Life Goes On

 My tooth has to be pulled.   I can't pay for a crown and root canal.  Costs thousands.   But I have insurance that will cover its extraction.   That's life.   Not til June 1.  Meanwhile, I have a temp filling in the hole left when part of the tooth split off.

I'm grateful to have the extraction coverage.   Many people do not and those cost a lot too.

Everything does these days.  

 I put gas in the cat carrier car and it cost over $40 for 8 gallons. That will let me drive to pick up or trap and take cats to clinic for 250 miles.  It's about 30 miles one way to the Salem clinic, for reference.  That's 120 miles in one day if I just went to and from the clinic and not off into the boondocks of our county to first catch them.  

People with trucks and gas guzzling cars or who commute daily must be really having a hard time along with all the other high prices, like with food.  There was news showing people lined up for miles to get food box help down in CA somewhere.

The way it is here now.

I went to the store for food and left with almost nothing, the prices were so astounding.   Eggs are still affordable and bananas, some other things.   I'll just watch better for sales.

It's not like I"m starving.  Lucky I guess.

I got my Lebanon moving friends last stray boy, at her place, fixed yesterday.  She had never petted him before she got him trapped.   He's  a handsome fellow.  

She calls him Hero.  To me, he seems mild natured

I told her how sorry I am that things turned out the way they did with the place they bought.   They're still thinking maybe they could sue them.   I don't know if they will.   The two unfixed cats the former owners left behind are both Siamese, she said.  She's going to try to get their son to take them, then he can get them to them.   They'd probably be way better off with her, however.

She has to be out of her residence by end of tomorrow so will sleep there for the first time tomorrow night, she said.   She said it looks a lot better since the junk haulers got as much stuff as they could out of the house itself.  Not from around it or on the property or in the barn though.   It may take years to haul away all the trash and junk they left.

My knee acted up so badly yesterday, just all of a sudden, I knew it wasn't from my back.  I could barely walk and had to put my knee brace on.  Then last night it kept me awake off and on.  Oh the joys of getting old.

This morning I saw the dentist at the same office that I went to after I had the other filling fall out a couple years ago, while engaged in helping the Quartzville road abandoned cats.   I really appreciate them getting me in so fast once again, despite operating only two and a half days per week.

By early afternoon, they'd already filed a request with insurance for referral to an oral surgeon and had it approved.  By days end I had an appointment with the oral surgeon for June 1.

I don't think I've ever had something happen that fast before and its why I like this office a whole lot. 

The vet clinic informed me Sierra, the mom of those five kittens, is incredibly emaciated.   I couldn't take her back there then, so for now, until she recovers from the constant kitten production and parasites, she will remain in my bathroom.  She's all cuddled up in my cozy bathroom cat shelf, with some really soft blankees.   Something very new for her to experience.  She so deserves it.  

My old rhododendron is spectacular this spring.

Rascal the yard stray I got fixed a few months ago still comes by daily and often wants to play.

If you want to see a good movie, I love this one. Remarkably Bright Creatures.

Beautiful Kittens

 All five kittens from under the apartment building are caught now.

Look how cute they are!!!  Three orange, two black and white.  Only one a girl.  

The two young women caught the last one last night.  It was the only girl.

Four of them are being fostered by a radpets employee.

This morning, I went over early, with the drop trap and set it up.  Mom had been sleeping in the dirt by the shed.   It was freezing, with a harsh wind blowing through between the apartments.   Strange, I thought, since its supposed to be almost 80 today.  

I set up a chair and sat there shivering in the cold wrapped in the sheet I'd use to cover the drop trap, once mom came back out again and was under it eating.

I caught mom at 8:00 a.m.   Thank goodness.

Isn't she beautiful!

Last kitten caught--the girl!

I transferred the mom to a live trap.  I'd already left a message with my dental office.  Then I got a call, just as I was back out to watch the drop trap, hoping to catch one of the two big unfixed boys.   It was Crystal, who has been trapping at her workplace.   She is sick, had not left a trap at her workplace, but someone else had on Friday and now this morning, workers found a cat in the trap.  The poor cat could have been in it all weekend.

I told her I'd go pick up the cat.   I went then to take up the drop trap.  I'd have no spay neuter spots now open tomorrow for either of the boys at this location. I only have three spots tomorrow.  I now would have two adults already, and this evening, my Lebanon friend is bringing me her last unfixed male to take to be fixed.  She wants him done before she moves them all to her new place, be it what it may.

