The Fall

 I fell yesterday in the house.  I do fall a lot out trapping, tripping over something under brush or weeds, barrel rolling it.  I get scratched up, bruised, all the time and often don't even recall how.

The fall was classic.  Doing too much too fast.  I discovered Fantasia was ultra dehydrated and had her in the bathroom.  I'd warmed fluids, and drawn them out in a 60 ml syringe and was headed back to the bathroom to give them to her.

That's when the oversized pajama bottoms tripped me up.  They're too baggy and long, given me for Christmas.  Have meant to cut them off.  So when I took a step on the fly with my left foot, my toes got caught up in the overhanging long end of the pajama leg front.  I tried to compensate but too late.  My weight was already shifted to my left leg for a landing.  I landed that foot in a cat water dish, which slid and spilled and the rest of me splatted onto the floor.   

I thought "shoot, I bet I broke something this time."  But I didn't.  Just sore today.

I then spent the afternoon fixing the tarp over one corner of the cat yard.  We were due for thunder storms.  I had to zip tie it better to the wire, and also had to secure the push ups to the wire.  Pushups are the 8 foot 2x4's, with a small plywood piece, attached to the top, that hold up the cat yard wire in various places.

I put up one more new shelf out there too, and one more cat ladder, for their ease, since they're old like me.    I'd already made the shelf and ladder and painted them.

Evening I went to the convenience store and a big fancy black SUV or jeep pulled up to park beside me, dealer plates, two young men in it.   I went into the store and when I came out the driver was beside my car.  There wasn't much space on that side.  He was grinning like he'd gotten away with something.  But the passenger was slumped down below window level trying not to be seen.  I immediately knew they'd done something to my car.  I didn't know what and didn't want a confrontation, so drove it home and looked.  I'd been worried they'd keyed it or punched my tire with a screwdriver.  But no, just pee running down the side of the passenger door, in lines, --at the bottom, still a wet drip of it.  Yes, it was juvenile.  And yes they were young.

Ha, I thought.  Seriously?   Big deal.  That car, the cat carrier car, stinks to high heaven already of male cat pee.  What's some human male pee to me, running down the door?  It's nothing.  Washed it off and let the thunderstorms do more.

My personal car got nailed by a goose shit hit on the door last week.   

I delivered a trap this morning to a lady who'd requested help in a facebook post.  She seems extremely nice.  I have a couple spots mid week and also am hoping a trailer park lady gets another or two caught there.   I took her more cat food.  She lost medicaid as secondary insurance, and on top of that, now is getting $200 taken from her SS each month to pay medicare premiums.  She's my age and says she's going to have to go back to work to make ends meet.   We joked about finding jobs at Walmart. I can't do it as a greeter I said because it requires standing and she said she can't do stocking because of her shoulder.  She was supposed to have replacement surgery on it but won't because of her current situation with $. We were joking because I'm close to the same situation now (needing a pay job to survive).  

I've got to go back to bed, take a nap, because I had off and on too much pain from that fall, to sleep steady last night but feel better today.  So its naptime.

Oldies--Tugs

 

Tugs is a tiny torti and one of my super oldies here.  

She's still hanging in there, at 18 to 19 years of age.

Tugs hails from the Lebanon Shovel Killer Christian Neighbor colony.  Long time ago.

I was helping an old woman in some disgusting cottages (they were not maintained by landlord, even could smell gas leaks inside) when I trapped Tugs and many others.   A neighbor had come over and told me he would be happy to kill the cats with a shovel.   He played in a Christian band at his church, he boasted.  If the cottage conditions disgusted me, his offer did so even more.

I was determined to get all the cats to safety and did so, although it was tough, as usual.  Tugs and Mums, her sister, never got homes and remained with me.  Mums died a few years ago, but Tugs, the tiny tough girl, who took nothing off anyone, is still alive.

First her best friend Starry died, after a vet discovered she had lymphoma.  Then her other best friend, Slurpy, died, after a vet said her seizures were likely from a brain tumor.  Both Starry and Slurpy were tortis, like her.

