Back to the Mill and Bike Fence Colony. Back to Sycamore Towers. Back to Downtown Albany.

The mill called again. If the timing were not so bad, I would have been thrilled. I like hanging out at the mill, especially at night, tracking down unfixed cats.

I drove down yesterday, after returning the four cats fixed the day before. I don't know why I went down yesterday. I was going to put it off awhile.

Mrs. Hull, now over 90, had seen young kittens by her house and was concerned the mother would teach them to hunt the birds she feeds. I don't even know if there is a mother still alive, since, one person told me, the kittens were so hungry they were trying to eat bird seed. I couldn't get a clear description of even the size of the kittens because Mrs. Hull is nearly blind. Her caregiver was in Portland.

So I set traps out back and then chatted with this interesting woman for over an hour. She said when she was three months old, her mother stood on a Portland street corner and gave her away. She was very fortunate, she said, because a social worker happened along and talked her mother into giving the infant over to her. And, she continued, that worker found her the best parents you could ever dream of having.

Anyways, I finally went over to the boiler room, where I heard there were more kittens. A Hispanic worker who shovels hot sawdust into the steam boiler all day pointed them out and picked up the torti and put her in my arms. I put her in a live trap. They pop up through a knot hole in the wood floor of the boiler room. When I was told they were going in and out through that hole by another worker, I was incredulous! The hole was not very big.

Nobody could really describe their mother, except to say they don't see her often but she might be multi colored, maybe a calico. That was the same description given of the mother of the very young kittens over behind Mrs. Hull's house.

Could be the same mother then, because the boiler room kittens are three months old at least. But then someone said the mother at the Hull house might really be a tabby. There's a world of difference between a tabby and a calico. I am going to have to give these mill workers a seminar on cat colorations!

I left with only the torti kitten.

I stopped by the bike fence south Corvallis house on the way back. I'd gotten four pregnant females, one adult male and two of five kittens fixed there mid summer. I needed to finish it up, by catching the other three kittens. My vet had told me the kittens were a bit too small, and to wait on the other three.

I had no traps in my car. I knew she had one, but how to catch three kittens with only one trap. She was happy to see me. The cats were congregated on the back porch and the adults look great now.

I rigged up her one trap with a cord from the door into the kitchen where we could watch, and let the door fall when the first unfixed kitten went in to eat. She found one of her carriers then, dusted it off and I transferred the kitten to that carrier and set up the trap again.

I was sure the one kitten hanging around the outside of the trap had no eartip and was not fixed, but I could not clearly see the head of the black kitten eating inside the trap to see if it was the third unfixed kitten. But when the one I knew I had no eartip went into the trap also, I dropped the door on both.

Lucked out. They were the two remaining uneartipped black kittens, so I had all three. This all took place in about 15 minutes.

That colony is done now. Ten cats total.

When I got home, after 5:00 p.m., there was a message from the 34th street crowd. They'd lured that preggie mother inside their apartment. He was leaving for work at 5:00, however, so he said if I got back after that, to come Friday, to net her or something, which I am hoping works out. I was ecstatic to get that message, and he had to go someplace else to make the call, because their phone has been disconnected. I felt bad for giving them a hard time about catching her then.

I had a potential Mooki adoptor come over last night, too, but Mooki acted like a banchi, and the adoption fell through. I was very disappointed.

Two others called on the ad, but neither were interested in anything but a Siamese. And one told me there are like 30 cats living behind Izzy's on Pacific. I'd been told about that colony, but also was told someone was feeding and making sure they were all fixed. Doesn't sound like they're fixed at all, however, from the description the folks who called last night gave.

They live within a couple of blocks of the place where Hope and her kittens were abandoned then tried to survive, before Hope was severely injured. They have two seperate neighbors with unfixed cats or feeding unfixed cats. One has not fixed her own cats. One mother just had her third litter of the summer. And one neighbor feeds strays. This news kind of got to me last night. What is it with Albany, I often wonder, or scream.

Sycamore Towers in Corvallis is over run again, too. There are areas that are repeat cat neglect offenders, where management refuses to enforce a fixed pet only policy, and where tenants with questionable character are drawn to live. There are several such complexes on Sycamore and Circle Blvd in close proximity. So the cat problem continues in that area.