brief ice or snow event.  Nothing much.

Pretty out this morning.  Earlier, it was tinkling ice pellets falling.

Its not a slick mix, crunchy pellets of ice.

FCCO cancelled clinics today and tomorrow, unsure, as was everyone, of weather, if we were going to have another major ice storm.  They are getting high east wind gusts in the metro region, some areas.  Over a week ago, FCCO changed my trip up with Seven Mile cats to the 22nd.  It was supposed to be today.   The reschedule had nothing to do with a weather forecast but I'm happy the reservations were changed from today.

Down here, where I live, its just a bit of ice pellets falling.  But Lebanon and Sweet Home got hit harder, with ice or snow or both.

Chia checks out the forecast

We get snow so infrequently here, it's a big deal when we do get some.  I like snow, not ice, but snow I want to go walk in, slide in, something.    It's so beautiful and quiet.  At least for awhile.  Melting snow is ugly and messy.

No Sleep Kitty

 I went and got the five Sweet Home cats Saturday afternoon.

I had believed I would be picking up five young black cats that she could handle enough to get into a crate.

She had indeed caught by hand four black cats, looks like from two different litters.  But in a blue soft shell carrier I could not see into, was the fifth cat.

Autumn, a muted torti.

The lady said they all got along, since all were outside cats born to same mother at different times.

So I faithfully believed her, and being too lazy to set up a cage in the garage, turned them loose in the bathroom, to spend a day and a half more comfortably than in traps.

Big mistake.  I woke up about 1:00 a.m. Saturday night to a major cat fight going on in the bathroom.  I got up in a panicked flash and went in.  Things in the bathroom are in disarray.  The torti, Miss Autumn, is on the counter attacking the smallest of the blacks who is cowering, terrified, in the sink.

She didn't stop when I tried to intervene either.   

I threw a towel over the terrified black kitten, to protect her.  Autumn was now swinging at me.   I got all the black ones into traps and out to the garage.  After which, Miss Autumn turned into the sweetest cat on earth.  Great.  Tame. Overly affectionate.  And VERY VERY loud.

The rest of the night she meowed, til like 6:00 in the morning, when I finally got a bit of sleep.

Last night, same thing.  Quiet all day, because she was sleeping.   But the moment I was in bed, omg.

I haven't slept much by today.  On the way to the clinic, in the car, it was mind curdling yowls, like I was killing her.  When I pick them up, in just over an hour, I"m hoping she's still under the influence of anesthesia enough to give me a quiet drive to Sweet Home, where she gets handed off to her people.  

Autumn is extremely lovable.  And very very loud.  What can I say.

Sweet Loud Autumn

Since the lady was naming them last second, after I picked them up, the rest are named Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer.  

I'm too sleepy to have anything else to say.

Scooping Poop

 Sorry Canada, we need all your beautiful minerals and trees.  So...yeah, you're our 51st state now.  Congratulations!!!

Greenland, we need your minerals too.   So you are ours now.  Considerate it done.  But we have to rename you.  Green is a Satanic word you know.  How about Dark Magnaland?  I like it.  No I love it.

Takes all the worlds minerals for us to switch to AI, which is super clean, if you think about, cause we're just moving the minerals around a little.  We'll need all of Oregon's water too, they have too much to handle really, to cool our AI data centers and they're just a bunch of hippies anyhow, they don't need power so we'll be taking that too to power up our AI centers. 

Just kidding around.   Because what else can one do.

I have five cats from Sweet Home in my bathroom.   Tomorrow is a high number of drunks on the road day, being super bowl Sunday.  I generally stay off the roads.  So I went up to Sweet Home and got them this afternoon.  She had them contained in a dog crate outside.

The super bowl spectacle/political rally is something I will miss, sorry to say.   I've got to shave mats off a couple cats and soak litter boxes.

We're all wading in deep shit here in America.  There's so much of it flying around its hard to keep up and that comes from a professional litter box scooper.

The five cats in my bathroom will be fixed Monday.  Four blacks and a muted calico.

They're very shy.

Kinda like me.  I do my hissing and spitting to an audience of no one.  Then I pick up the litter scooper and carry on.

Snow

 A little snow in the valley had been forecast as a possibility for yesterday.   

We only got a tiny bit.   I had two Lebanon cats here.  They're from a colony I am trying to finish.   Their mom was fixed some time ago.   She'd had seven kittens and the couple kept two of them.  I knew they'd likely not get them done before brother/sister relations produced some very inbred kittens.   Anyhow I took them to Alpine Animal Hospital yesterday morning.

I did not get a decent photo of the pair, who overnighted in my bathroom.   Spiffy is black and white, a boy, while Patches is a gorgeous muted torti.

It was snowing by the time I crossed the river into Benton County.  Down Granger I drove, delighting in the heavy flurries.   After I crossed highway 99W, onto Highland, it was really coming down.  I took video once at the vet clinic.

The snow was shortlived.  By the time I drove back to pick the cats up, around 11:30, it was gone.

I drove the cats back to Lebanon in full on wind and rain storm that whipped at my car.

One more cat to catch there at that colony.  Siete, the kittens mom, was the first I took to be fixed.  Then I caught three outside teens.   Then I got six more, who went to the FCCO to be fixed with Julie.   Now Siete's two kittens.

I went to Gleaners Tuesday.  I did set up and adoptee boxes.  There was not a lot of food.   Lots of bread though, as the lady doing bread the week before forgot to put it out.  So we also displayed last weeks bread.  Yesterday evening, we had the monthly meeting and a members potluck.   I enjoyed it.  I'd been so isolated here while I had that bad cold.  I think I may have been near last to leave last night.

I got to get going.  Someone found two teen cats, huddled in the middle of a rural road after dark--freezing out.  She nearly hit them.  Then she turned around and scooped them up, said she couldn't leave them there to die.  But she couldn't have them inside her apartment.  She has a dog that hates cats so they've been on her balconey.   A Portland rescue is taking them.  I got to get a move on and go pick them up, vaccinate them, and drive them up.

Here's dear old Haley and her young best friend Pistachio.