This is Tugs, on the left, with her friend Slurpy, way back in 2012

Sweetie Tugs today

Tugs is skinny and rarely grooms herself anymore.  After Slurpy died she wanted to be on my lap a lot and that's fine by me.  As I've discovered in many older cats, her claws grow rapidly.  I have to trim them frequently.   Yesterday, my two oldest girls, Tugs and Tweetie, both 19, got in a swinging match over chicken.  They both love it.  Tugs claw stuck in Tweetie's ear.  Tweetie never blinked as Tugs tried to get her claw free.  Tweetie was too focused on procuring her share of the chicken pieces.

The indignities and embarrassments of old age.  I know them well.

Tugs bestie now is Otto, a middle aged male who is a big goofball.  

He has decided to be tame to me, but only when on my bed.  He will high pitch meow when he wants/needs some love from me.   Tugs and Otto are frequently side by side on my bed.

The weather here has been lovely for a few days.   One day I just laid out in my old zero gravity camp chair and thought, as I relaxed, how much I love that chair.  It's so comfy and the sun so delightful.   I had it out in the driveway by my car.

The weather changes tomorrow, with instability that may produce thunder storms.  Then the news said we could get up to an inch or more of rain by Sunday.  Next week, highs in mid 50's.  The good news is the forecast changes fast around here.

I got the rest of my back lawn cut down with the weed eater day before yesterday.   I knew I'd pay for that with my back today.  I am.  My back isn't half as bad though now.

Evenings with this pleasant weather I sit out in the cat yard and toss treats to the cats and play with them, with a wand toy.   Little Dragon, also middle aged, Prissy from the Quartzville road cats, and Gigi are my main players.

Fantasia had some sort of event two days ago and now acts scared of me.  She's very old too.   Her sister died a few years ago,  and her mother before that.   Over a year ago, some brain event or dementia (according to vet) caused her to constantly howl.  That ended and she's been doing ok for a few months but now this, which fits with the dementia.  She still eats and drinks but acts like I'm a stranger.

Glorious old age.

Little Thunder, whose age is unknown, is back to coming up on my bed nights for a few minutes, after a hairball scare that had me confining her to the bathroom to get fluids and vegetable oil and catlax, into her to help her dislodge the blockage.   She seems good now.  I was so worried she'd never be back up at night for the routine snuggles after putting her through the fluids and forced laxative (vegetable oil), and for a few days she didn't, but now its back to normal and my heart skipped a beat for joy.  Cats who come here feral or from traumatic situations if confined for medical treatment often won't eat and revert back to human avoidance.  So its a little tricky to judge how they're doing if confined like that, whether its due to confinement or whatever concerned me in the first place.

As we get older, constipation can be issue.  She's overweight, and that makes her more prone to hairball troubles.  Durng hairball season, which is in full swing, I try to keep a better eye out for struggles with blockages.   I have some hairball dry on the way from chewy.

One vet told me, decades ago, that in my life, I'd see more cats die from undiagnosed hairballs and parasites than from anything else.  I've never forgotten his words.

Tugs, Tweetie and Fantasia won't be with us here much longer.   I love them.  They've had great lives here with many friends.   

Tugs has my admiration.  She overcame her grief with each friend's death over the years by finding another best friend.  Sometimes the pairings seem odd, to human eyes.  But that's how it goes.

Friends are a comfort and a joy in old age.  Tugs knows that.  I do too.

Back

 My back has improved.  I've gone to two physical therapy sessions and been doing the exercises given.   I now rarely get the burning down my thigh. And my right foot bottom and heel are rarely numb.

With improvement I've become more and more excited for the summer.  Besides the exercises from the PT, I go to a store everyday and walk the aisles.  I push a cart in case I need it for support.   

One of the exercises makes my right knee sore, especially at night.   Also pain down my leg from my knee.  If its not one thing its another.

Also am working to improve my back posture.   It's not that easy, its like a constant new job.  I'm hoping to avoid surgery.

I was sure all the manuevering I did to catch Chaos would result in a debt to pay on my back.   But so far, no.  Not too bad.

