Cat Round Up Day

 Today was cat round up for tomorrow.

I had three caretakers registered for the five spots.   However, one lady, with two, did not reply when I requested phone call confirmation by last night.   There's no sense doing anything but moving on when that happens.

The Albany couple whom I've helped with a whole lot of cats over the years caught one of the boys they were after--Leonard, a polite year old gray tabby.  He loves to eat.  He's eaten like three cans of wet food.  Hope he poops before the drive to the clinic or, well, will be a smelly drive.  Something about a car ride, and....out it comes.

Leonard

Out in the middle of nowhere, a lady had caught another female that showed up with kittens.   She caught the kittens first, then the mom.  She had the kitteens in two cages when I arrived and the mom was in a live trap.

She lives along a very long narrow bumpy gravel driveway on a dead end road.      She has an old friendly yellow dog who pads around, never far from any excitement to be had.

I set two traps of mine, one at a time, inside the cage holding two kittens.  Got them both in live traps for the trip home.  By this time I knew the lady with two of my spots wasn't going to respond to me and these kittens would go in their place.   The third kitten can be fixed a week from tomorrow, when I have more spots.

Tiny Tuna, the mom cat from middle of nowhere

Puffin, one of the two kittens going

Crabs, the other kitten

I admired how nice her live trap is.  That's when she told me it belongs to Silverton Cat Rescue.  My eyebrows raised.   I bet they'd like that back, I said.  She thought it was a year ago they helped her get five fixed and took in kittens from her.   I texted Viv, the director, once I had two of the kittens and the mom inside my car, and told her I had one of her traps to return.

I got home and set them up in my surprisingly hot garage.  I thought today was supposed to be quite cool, and it was compared to most summer days but still the garage had heated up.  And to my surprise, when I finally watched news, its going to be over 90 tomorrow.  Wow, I should check more often.  At least all five cats will recuperate with their caregivers, and not in my hot garage which could get to 130 degrees on a 90 plus degree day.  

This evening, the Albany couple caught another boy--Ballsey, big and buff.   They have three more to catch, they said, needing fixed, and so they have 3 of my five spots next Monday.

Ballsey from Albany

I love it when people catch their own cats and I just kind of coordinate and maybe loan traps or pick up and transport to clinic.   I've become a lady of leisure, don't you think?

Shift to Cooler

 Today dawned cool and cloudy.  Like yesterday began.   But yesterday got hot and cloudy, which meant humid.  Yuk.

Rascal, the yard stray fixed last winter, ambled into the garage for awhile this morning.  Gigi confronted him, but then allowed him to stay unmolested, lol.  I was surprised.

It's doubtful we will get rain but it will be much cooler.  Temps today and Sunday alleged to be in the 70's.

I guess its mow my backyard weather.   Darn it.

This big easy going gray and white boy is also a neighbors cat.  He lives behind me and a house down.  I forget his name.   He's a frequent visitor.  Very well behaved.

Thursday turned out to be about 95 degrees here.  I stupidly continued onward in the heat, doing outside chores.   

I first went to the Farmer's Market in Lebanon to get vegetables using my Farm to Table coupons for seniors.  These are available each year, from the state, to seniors, if you apply.  The allocation is by lottery, however, since funding is limited.  You may or may not get lucky.  This year I got lucky. 

 However, the places that take the coupons are few and far between.  The Farmers Markets take them.  They are, however, usually the most expensive places on earth to get fresh veggies.  My 3 coupons ($12 worth) however, bought me a large bunch of beets (probably six medium size) and their greens, a large head of butter lettuce, two apple cucumbers and four ears of corn.  I was so satisfied, that I spent those 3 coupons wisely and got a tremendous amount of food.   

Today I start up a large kettle of Borscht.   If you've read my blog long, you know how much I like Borscht.   I don't have cabbage but today I'll get a bag of coleslaw mix.  Its dry, no dressing and contains shredded carrots and two types of shredded cabbage and reduces the chopping needed to make Borscht.  Cabbage, carrots, potatoes, beets---the main ingredients of Borscht.  I used bagged chopped cabbage/carrots for curry too, since I like curry with those two vegetables but I don't like to grate.

After the Farmers Market, I then went directly to the Mennonite run Grocery Depot in search of bokchoy and leeks, for a decent price.  I found bokchoy, but not leeks.   I also there got a bag of oranges for $1.99.   It's enough oranges to squeeze half glass of orange juice every day for five days.  I use them that way because generally the cheap oranges are pithy and better for juice than to eat.

I like a hint of orange juice in morning coffee too.   Is that strange or do others like that?