When I got back to the car, my phone had a message, from the dental office.   I have an appointment Wednesday.  I'm happy about that!

I headed out to pick up the workplace kitty.  Several workers were out beside the trap when I stopped to pick it up.  Very pretty scared little tabby.   Whew, I thought, too young to be lactating.  (I hope, haven't checked).   She can go directly after being fixed to Crystal's aunt, who has taken in the rest from the workplace.

I'm going to warm some wet food, with water, for her (or him, haven't checked).

It's not yet 10:00 and I'm done with work for the day!!!  Yay!!

We were forecast to be in low 80's today and tomorrow high 80's, then back to rain.   But  sure was cold out this morning, so I don't know about getting to 80.

The Tooth

 I ended up with a sore tooth after the visit to Costco with former neighbor.  When i bit down on a piece of pizza, at the food court, I felt a ripping sensation.

Afterwards, I couldn't eat solid food.  I can't chew, even on the left side, which is opposite of the bad tooth, without pain.

I did the usual, filled the area where a filling went missing same time with walmart temp filling and switched to liquid (soup and ice cream) diet.

I tried to get ahold of my dental office, but now it seems they only work two days a week.   I wonder why.

Well, at least tomorrow is one of those two days.

Tonight a piece of my tooth seperated and poked out awkwardly to one side.  I had to pull the piece out with my fingers.  It came out with a rip, where it was attached to gum.  Rest of remaining tooth feels solid and not painful, but now there's that gaping hole.  I will fill it up with temp filling too.

Anyway, the young women have only caught four of the five kittens living under their building.  I'm going to try to catch mom early tomorrow morning, to be fixed Tuesday, before the dental office opens, so I can then go in person to request help for my tooth.  

Maybe I'll get lucky and the remaining kitten will be out and about and go under the drop trap with her.

Today the Lebanon lady who has sold her mom's house and bought the property of a "friend" and coworker of hers just outside town invited me to go look at it.   All the trepidation I had that these were junkyard hoarder types trying to sell M the property were confirmed when my friend and her brother and nephew took possession.   

Two rooms are totally destroyed by sellers dog breeding endeavors (large breed) and the leaky roof which destroyed the ceiling in both rooms. The ceiling is missing in one of those rooms and only partially there in another.  The roof is covered in a blue tarp and held in place by car tires thrown up there. That she could not have missed from the outside, the telltale blue tarp and tire roof, that signals big trouble.  And the whole place reeks from dog poop and urine.  One of the rooms is lined in extremely sturdy dog kennels, with 3/4 inch bars, like prison bars.  Those have to be dismantled to be rid of.  

There are truckloads of trash needing hauled off.  She is angry but won't actually tell them that or confront them over the lies they told, since they had not been allowed to see the destroyed rooms, because the couple had put doors across that section and claimed the dogs were in there, when they asked to see. 

 There are open electric boxes and oulets and hanging wires.  Meanwhile the photos they put online when advertising the property are such a joke, its unbelievable.  They show a clean well maintained exterior and interior.   I guess they're good at photo shop.  It's definitely fraud.   But M and her brother have no money for an attorney to sue the fuck out of them, which would be exactly what needs to be done.  She is a gullible person, still defending the woman, not wanting to embarrass "her friend" over the state of the house sold them.  She blamed the religion they're in and the husband, who is a born scammer and controlling of his wife who must submit to him (because of their religion).  It's fucked up, in other words.   The mobile home is worth absolutely nothing.  Zero dollars.  It should be torn down, but that would cost and then what.

Meanwhile she has to be out of her mom's house by Thursday, along with all her cats.   They sold her mom's house, that is far superior, to flippers.  

I'm staying out of it.  I'd warned her not to buy a place without an inspection, or at least seeing the entirity of the inside, and that to me it looked like it would be shit filled, the way they kept the outside, which I told her looked like a junkyard.

She could for now live in a tent if she had to, or even the barn.  The barn is filled with the former owners trash and useless junk too, but is in far better shape.  The former owners also left behind a rooster and unfixed cats.   

Lebanon lady hasn't ever listened to me.   I wish it hadn't happened, that those folks had been truthful with her, that she would have inspected the place thoroughly first. But it did happen and I'm sure she'll make the best of it.  She has no choice.  I hope she eventually gets the place fixed up.  I think most about her cats that she's taking out to that shithole.