It had to be done.  Chaos had to be caught.  He's a huge boy, not tame, not wild, not fixed, probably once owned, maybe still so, but rarely handled or petted.  I kept him a day in my bathroom after his neuter, then turned him loose yesterday.  He trotted off and I'm sure he will be back.  To my horror, last night I saw a long hair gray male prowling my yard.  Great, another male messing with my own boys' self images.

Now the weather forecast has changed and says it will freeze tonight and that Sunday and Monday will be 73 degrees.   I am excited that we could reach 70 and beyond for a couple of days.  Will probably feel like 80, since we haven't seen warm days like that for forever, seems like.

My next difficult catch will be Phantom, who badly needs shaved.  She is soooo smart however and eluded me for two months.   

As I was dealing with Chaos, Little Thunder began trying to hack up a hairball without success, until she was literally laying over a water bowl.   I had to get her into the bathroom right after I turned Chaos loose, give her sub cu fluids and several doses of vegetable oil.  Today she's much better, so I assume she passed or coughed up that hairball.   Spring is the season for hairballs.   Older cats can die of hairball clogs if they can't get them out.   

She's kind of mad at me now but will get over it.

Scio cat lady came by yesterday with her two young boys to pick up something.  She brought me a potted flower--Mums I think.  I will plant them.  I had been about to mow the front lawn.  But she and the boys did it for me!   It was cute to watch as she taught her oldest who is ten now, how to mow.  I enjoyed it all immensely, having some company, including a couple of energetic eager kids.

Success!

 I caught Chaos today.

He's the home invader guy.

He's sleeping in a trap right now, like he's worn out from the ordeal of the last 9 or 10 days.  I can't imagine its been easy.  My cats can be jerks to newcomers, especially boys, especially unfixed boys.  So he's probably not gotten a lot of shut eye.

I wanted to catch him before the rain starts tomorrow.  We're supposed to have another very wet couple of days.  Won't help much with mountain snow although we're supposed to get some.   Snow pack is like at 8% of normal in our region, the Willamette Basin.   

We've had a lot of rain, but the snow pack is our "reservoir, for the summer.

I started out with my attempt today to catch Chaos by setting two traps facing one another in the only real exit from the outside cat yard cat house.  However, he immediatley leaped up to a hole near the top of it, which I hadn't blocked and made his escape into the cat yard.  I went outside then and closed off the cat run to the house from the cat yard.  I have to do that from outside.

When I got back in the cat yard, I couldn't find him anywhere.   I searched inside the garage cat room but didn't see him there, then searched the house.  My cats were in a tizzy over all this.  Finally I went back to the garage cat room and there he was, hiding in a carrier.  But that carrier has no door, so I couldn't just close him in it.   I got a small trap and put the traps' raisable backdoor up against the front of the carrier he was hiding in.  With a little prodding, he exited the carrier into the trap.   

Finally!   

Then I had to put back together everything I'd taken apart to look for him out in the cat yard, open the cat runs, take the traps back inside I'd had out.  Lots of work.  But he's caught and going to the vet tomorrow.

I had two people volunteer to help but one is in eastern Oregon currently and the other has young kids to care for.   I knew i had to get it done so I did.

He'll be checked for a chip and neutered if he isn't which I don't think he is.  But I"m not reaching into the trap to check.  No one seems to be looking for him.  There's a colony not far from here, I found out, and he may be part of it.  That would explain things.  Like the fact nobody is looking for him.

As if the high gas and food prices aren't enough, Pacific Power, the electric company, is raising rates again, starting tomorrow, by about 5%.  Seriously?   

Gosh darn anyhow.

Here's Chaos, now contained, and very very sleepy.  He seems extremely relieved to be out of the cat yard.

I'll let him go again outside once the rains quit, which is supposed to be Friday.  If he doesn't have people to care for him, wherever he came from, he knows where I live, and he knows how to get back in too, if he wants to.  

Back to Old School

 I have a remote control I can attach to a live trap to trap specific cats while others go in and out without being caught.   However, I have to watch the trap to trigger it.  