I finally got the plywood piece cut to fit the back of the personal car, so I could, if I would, go camp and comfortably sleep in the back of the car.   I got four large pillows months ago.  I fit them into an oversized sleeping bag and it becomes a cushy mattress for the back.  I just needed the board then, in the back.  A friend helped me get a board home with his pickup months ago.

 The endeavor to cut the board down to the right size and shape was pathetic.  I accidentally cut one metal sawhorse in half, for instance.  Then the jigsaw fell apart when I was cutting out the shock access protrusion area of the board, to fit the back.  I can fix the cut in two sawhorse and I will one day.  Just add it to the list of projects.  I'll have to rig a fix on the jigsaw too, for it to be usable.  Add to already lengthy fix it list.

The board IS in the back of the car now though.  I didn't yet get the forward passenger side section cut off, to then hinge to the larger back section.  Its still a one piece board.  I need to cut and hinge it so I can flip the extended section, for sleeping, on the passenger side, backwards when not in use for sleeping.   With it extended forward, to accomadate my length for sleeping, the passenger seat must be as far forward as it can go and tilted forward.   This makes my passenger seat unusable.  I'll at least do that today.

 It's not supposed to get to 80 degrees today.  Yesterday, after tiring myself in the 95 degree heat of Thursday, I did little and went to bed early.

Stevie, from the house behind me, visited also.  He acts like I caught him doing something he shouldn't be doing.

Today I've already done a lot of yardwork this morning and can't do more because the yard debris bin is full. Which means--no mowing the backyard.  Oh, I'm so sad.  Lol.  Not!  

 Because the temp will be up in high 70's, with clouds, means humidity and I don't "do" humidity well.

The Fire

 The fire, whose smoke column we saw from the lake, began as a house fire.  The family lost everything and was connected with the Red Cross, a statement that makes me sad.

I don't know how families go through losing homes to fire, all their belongings, memories, often their pets and just start over again, often at a later age.  

Or how they do it, financially.

The friend I went to the lake with is the lady who is living on the decrepid disgusting property that she and her brother bought, after selling her mom's house in town, without really looking on the inside.  She assumed her friend and coworker, who owned the dump, bred big dogs there, was an outspoken "Christian", would not lie to her.  But she did lie and the place is a disaster and should be demolished.

  She really needs a miracle, like to find a nonprofit that would take that mess of a structure away and pull in with a livable mobile home.

I thought it was stupid to buy it.  Junk outside to me meant the inside was probably a wreck too I told her. Besides, breeding big dogs?   Inside a mobile home? That's nuts on its own.   I knew the place inside would be torn up and stink to high heaven, and it was and it did.  Probably should be condemned.

It makes me mad.   They saw her as a mark, gullible, believing, empathetic, certain a "friend" would not sell her a place that actually needs bulldozed.  

There's nothing I can do.  I need to let that go in my mind.  But at least I can invite her to go to the lake now and then, for some fun.   I love to have company when I go places.  It's been tough to find company for adventures.  From her place, the lake is like twenty minutes drive.  

There's the stick outhouse.   It will be soon enough be high and dry.

Picnic site---my friend looks to be asleep.

It was a very pleasant day, outside of the bee sting.

I wish I knew of some housing solution for my friend, but I don't.  

I had thought about a one night out camp trip, heading out today, to avoid the weekenders, but I'll pass.  Tired myself out yesterday.

This weekend is the Art and Air Festival here.  I'm excited about that.   I hope the weather cooperates.

Four Kittens Fixed and Life at the Lake

 I had four boy kittens in my bathroom last night.  They were adorable, here for just the night.  This morning I took them over to the clinic to be fixed.

A lady in Lebanon had requested help.  She'd taken in a stray mom who promptly had five kittens.  She got the mom fixed last week, but couldn't afford to get the now 3 month old kittens fixed.  The girl would wait because she was underweight and had a cold.  But the four boys were fixed today.  She and a neighbor of hers went to pick them up at the clinic after they had been fixed.

That left me free to go up to the lake with the same friend who went last week.

We both know summer is on the wane.   The Corp will start lowering the reservoir level days after Labor Day, which is the 6th or 7th of September.  That is not long from now.

Not much time left.

I left my car at her place and we drove up the backroads.   This time I took my fold up wagon, to make it easier to take things down the trail to the lake from the road.

It was sooo beautiful and peaceful there.

I went paddling around, along the north shore, to the west, to the boat ramp that side.   Along the way, I saw a crude stick house with drift leaned TP shape around a tree.  Then I saw the toilet paper roll stuck in the side.  Yuck.  An outhouse.  That close to the water.  Except the water level will go way down fast in a couple weeks and that shithouse will be high and dry.

