Long Hours at BS again

I again went out to the BS to try to trap anybody unfixed. I had tried to call her since the report of another unfixed female with kittens, living at the horse barn neighbors next door. Finally last night, I got ahold of her and went out, but this time was told of yet another female with kittens in the old junked cars in the cow field.

I went out and looked in the cars and the first thing I saw, in the old van, was a long dead cat, skin turned to leather, but some fur still attached to the frame. It was Moldy2.

Moldy2 has been missing a long time. She got a home very briefly here in town, with the apartment complex managers in the complex next to where I live. But then they got a kitten from a friend of theirs and returned Moldy2 to the BS. They were assholes, the caretaker lady said, to promise her a home then return her when they get a kitten. Assholes.

The BS people, when I told them I found her ancient remains in the old van, figure the dogs got her, but that she got away before they killed her outright, and went in the van to die. The only rich people on the dead ender have very mean labs who kill anything and like doing it.

I looked in another old car and saw two kittens laid out. They're older than the BS kittens here, Wily, Cajun and Pongo. I thought they were dead, laid out on their sides, so still, but they looked freshly dead or maybe they could be saved, I thought, and creaked open the rusty frozen door. But this action on my part prompted response in those kittens, who jumped up and each dropped through a seperate rusted out hole in the car corpse interior.

Gone!

I set two traps and caught their mom, a BSO1 cat (BS Overflow1--meaning the house next to BS original). I knew it was their cat, one she feeds, because she'd told me back last fall, she fed two tabby on whites and I only caught one of them. I'd been worried about that ever since, but she had told me they were both fixed, later on and I guess I hoped she'd gotten it done herself. Fat chance though. The folks on this street are not action types.

I went over to her place. She has an unfixed tame brown tabby tux male, too, and all the kittens so far, except Pongo, look like him and she needs to fix that boy. Anyhow, I told her, happily actually, I'd caught her gray tabby on white female, who'd had kittens in the old cars in the cow field behind their shop. She immediately became belligerent and defensive, claiming none of these cats are hers and she can tell me who is the cause of all this. She was itching to start in about L's faults and all the blame due the BS original caretakers. I wasn't prepared for her snarling blame shifting. I just thought she would be happy I caught that female.

I told her "I am sick of you people blaming each other on this, and then turning it all on me, none of you contributing anything, not even effort to help solve this problem because you like blaming each other too much."

I still live in a delusional wish it could be world, where neighbors help neighbors and everyone loves one another or at least respects one another, or, if they hate each other, they keep it to themselves somewhat.

They all use the "these aren't my cats, I'll tell you who's to blame" tactic also to avoid paying out one cent in contribution. Has worked out for them, too. I think they teach these tactics in the local school system.

Actually she's got it kind of tough and I don't blame her for spouting off. Latest hubby kind of likes to spend her money, I think, not keep place up. Supposed new shower sits in garage still, years later, bathroom torn up waiting for it. That kind of thing. Well, according to neighbors anyhow, not that we sit around gossiping when I'm out there trapping. Ok, sometimes we do. So anyhow, I can understand frustrations like that, and wanting/needing to blow somewhere. So it's ok.

The horse barn neighbors tell me, too, how much they hate cats and want them all gone. Their dog kills/mangles lots of them. I don't know why people would tell a volunteer who obviously loves cats how much they dislike them and want them gone, when I'm out there on their property trapping cats, helping them out. Seems kind of not very thoughtful, I guess I could say.

I was telling BS original woman how much I admire people who can tolerate their spouse's little annoying habits and body problems and stay together no matter what, work things out, learn to compromise, all that. I said it's like a dying art, the ability to commit like that, to respect another person, to forgive their faults, find ways to make up after fights. It's amazing I think, when people are married for forty, fifty years. The people that can do that, are unbelievable. I can't fathom it. I think it's beautiful and a testament to character. She and her husband have done that, been together forever.

Everybody else on the street has been married a couple times at least, according to neighborhood gossip and the fact most have known each other forever there. Some of them several times. I told BS original woman, "When they complain about you and your cats, you just tell them, "At least I"ve only had one husband." Then I told her, for impact, then just walk off like you're walking on water. Maybe that would shut up the judgement. She laughed.

Well anyhow, I caught two in total, a male and that mother, and this brings the total cats caught out there to a zillion and two.

Yup. A zillion and two.

Last night, way too late, long after I should have been home in bed, I was still sitting out at the BS, talking to the cats, watching traps. I finally went to retrieve the one out in the rusted car graveyard in the cow field. Nothing in it. I began making kittens calls, while trying to avoid stepping in cowpiles. I got answers to my calls, but not from the right species. Sheep began "baaaing" from a field down. Dogs began barking. And, two steers came charging out of the barn and the darkness, kicking up their heels and headed straight for me.

"Whoa," I pleaded. On they charged. I said "I am flattered you find me attractive, but you're neutered and I'm not of your species even if you weren't." I thought I was going to have to leap the electric fence into the berry vines. I held the trap defensively in front of me. I said "I could bop you on the nose with this and I guarantee it would not feel nice." I then leaped over the electric fence and mocked the steers from the other side. They're friendly but just didn't seem to recognize me as friend in the darkness of night and wanted to chase me out of their field.

Earlier in the day, I had an encounter with same fence. I'd forgotten it was there, had been backing up, and felt a sting on my calf. I slapped at it without looking, thinking I was being stung by bee, but then it happened again and again. I looked down and I was standing against the electric fence. Didn't feel that bad.

I told the BS woman later on, they wouldn't need a defibulator out there, that if someone in their household had a heart event, they could just drag the chest area of the person's body across the electric fence.

In other news, the NS vet is coming to Oregon Friday with the whole family. I don't think the clinics, however, will start up right away. They're still organizing Oregon clinics and getting dates sealed down. I will be very happy to see them all again. I don't know yet if I will be working clinics. I want to, but I don't know if they want me to.

It was the last Milton Freewater clinic on their last visit that did me in. Four days of clinics, dawn to dark, heavy lifting constant, and at the end, me trying to help clean up, after another 16 or was it 18 hour clinic, I kept collapsing onto the floor. My knee and back would give out. I was in stifling pain for several weeks after those clinics, but I thought it was worth it. I still think that and would do it again.

So I don't know if they are going to ask me to work, because of my physical issues, with my spine and all the heavy lifting involved in the clinics. What I earned in working the clinics got traded back into getting lots and lots of area cats fixed at the NS clinics. I want to be able to have that option. I always did the job of carrying the carriers back and forth, stacking them up, readying them so the cats could be anesthesized and that is kind of hard on someone with spinal cord issues.


As for the alleged collector and her unfixed cats, including four females, the phone number she gave me to call her to set up the day this week to get them in, doesn't work. It's either disconnected or not in service the message state. I'll have to go by there and I sure didn't want to do that. Real hostile neighborhood, neighbor against neighbor type of street. I sure don't want caught in that crossfire.

So anyhow, three cats are up being fixed. Two from the BS--the gray tabby on white mother and another gray tabby male. Also, a tame cat from Albany, mother of kittens fixed last week in Tigard, is being spayed today.