I used to have a couple awesome baby monitors, whose monitor and camera both were rechargable.  Over the years both failed.  A lot of years.  I got another online at amazon.  It was advertised as having a monitor and camera both rechargable but the camera is not rechargable.  This means I have to attach a power source to it.

I tried today to use the remote on a trap and baby cam combo, to catch Chaos.  The weather was sketchy, sometimes windy, sometimes dripping rain.  The first problem I encountered was that the remote control sender unit wasn't charged.  So I charged it up last night.  Next problem was that the baby cam camera drained the power pack I attached to it, in under an hour then quit.

I need to identify which cat is eating in the trap before I can pull the trigger on the sender unit of the remote to close the trap from the comfort of my recliner.  Lazy ass trapping but isn't that what electronics are supposed to do for us?   Ooops that didn't come out right.  I'm sure they're not to make us lazier.

So I ran an electric cord out to the baby cam camera from the garage.  Next, the baby cam monitor charge faded away.   It only came with one ac adapter/charger and that one was being used for the camera.  I found another that worked from another device.  I have a drawer full of cords to who knows what.

Next failure--the receiver unit of the remote failed and closed the trap when its power went dead.  Batteries dead. Takes four AA. You have to unscrew four tiny black screws on the back to get to the battery pack and change out the batteries.   I took a break and finally set it up again this evening.   After an  hour, once again the receiver on the remote control failed and closed the trap when it did, on a cat I wasn't interested in catching.  I did flea treat her before release.  And that was that, I gave up.  

Frustrating day electronically speaking.

I think the remote receiver is being interfered with by the frequency of the camera.

I rarely use the remote control because of  its constant failures for one reason or another.

When I do, its out in the middle of nowhere where its not subject to much interference.

Then I watch it with binoculars not a $25 baby cam set up that has the feel of a Macdonalds happy meal childs toy and would break if hit by a bit of wind or if you look at it wrong.  In other words, its a piece of crap.  Built to not last.

I'm probably going to try to catch Chaos instead with the old fish line and scissors method.  I've done it that way for eons if I want to be sure of no equipment failure at a crucial moment.   It's a whole lot less expensive and less frustrating too.

It wasn't a good weather day to be doing it anyway, but I was bored and it was interesting to say the least.

This evening, I get a text from my brother.  He received a text alert for MY next physical therapy appointment.  Now that was strange.  How in the world and why would he get a text from my provider about my appointment.   Pretty sure AI is to blame.   Tomorrow I will call my provider and ask how in the world.   I'm very curious.  And its a bit of a privacy violation to say the least.   

Stevie, the neighbors cat, is a peeping tom.

Hungry pretty house finches

Next Sunday's high temp has been downgraded to below 70.  I am vastly disappointed.   Maybe it will change again by then, in a good way.  In other words, warmer way.

$35 to get just over half tank of gas today.  As you can imagine, I've become quite the hermit and probably will remain so until something gives with the price of existing.

Overgrown

 

Backyard has become a jungle.

At least I got part of it mowed.   

I used the weed eater in the cat yard too.  It runs but the auto line feed doesn't work anymore and often the line gets used up in under five minutes.  I'm looking for a lightweight battery powered one.  It'[s almost yard sale season.

After I got the cat yard done, I sat out in the driveway in my chair for hours enjoying the sun.  It was in the 60's with beautiful blue sky.   It felt pleasantly warm, as if it were 75 or more degrees.  That's what living waterlogged in the gray for months does to perception.  We are supposed to break the 70 degree mark one week from Sunday.  I'm keeping track!  And looking forward to it.  Today, clouds most of the day.  Tomorrow, rain.   

Don't have to check under the long hair of Chaos, the home invader, to know he's an unfixed male.  The cat yard litterbox he is using reeks like an unfixed boy.   Neighbor says she'll help me catch him tomorrow.  Hope to get him fixed Monday or Tuesday.   One of the two neighbors behind me said they've seen the long hair black around but don't know if he belongs anywhere.  Unfixed boys can roam a long way looking for females.   Best I can do for him is get him fixed and vaccinated.  

