Sunday, March 17, 2024

Dog in the Road

 I went to get groceries yesterday morning fairly early.

I was expecting visitors, brief ones, pop in and out, so I wanted to get done with the grocery list.

I drove backroads home.  They're not far out of town, just less busy.   A big white SUV was tailgating me, as is so often the case now with hurried people.

Suddenly I come around a 90 degree corner (roads around here navigate around property lines) and see a dog in the middle of the road.  The dog was looking at cars, like I thought is she trying to recognize people inside the cars?   But, I reasonsed, if that SUV a-hole behind me had been in front of me, speeding, as it wanted to do, the dog would be hit.

I slowed to a near stop to pass the dog, forcing the SUV to do the same, then I pulled over.

We've had a rash of dog abandonments lately.   Two mastiff mixes were abandoned blatantly in Waterloo park.  The camp host said they had people with them, who then just took off without them.  They ran loose for over a week before dog control got them and took them to the dog shelter.  It's chronically full these days.   They'd been warning they were full when two more dogs, these working dog mixes of some sort, medium sized dogs, were left tied by their leashes to a fence at the dog park in Albany, in the night.   The police really want to find the people who did that.   They somehow made space to take them in also.  So I wondered if this dog was the latest to be abandoned.

I opened my car door after pulling over a couple hundred feet farther down the road and looked back at the dog, who was watching me with anticipation. "Come on," I said, enthusiastically, and she came running.  She paused momentarily outside my car to greet me, then leaped inside with abandon, pulling her lips back to grin and give me a sloppy kiss.   "Oh shoot," I lectured myself, "don't fall in love immediately."



In the back of my mind, a conversation was going on.  'What if I can't find her people?  And dog control can't take her?  What am I doing?  Would the cats really hate me that much if I brought this sweetie home?  No, they'd adjust, I'm sure it would just take time, that's all.'  The conversation went something like that. 

But I knew what I needed to do and that was drive to the nearest house, which I did.  The house had a longish driveway and was expansive, like an estate you'd see on a TV show.  I walked up the steps to the impressive wrap around deck and massive front doors.  There I found a note, something to the effect that my knock would not be heard, to walk the deck around to the right and knock on the last door on the left.  

There were lots of doors but I finally found the last door on the left which said to knock.    A lady answered my knock immediately and even finished my sentence, when I started to say I'd found a dog out in the road a ways up and...."black and white" she asked?   Yup, I said.

"That's Chloey and she adores people, so when we're not around, she's takes off looking for people."   I walked back to my car and let Chloey out.  She looked maybe a tad guilty.   

My visitors yesterday included a knock and leave lady I knew long ago.  She's quite a fisher and brought me some herring.   I didn't know there would be that many herring--three bags, not frozen either.  

 I froze two bags and set to cleaning the one bag of tiny fish, intent on maybe drying them into jerky. Been awhile since I cleaned fish.  Some seemed rotten though, fell apart when I was cleaning them. These I discarded.  I worked a slime line in Alaska cleaning salmon.  Sometimes I'd have fish come through you could put your gloved fingers through the flesh.  These were rotten.   I don't have a sharp fish knife but made do.   I didn't get much meat off them and gave up trying to fillet them.  If I could get good fillets I would have pickled them.  I baked them in the end, cleaned, descaled, with heads and fins removed, then removed the spine and ribs after they were cooked.   For all that work, not much to show.  I shared some with my cats.

The others will become jerky.   I'll clean, season and dry in the oven on low heat.

She had a lot of herring and I don't turn down anything that stretches a thin budget.

My next visitor came down from Keizer to drop off some old pain meds she had for cats in case Bob needs them.  Bob turns out is too shy for me to get it in his cheek, which is where these meds must go.  That's ok, it was great to see her and chat a few minutes.  She's what I call a beloved treasured friend. 

The third visitor was here to pick up my remaining traps, all of which save my two large ones, are now currently loaned out.   He's supposed to trap four more at his colony for tomorrow's spots.   

Because of the anxiety I feel when I loan out my precious traps, to virtual strangers, its not going to happen that much anymore.   People are pretty lousy at taking care of things they borrow or returning them promptly.   I don't know why that is.   But I hate it, having to constantly work to get things back I've loaned out, when people should be working to get things they borrow back.   What happened?   Why are people this way now, more often than the other way?

