The Catmobile

 The catmobile is back in my driveway.  Working again too.

It will take awhile to see if the new pcv valve will help with overuse of oil.

It may be making a pop sound now.  It did driving it on the way home.  But there are only two things that could be--the link end, settling in on the drivers side.  Or the new axle on that side, one end or the other, not seated correctly?  I'm not sure on that last one.  I think they're clicked in or not clicked in, no grays, either able to transfer power to the wheel or not able to do so.  Those are the only two components it could be, that were changed, on that side.   I'm sure it will go away.

I also got tires.  I had no wiggle room on that one, since they had virtually no tread left.

Thanks to Kate and Max, and also mechanic Jarrid for all the help.

I got talked into a second FCCO trip this month.  The first one will be next week.   The second one the week after.   I'm still getting contacted for colony help.  I have to ignore the requests for the most part.   I'm one person with one old car.   Come on people, get it together, do it yourself.

When I'm bored or tired, my mind drifts off and I think about the Quartzville road cats.  The horror of that was greatest on those poor cats, but it also affected us who tried to save them.   To think someone would leave that many cats so far out in the wilds is incomprehensible.   Of course, on my mind always, the ones we never caught, who did not get another chance.

Car at Mechanics

 Beloved car is gone today---over at the mechanics.

He's a good mechanic.   I like him.  A friend drove me back home.

Before I was home ten minutes he'd found another problem.

The source of annoyance for over a year---my rough road clanking will soon be history.

That's the sway bar link end bushing, where the sway bar connects to the suspension.   I don't know if the other side link end is good.   He's ordering the part and will get it this afternoon.  I may not have a car for a couple days but that's fine.

The sway bar connects and stabilizes the front end and wheels by connecting in an arc to each side suspension.  The link end is the connecting piece with a bushing to cushion for the movement.  If most of the bushing is gone, it will clank and not do the stabilizing job.

I'm thrilled he's fixing all these problems.  

Car Issue from Long Ago

 I remember one of the worst times of my life.

I lived in a shack outside Corvallis, a tiny little house with massive issues from lack of maintenance.

While living there I wished so much the place was mine.  I would have fixed it up to be so functional.

I also was having physical problems and ended up having a hysterectomy due to severe endometriosis that had given me pain for decades.  I was told it was all kinds of other things that gave me such pain, even that it was really mental.

In the end, I had exploratory surgery when the doctors were convinced I had ovarian cancer.  But it turned out to be endometriosis.  Because they had not gotten explicit permission in writing from me to do a hysterectomy, they only removed one very fouled ovary.  So later I had the hysterectomy.

What a pain, after surgery.  A wall heated up the next night, in my place.  I called the fire department who declared the place illegally wired, with only one circuit, which had over heated.  The city gave the landlord three days and I was given a notice that it was a dangerous dwelling and I needed to vacate immediately.  I was so stressed and yelled at the city man I'd stand outside naked and yell rape if they came to evict me.  I was given reprieve.

But because of my surgery, I wasn't supposed to drive or lift for like two weeks.   I had to though, because I didn't have enough food and nobody willing to take me to the store.   It was foggy when I went and the car acted up, suddenly becoming unbelievably loud.  It was a crappy old toyota wagon.  

I was scared when I got home because I saw the muffler had fallen off.   There had been some story about someone hitting a fallen off car part on the freeway causing a wreck that turned fatal.   Oh no, I thought, what if someone hits that muffler in the fog.   So I walked the road, and found the muffler and part of the tailpipe about a mile from my place, and drug it home, holding my stomach "together" with one hand.  This was a  couple days, maybe three, after surgery.

My brother in southern Oregon said to come on down, we'd put on a new tailpipe and muffler.  So I drove down, I think on the 4th day after surgery, in the night, to try to avoid a ticket for the loud car.   He had a car lift in his contractor shop.   We replaced the tailpipe and muffler with parts from a car part shop.   I drove back home that night, sleeping at the Elk place outside of Reedsport for awhile.

My other brother, who then lived in Portland, when he heard what I'd done, and right after a hysterectomy, said maybe his company needed to rewrite their time off policy for hysterectormy surgery.  At that time, women got three to six months off after such a surgery.  Great, I thought.   Ruined  other women's chances of getting some rest.

In the end, my slumlords had the tiny house rewired.  The one fuse in the electric box had been rigged with a penny or something some way so the circuit wouldn't break when it overheated.  Just plain slumlord city.  The saving grace was their greed.  They wanted rent money and they would never get rent again on that place with it labeled a dangerous dwelling.

