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. 

Home Invasion

 My place was broken into.

Yeah.  I didn't even realize it til late last night.

The sad thing is the home invader hasn't left yet and is free loading off me.

Ha.  Yes its a cat.  Broke in through the top of the cat yard, fell in might be a better description.

I didn't even know til last night, sitting in my chair, innocently watching TV.  There was a commotion at the window box cat run that leads in from the cat yard.  I see a long hair black cat jumping into the house from the run.  

My first impression was an apathetic "That's not one of my cats."   I didn't want to get up out of my chair.

He ran back out into the cat yard.  But I got a video of him in the run.

Great, eh?  I knew something was up because Jack has been acting out, pee marking and he only does that when he's in close contact with an unfixed boy.   Like when one comes through and sprays the cat yard from outside it.   Rascal, the black short hair, is still spray marking the neighborhood.  Every day.

I had a cat break in before and it was quite difficult to catch him.  I finally did, got him fixed and let him out.  This time of year the unfixed boys are roaming and fighting and looking for sex.  This boy could have been chased atop the cat yard by Rascal then found a gap in the top and dropped or fell through.  It's only six feet to ground.

We have so many really lousy cat owners, irresponsible and lazy, shove their cats out the door, don't see them for days or weeks, howl like a victim if something bad happens to the cat they don't even take care of.

Anyhow I took four cats I caught yesterday to the private clinic today.  Nice older woman feeds them and ran into someone in the cat food aisel of a store who gave her my number so she could get the fixed.

The mom is a short hair calico, but all three of her now young adult offspring have long hair.

Bandita

Churo

Taquita

Margarita

They're over at the clinic now being fixed.  I guess today will be spent concocting a plan to nab the home invader.

Dumpster Fire

 The world seems recently like a giant dumpster fire.

I was watching an fb video of some young folks having fun in New Zealand and one of them lamented having to go home to the dumpster fire that is the US.  I thought, "Is that how young people think of the US now?"

Wars, corruption, lies, greed.......

I try to ignore it all.   What else can I do?

My neighbors, red or blue, are my neighbors and I like them.   The people I meet who need help with cats, they're just people to me who need help with cats.  I don't care what their politics, religion, race, skin color, bank accounts are.

We're all trying to survive the toxicity of the dumpster fire.

Hawaii is flooded.  Nebraska is on fire.  The weather is going nuts.  Meteorites are falling.  Ha!   Bombs are falling.   An article yesterday said social security will be bankrupt in six years.  What a dumpster fire it is.  Instead of working together to solve problems, find solutions like adults, our lawmakers just lash out and blame each the other side and the president goes off to bomb another country.   Life goes on and hopefully the fire will go out on its own or it will get doused magically and a rainbow will appear over the earth.  Yes I'm a dreamer, an optimist.

My brother and his wife stopped in Corvallis yesterday evening and invited me to come join them for dinner.   This made my heart flutter.  Off I went.  Had a great time visiting with them.  They were on their way to the Portland area.

I delivered my second drop trap to an 80 plus year old in town two days ago.  My other drop trap remains at the trailer park.  The 80 something yr. old ran into someone from the trailer park in the pet food section of a store and lamented to the trailer park person she needed to get the cats she fed fixed but hadn't found a way to do it yet.   So the trailer park woman gave her my number and she called me.   I made appointments at the Corvallis private surgery clinic, for Wednesday.  She's now feeding the four cats under the drop trap and in a live trap.  Hope we can catch the four Tuesday.

I'm an old lady, a cat trapper.  I love cats, books, campfires, mountain lakes, dark nights, stars.  

We exist on a thin crust atop a large rock in space.  Our lives depend on a fragile layer of atmosphere hanging around this rock.  Let's not think too much of ourselves. We better be careful.

So Long Neighbors

 My neighbors in the rental next to me are not gone yet.  But they will be gone soon.  They plan to leave by May 1.

He is I think going to Georgia, with the RV, to live on friends property and she bought a mobile home over in NE Albany.  It's really nice.  I went there with her yesterday when the first paint contractor came to give her a bid.  She went back later when another came.  The inside needs painted and recaulked at seams.

Other than that, its in great shape.  Nice spacious kitchen.  Big wide open living room with lots of windows.   Two bedrooms proper plus a third room that can be a hobby room, extra bedroom or office.  Laundry room.  Fenced nicely maintained backyard and garden with a large storage shed.   The carport also has a storage shed.

It even has a lift to get groceries, heavy items, even her, from car level to door level.  It's only about five steps, if you use the porch steps but she is disabled. 

It has a covered deck too.  