Bob is now in a large cage in the garage, for his comfort.  He's not tame like I'd hoped, but he will get neutered and that ear looked at tomorrow and he can stay in the cage until he recuperates and then I'll let him back out.  He really likes the soft blankees.


Our weather has not disappointed, been in the mid 70's.  Today I intend to get out and enjoy the sun.


Friday, March 15, 2024

Bob in a Trap

 I caught Bob this afternoon.  

He got attracted back to my place by the smells of the nine cats I overnighted before and after surgery.  He was yowling pathetically for the girls.  So I set the trap I had in the wooden box. 

I got the cages out of my car, after returning the cats, got the old papers cleaned out of them, and the laundry started but then just fizzled and went to bed.  I didn't wake up til the Lebanon lady called me about 4:30 or 5:00 that they were outside, here to pick up the traps.  Thank goodness.

I got out of my bed and stumbled outside, just as they were loading them, and the guy says, "You got a big orange one in that trap."  My heart jumped.  Bob!!!   He finally went into a trap.

He's in the garage now, sleeping, still in the trap and his right ear looks bloody awful.  I'll post the least graphic photo.


I got some extra appointments Monday so he gets one of them.  He will finally get neutered too.  It's hard to tell if that bad ear is from fights or if he did it to himself scratching at earmites.

He'll be in my garage awhile as you might guess, til he heals up at the least.   

9 More

 I caught 9 more cats and even though the feeder lady had only 7 spots, she contacted FCCO and they let us bring up all 9.

The day before, the Sweet Home women had 12, but 12 didn't make it to the clinic.  Someone I know transported for them.  She was horrified, because one cat escaped a broken down trap while they were loading them up in the dark in her truck Wednesday morning.  But worse, a second escaped another broken insecure trap during check in, at the clinic, which is done outside on tables.   That cat is likely doomed, in that dense difficult neighborhood.  You can't look for the cat because its all private properties jammed together.

Course that horrified me too, to hear about.  And yesterday, while there, off and on, I walked the area, calling, because the cat is purportedly tame, an unfixed brown tabby named Simba.  No sign of him.   

Anyhow, Wednesday I was at the colony I was trapping three times, hoping to get every last one of them, so I wouldn't have to return.  In the end, by 8:00 that night, I did get every last one of them.  Nine more!   Makes 13 at this little spot.

Five males, four females.

With so many huge stinky males, my car, my garage all smell!   Bob has been around as a result of the smell, drawn to it.   I saw him briefly and one side of his face was bloody.  I set a trap but did not catch him.   Last night, when I got home he was here and looked so bad.   Nothing though, when I set the trap.

I was horrified to find out I have a doctor's appointment this morning early.   In fact in 45 minutes.   Shoot.   I overnighted the nine cats in my car, since my neck, shoulder, back--all sore from carrying so many cats in traps.   They'll go with me to the doctor's appointment, then I'll drive them directly home to their location and people.

Yesterday morning, frazzled and already tired, I put out seven traps for a Lebanon woman who has spots Saturday, to pick up while I was gone.  She was miffed I only put 7 when she has 12 spots but said her husband would pick them up.  He didn't and her excuse was he was fighting all day with his adult son.  Really?  She'd told me he'd be working all day and pick them up on the way home.   Now what?  Does she expect me to deliver them to her door because nobody of all the relatives living in that house will bother?    Sometimes I feel exceedingly used.

Well I have to get moving.  Here are the 9 cats fixed yesterday.

A girl

All three blacks were boys

Boy

Very large male

Girl

Girl

Young skinny girl


Boy

And the third black male

I got home near 7:00 p.m. very tired even though I slept in the back of my car a couple hours up in Portland.   It'll take a couple days to rest up but nine more fixed!

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Weather Letdown

 We were promised four days over 70 degrees.   Ha!   

Now the weather apps are showing only one day, where we just get to 70.  I hope the apps are wrong.


Today maybe 52.  Tomorrow only 60 when I thought tomorrow it would be over ten degrees warmer.

Gripe.  Gripe.