When I left it, being evicted and called the worst tenant they'd ever had, I stopped at the end of the driveway, headlights on the little slumshack, got out, stood in front of the car and raised both hands each with a one fingered salute and yelled "Goodbye Slumlordville"!  Felt good.

The car broke down completely not long after the exhaust system fell off, transmission toast.  The transmission was bad when I got it from a sleazy used car dealership in McMinnville.  I didn't know that then.  

The Good and the Bad on Car

 I took the car over to my mechanic this morning.    In his back alley.  He's a friend.

He was going to change the oil and look for "death metal" in my oil filter.    We didn't get that far.  I suggested it might be the pcv valve.  Yes, from youtube.  S he pulled off the hose over it and sure enough, there's oil even hanging off the back end of its nipple.   

Ah ha!   I was actually very happy.  That's the least of all the problems excessive oil consumption could be caused by.

I asked him also to check the wheels.  I thought one of the bearings was bad.  He has a nice hydraulic jack and easily jacked up each wheel to check.  It was the front wheels that caught his ear though.  There was friction when turning.  Was it from the rotor?  He thought at first the rotors were warped.  They were certainly scored, although the brake pads are good.   I listened too.  There was play and clicking but it was from the front passenger side outer axle joint.   I need a new front axle, maybe both sides.  And two rotors, due to all the scoring on their surfaces.

Anyway, then I went to O'reilly's to get a pvc valve.  They're cheap.   But they have to order it.  It will come later today.   He has me written in for Tuesday to replace the axles and rotors. The rotors are easy and don't take long, but I don't know how long it takes for an axle. 

I'm happy to know what is wrong and that it is quite fixable, all of it.  Now I don't have to worry on the freeway when I know something isn't  right in the drive train but I don't know what it is.  That makes me uneasy.

Maybe and Maybe Not

 Maybe I'll get things done today and maybe I won't.

I'm still recuperating from the blast of cat fixing and trapping.   How can it be that it wasn't even a week ago I took those 20 cats to Portland.   Seems like months ago now.

I still have five dirty traps in the back of my car.   I petered out, on clean up.   No more excuses, have to clean those traps and the car out today.  Tomorrow that mechanic in Lebanon is going to compression test it.   I want him to check the rear wheels too.   I think a bearing is failing.  I am not sure.  But it can act like it, like suddenly kind of jump or jolt or thunk.   The steering wheel also begins vibrating dramatically if I go even a bit over 70 mph.  That's something in the front drive system but probably just unequal tire pressure.   

Vino has diarrhea, probably from the hairball dry food I've been feeding.  This time of year, the cats shed and get hairballs.  So I mix Purina One Hairball dry into the usual food.   However, some don't do well on it.  Gives them the runs.

He began pooping on the bed sometimes, which drove me nuts.  My bed is sacred space.  I don't put up with anything that defiles it. I dug out my scat mats, from years ago.  They worked so well at keeping the cats off the counter.   The two I had were different types.  One would vibrate when touched.  Or beep.  I could set it either way.  No good, doesn't work anymore. The other, even older, just gives a low shock.  Not working anymore either.

The vinyl mats get stiff with age, wires break.  You can't expect them to last over a decade.   The older one may be older than that.

I got a new one, cheaper, better looking too.   So far its worked very well.   Nobody dares be on my bed when its laid out.  It doesn't take long for me to not have to even turn it on.  No more hairball dry food for Vino either.  He should soon be fine. I netted and wormed, flea treated him a two weeks back.  He's very feral and also elderly.  He generally sleeps on the top bunk with Slurpy, Tugs and Juno.  This is a cat nursing home now.  Tugs, maybe the oldest cat here, along with Tweetie and her sister, is beginning to fail too.  Tugs is my tiny little tortie girl.

I guess that Chinese tariffs are in effect today.  And here I thought that happened like two or three or more weeks ago.  I can't keep up.   I keep trying to make some sort of plan should section 8 be cut and I lose housing. 

 Yeah I'm poor.  Almost everyone I know struggles with housing, food and to keep a car running.  I realized years ago one factor affecting poverty and ability to keep a job, along with housing, is the car factor.  Our county is spread out and largely very rural with very little useful public transport.  You need a working car to get to and from work and many people rely on cars like mine--old, high mileage and high maintenance.  If you live in an apartment, you can't work on your own car.   It's illegal to do so on the street.   

Break downs mean you're out of luck.   And often people can't even get to the grocery store.   It's over a two mile walk for me to the nearest grocery store.   Uber?  Lyft?  You gotta be kidding--out of the realm of financial reality for most people.   So is grocery delivery.