Look at best friends Nemo and Huckleberry!  How they love one another.  They're both old.

Neighbors next door are busy moving.   I haven't seen her in awhile as she is mostly over at her new place or moving things there.   As for the man of the pair, he's got the motor home back out front.   I still don't know if he's moving in the motor home to Georgia or applying to get in an RV park around here somewhere.  

The Lebanon lady who feeds cats everywhere is moving too. Her mom's house finally sold to flippers I guess and she and her brother are buying a mobile home from some friends of hers just out of town.  The friends have to move first and move out their cows, goats, the dogs they breed for $ and their unfixed cats too.  The property looks like a junkyard, to be honest.   I guess the price was right.    Staying out of it.  Don't want to end up the free clean up crew for more unfixed cats from more negligent owners.  

It's almost summer and time off time!

The Volunteer Add On

 Chaos, the volunteer add on to the cat yard colony, is still out there, enjoying the amenities of the converted barbecue cover.  That's the structure I found cheap, as a cloth covered metal frame for a barbecue in the rain, that is now converted to a cat yard fully enclosed cat house.

That's his favorite haunt and he may have been secreting himself out there for some time, when I think of when Jack's behavior changed.   Jack is my dominant but very sweet (can be an asshole) boy.

Yesterday I tried to net Chaos in the cat yard after closing off the runs and cat door to anywhere else.  He was too quick for me but tired fast and began panting, so I had to give him a break and me too and give up, open the cat runs back up, to prevent my own cats from loud protesting.

I couldn't find him after I gave up, when I went out, after a long nap, to look for him, then open the cat runs back up.  I thought maybe he found a way out.  I had been determined to cut an exit door in the cat yard, so he could escape, but that could be securely closed again.  There's no way out of the cat yard.  There once was a gate out, but it was poorly made and failed and I had to remove it.

Netting in such a convoluted obstacle course laden area like the cat yard makes me prone to injury and actually requires two people:  one to stand in wait, the other to benignly herd.  I don't have anyone to help.

Many people are unsuited to helping net cats by their natures.  I used to try to find and contain cats that escaped whatever their caretaker brought them in, which ranged from cardboard boxes to bird cages, when coming to mobile FCCO clinics.   It was unbelievable what containers caregivers thought would work to contain a terrified cat.  This was before the time when traps became plentiful, common and cheap.  Many people cannot help themselves and chase loose cats.   The cowboy types who want to chase and grab, the yabber box types who never stop talking, none of those sorts are suitable as helpers in netting.   It's crazy to think now how we used to trap entire colonies with one trap, transferring from that trap to a carrier, so we could use the trap again, when people now complain, if I loan them a trap, that's it not a transfer trap with a backdoor.  I think 'what wimps'!

I think of his joining the crew as something like the story of the 81 soldiers who returned to Lichtenstein when 80 actually had been sent out to guard a mountain pass.   The 80 soldiers had spent their time drinking wine, dancing and enjoying the scenery.  The 81st soldier was quite probably a soldier from one side or the other, who liked their attitudes, I guess.  Here's the story from Ai.

AI Overview

In 1866, during the Austro-Prussian War, Liechtenstein sent 80 soldiers to guard a mountain pass. They saw no combat, and when they returned, 81 men came back

. The extra person was reportedly a new friend, likely an Austrian liaison officer or an Italian soldier who joined them, resulting in zero casualties and a higher headcount. 

Key Facts About the Incident:

• Context: The incident occurred during the Seven Weeks' War in 1866, where Liechtenstein supported Austria.
• The Mission: The 80 soldiers were tasked with guarding the Brenner Pass between Austria and Italy, but they did not fight in any battles.
• The 81st Man:
   Multiple accounts suggest a friendly Austrian officer or an Italian soldier joined them, or perhaps a local they befriended, as they didn't suffer any losses.
Aftermath: Due to the high cost and the insignificance of their military, Liechtenstein dissolved its army in 1868. 

The story is a famous anecdote highlighting a unique, peaceful episode in military history.