I drove the four cats fixed Monday back to Brownsville this morning.  Turned on my phone dash cam, as I passed the first 90 degree corner five miles down 7 Mile from highway 34, on the way.   What memories I have of that seed warehouse and catman Roger.   I caught over 200 cats there, all told.  Miss Daisy was the last cat I took from there.  Roger found her in a ditch out by the road.  Her paw pads were burned from walking the hot pavement.   That was over 20 years ago.  Roger sold the warehouses and now they're more modern and pristine but without the character of Roger and his crew.

I've run into him a few times since.  Once was at the Habitat store and another time, at McDonalds when I inquired about his partner and he told me, like I already knew, that they were bringing her home today.  I had no idea her cancer had returned and he was bringing her home to die. 

 It put a lump in my throat and I didn't know what to say.  I haven't seen him since that day at McDonalds.  I spent so much time at those seed warehouses out on Seven Mile, often at night.  I'd open a door to go inside a dark musty equipment filled building and startle bats who would fly out flicking my hair as they passed.  I'd climb the stacks of bagged seed nearly to the rafters with my net, after wild kittens.  I'd nap,when exhausted, on full seed bags and found them to make a very comfortable bed.  Almost as comfortable as the hay, stacked in bales in barns where I'd trap and stop to nap a few hours.   I still can't pass a barn without a yearning, that comes over me, for a lazy nap nestled in the hay.  Those old days memories make me think---bare bones trapping, a net and a trap, alone in barns and seed warehouses, livestock barns and ancient trailer parks, just me and the cats, complete trust bestowed on me by farmers, seedsters, just people--what a great life I've had.

Roger called that first corner the Darwin corner, takes out the idiots he said.   Lots of wrecks there.  Once I petsat for a guy when my own car was broken down.  He loaned me his corvette.  People looked at me different when I drove it.  I took it out on Seven Mile and opened it up.   I knew I'd probably never get to drive a car like that again.  I slowed down way before that 90 degree corner.  



Lot of Linn County cats will get fixed this week.   Monday I took in five.  Tomorrow I take in six or seven more.   A friend of mine in Sweet Home is driving up ten or twelve for a couple people up there today to FCCO.  I'm loaning my traps out Friday to a Lebanon woman taking up 12 Saturday.  And I might get five more Monday spots in Salem.

Gigi likes to sit on my lap.   She also likes to knead when she's on my lap.  That can be painful.


I went to an afternoon movie with my neighbor yesterday.  She had been going to see the movie on Saturday with another friend of hers but that friend got sick.  She already had the two tickets and got them changed to passes, so she could use them later.   

We saw Cabrini.   Cabrini was a remarkable woman, a nun, with amibition in the male dominated church.  She created a network of hospitals and orphanages, run by the Catholic women, all over the world, beginning her service in New York, for Italian immigrants.  The movie was not that good, I didn't think, and was very long.   I wanted to like it but I didn't.  

The first issue we encountered in the theater was when my neighbor wanted popcorn.  The prices were not posted.  I wouldn't post them either if I was charging as much as they do for it there.  She wanted to get a refillable popcorn container because she goes to the movies often and thought it would be cheaper long run, to get the container she could then bring with her and have filled for a much lower price.  

Then we were not told which theater the movie was in, once inside.  And the seats are flipped up and don't stay down when you push them down, which was hard for her to navigate, in the dark of the theater, with her cane in one hand.  She is disabled, has severe mobility issues due to neuropathy.   Has to be frustrating when nothing is easy.

Then some man pushed by me, once we were in our seats.  I didn't even see him coming. We were in seats near the aisle.  There were vacant seats everywhere but I guess he wanted to be in the center in the row we were in.   There is nowhere to sit popcorn except on the floor and in his rush to get by us, he smashed my plastic container of popcorn with one foot.  She had given me some of hers, in a tray she got at concession.  

Once we left the theater, I couldn't stop laughing over all the misadventures in just getting in and seated, the unbelievably high price of simple popcorn, and the man smashing my popcorn and not even noticing.  Also, the movie sound had been so loud, I had to cover my ears part of the time.  

I was very happy when the whole experience was over and I was out of there.





Monday, March 11, 2024

Back at It

 Cat round up time.   I waited til yesterday afternoon to begin and it worked out fine.

We've had wild windy rainy cold weather last few days.   Saturday night, the high gusting winds woke me several times.  Their noise created dreams, like once I thought I was walking down a railroad track and the train was coming and I needed to move off the tracks but my feet were soooo sluggish.   A loud bang woke me, and I realized it was just the wind howling like a train again and went back to sleep.

