More Millersburg Country Colony Cats--Five More Fixed Yesterday

Five more Millersburg Country Colony cats were fixed yesterday, at a Eugene FCCO clinic, along with the female from across the street, who tragically died right after surgery, and a female from Philomath who also has kittens.

I won't be returning to the Eugene FCCO clinics. I'm convinced the cat might still be alive had she been fixed elsewhere. I'm not sure on that, but the chain of events after she began experiencing problems, in recovery at the clinic, were severely weighted against her chances. In other words, I currently am not happy with the failure to follow procedure at the Eugene clinic.

In post op or recovery, if a cat is experiencing problems breathing or with bleeding, one is to rush them out to the van. That didn't happen for her.

I have removed the details of what happened from this blog. While it was disturbing that procedure was not followed and that the vet on the van said she could not recall what to do in such an emergency, I am filing a report with the FCCO board about what I witnessed and hope they will make some changes.

Perhaps it was fate that I was there at that instant and that it was a cat I brought and that I saw the way the emergency was handled. I love cats. I don't shy away from unpopular things that need done and there needs to be something done. I saw that this Sunday. If people want to put their heads in the sand and point more fingers at me, fine. Changes still need made. If changes aren't made, a program slides and becomes shoddy. Same thing if training isn't kept up.

The changes that need to occur are: re-training of post op and recovery volunteers and training the newer volunteers. I know they get no official training anymore because I've been involved in the Philomath clinics; and that the vet or tech inside be trained to treat instantly a cat who has crashed.

Anyhow.....

I was exhausted the day of the clinic, after trapping for nearly 16 hours the day before. I had checked the cats into the clinic early, then delivered Frap to his new home. I was expecting the cats to be done by early afternoon as the card I was given, at check-in, had said, then I would head home and be in bed early for a change. But the clinic was chaos to begin with, because the FCCO techs forgot to bring surgery gowns, so the surgeries began late.

At 4:00 p.m., they said it would be two more hours, since two of my cats were in the van still, one, not yet even into surgery. Then, I was told it would be another hour, or another. In fact, my last two cats were among the last done on the van even though I had registered the cats early, and cats registered even an hour later, got done before my last cats. They knew I had a long drive home. All day, after i returned from delivering Frap to his new home, I waited in my car. I was too tired to drive anywhere else.

I'd brought the cage back that Hoffa had been in for a week, too, so my car was too loaded for me to sleep in the back. I was not wanted inside as a volunteer nor did I want to volunteer after what had happened inside with the cat who died.

I didn't get home until after 11:00, because I had to deliver the female from Philomath back, first. When I told that woman why I was so tired, that my cats were done last, how exhausting the day had been, how I had hoped to get home early and be in bed, she said "they left yours til last for punishment." She may be right. I don't know.


That female who died wasn't sickly. Check out her photo two posts below, taken the day before I trapped her, two days before her death. In reality, she'd only gotten skinny after having those kittens. She had worms and she was being fed the cheapest dry food available and not much of that. So she was run down from malnutrition, worms and feeding her kittens, who likely will die. I could only find one of them.

But she wasn't sickly. She was a teen mom. I don't know why she crashed.

Anyhow, horrible long awful day to go through, when I was already exhausted from trying to catch more cats at the Millersburg colony. I caught the five more, plus the one across the road, now deceased, one of her kittens and yet another kitten, of two, out deep in the junk filled barn.

I also had to buy more KMR, for the three bottle babes, being cared for by the colony caretaker's niece, who was kicked out of her house when she graduated from high school and now lives in a camp trailer, a nice one, in front of her grandparents house, which is in front of the colony caretakers trailer.

These folks are struggling hard to survive. All of them. Right next door, the kids who lived there with their dad, now live there alone. Their dad just died of a brain tumor a few weeks ago. They are related somehow, although I forget how, to everyone else, in house and trailer next to where they live. They are age 15 and 17 or 18, and on their own. The old folks in the house in front of the colony caretakers trailer have severe health issues of their own, but they're all trying to make it, to help one another survive.

The colony caretaker herself, who lives in the back trailer, is the only one of the bunch currently with a job, a minimum wage job at that.

Across the road, in the house where the little now dead barn cat lived, lives a kind couple who cared for her. The woman has been fighting cancer for years, and has had a relapse. The property is spotless and well cared for, just like the property is of the struggling intermingled family on the other side of the road, where all the cats are.

Anyhow, I get frustrated, but helping out these folks is really very gratifying. They truly need the help and badly.

They had two more ready for me this a.m.--the orange manx and another black male. The kittens all look good, including the orphaned female torbi kitten of the now dead mother, the little boy tabby tux with the white tipped tail from some unknown mother out back (he's the one I dug out of the junk filled barn) and the three really young kittens of Bad Mom, who is now fixed.

