Last Day at the Lake

This tree had recently fallen into the lake.  Maybe after all the rain loosened the soil.

 I trapped 14 cats in all, at the Albany colony.  Caring for them all, and going back to trap more, wore me out.

Fortunately a Lebanon lady arrived at 6:00 a.m. yesterday morning to load them and take off to the FCCO clinic.  It was a big blessing.  I went back to bed after helping load for a couple hours.  Then, after dealing with lots of cat messages and texts, I headed to the lake.  It's supposed to rain Saturday again.

The garage was a smelly mess, from the cats I'd held.  And I was still very tired out.  But I went anyway and had a good time.

There was algae in places and lake weed.  Its common for this time of year.  The level was already dropped by a few feet.

A sea plane landed, then took off twice.   That looked like fun.   Mostly it was motor boaters out fishing or playing.

When it was time to leave, since I had to be back to clean up the garage and take the cats back in for the night, when the lady got back from the FCCO with them, I went back to the boat ramp.  I waited a long time, as boats both launched and pulled out.  I waited for a lull.  I get nervous getting my kayak out into my car after backing down the ramp because I've been yelled at by motor boaters a few times for being a kayaker using a boat ramp.  

While I waited I took video of little fish in the shallow area beside the ramp, while sitting sideways with my feet in the water on the kayak.   

Later I saw one fish in the video I didn't recognize.

I think its a lamprey.  It undulated like a snake.

Finally there was a lull and I went to get my car and backed it down the ramp.  It only takes me about five minutes to load my kayak.   Suddenly however, here came a truck pulling an empty boat trailer.   A boat had come to the dock while I was getting my car.   And the guy wanted to load the boat I guess.  He didn't stop at the stop sign to wait.  He pulled up ahead of the ramp I was on and began to back down, towards my car, the passenger side of it.  

I was scared immediately.  What was he doing and why.  Was he going to try to shove my little car into the lake or what?   Literally it takes me five minutes.  I rushed, trying to get everything loaded in, got in my car, didn't even tie the kayak in.  Still he backed another two feet til he was so close to the passenger side front.  I honked to stop him.  And took off cursing.   I was afraid.  I thought he must be one of those boaters who hate kayaks and think they have no business using a boat ramp.  But I don't have any idea why he was doing that.  I didn't know the man.  

I still see yesterday as a good time at the lake.  I'd rather go to Waldo though where there are no motor boaters and that would never happen.  It never happens when there are a lot of kayakers and paddle boarders near the ramp either and it may have had nothing to do with any of that.

No harm, no foul, is my thought on it.

This was the 14th cat caught and fixed yesterday.

I got home in time to clean the garage and put out new pee pads on the cat shelves.  She arrived just after 6:00 with the 14 cats and we carried them into the garage.   After she left, I got them all food and water.   I was very very tired.

This morning I returned them.  Well, all but one.  That one is a kitten that I'd picked up there in the field beside their trailer and their parking area, fed him a plate of wet food, and then he followed me everywhere.   I knew he wouldn't survive long.  Too tame.  Too many cars coming and going there.  So he's in my bathroom and I hope I can find a rescue or shelter to take him.  He's super sweet.

I was too tired to do anything but go to bed after I returned the cats.  The traps and cage covers are still dirty.  The garage cat shelves need cleaned again.   Oh my, a lot of work.  I'd forgotten how much work just trapping and holding a large colony can create.

Maybe I'm Not Ready

 The trapping job, catching up to 15, at a place where I've trapped before, wore me out.   

I had intended to leave the trapping location by 10:00 a.m. and go to the lake, but I didn't leave until 11:00 and was by then exhausted, too exhausted to load the car with my hardshell kayak and head to the lake.  I still do not have a pump with correct valve connection to fill my inflatible board.

I was there at the trapping location til about 10:30 last night and back by 7:00 this morning.   And in the meantime, after I came home last night, I had to bring the 11 cats I caught into my garage, set them up on the cat shelves and give them food and water.  I also mixed in capstar because they're all crawling in fleas.

It was the usual at this location, people coming and going, in and out of the house, completely disregarding the trap attempts going on.  There was even more junk than before around the property.

But, I did catch 11 cats anyway.  This made me feel young, that I still could do it.  And they're fun to talk to.

But once home, I couldn't get to sleep.  People were texting and messaging me, like I have all the time in the world.  Strangers.  Not people I know.   All wanting something from me.    It wouldn't leave my mind to let me sleep.

Until I turned off the phone, and basically did deep breathing, counting, until I was out.