I did not catch Bob.   The only time I"ve seen him was briefly yesterday morning, chasing some other cat in my backyard.   I set the trap all day, in a wooden box, which protected it from rain and wind, but caught nobody.

So I went to Brownsville and very quickly, maybe in under five minutes, caught four cats.   Two of them had rushed, very hungry, into one trap together.   Their caregiver had done well in making sure they were hungry before I arrived.  He believes there are seven others needing fixed besides these four.

These four all seem fairly young.  Three tabby on whites and a black tux.  All short hair.

Later on, I went over to Lebanon and picked up a young lynx point long hair.  He was born a stray, but a couple living at the complex want to claim him as theirs.  Hurray for that.  Except he needs neutered.  So he is up at the  clinic too.

There are more cats there at that complex who need fixed.

Anyway, our weather is supposed to clear up Wednesday.  Then Thursday and Friday may be unseasonably different--in the low 70's.  Everyone is talking about it and looking forward to it.  Can you believe a sunny warm day or even two might be coming?

Anticipation is very high.    

We're all sick of the wet.

I have my hands free phone holder now rigged securely enough to act as a dash cam.   This video is from yesterday afternoon, Seven Mile Lane down to Brownsville to catch some cats.


All three tabby on whites were girls, one pregnant, two in heat.  The black tux, Thunder, being the only boy.  The lynx Point, Soso, from Lebanon, had terrible paw pad problems.  The clinic warned me when I told them to check his paws, after his caretakers said he had thorns in two of his feet, that it could be pillow paws.  But they could not figure out what it was, they said, when I picked him up.  The skin of his toe pads sloughed off when they washed them and the dead skin even had fur in it.  This is likely burns, on all four feet?   Or frostbite, from that ice storm?  They didn't know.   He's home now and they will try to care for him.  The clinic offered very compassionately to take him in under medical relinquishment if need be, so I told the caretakers that.   They love  him so we shall see if he can heal.

The clinic didn't think its pillow paws, because it presented more like burns.  

But having had frostbite myself, I immediately thought that.  However hair imbedded in dead skin is much more likely with burns.



Friday, March 08, 2024

Productivity

 Yesterday was a rare day.  I got in the mood.

I removed the sheet on the top bunk where my cats hang out.  They all love it up there and cuddle up with one another.  Consequently, the sheet and their beds up there have to be cleaned more often than anywhere else in the house.

So I removed the top sheet, much to their dismay.  I changed the plastic mattress protector too, which had, with time, fallen to pieces.  I replaced it with a new one.

Their beds I first clean with a moist brush, to remove as much hair as possible.  It's shedding season.  If they still look bad, I wash them.  My old craigslist Maytag washer keeps on running.   Got it so many years ago from someone selling it from their mom's house when she was moved to assisted living.

If this wasn't enough hair and dust to deal with, after I did that, and was sitting in the garage, I thought "now's the time".  I wanted to move one of the shelf units sideways to be flat against the garage wall, so I could actually access stuff on the shelf.  I had it perpendicular to the wall.   

I had to move some things around so I could make the change.  I wanted all the cat stuff together, all the garden stuff together, and all my kayak/raft stuff together.  Also I'm switching out from towel cage covers to fleece.  They are lightweight.   The big plus is they wash and more importantly DRY fast.   With electric rates skyrocketing fast drying is a big energy saver.

I will donate all my old towel cage covers to the humane society clinic, who use them in post surgical burrito wraps.  Walmart has had fleeces big enough to make two cages covers on sale for $3 each.  Their only downside is because of their light weight they blow in wind.   I"ll keep a couple towels for windy night trapping.

I felt very accomplished afterwards.   I took two bags of things to Goodwill afterwards, stuff I'd found while moving things around, that I haven't used in too long.  Off they went.  I don't like to keep things I don't use.  I went and visited someone then I had been unable to get on the phone for awhile.  I was worried, wondered if she was ok.  She was in bed, with her phone off and I told her I felt like doing the same, with the weather so bad and cost of living so high.   We're all struggling with the high utilities and food costs.

This morning I'm sneezing.  I always do after cleaning.   I think 'Next time I will wear a mask' but I always seem to forget.

