Five Cats Fixed Today

Well, I ended up working all day, dawn to dark, actually, delivering cats home and picking more up. The Millersburg business kept trapping more. First the big male Stu, whom I then took up to be fixed. I'd already delivered three cats to be fixed. Two are from an Albany apartment. I'd already taken in 15 to be fixed from that apartment. Many of those now reside with a friend of hers out in Crabtree. He was supposed to bring the last two in for an appointment a week ago, but was a no show. So she went out and got the pair, a brother and sister who had been "doing it". They were fixed today. She was preggie by her bro.

The female feral trapped at the Albany business was also pregnant. She was fixed today.

That guy trapping there went high tech on me. He set up his hunting camera. A hunting digital comes with a motion detector that causes the camera to begin taking photos, at a predetermined interval. So, using that camera, he determined there are only two more cats that need fixed---the one fixed today, and a black one he also thinks is a female. I lust after one of those cameras now. Ah, I'd just lose it.

I first saw one when I was trapping at Hull Oaks. I knew there were cougars roaming near and maybe right on the mill grounds. Well, one very early weekend morning, a repair worker showed up and showed me the photos he had got on his hunting camera just an hour before and a quarter mile from where we stood. He'd drug a roadkill deer carcass to the side of his yard because he felt a cougar was in his yard nights. Sure enough, the camera captured images of a lactating female eating on the carcass.

A few months later, a young male cougar was found dead near Bellfountain Park, which isn't too far east of the mill. He'd been killed in a brutal bloody fight with an older male cougar. These territorial battles between males are vicious and often fatal for the younger male.

People have been all astir over that young cougar who showed up in the N. Corvallis residential district. That district spread north right into established cougar range. I know because I saw a cougar up there once when hiking. But now, that area is all houses. So, you know, too bad. They're everywhere, just usually not seen, unless you're really paying attention and then, it's rare to see a cougar, although they often are watching us privately.

I think some of them watch us intently and may keep life lists and compare them in "The Human Watching Society" meetings every now and then.

"You mean you haven't seen a middle aged overweight half black half Asian bald unicycle riding human yet? OMG, you just have to see one of those. They're so unusual! Try Bald Hill park on a Saturday, about 3:30ish! That's when they usually come out. You'll get a better look at that amazing colored belly on the rough spot half way up the south side, where they usually tumble several times."

Added in with those three, fixed today, were two more from the Millersburg business--the big male "Stu" and Samantha, the pregnant teen. Not caught--Samantha's brother. He'll go in next week. At least both females of that four cat colony and the big bad lovable tom Stu are fixed.

Stu's going home tomorrow.

These were all good fixes. Long day but I'm a happy camper, outside of the fiasco with the Mansion people. But Mansion people will be mansion people and there's no sense losing any sleep over their behavior.

I've been working to complete more cat runs. The cats love them, but always want more of me. Isn't that the way it goes?