Sad Day

 My old gal Juno died suddenly yesterday.

She'd been living in the cat yard and I didn't know she was struggling, although I did know she was very old.

She came from a seed warehouse colony a few miles south of Corvallis.  I spent a lot of time out there catching the cats to be fixed a long time ago.  I had finally caught her and her kittens.   She was an adult then.

Juno at the warehouse with her kittens before I caught her

This photo is from November of 2012.  She was not a young cat when she came to live here.

She loved Teddy.  This was from 2013

So long old gal.  Juno had a good life here and many many friends over the years.

She went to a friend in another town as she could not return to the warehouse with harvest in full swing.  But it became very very hot and the lady had a metal roof.  She brought Juno here, with heat stroke and blindness from heat stroke.  I took her to the vet who said she might get her sight back and got her temp down from 106 but warned me not to return her to the warehouse as heat stroke is easier to get once you get it once.

So she stayed here.  She loved Sam and playing and running in and out to the cat yard.  She remained feral.  I found her yesterday in the bathroom, when she lived mostly in the cat yard and knew immediately she had come in to die.  I touched her for the first time yesterday.  She died within a couple hours.

I had made an appointment Tuesday in Corvallis for her and for Tugs end of days.  Tugs is my tiny torti who has been here almost 20 years.   It is hard for me to give up on Tugs, I love her so much, but there is no cure for old age.   She is beyond skinny, requires fluids to be alive, and I have to let go.

I was trying to get rid of that huge chair yesterday.   I cleaned it well and took it to Habitat Restore and they said they didn't want it.  I could not figure out why since its in good shape compared to much of what they have but it was near closing and that alone could have been the reason.  So I just took it back to the neighbor woman.   I knew she'd either give it away on marketplace or need it there.   She's got two former homeless folks living there now.   Costing her lots to even feed them but they help her out around her new place.

Her family is coming to see her soon, two of her daughters and at least two grand daughters.  I can tell she's excited about that.  I think she has 3 daughters.  Her sister comes to visit a lot too.  

I did not yet find a box big enough to ship back that useless mattress.  Today I'll try again.   

Our weather will be lousy, gray and unseasonably cool, with rain, until Thursday.  So said the weather report.

I have two cat spots for fixing at Radpets on Wednesday.  I got them at the request of the lady who traps where she works but I have not heard back from her, regarding the upcoming appointments recently.   My nonprofit will also pay for another group out just south of town to be fixed but they'll trap and transport.   I also have five traps loaned out in Scio, to a family helping a Crabtree man get the cats he feeds fixed.

So although personally I have not been trapping, my nonprofit is still paying for quite a lot of cats to be fixed and loaning out traps on a consistent basis here and there.

Early Summer

We had a couple of warm days Monday and Tuesday.

Monday I had the molar pulled.   It had to be drilled apart to come out.  It caused me almost no pain as a result of being pulled at least. I now will be unable to chew anything on the right side but can't cry over what's done.

 Tuesday, the 2nd nice day, I went to the lake.  It was wonderful to be out again on the water.   

Wednesday it rained lightly off and on.

Today the temp is down 20 degrees or more from Tuesday.  Tomorrow will be the same, with rain.  It will be Thursday before we get warmth again, according to the weather app, but its always changing.

Gigi in the big chair, and I mean HUGE chair, with Smudge in the background.

The neighbors left this chair for me when they moved, out on the front sidewalk.   It's like a throne its so huge.  I need to get it out of here.   I hope the Habitat Restore will take it today in fact.   It's an office chair style, swivels, but WAY too big to even fit inside my exclusion room where my desk is.

I've been trying to get the new old car fitted to sleep in, in case I can go camping this summer.   I did get a board, with the help of a friend with a pickup.  Everyone needs a friend with a pickup.  I haven't cut the board yet to fit the back.   

I ordered what was billed on wayfair as a four inch thick mattress, that rolls up and has a washable cover to use to sleep on in the back.  What I got was a useless piece of 2 1/2 inch foam that I can easily compress together with two fingers.   What a completely fabricated product description!!!   Now, as a customer, I have to go to all the trouble of returning something that was falsely advertised.

You can squeeze this useless "mattress" together with no effort and 2 fingers.  This would not even be considered comfy as a cat bed.

In the meantime I found four inch foam on the internet, 2' x 4" x 72", for under $30 and ordered it.  It's mainly sold to create new chair or couch seats or redo upholstry.  I can cut it in 30 or 32 inch long pieces, for a wider sleep pad, make covers for those "slabs" and attach the slab covers together, so the bed folds up.

Nemo is an old man cat.  His fur again needs shaved of mats.  Nemo has a close group of younger friends and two old lady friends--Huckleberry and Mona Lisa adore him, as do Clover and Tball.  I have several who need mat shaving but none of them are tame or easy to catch in the maze here.

Gigi, who did get a summer haircut, is bored with the weather and contents herself watching birds and neighbors.   However, not much human action on our street lately.   I haven't ever seen the new neighbors except that one time, when family was moving one of them in.   I only see their cars.