This is the piece of tooth I pulled out this evening. It feels better with it gone, but there's that big hole where it had been.

Two Kittens

 I had barely gotten home from taking three cats over to be fixed yesterday when I got a message.

This was from a young woman seeking help for kittens under her apartments, with wild mom, born there as a stray herself a few years back.

She sent me this photo she had taken of the kittens.

I told her I'd be over after I picked up the cats in Corvallis and delivered them back to their people.

I took over a drop trap and kitten traps but the kittens never came out from under the building.  I sat in a chair, a distance from the area, but where I could see to pull the drop trap string if the kittens came out and went under it.   They never did.  Mom cat, a beautiful long hair torti, did come and she was very hungry.  She ate without any concern under the drop trap.  By this time, I had appointments to get her fixed next Tuesday.  Plus two more adults.

Also, a radpets employee offered to foster the kittens once caught.

I took up the drop trap and left them the kitten traps.  I showed them how to set them.

This morning I went over again with the drop trap and both the mom and a big buff male ate under it.

Big buff boy

The mom

It was cold this morning.  I'd forgotten to bring a coat.   I finally left about noon.  The women told me the kittens usually came out when the sun came out.  I hope the sun would make an appearance.

My former neighbor showed up later on, in her driveway, along with the property manager. I walked over to say hello. She asked if I wanted to go to Costco.  Yes, I said.   

The property manager was inspecting her former place, for her to get the deposit returned.  He came out and asked about the pet door insert with dog door out back, if she wanted that and if  she was going to take it.  She said no, and I piped up I'd take it, for my cats for the sliding door between garage cat room and cat yard.   He and I fiddled with it til finally we got it removed.  I took it home and installed it in about two minutes in the back patio from garage cat room to cat yard.  I hope my fat cats like it.  It's bigger than the other cat door.

Then I went to Costco with the neighbor.  We somehow lost each other and I ended up "trying out" a zero gravity lawn chair in the camping section for quite some time.  Man alive, was that ever comfortable!

 My Costco roaming former neighbor was not answering my texts as to where she was.  She finally showed up in the food court and we both got mocha freezes.  We like going to Costco, or used to, just for those.  I know about her and Costco.  What she says will be a quick in and out, will turn into hours.  She loves roaming those isles.  Confession:  I do too.

She took me back home and the kitten women texted she had caught two of the five kittens in the kitten traps.  I went over with a scale, a flea comb, a warming frisbee and advice since they want to foster them til all are caught.   They are just under one lb. and just over one lb.  So about five weeks old.  Perfect taming age.  Already very handlable.

Aren't they darling

Their saviors are off to Petco to get whatever needed to foster them.

I have no doubt they'll get the other three caught.  Mom and the buff adult male, I hope to catch both on Monday to be fixed Tuesday.

So goes the kitten saga.  Nice folks over there.   Have been there before for cats years ago.

Busy Cloudy Days

 Our days here turned cloudy again.   The weekend's weather was cloudy Saturday, with off and on showers, but Sunday was hot!   I mowed the lawn despite the temp reachiing over 80 degrees.

But then we went back to very cloudy cool mornings.  Monday the sun came out late afternoon.  Tuesday, the same, cloudy morning, sun late.  I'm hoping the sun comes out a little today.

Was back to rather cold this morning.

Yesterday I took a big guy from the work trapper's hood, that many people feed and seem to love, to be fixed.  Leo also got tested for FIV/Felk (negative) because one feeder wants to let him in her house if negative once she returns from vacation, that is.

Leo is very sweet

She has caught no more cats at her place at work and thinks she got them all.

The kittens born in the trap, from one of the females she caught at work, are doing well.  They're eyes are opening.

The other five cats caught and fixed from her workplace, are now with her aunt, and will be barn cats there.

I was back at Fat Boy's neighborhood to pick up two cats from a neighbor of the feeder to be fixed.  One is a possibly pregnant Siamese.   The other is a fluffy black and white boy, who free roams and fights around.   Two down.  There are still two, maybe three needing caught to be fixed around there, all boys.

Cumulo, a girl

Bubba, the roaming boy

Then, since I had three spots, one for the work place, in case she caught another there, I figured she wouldn't catch another, gambled she wouldn't really, and picked up an owned male in ne Albany badly needing fixed.