This morning, after four more hours out there, swatting off aggressive yellow jackets, I was done, worm out, came home, left two traps set, had intended to head to the lake but knew I am far too tired.    

I'd caught two more and also discovered, contrary to what they had said, there were indeed still cats there, sporting eartips, whom I got fixed 7 years ago.  At least four of them.  I caught two, let them go.  

I had finally set up the drop trap, which was difficult because there is so much junk everywhere.  It was very tough to find a spot it would fit, and where I could even see it from a distance to yank the string.

I caught one of the two keepers under it and one in set live trap.

I might not be ready to full force trap people's cats, but at least this time, all I have to do is trap them.  They got their own appointments and someone else volunteered to drive them to the clinic.  Otherwise, I could not have worn myself out as I have, and also muster up to drive them to Portland tomorrow and spend the day up there waiting on them to be fixed.  The trip is a killer, killing time in Portland when already exhausted.  Yuck.

I don't think I'll ever do that to myself again---both trap a large number of cats, holding them, and also drive them to Portland.   Too much.  I can do one or the other but not both.

I may have missed the lake today, and that makes me sad, but I've caught 13 cats at a very difficult location.  I might get the full load yet.  They do have 15 spots and there are at least 3 more cats I saw without  eartips.   And I don't have to drive them to Portland in the morning.

Warehouse Kittens

 Been helping a seed warehouse employee and his girlfriend by giving advice, probably not great advice, and loaning traps, as they attempt to catch kittens and their mom inside the warehouse.

It's not like seed warehouses are unfamiliar territory to me.   I love them, have spent so much time inside them over the years and met the funniest, kindest and quirkiest people ever in so doing.

One warehouse on Seven Mile alone--over 200 cats I caught there.   I used to climb the pallets of seed bags to net kittens way up near the ceiling, open equipment shed doors to have clouds of bats fly out past me, brushing my face as they went--lots of experiences at seed warehouses.

Our county is known as the grass seed capital of the world.   In the spring, the growing grass fields shine in the sun and I almost feel like I live in the hobbits shire, its so beautiful, with the fields all green and the rolling hills and snow capped distant mountains.  Right now, the fields are dirt brown, plowed under creating clouds behind the machines of August dust, sending plumes up into the sky like wildfire smoke.

Anyway I haven't been to this warehouse but the worker borrowed traps and has been hard at it and caught four so far of the six kittens and their mom.  He thought at first there were only four kittens, but there are six.

His girlfriend brought up two of the kittens today, so I could weigh them.  I didn't know how to advise them, if I didn't know how old they are.  They both weighed in at about one pound, 8 oz., which means they are about six weeks of age.  I had gone to Walmart and bought them kitten food, wet and dry, and some KMR.   I just want them to succeed, they're so kind and so determined to help this little family.

I wanted to play with the pair the rest of the day because kittens are so much fun, but I had to let them go back to their mom and two siblings after an hour.

Look at this darling torbi girl!

Caught so far are three orange tabby kittens, this torbi, and the light orange cream mom, whom the worker can pet but not pick up.

The mom, Annie, he said, had to be caught first because she would not stay out of traps.

This is Annie the mom, with her little torbi girl kitten, who was the first kitten caught.

These are really kind people helping them.   Mom is getting fixed tomorrow over at the surgery clinic in Corvallis, just to get it done because the kittens are already weaned.

I hope they get her over there ok.  Guess there are other cats at the warehouse also needing fixed.  That will be for later on.

Tomorrow evening I start that project over at the 80 year old couples place.  Yeah, I've been there before, two or maybe three times over the years and they've now got more unfixed cats.   She will get me very high on coffee, lol.  I think she lives on it.  But its good coffee.   They have 15 FCCO spots Wednesday but a Lebanon woman volunteered to drive them up for the couple.   Three cheers for that!!!  I just have to trap them, hold them before and after surgery.  I have not been out there to their place for years so don't know what to expect and they're not the type to prefeed in traps or make it easy on me with trapping.  The trapping happens by magic, you know.  Lol, they just trust magically I'll figure it out and get them caught and I probably will.

Thursday six of a Lebanon lady's 12 to 14 cats will be fixed in Corvallis.   She will take them over, while Happy Cat Club, my nonprofit, my teensy little low budget endeavor, will pay.  How we keep on going, I don't know, but it sure helps people, not just the cats, to get the cats fixed.

I looked at the calandar this week with longing.  If the rain stops, I thought, maybe I could still go camping one night.   I have not gotten away for even one night this summer.   Alas, the forest service campgrounds, that are far more affordable than state and county ones, generally close mid September, for the winter.   