He's got the RV out front right now.   He hired someone to clean it.   I don't know if its leaving from there to go to Georgia.  J, the lady, said he might be flatbedding it out to Georgia.  I don't really know.   It's a lot of work to move and they only have a little over a month.   

Then it will be new neighbor time again here.  I dread that.   It's a rental house. I think about people with dangerous or constantly barking dogs and also people with excess cars that then get parked all over.  Oh well.  Nothing I can do about it.  

He's trying to sell his classic car--a 93 Cadillac Alantra convertible.   I've only seen him drive it a couple times since they moved here.  It's very cool looking but convertible's in Oregon aren't practical.

Five More Cats Fixed Today

 I took five more cats up to be fixed today.   

I took up Splotch and Einstein from the trailer park.   Then from the sisters I took up Spot and Stripe, both teen girls.  My goodness there are lots of cats around that place.  I got most fixed a long time back though.  These are the last needing done there.

And I took another stray girl who had run into an open garage area and then they found kittens in an old couch.   She's very starved, poor thing.  The lady is going to hold her with her kittens and give her lots of food.

I saw three more unfixed trailer park cats as I left there yesterday evening.  Two big blacks and then a young black tux teen.   

I'll probably be working cats at that trailer park the rest of my life.   Just being realistic.

Today has been drop dead gorgeous.  Super wonderful.  Sun out!

I'd like to be vegging out by a lake somewhere.  

Later, staring into the stars by a campfire.

I didn't get home til after 5:30 p.m. though, from returning a few of the cats.  

Some folks can recuperate their own, which makes things easier on me.  

Spot, a girl

Stripe, also a girl

Starving mom Moon.  She overnighted in my bathroom, so I could feed her quite a lot.

Splotch, the hormonal boy, now neutered

And Einstein, a blue pt. boy.

Today's cat round up and fixing is a wrap!!!  Five more lovely locals fixed.    Which is good.

Shiny Headlights

 A few days ago I shined my yellowed opaque headlight covers.  They're plastic, like so many things are on the exterior (and interior) of a car.

Scratched up too.

I cleaned them off then applied PlastX to a scrubber spunge and rubbed them down.  I did this twice on each headlight, wiping it off after each scrub job.   After that, I applied Turtle Wax, let it glaze over dry, then polished off.  So far so good.

Yesterday afternoon turned beautiful.  I'd received my second plug in device from my car insurance company.  I plugged it in, packaged up the old one to send back, and took a 20 minute drive.  I thought once I got back I'd have that email from insurance company "Good job.  You plugged in the new device."  I didn't.

The first one worked on my end, beeping when it should beep, lights on it were on.  But apparently it never communicated (via cell tower) with the company.  I kept getting alerts that I hadn't plugged in my device when I had it plugged in.  My insurance company had doubled my rates without even telling me they were going to do that when I've never had an accident or ticket.   I had called them and asked for an explanation and a cheaper rate.  Well this was their solution.  Plug in this device, you get a discount.  Only the device never worked.  At least it never communicated with them that it was working.  It seemed to work on my end.  So they said they'd send a replacement device.

I fear this second one will be the same.  The first one pissed me off royal.  It triggered all those emails about me not plugging it in, when I had, so I'd call them up, tell  them yes its plugged in......like my insurance company is my new clingy friend, the one you want to ditch.  And maybe its a scam anyhow.  Offer a discount if you plug it in, but they don't really work, they try to blame me somehow, tell me to send the device back, lose discount, pay even higher price for nothing.  That's what I started thinking last night.

My neighbor got the app type driving monitor, also when trying to find a cheaper rate.  She said she turned it off because of the constant alerts and beeps from her phone.  They're extremely intrusive.  Hey insurance companies, we're out here just trying to survive, with high gas prices, high everything and you insurance companies raising rates like crazy.  So nice your execs have yachts and second homes.  Please don't be jerking us around for sport on the side.  I don't know that my insurance company execs actually are that rich to have yachts and second homes.   I have a resentment to the ultra rich and their manipulative control freak tactics on us peons and their control over politics too.

I think its funny sometimes that conservatives howl about socialism and call health care insurance socialism but fail to see that car insurance is certainly socialism.  Good drivers paying the price for bad drivers.   The insurance roles are full of both good and bad drivers.