It is on a beach an extremely short walk from the actual outhouse at the boat launch parking lot.  Some people are too lazy to walk a couple hundred feet however, I realize.

Also, I saw the Foster Lake Nessi.  She's awesome and seemed almost sad.

When I got back to the beach where M was, she pointed out smoke to the west and a bit south of the end of the lake.   She wanted to call in the fire.  I looked for it on Watch Duty, but nothing.  About 15 or 20 minutes later it popped up on Watch Duty.  It was on Fern Ridge Road and there were level 3 evacuations out by this time.   It was quickly contained however. Our firefighters, structural and wildland, around here are excellent.

Hated to leave this evening, knowing summer is coming to an end.  A yellow jacket gifted me another sting on the back of my knee.  They are just as angry and embittered as we are that summer is almost over.

Spiders!

 My newest hobby is watching the cellar spiders in the corner of my garage.   

I let them stay because they kill the flies.  Every now and then I destroy their very messy webs.   

They are harmless spiders, with extremely long legs and are often called Daddy Long legs, even though they're not really Daddy Long Legs.

Real Daddy Long Legs are Harvestmen and not spiders.  They lack the ability to bite and a segmented body and they don't spin webs.  My garage spiders certainly have long legs but they are Cellar spiders.

Cellar spiders live up to two years, have segmented bodies and extremely long legs that they can sacrifice to predators, to save themselves.

Cellar spiders can bite but you probably would not even feel it.

They are very good at killing and eating all sorts of bad insects from silver fish to other spiders to house flies.   They inject venom into their often silk wrapped prey, that liquifies the victims innards.  Then the spiders suck out the liquified juice.  Yum, eh?

That's why I let a few of them stay, to do a job, rid the garage of any flies.

I think the one on the left is having breakfast

I read about flies too.  (Know your enemy).  Circling flies are generally males trying to protect a territory until a female flies through.  House flies live up to 30 days. Their territories are generally rectangular, not circular. They orient using a light, a stain, something hanging....  They take off when startled backwards, so if you're swatting at one, aim slightly behind the fly.

Flies sleep, so to speak, no eyelids so they can't close their eyes, a few hours at night.  Keeping them awake will tire them and make them easier to eliminate.  Unless they have a food source and warm environment, they die off in October or November, as they are cold blooded.   Eggs and larvae left behind in manure piles, decaying organics, trash....these form the next generation.

 A last intentionally distorted garage spider photo:

I found a home for the neighbors dryer.  They didn't want it.  I feared they'd hand it off to the guy and his trailer the homeless folk helping them knew.  I asked where he took the trash and asked if he was one dumping it along forest roads.  The woman said she didn't know but she thought he dumped it on his property.  Anyhow, the dryer deserved a better fate.  It's been in my garage since they moved but I found someone who needed a working dryer.   She hauled it off yesterday.

I have a lot more space now in the garage and plan to move the old recliner into the garage from the house today.

Avoiding Yardwork Any Way I Can

 I made the video above from a few I took while at Mckercher.  I had my phone in the dry pouch, that is clear but was worried it would get wet anyhow.  It didn't.  Video has add on sound, courtesy of Imovie, an app standard on the phone.

I need to mow my weedy lawn today, to keep neighbors happy, so I'm already doing about anything I can to put it off.  Like scrolling funny facebook reels.  I don't like yardwork.

Otto

Jenny

I don't know about how the wildfires are in Oregon right now because I really don't watch news.

No smoke currently in the valley.  That's a good thing.   

I'm about to finish another book, the fifth in the Louise Penny Chief Inspector Armand Gamanche series.   I like the series.  The characters are deeply developed and so interesting.   Always Gamache is called back to the seemingly idyllic village of Three Pines, where everything about the village seems wholesome.  Except the murder rate.   

Oh I better finish the book now, so I can start another.  Couldn't the lawn wait, another day?  Or two?

Two Locations, One Day

 A Lebanon friend wanted to do something.

When someone says that, I'm like a puppy at the door wanting a walk.  Excited!!  You think I'd turn anything down like that?  Nope.

We went first to McKercher park, outside Brownsville, on the Calapooia.  There's a small fun swimming hole there.   

After that we drove up to the lake and found a pull in spot on the north side and walked down a trail to the water.  It was beautiful little spot in the woods.  People had left trash behind.   Pretty darn common.  It was quite windy at times on the lake.  She doesn't kayak or even float on a tube or air mattress because it makes her seasick, but she walks in the water along the shoreline and sometimes swims a bit.   I swam and also blew up my board and dorked around on it and sat in the sun on a log.  The yellow jackets were out in force.  I wish I'd remembered a book.

This was some of the trash left.

Nice fun day.  Had a blast.