I want to catch Bob for Monday appointments but how?  I hadn't seen him around as much as usual.  He's fed at least five places I know of.  This makes it quite difficult.   I set up the game cam to see if he is even still coming through.   In the mornings, if the game cam is out, I get excited to get up and download the nights outside excitement.  Like a peeping tom looking in on something else's life.

I saw Bob only once all night on the cam, and that was shortly after I set it up, around 8:00.  But guess who was right there too--Cisco.  Cisco appeared off and on until 3:00 a.m.  He was in and out of the tied open trap and ate most of the food in it.  Bob is not an aggressive sort of cat and may not go into the trap to eat if another male is near.  While Cisco was neutered over two weeks ago, those hormones will take awhile to diminish.  In the meantime he will smell and act like a five year old unfixed boy.

I didn't watch the big hoopla state of the union address last night.   Instead I went to bed and read my book with my cats around me.   This one is Cisco earlier this morning, about 1:00 a.m. I think this one was.  The second video shows Bob making his one and only appearance about 8:00 p.m. last night, with Cisco immediately appearing to give him some boy shit.



Cisco will soon start settling down.   In no time, it will be a month since he was neutered.  Must get Bob done too, to save his life.  It's been over 70 cats now I've caught who have come through my yard since I moved here 17 years ago.  The first years I got the most fixed, then its been sporadic since getting the area initially cleaned up of unifxed cats.  The majority have been boys.


Wednesday, March 06, 2024

Slime Time

 I guess I can be called a Hermit.  Or a Winter Hermit.  Winter Hermitess?

The weather lately has certainly gotten to me.   There's little to do, since outside is yucky.

One friend called it Slime Time.  She now lives down in K Falls to be near family.

There is slime and algae growing everywhere.

General slime

Pellet fuel litter bag slime

Carrier side slime

Carrier water slime

Chair slime

Fence board slime

Fence slime


My driveway is half slime, half moss.   The yard seems to be sinking in many spots due to constant heavy rain.   

I sleep odd hours and when awake, like a  robot, do cleaning chores.  There's nothing on TV.   If I had the bucks, I'd head off somewhere warm.

I have five spay neuter spots Monday.   I could fill another forty spots but it is what it is and we have what we have.

I want to get Bob fixed Monday if I can catch him.  Stevie the fixed owned boy, has been guarding the trap I have tied open to feed in.   Stevie isn't that nice of a boy.  Gigi hates him cause he beat her up badly when she still went outside.  Someone put a flea collar on Stevie.   He's from the blue house, but the people behind me also half claim him.   


Bob came by but Stevie was here, so Bob went to the trap and sprayed it down in a useless attempt to claim it as his place to eat.


The neighbor at the end is leaving soon.   He sold the house after the family split up (divorce) and is moving to Las Vegas where he got a different job, another neighbor told me.   I don't know who bought the house this time.  It's changed hands so many times since I moved to the block.  I think its cursed.  Nobody lasts there long.

I'm dreaming of Waldo Lake lately.  But the dreams are far away--like from another life and untouchable

Food prices are still outrageous here and now gas is going up again.   Our electric utilities in Oregon think they can jack prices by two digits yearly, to enrich their shareholders and our PUC lets them.  The state is not affordable for life anymore.

I wish it wasn't so.  

My hermitess existence helps keep me afloat.   

When I got called in for jury selection the jury manager kind of made fun of the fact we'd get just $10 pay for coming in.  But I perked up when he said that.  $10 is $10!  I haven't gotten the check yet but its coming.  One problem if you're poor is you can't really have normal friends, that had good jobs and good retirements. They want to do things that cost money.   The only thing I do for enjoyment is go up to Waldo for two or three days in the summer to camp and go out on that gorgeous lake in my kayak, where they don't allow motor boats and I feel like I'm in heaven.   I hope to go again late June this year, when there still may be spots of snow at that altitude but the mosquitos will be bad.   I dealt with the mosquitos last year when I went and their presence along with snow spots, ensured a pretty much empty campground.  As for the cats and the difficulty of finding a reliable affordable petsitter,  I have a plan for that too.   And I go up to the reservoir with my kayak or raft as often as I can cause that just costs the gas to get there.   



Dog in the Road

 I went to get groceries yesterday morning fairly early. I was expecting visitors, brief ones, pop in and out, so I wanted to get done with ...