Here's what AI says about car insurance and socialism:

• Arguments Against It Being Socialism:
  • Not Socialized Means of Production: True socialism involves state ownership of the means of production (e.g., government-run car repair facilities and insurance companies). Private insurance is not state-owned.
  • Risk-Based Pricing: Unlike socialist distribution (based on need), insurance premiums are tailored to individual risk—higher risks pay more.
  • Profit-Driven: Insurance companies are private, for-profit entities, not public services.
• Arguments Linking It to Socialist Principles:
  • Pooling Risk: It involves a collective pooling of resources, similar to social insurance programs.
  • Mandated Coverage: Government-mandated insurance can be seen as a "social construct" to ensure collective safety, where all drivers contribute to cover the costs of accidents for a few.
  • "Privatized Socialism": Some consider it a hybrid—a private system using socialistic methods to spread costs. 

Trailer park lady with my drop trap caught an unusually marked male, we'd hoped to get for awhile.  He's extremely hormonal.   He is black but has white flecks and streaks in spots.  After she caught him, she covered the drop trap and called  me to come transfer him out.  I did.  She had a couple 2x4's atop the dark brown blanket covering the drop trap along with a small potted plant between them.  "Aw," I remarked, "how decorative." 

I got him transferred into a live trap.  Calling him Splotch.  I first met him at the park when he suddenly jumped up onto my car hood, before he realized someone was in the car and took off.

Splotch makes an appearance

Caught last night

Some of Splotch's unusual white 

Cloudy day again.  Not fair since we had some hours of sun yesterday.  Made me sun giddy.  But then there's today.  Up and down.

Passing Rainy Days

 Oregon has been very very wet the last few days.  Portland and the coast more so than here.  Today the atmospheric river is allegedly ending.  Won't that be nice.  Very windy today.  I sit in my chair, reading mostly, and watch the wind whip the arborvitas back and forth at the back of my neighbors yard.

Jack says hello!  Jack is a sweet boy who can also be a big ass.   Hormones flare when I have an unfixed male running around spray marking and fighting outside.  That was Rascal.  He's fixed now but it will take awhile for his hormones to diminish.   He hangs out around my place a lot, especially when hungry.

I don't think he has a real home.  If he does, whomever it may be is quite a negligant owner.

Hopefully in a month or so, Jack will calm down as Rascal's behavior changes.  I hope so.

My cat yard has "windows" and so strays, neighbor's cats, etc, can interact with my cats.  For the better or worse, depending on if they're fixed.

The moved cat structure has caused a lot of excitement for the cats.  They love its new place.  Well, for once I'm not in the dog house over something with my cats.

I'm thinking about moving around more items.   There's a big tall thin cabinet that was never any good but they use it to jump down to the top of it, then on from there.  I'd like to rid myself of that completely but first need to think of something to replace its current use, as a jump off point.  Same goes for a very ancient dresser, whose drawers are long gone and their space once used for cat beds.  But they no longer use its interior and the exterior is beat up from age and use.   It needs to go too.  Same issue---its top is a jump off and sit point.  Both those items were cheap used crap to begin with.

I've been watching episodes of the Great Canadian Baking Show.  It's very civil and polite just like the British version.   

I have watched gas prices around here skyrocket, cringing each day as they climb higher, wondering how I should be doing things in order to survive.  The thing with gas prices is when they go up, so does everything else, because everything gets transported.

Food prices are already quite high.  I fear they will go up too.   I get a food box once a month.  It contains nothing fresh but usually has a couple cans of corn.   I make mexican street corn, with it, not the exact version popular since I don't like mayonaise, but its close.  It's quite good.  I also like corn mixed into mashed potatoes.  Today I made peach cobbler with two cans of peaches that came in the box.  

My neighbors will be gone soon.  She finally bought the trailer she originally looked at in the park over by the fairgrounds.  It's a very well maintained mobile home, with a fenced yard, deck, all kinds of nice things.  I think she'll love the location too, very near a dog park.  I'll miss her though.  She'll still be in town but its not like being able to run next door for coffee or whatever.  She's the first neighbor on the block like that.   Her roommate, the former truck driver, I don't know where he's going but I think he's taking the RV back east or south, somewhere.  He has friends I think who want him to move onto their property with them.

It won't be for awhile.   She's been gone for weeks down south visiting her family members.

Monday is my day with five spots at the OHSS clinic.  I had to switch caregivers late for those spots and am happy I was able to do that so close to them.   A Mill City friend and if we're lucky, a Salem friend and myself are going to breakfast after cat drop off.   I'm super excited about that.  I haven't seen anyone I know in a long time.

According to my weather app, it will rain all night tonight, but then we will have some days without rain.  They won't be warm or nice, but at least its not supposed to rain again until (according to my weather app) next Friday, after tonight.  I checked a different weather app that isn't so positive and says there will be days of rain in the next week.