Anyway, as often as I can I watch youtube videos on car repair and maintenance.  I try to learn how to do things myself, at least those things I can do with my limited tools.  Youtube is the greatest help to hit the internet.  I  love it.

I don't plant a garden because the soil here is bad and city water is more expensive than gold now I think, by weight.   Yeah, it is pricey!   You wouldn't think water in Oregon would cost a small fortune but it does in many cities, Linn county towns being some of the highest on water rates, for unknown reasons.

The city already added a $9 fee each month to the water bill, to use however the hell they want.  Now they want to add $25 more to that fee.   It's fricking ridiculous.   They use our water bill like their personal atm.

That would be $34 per month added onto the already high charges for water/sewer each month.  Where are we supposed to come up with that kind of money on fixed incomes?   They don't care.

I've really gone off on a whiner tangent haven't I?

Well whatever comes down the line with federal budget slash and burn of the American people, I'll try to survive is all I can say, even if it means slumming it worse than ever.

Darn Car

 I had to mow the front yard yesterday.  I was quite a physical mess from the previous few days of heavy constant lifting and lack of sleep.  But the front yard--yikes, overgrown and I have a neighbor who likes to complain.

It took me awhile--most of the day actually.  Had to take breaks.  Weed eating and mowing.

Today is nice too but my back is too sore to do the backyard.  No can do today.

But a friend from Lebanon who just broke with her husband of about five years since he'd been cheating on her for a year probably she said, came over.  I'm helping her with cat litter for a month as she takes a CNA class to hopefully get a job soon.  She'd been working with her husband.

I can't carry currently the big walmart box litters she wanted, two of them, so she drove me in her car.  I got a few groceries too and we chatted about old boyfriends and relationships in general.

I had to get a headlight for my car.  One was out.  I got it last night at O'Reilly's and put it in.  Then I checked the oil and nearly dropped dead.   It was down over a quart.  I'd checked it right before the FCCO trip too.   I do have to carry oil now cause it can go down but never that fast and that much.

Which began frantic youtube searches and a call to that mechanic who replaced the power steering pump late last summer.  Just to ask opinion if he had one.  He said to bring it over Saturday he'd check for metal bits in my oil filter.

I guess its a good way to see if oil use is because the engine is falling apart.   There are so many possible reasons though, like bad rings so no good seal, bad valves etc.   I'm hoping maybe its just the PCV valve, because those are cheap and easy.  

But he'll also do a compression check and oil pressure chcek.  Both those tests tell quite a lot.

I'm not so sure the rings could be bad because I'd have power loss I'd think and I don't.

So I'm hoping on an easier cheaper finding and one that does not involve me needing a new engine, for gosh sakes.

I have a bunch of dash lights on again, but with this car, seems like those end up always to be a bad O2 sensor.   

So I'm ignoring them for now.   

Here, check out this youtube video on checking your oil filter for metal bits.  I didn't know I could be doing this every now and then.  Its really easy.

Finishing up

 Today, the last five cats trapped at the Brownsville colony are being fixed over in Corvallis at the new spay neuter surgery clinic Radpets.

It's not very low cost for ferals but it is convenient.

In the last four days, I've taken 30 local cats to be fixed.   20 to the FCCO.  5 yesterday to the Salem OHSS clinic and 5 today, to Radpets.

26 of these 30 are from the Brownsville colony.  The other four, all girls, are from three locations in or near Lebanon.

All the cats are back at their original locations with their people except for the five over being fixed right now.

Those five I will return tomorrow.   

I took the torti and the buff tux to OHSS clinic yesterday to be fixed.  Those are the two the Brownsville man caught Saturday morning.   To get them done, I put off two of the three from a Lebanon apartment complex.   

The outside of the Radpets clinic in Corvallis, through my rain dropped windshield this morning.

Glow, from Brownsville, fixed yesterday

Maddy from Brownsville fixed yesterday.  Both Glow and Maddy are back home to their colony now.

Goop, from Lacomb, a girl, fixed yesterday

Sep, also from Lacomb and a girl

Dreamchaser, a girl, from Lebanon apartment complex

After I returned the two adults plus two teens I'd had in my bathroom, fixed at FCCO, to the Brownsville colony, I picked up the two kitten traps I'd loaned the barn folks on 7 Mile Lane.  They wanted to use them to see if the mom cat had more than the two kittens they'd caught and who went to Silverton Cat Rescue.   They did not catch another kitten, nor have they seen anymore.  

After I picked up those traps, I returned the trap to the former seed farmer off Columbus.  I had borrowed it to have enough for the big haul Saturday.

Now its clean up time, kick back time, laundry time, and then time to pick up the five being fixed today.  It's raining outside, so what else is there to do but start the cleanup.