Rascal, the black boy I got fixed a few months back, comes by daily.  He's here so much I think he must live in my yard, or maybe he has a home really close.   Last night I let him come in the garage.  He's a talker, makes soft chirping greetings and comments.

That's all the news from Catland for today.   

All Over Again---Simpson Park Homeless Clean Out

 When the news hit, that Albany is cleanng out the homeless camps at Simpson Park, it brought back the memories, some not so great.

It was a long time ago, over 20 years ago in fact, but I can't recall just when, that a city councilman from Albany requested that little old me, who lived in Corvallis then, clean out the multitude of cats left behind when Albany got the rights from Millersburg for the area known as Simpson Park.   There were homeless camps back in there, lots of them and lots of trash too.

The Park runs along the river behnd the railroad trucks between Albany and Millersburg.   I don't know who really owns it.  Albany now I guess, but enforcement issues fall to Linn County.

I had no money then and wasn't a nonprofit, although I got cats fixed under a Hillsboro based nonprofit.  They did not pay for anything else however, just spays and neuters.   How could someone without money living in a tiny teensy shack basically and driving a run down old car, accomplish this?   

I suppose I agreed to it simply out of low self esteem and because it made me feel wanted, useful, to have such a request of little old me made by a city councilman in another city.  Me?  I thought.  

So I did it.  It was really hard on me.   The costs, the physicality of hauling cats and kittens out over trains sitting on tracks.  It was hot too.   And I had no help.

I finally recruited booted out homeless folk to help, who risked arrest going back into their former home, to help and show me where the cats were at.  Nobody else was going to help. 

I don't even recall how many I got out of there.  Lots.  Or the year.

I called it Camp Boondoggle.  I had one homeless man take a photo of me in the midst of the trash, for fun, but I can't find the photos.  Been trying all morning to retrieve those off CD's that are themselves over 20 years old.  No phone.  No digital camera back then.  I don't think I even had a computer.

I'm not surprised at all homeless campers are back in there.  Probably there are homeless now cats there too.   

Ah well.   Here's the current story on the clean out.

I think the same news station did the story on it way back then, and even a story about the cats.

I remember a local nonprofit lady came when she heard the news was coming and threw one of her nonprofits shirts at me, ordered I put it on, which I didn't, and tried to scam donations towards her, when she hadn't lifted a finger to help.  Par for the course.

The news lady ended up adopting one of the kittens. 

Looking Good!

 The yard is cleaned up.  Front, back and cat yard.   

Well until it grows back, which could be a week or even just a few days.

I was in a blah mood today, after cutting the cat yard yesterday plus other work.

I've done nothing useful all day.

It's very pleasant out but also quite windy.

Here are my proud parent photos but of my yard.  Yeah, that's all I got going right now.   

Backyard, all mowed.

Front Yard, the wasted useless space, in my opinion.  I don't grow vegees out there, which would make it useful because water in this city costs so much.

I cleaned out weeds and bushes and an old carrier from under there.  Spiders galore were protesting my actions.

And the cat yard!  The most used and useful part of any yard, especially mine.

The working part of the yard.  The cats love it and I like going out there to play with them when the weather is nice or to sit and read.  

  

That's the Dark House cat plaza, beneath two halves of a former pond.  The cats love that area.  There are two sleeping houses under it besides the plaza.

One of the covered litter  box area.  The storage box, with entry holes in back houses three litter boxes alone.

Tickle drug herself out of a sleeping shelter to say hi, but she wasn't out long.  It was nap time.

I have nothing to show for my day, workwise.    I also could not think of a thing to do.   There really is nothing to do in this town that I enjoy and I didn't feel like driving elsewhere.  I might should have.  Too late now.   Tomorrow I lose that upper molar.   Yuck.  Not looking forward to that.

Trivial Life

 The trivial day to day of life goes on here. 

 The rain stopped.   We're supposed to have a couple days decent weather then a plummet into the 60's with more rain for a couple days, and after that, fair weather.

SCR had barn homes open and the trailer park was still on the list.  I dreaded tackling it, but HCC is spending over $100 a month supporting them on cat food.   If we could get a bunch out of there into barn homes, might make it plausible for the rest.   

Filling one barn home wanting four cats seemed just so easy, for a lady feeding probably 25 or more.  They're all fixed.  Sure its a mix of owned and wild but by now she should know who is who.   I took her the drop trap last week and told her to get at it.   

But she really wasn't into it.  I have yet to meet someone there who is, or who gets up before 10 a.m.  She did catch two little tame teens, owned, but she argued they should go anyway, because their people don't care for them.  That is very true--they don't.  But tame teen cats aren't good matches for barn homes that want mousers.   Nor can I snatch known to be owned cats.  I'm no cat theif.   

Finally she caught one of the wild ones--Butterfly, who spent time in my garage with her half sisters Sequoia and Willow last November, before all three were fixed.   I thought maybe she was on a roll.   She'd decided to catch Black Mama, who is wild and is the mom of Butterfly.   I went over when she said she'd caught Mama, and that she now was under the drop trap, to transfer her out to a live trap.   