The Albany couple whose cats are now all fixed came over yesterday evening and took away that old awful recliner.  They are doing a dump run.  I have a new old recliner I got free at the parking lot flea market.   He also brought his handsaw and cut the board in the back of my personal car.  Now I just need to hinge the two pieces of plywood together he cut and I could go campiing and sleep in the car, and I think it will be very comfortable.  I have a foam pad and a sleeping bag stuffed in pillows to put down on the board,  but the window to do that is closing fast.

Lots of Rain

 We have had a lot of rain last few days.  Enough rain to cover our normal September rainfall, even if we get no more this month.

So stop then, rain.   But it will go on another two days, or so says the weather app.

The butterfly bushes are enjoying the rain.  I watered mine now and then, when there was no rain, so they'd bloom.  The neighbors didn't, so now, with some rain, their's are blooming out like crazy and the bees and butterflies love it.

My cat yard is overgrown in Oregon Ash seedlings.  I let them grow up to about 6 to 8 feet each spring and summer, so the cats can have shade, then cut them back to the ground in the fall.

Oregon Ash grow like weeds.   The one crowding the side fence is gone.  Took three guys an hour maybe an hour and a half to cut it and chip it.  It was more an overgrown bush but the neighbor is happy now and I don't have to worry about a seedling that grew that big that fast destroying her fence from my side.

I do have to keep up on cutting the cat yard ones to ground every fall.   I've had to cut two of them once already, as they exceeded 8 feet in height and began compromising the cat yard wire.  When you think about how fast brush and trees grow in Oregons rainforest type climate zones, you can appreciate how difficult it really is to keep forests thinned and free of understory debris and brush.   Even clearing out an acre creates massive piles of debris that has to go somewhere and a ton of labor.  Imagine doing that on incredibly steep also rocky terrain in thousands of square miles of forest. In a year, its growing back too.

There are tons of people who blame governors or other politicians for not thinning the forests (they only seem to lay blame in blue states, not burning red states).  Try doing that, getting the labor needed, and a market for brush and deadfall, in thousands of acres, much of it inhospitable (steep, rocky and dangerous).  Then come up with the money to pay for it especially when federal forest service budgets and staffing have been slashed to smithereens.   

Just an observation, knowing how I hate even mowing my yard in the spring because it fricking grows like crazy.   

Check out Kona, an older gal now, through all the Oregon ash seedlings.   I've cut those off at the outside of the cat yard wire already three times this summer, so the cats can see out.

I went up to Salem to pick up two more cat houses for the trailer park from Meow Village.   Cost HCC $70 for the two well made, well insulated cat houses.  I then left them off at the trailer park.  Some people there knock themselves out to come up with excuses why they can't lift a finger to keep cats there fixed.   It amazes me.

I couldn't help but gasp at the rising gas prices.  Over $5 a gallon regular now at some stations.   I'm so thankful to have a bike now because who can afford a tank of gas anymore.  I feel like our economy and government now is composed of a bunch of whiney super rich people with issues playing with taxpayer money to get richer and build monuments to themselves.  I wish they'd all board some rocket to mars and leave us be.

Cannot Comment

 Yesterday, without warning, I realized I couldn't comment on my own blog or anyone else's.

Mostly.

Occasionally a comment would publish.

Usually, I write the comment, hit publish, a box comes up says "publishing" but never does publish.

I'm told by google (seems a little funny since google owns blogger) this is due to problems between blogger and blogspot and something like an ext ad blocker or third party cookies disabled interferes with communication so the comment is stuck in a never ending attempt to publish.  

However disabling all ad blockers and ensuring third party cookies are allowed did not help.

I don't get why that would suddenly change.  Google gave me all kinds of shit fixes, many suited only to computer whizes.   Last night I cleared cache, history, everything.  Which did not help either.

Maybe blogger and blogspot are having a marital spat.  Breaking up is hard to do.   Um, seek help, you two, settle your tiff and get back to work.

That's my advice.  Because fuck it.  Most of us care so little about our online life we can dump it with  ease and go our way. 

This video shows what happens when I try to comment.  I click publish, a box pops up says publishing, but that box remains and it never does publish.   Anybody know what to do?    

Lake before Rain

 The temp is going to drop ten degrees tomorrow and then it rains.  It's supposed to rain six of the next 9 days.  Great.  60's.  Great.

I took the five cats in my garage up to the clinic this morning.  I came home, saw the tree man, who gave a great estimate and I shook his hand and he's coming tomorrow.  Neighbor offered to pay it all, can you believe that?  