Three more males and two more females from there were fixed yesterday and two more males are being fixed today. The total now stands at 20 adults fixed, although the one died, and 12 kittens removed or contained. 32 cats.

This afternoon, I've had to contend with the monster Mexican kids, shooting a BB or pellet gun again. That is, until one whistled through or over the fence and through a leaf not more than two feet from my head. I was mad. I charged the back fence and yelled at those brats to stop shooting, that it was illegal and they'd almost hit me again. The kid said "Yeah, I didn't know it was illegal" and shot again. I told him I was going inside to call the cops. I didn't, because I couldn't get my phone to work. I'm going to also let him know if he hits me, his parents will get to pay all my medical expenses. Maybe he'll at least have some respect for his parents, who work.

I was sad to say goodbye to my friends of several years, A and M, who left today. They are moving back to Vermont, their original home. I met them when they adopted Serenity and Poco from me about three or four years ago. We've been friends ever since. A year ago, A, a fantastic artist and very kind hearted person, moved to their house back east, and they put their house in Corvallis up for sale while M stayed in Corvallis to finish out his job, as a professor at the university. I loved that house of theirs and tried hard to find someone "worthy" of it, who could buy it. The asking price, however, was hefty.

In the end, it was sold to some people who are going to let their college student daughter live in it. I was pretty much heartbroken to hear that wonderful house and garden out back, lovingly created, was going to be housing college students, who generally respect nothing. I know. There are exceptions. My friend said she could see the front garden soon having cars and big pickups parked across it, since the house driveway parks only two cars.

I was sad to see them go, but A was actually happy to be leaving Corvallis for good. Their place back east she says is by a small town and people are very friendly.

I don't have many friends in this area. Actually, Ann left a year ago. She came back to help pack up the Corvallis house. They gave me their table chairs, four of them, and some old paint I chose from many many cans, most of which were staying with the house. I took the primer sealant cans, two of them, because I can probably use those at some point.

I know most people, including my writer acquaintance, W, think it's very normal for a human being to exist in a vacuum of human contact. I know she tells me this by e-mail because she doesn't want me to bother her or to think we are really friends that might do something together. I need to just leave her be. But I try, you know, because I need human contact. I want human contact.

She told me today, just plant some pretty flowers for a nice space where you can enjoy being alone. Or something. Pile of shit, if you ask me. A crock. What she's really saying is "Leave me alone. We're never going to do anything. You're not my friend." She and her significant other were headed over to eastern Oregon for a two week or more vacation. I get the message. Can't blame me for trying.

My opinion is, a person could live under a bridge or in an outhouse and if surrounded by family or close friends, wouldn't matter. I start looking back at my homeless days with fondness, even longing, because I saw people everyday and although many were drunks, I had friends, people to talk to.

The draw of homelessness for some is the sense of family and belonging that one rarely finds in "civilized" American society. Do gooders want to coral the homeless, and "help them" out of their mental health issues or addiction issues. But to what life? I got "help". The "help" consisted of being forcibly drugged, sometimes on nine different psyche drugs, patronized, abused, and locked away into complete isolation and meaninglessness in a high rise converted low income motel where every day was the same. Who would choose such an unhealthy awful lonely life over say the camaraderie of homelessness? What sane person would do so?

Our society is mentally ill and many of our cherished values are insane or unhealthy or both.

Maybe I should have been born in Mexico to a huge big honking Mexican family. Maybe I can find a Mexican family who will adopt me.

My search for meaningful social contact, on a regular basis, continues. Maybe it isn't possible to find. I don't know.

That area where the Millersburg colony cats live, is lovely, and actually closer to downtown Albany, than where I live now. Yet it's country. Pure country living. I didn't know that area existed prior to when this colony caretaker contacted me. I also found another area, a bit south of where I now live, but only by a couple of miles, that is still pure country, yet very close to Albany and even closer to Corvallis.

Another area I've come to love, through cat trapping around in the area in multiple locations, is the area south of Corvallis and Philomath, off the country roads, paved and gravel. It's beautiful and so peaceful at night. Yet close to both Corvallis and Philomath.

Speaking of Philomath, it's unrecognizable, due to the bypass highway being built. I couldn't find my way around it, the other day, when attempting to access one of my favorite stores there. I finally gave up in a huff. I then drove on, to the colony I was trapping south of there, and mentioned this to the woman, who said, "Isn't it a sin?" Then she started laughing and said she felt sorry for the businesses in Philomath and the residents, now so uprooted by all this nonsense.

These are the areas where I wish I could be live, where the stars can still be seen at night, where one is not, at least not yet, surrounded by miles of concrete and development and the discontent that comes when people are tightly packed together.




Big black male.

The impregnator--the black tux male.Silver tabby male.
Silver tabby female
Brown tabby female.