Didn't seem quite right.  The cat wouldn't budge from just sitting, looking shocked, in middle of drop trap, when I was transferring.  I had to push her into the live trap.   I should have realized then this was a tame cat but the feeder was going on and on about how sad she was to see Mama go, cooing at her how much she'd miss her, a lot of shit like that.  I took her home and added her to the other three, two of whom would be returning (the tame teens).   

It was then I realized this is a completely tame cat.  I knew instantly it belonged to a lady two trailers down.  But how did someone not realize that who sees them all day every day?   Hell if I know.  This morning, defeated, knowing that lady would never catch three more of the wild ones today, for the four cat barn home, to go with Butterfly, I took all four back (Butterfly and the three tame ones) and collected my drop trap in defeat.

I felt guilty when I contacted the barn cat team, to let them know there would be no cats from the trailer park for the transport tomorrow to the 4 cat barn home, and that the trailer park should be removed from their wait list.   They were nice about it.

So life goes.   You win some you lose some.   I'll try to figure  out a way to get cat food to them.   Everything has gone so expensive.

The backyard mow sent my right knee, already inflamed, still from the pt for my back, into another sphere of inflamed pain, up several notches.  It hurts most at night.  It's swollen.  But its not unstable, so I assume this will go away.  I might use crutches for a week.  There's nothing like weight off something most of the time, to let something like an inflamed tendon heal.  I use my knee brace off and on, and also ice whenever I'm sitting.  

Meanwhile, as for the trailer park cats, I've already let it go.  My mind is out at a mountain lake, not here anymore.  I might be here physically but I've drifted off.  My body is sure to follow.

Memorial Day

 The long holiday weekend is almost over.

I hate to admit that I have not so much as left the house.

I did go outside at least.  I mowed the front yard and I mowed the backyard.  I did not cut the grass in the cat yard yet.

Today is a memorial for those who died defending the country.

We have many veterans in the family but this is a day to celebrate those who died in wars.

Not the living.  Not the dead of natural cause.  Many use it as a day to remember any deceased loved ones.  I still talk to some of my dead friends as if they are here, since really, who else am I going to talk to, except my cats of course.  

What we as humans do to one another in conflicts is barbarian.    What we do to one another prior to conflict to cause conflict is also usually barbaric.

The end of cul de sac folk had a get together was it Friday night or Saturday?  I don't recall which day.   Lots of cars along the street, is all I notice, and young kids playing with balls down at the end.  Young people voices are welcome to my ears.   Sounds like life.

Yesterday, it was cars at the house next door.  Then people.  I was out to do the back yard finally.  I said hello and asked if they were the new neighbors and they said yes and came over and introduced themselves.  I thought it was a large extended family at first but realized it was a dad helping his young adult daughter move.   There will be three young women there, one of them said.  All seem very nice and I am relieved.    Its' a crapshoot to get new neeighbors.   I think my big fear was to have some psychopath control freak cat hater, or general hater of everything, move in.  I like our neighborhood.  I want to keep liking it.

One of my friends told me she had worried my luck would run out.  I've had good neighbors every time so far.   But I lucked out again!    I should have trusted the owners of the house next door and their prop manager who found more excellent folk to rent it to.   I will curb my enthusiasm, lol.   I can be a little like that overly friendly golden retriever eager to meet everyone.  Young people bring life and generate newness to a neighbhorhood.

Meanwhile, while mowing my own back yard yesterday, I saw that the neighbors behind me have grass growing in their backyard closing in on five feet in height.   Hope they cut that soon.  That's a fire hazard.

Neighbors backyard grass, nearly as high as their five foot leaning falling apart fence.

It's back to raining here today.  Gloomy.  Gray.  Icky.

First Day on Lake

 The reservoir is almost full.  This was only accomplished by filling Foster with water drained out of Green Peter reservoir, farther up one side.   

Lots of logs and debris in the water, which only affects motor boats going too fast to see the debris in time.

It was supposed to be over 80 today, but only achieved 74 in the time I was there.  We will get three more days in the 70's, according to my weather app, then Monday, the temp high is alleged to be 60 with rain.  That's quite a change.

When I looked at the days of good weather and considered by tomorrow, the lake may get very very crowded, today would be the day.   I spent two days fixing the kayak.  Several of the fasteners the seat attaches to had pulled out.  Last year, I ended up just not using a seat and really that's the easy solution. Or I can just sit on a piece of yoga mat.  I don't really lean back against the seat much.  Nonetheless I reinstalled the fasteners.   

I drifted up the S. Santiam.  It's strange to say I drifted upriver but that's how it goes there.  Then I fight the wind paddling back to Foster.

The wind was really strong in my face on the way back by the time I was coming back under that bridge in the picture to go to the boat ramp.   

I exhausted myself today, being not used to all that paddling exercise but it was worth it.

Thimble Berry Blossoms

I'll be sore tomorrow.   I got back home and discovered my yard debris hadn't been picked up today.  Its annoying, they charge so much and now there's nowhere to put grass clippings should I mow my lawn, which really needs done.  And yet I put it off.  Again.  To head to the lake.  Ha!  

I got to the lake about 1:30 and was home by 6:00.  Nice day, not too warm, not many people out on the lake since it just got filled.