Georgio is over being fixed this morning too, to make three.

Georgio 

My nonprofit also paid for two wild Sweet Home boys to be fixed Monday, but then one of them needed his badly mangled tail amputated.  What would simply have been two neuters turned expensive with the amputation.  Happy the nonprofit had the money to help him out.

Currently attempting to get appointments for a wild female, with kittens, and two more of the boys from Fat Boy's hood.   

All good here, except for gas and food prices are out of this world right now and probably our entire economy is in danger, although that's just a guess from someone in shell shock over prices and can't believe the wild spending going on in Washington, on everything from wars to a fancy ballroom for rich people, paid for by the little people.

Unprepared Camping

 I went camping yesterday.  It was a last minute thing.

I was gifted a spot someone reserved but couldn't use, due to other obligations.

Sure, I thought.   The neighbors were gone.   I needed to get away.  The campground isn't far from where I live.

But was I last minute prepared to throw stuff in my personal car and go?  No.

I hadn't rigged the back for sleeping.  No board.

Without a board in there, the flat solid space is about four feet long.   That is not long enough for me to sleep in.  I didn't think about this, figured I could jam something in there, between the end of the laid down seats and the passenger seat, to create another 18 inches of solid space.   Wrong.  I had nothing along  to fit the bill.

So I suffered through last night without much sleep and convinced this would set back my back rehab by months.

 I'd taken a walk along the S. Santiam river and was not happy to learn how weak my right leg/knee are.  But I toughed out half a mile.  I took off my socks and sandals and waded out to a rock near the shore.  I like to look at the water bugs and larvae down in the water.

In the 2nd video, I'm trying to follow a Mayfly's progress up one of those thin branches but you can't see it unless you look closely.

This is the molt of a Mayfly

Then I set up my lawn chair and my little stove, made tea, laid out and read my book.  It's a good book.  I started it awhile back, then tucked it under the front seat of the car and forgot it was there.  I was delighted to find it yesterday.

It's a recreated account of the Karluk arctic expedition ship disaster of 1913.  The account tells the story from the personal journals of seamen and scientists along.  Endurance has always been a favorite story of extreme survival/captain dedication of mine.  That was antarctica.   This is the arctic.

I took a break from reading to heat up some canned soup.  It was quite delicious I thought.  I'm not a fan of canned soup.  But with gas prices the way they are, I have turned to pantry (from the food box I get), canned items.  I had some toasted tortillas (store bought) and had a couple of those as dippers.

I'd thrown in some wood.  It was all arborvita from when the neighbors had one cut down.  I'd asked for it, knowing how well it burns when dried.  I started a campfire but it burned very fast, and I had no wood that might last longer.  I burned through the bigger logs I'd brought within two hours.

A couple came by and spoke to me, then came over.  She loaned me her car phone charger.  I'd forgotten to move mine to the personal car from the cat carrier car.   They told me to come for breakfast this morning.

I couldn't forget the book, and began to read it in my car, after the campfire died down and it was dark.  First the rechargable headlamp went dead.   I tried the lantern I'd brought.  It's batteries were dead.  Fortunately I had two other flashlights along.  I burned through the batteries on both reading and finished the book.  Yeah, I couldn't put it down.

I couldn't believe the hardships the crew went through, after the Karluk became locked in the ice, drifting, lost.  Finally, the ship was crushed in the ice. They'd moved most of their supplies to the ice before the Karluk went under.  They had also created ice houses to live in, once the inevitible happened.  They called it Shipwreck Camp.  Their expedition commander had deserted them, once the ship became ice locked and made his way to Barrow, then on, leaving the captan and crew, along with the scientists, on their own.

The ship captain, last name Bartlett, was heroic in attempts to save them from their dire predicament.  There were two eskimo men, one with his wife and two daughters along.  These were the hunters and Auntie, the wife, the sewer, since the expedition commander had not equiped the rather derelict ship properly to begin with, not even with winter skin clothing, to ward off the cold and wet.

