Trouble Kittens

You don't get much done with kittens in the house--underfoot, crying for attention, playing, wanting fed. Boy. These polydactyls are really funny, but also a lot of work. Add the three bedroom ferals from Safehaven and the four bottle babes, with mom, and, well, lots more work here lately. I just don't get much sleep during kitten season.

I went out after cats this afternoon. I got my quota and then some. There is a situation in west Albany some neighbors have been working on. They have it mostly contained but there are five or six more needing fixed. Myself and the little girl living there, ten years old, whom I think I've turned into a cat trapper, trapped two of their cats--a buff orange male and a short hair black tux.

I also checked at an old situation south of Albany. I'd gotten tiffed over my own issues and exhaustion, the usual suspects and left that situation over a year ago. I think I got tiffed because I kept coming back to trap the ferals and they wouldn't be there and their own cats would be out, making it impossible. Then I lost their number, as I already have again, something I'm good at doing, but I found their place.

Yes, they still have unfixed cats. I trapped two tonight from there. So I have four, two from Albany, two from south of Albany, plus the male from highway 34, who is going to a new home after his neuter, and the folks down near the bar off Old Salem finally grabbed that stray male they've been feeding. They have made friends with him and stuck him in a carrier tonight. So I have six, plus one trap still set. Plenty of cats for tomorrow's vet appointments, that's for sure.

I got caught up tonight in watching the Alaska Experiment marathon. Kind of tough going, those four volunteer families are facing trying to support themselves while living a winter in the bush of Alaska. One couple has gone pretty much stark raving mad with cabin fever. Comes from isolation. They're seeing things, hearing things, it's really sad. They were successful in a hunt to secure winter's food, but, seems the woman got sick off the goat meat and has been ill.

A father and his two adult daughters also are facing some interpersonal conflicts but doing fairly well. They canned a lot of salmon which is holding them through, but failed at a moose hunt to secure meat for the winter.

Another couple is having maybe the worst time of it. They are living in a wall tent on a bay. They only caught and canned a few salmon, failed at a moose hunt, and have almost no food to last them.

The third group is three friends living in the best cabin of all of them. They were successful in a goat hunt to secure protein for the winter, but got into trouble on a 40 mile hike to visit the couple living on the glacier. I finally gave up on the marathon a few minutes ago. Anyhow, there are only two episodes left, so my guess is, since winter has barely begun, that they all give up and go home. Otherwise, there would be far more episodes in the series you'd think.

Makes one think, how would we survive if each one of us had to fend for ourselves in securing food, shelter, medical treatment, etc? Well, with populations the way they are now, I don't think the wild game would last long, to be honest. If a natural disaster or war destroyed our own gardens and local farms, we would be, very very quickly, in deep trouble. So shows like this make me think, how could we survive.

I think what I would do, would be go the easy route and make a little worm farm. Worm burgers are very high in protein, you know, and small worm farms can be created quickly and easily. I suppose that'd be my approach. Kind of yukky but I bet I'd get used to it.

Bugs are very high in protein, too, so maybe I would make a beetle farm. Maybe I'd make both a beetle farm and a worm farm. What would I do for vegees? Hmmm, not sure. I'll have to think on that. Many part of the pine tree are edible. I remember that, at least. Mountain sorrel--edible, camas--edible, um then there are all the berries, but those are so seasonal. Well anyhow.

The BSO3 people have some geese and those eggs are huge. They sell them to a woman who puts a pin hole in them, and drains them of their innards, then dries them, then paints beautiful artwork on the shell. But you could subsist on one of those huge eggs a day if you had to.

I hooked up with a couple from Minnesota during my own Alaska experiment. They were trying to subsist off the land, but actually the woman had a good paying job, which made this much easier. They bought lots of supplies with the money she made that allowed them to live off the land, like livestock feed. They had chickens, rabbits and a couple of cows. When I hooked up with them, I'd been living in a shack that was 8x10 feet big. Yup, that's right. Kind of cozy.

Plastic tarp for a roof. Old piece of plywood for a door, with a string for a latch/lock. About 3/4 mile hike down a winding trail to the nearest road. I finally hauled up one piece of plywood for the roof and put in an old sheet metal wood stove I found at the dump. But, you had to be right on top of it almost to feel the heat and it got really cold--minus 55 with the windchill. I made the mistake of going to bed with my boots on, I was so cold. That made things worse, since the boots restricted circulation.

I'd go into the Harbor Master once a week to take a shower. Grungy, huh? Showering once a week. When the hot water hit my frozen feet I about went through the roof. I had early stage frostbite on three toes. I had to cut out part of my boot after that because I could not stand the pain of my boot touching my toes. I did not lose function of my toes, thankfully. they had turned a pale shade of gray.

I cut wood with a handsaw and hauled it back to my cabin, as I called it, on a piece of corrugated aluminum I'd found. I'd punched two holes in one end of it and run a rope through both, knotting the ends, and used that as a harness for this makeshift sled. The wood I cut was all deadfall.

I used the Resurrection River as my refrigerator, if there was no snow. I had a waterproof container and sunk it into the river, but I had to watch the levels and sometimes the edges of the river would freeze.

Anyhow, the Minnesotans were interesting people. They were big time pot smokers and grew their own. This was one reason they came to Alaska. I ended up milking Annabelle twice daily in exchange for room and board. I lived in the unheated quonset hut on their property. I had a really warm sleeping bag rated to minus 60 or something. Chickens would come into the quonset hut to stay warm and lay eggs in my hat. Sometimes porcupines also came in.

Milking Annabelle was ok, except it took a long time when she was giving like five gallons, right after she'd birthed. We sold that milk. I'd strain it first, through cheese clothe, into a gallon jar. Then let the cream rise and carefully dip it off. We'd sell that separate. We had a frig on the porch of their house and it was the honor system. The milk sold for $3 a gallon.

We made cottage cheese and sour cream with it, too. We made ketchup and salsa from high and low bush cranberries and pancake syrup and jam from blueberries.

Then there was a big flood while they were gone and I was very ill with the flu. I had to go underwater to cut the cows free, where they were staked out down along the Salmon River which had jumped its banks. Another year or so after that, the barn burned and the Minnesotans went home to Minnesota. I came back to Oregon.

Both of them were really determined to try to make it up there, subsist that is, by making, growing as much of what they used as they could. It was a privilege to learn so much from them and share in their endeavor.