She's nice.

Anyhow, I thought then, "this may be my last chance.".   I still don't have a pump that will work to pump up the blow up.  So I threw the hardshell kayak into the back of the car and took off for the lake.

I had a great time.  It was like super perfect there.  I swam for awhile.  It was fabulous!

When I realized it was getting late, and knew I had to be at my place when my friend who picked up the cats, brought three of the five cats to my place, I scrambled into action.  I'd been lazing around on the kayak, swimming. That's when I had to kick it into gear and paddle fast as I could from the northeast on the lake, across it and to the boat ramp.  I will be sore tomorrow.  Serves me right for having too much fun and forgetting the time.

At the boat ramp, I saw a cat friend and her family launching their motor boat.  If I'd had more time, they would have given me a ride on a floatie behind their boat. Shoot.  Next time.

My boogie board got away from me after I went for a swim.  It's old, and the foam inside the cloth skin is broken in several spots.  The cloth skin itself has holes and the leash velcro I wear around my wrist no longer velcros.  Might be time to search out another.  I found that one, long time ago, right in the lake, left behind.  Been using it for years and years.

I got back and here came my friend with the cats.  She'd returned the middle of nowhere kitten on the way home.

Fisher--the last kitten needing fixed from there.  Another girl.  Her sister is Puffin, fixed last week. All the cats are fixed at that place now.  For now.

My friend volunteered to pick the cats up because she'd caught one of the cats involved up in Sweet Home.  Thomas appeared to have an eartip already and I just about had told her he was already fixed, take him home, when she brought him last night.  But instead I took him into my bathroom and pulled him out of the trap and felt him up.  Sure enough--he had balls.  So off he went to the clinic this morning with the others.  At the clinic, they decided to check him out themselves since that left ear sure looks tipped.   They came out grinning.  Sure enough, Thomas still had balls but Thomas doesn't have balls anymore.   (sad face)

Then there were the three boys from the Albany couple--Dexter, Frown and OJ.  I posted photos of Dexter and Frown already.  Here is OJ.

So that was my day.   I'm trying not to waste a day of whats left of summer.

Hooked!

 I had netflix on my phone.  

Netflix started offering games and I immediately became a Mahjong Solitaire addict.   

That game is frightfully addictive.   Along with the background sounds of running water.  Running water sounds are addictive enough to me.

My brother called night before last.  Asked me to join him and his wife down at Dorena Reservoir to ride a bike trail there.   He gave me an electric bike for my 70th birthday.   It came about the time my knee went south so I hadn't ridden it but once before.

They got their electric bikes a few years ago and even rode the road around Crater Lake, when they close it to all but walkers and bikers in the fall.

I faked bravado when I said yes to going, but inside I was worried about how I'd do, riding a bike long distance, when I'd barely ridden one in 20 years.  

What if I couldn't stay balanced or do I know the ins and outs of this new bike enough?  I aired up the tires, checked the brakes, read over the manual again that morning, then folded it in two, which it does easily, and with some effort (it weighs 80 lbs) hoisted into the back of the car and took off south to Dorena Lake.

We ate a picnic lunch at one of the parks along the reservoir.   Then we took off on our bikes on the bike path.  I didn't have any issues at all. In fact I had a grand time.  It was so fun to ride that bike and the electric assist was easy to use.  I had it on the lowest setting.  It has a thumb throttle to engage and to regulate how engaged the battery is.  When there was a vacant straight stretch I switched it to second from highest assist setting and sped up to 25 mph.  Not for long because there were cracks and bumps in the bike path that could have sent me sailing at that speed.

Mostly I peddled on my own power until the end, when my legs had become rubber and I only pretended to peddle then, when I saw people along the path, because I was on total electric assist the last few miles.

18 miles we went!  On my first ride.  Was very very fun!

I am hooked!

I got home and the Albany couple were just beginning to catch their last three remaining unfixed cats, for tomorrow's appointment.  They brought two of the boys over, they had caught, and will go for the third this evening.  They start two nights before because when catching selectively (among lots of fixed cats) unfixed adult males, who don't eat together, you need two nights to try for them.  

Here are the two they caught, now guests in my garage:  Dexter and Frown.

Dexter

Frown

Hopefully they get OJ this evening.   Also, a lady is hoping to catch a male up in Sweet Home, to bring over.  The 5th cat will be, hopefully, the third kitten from the middle of nowhere 3 kittens and their mom.  The other two kittens and mom were fixed last week.

So I will begin this week, which will include three or four rainy days in the 60's, with two new hobbies--Mahjong Solitaire and bike riding!