So now these things had to be sewn up or they would not survive.  The ice kept carrying them to the southwest.   They were existing on pemmican and biscuits in tins and whatever they could hunt.  They finally spotted Wrangel Island, 100 miles or so off the coast of Siberia and determined to send a scouting crew with supplies to the island to leave supplies there and slowly they all would move to the island.  Land at last.  But their first attempts were perilous and resulted in the presumed deaths of four seamen.  Three of the useless complaining scientists struck out on their own, taking one crew member with them, and they too succombed to the cold, starvation and ice.  The ice was brutal, with massive pressure ridges, cracks and open leads developing suddenly.  

Finally Bartlett led them all on a desperate attempt to reach the island.  They had to chip out and build roads for the sleds and dogs through the gigantic pressure ridges until they finally were on land ice and then land.  There they set up two or three camps with some crew and scientists in each and Bartlett took one eskimo and headed across the ice for Siberia, then south.  He and his eskimo companion travelled by sled and foot hundreds of miles over ice to get help.

The crewmen left on Wrangel Island were unruly and starving, injured and sick, fighting amongst themselves.  There were only some with character enough a person reading could root for to live, among them the young brave Mamon, who finally died, of beriberi and bad pemmican.  The rest were lazy or vile or trouble makers, complainers, all except the scientist Mckinley, who along with an older man, Hadley, and the eskimo family, held things together.  

Eventually in September of 1914 the Wrangel Island survivors were rescued.   Years and years later, the remains of the four seamen were found on Herald Island.  The three scientists and seaman, who insisted to leave alone, were never found.

Anyhow.....after I quit reading, by then the rain was pounding on the metal roof of the car.  I couldn't believe it, when we were to have such nice weather.   It was just thunderstorms. Today is clouded over.  

I had breakfast with the couple who had invited me---two eggs.  Somehow the hashbrowns and bacon had been forgotten, which put them at each other in a friendly way, on who forgot.   I got home around 10:00 this morning and will be napping the afternoon away.   

I wish I had another good book but then I might not get that needed nap.

The Ice Master, is the book I read, in case anyone interested.

Gone

 The neighbors are gone.   

Yesterday they were again scrambling.   Both were exhausted.  J was back over from her place to help with cleaning the house.  E was trying to get the Uhaul car haul trailer hooked up.  Their helpers were burning trash in the fire pit in the backyard.

I gave them kitty litter for the oil spot in the garage.  I ran my hose across the driveway for them to use my water to wash something, since theirs is shut off.

I had to return the carrier Fat Boy was contained in, to the lady who loaned it to his feeder.  Fat Boy, now named Little Guy, is doing great in his new home.   He's come out of his shell and is quite tame, she reports.   

I took one bag of dry and some stray cans of wet food to a lady at the trailer park.  My nonprofit is now supplying almost $100 in cat food to that park every three weeks.  It is not sustainable but I don't know what to do.

Part of the reason--one feeder lady my age was buying cat food, until her medicaid was yanked, due to Trump's changes.  She had cost sharing medicaid, that paid her monthly medicare premiums.  So now she $200 is being taken from her SS check for medicare.  She lives in a camp trailer. The site rent there is over $800 a month.  That isn't much compared to renting an apartment, but when you are low income, it is a lot.   Seniors are losing a lot through Trump policies.  But also through democrats who are trying to raise gas taxes here in Oregon, which is so dumb, at a time when everything is being yanked from the poor and gas prices are sky high due to Trumps wars.  I'm fed up with both parties.

Yesterday I also had someone from a different trailer park wanting me to come solve the cat problem there (over 30 cats).  I left a message stating I am about to take a break, but they can do it themselves easy enough and gave the website for the FCCO.   Why wait, I wonder, till everyone is pregnant or there are kittens, to get that many cats fixed?   People know exactly what will happen in spring and still they sit on their hands.  Then when the worst does happen, they want someone else to come clean up the mess and suffering they've created.

I can't handle another trailer park.  

When I got back home yesterday evening from chores, I saw E, pulled to the curb on 30th st., a block away with the RV, car he was pulling and his helper parked behind the towed car.  I don't know if something broke down or they were just saying their goodbyes.   The house was empty, closed up.   A freezer (that I know smells of mold) sits on sidewalk, free sign on it.  A mattress was leaned against the closed garage.

Off he goes, headed to Georgia.  Good luck in your travels.

They left a rolling desk chair on my front walkway.   It's a nice chair.  My cats already love it.

I went out later when I smelled smoke.  The fire pit in their backyard was smoldering, sporting open flames.   I drug a couple big buckets of water through the gate to the back and put the fire out.