Sunday, January 02, 2011

More Cat Photos

A Christmas tradition here, decorating my nonfunctional wood stove's pipe with Christmas cards!
I did not put up a tree this year, knowing it would be destroyed within an hour by my exuberant teen crowd, but I put up the usual cable lights on the inside and hung some outside too, along with the usual Christmas stockings and bells everywhere. I love bells and I love Christmas stockings.
Dex, taken today.
Dex and all the cats love to sleep in the cat beds I put in a discarded refurbished baby diaper changing station I found free at a garage sale.
Brambles, a herpes cat, who loves kittens, from the HTN colony. He's with me for life. He's a kitten greeter and loves nothing more than to cuddle with rescued kittens.
Big Zach.
Gretal, who has been here since late 2006. I moved here in February 2007. In November 2006, I was headed to the Santiam Rest Area, where a Safehaven employee, Christiana, had asked me to help trap cats abandoned there and running around in the parking lot. I was driving on Highway 34, coming from Corvallis, unaware I was soon to be evicted by my evil slumlord in Corvallis, headed to I5 then the rest area when I saw them: two teens huddled together walking shoulder to shoulder along the edge of highway 34. I could not believe it. I continued to the rest area and told Christiana about them. Seems some woman had showed up at Safehaven wanting to leave two tortis and an orange tabby and became extremely agitated and angry when they said they couldn't take them. An hour after that, Safehaven began getting calls about the pair along the edge of the highway just across from Safehaven. I caught the cats at the rest area and that night, began a three day struggle to find and catch those poor teens. I ended up camping out along highway 34 in a freezing windstorm.

I caught Hansel, the little boy, after seeing him huddled in the freezing temps in the grass. I thought he was alone, but when he moved, I saw he was on top of his sister, Gretal, to keep her warm and shelter her from the blasts of howling freezing wind. I could not let him down, after I caught him, and not protect his sister. Hence the three day camp out along that highway. I made shelters and put them along the fenceline for her, all to protect a skinny starving sick kitty from that horrendous cold. In the process, I caught a friendly tame black cat, who eventually made her way to Cat Adoption in Sherwood and got a home from there.

In the end, I caught Gretal and she has been with me ever since, even through the horrendous days that followed for me, facing eviction, then the unknown, because the furnace at my Corvallis shack failed and because my slumlady was like the grinch. I love Gretal and she is here for life.
Meesa, mother of the Quirkies, loves it here and has carved out a niche of her own.
Echo, one of Meesa's four kittens. Echo's two brothers, Chaos and Wild Willy, were adopted by a Lebanon family. Echo and Fantasia, the two girls, along with their mother, Meesa, remain here.
Simba, one of Sage's four boys. Three of whom are still here waiting for homes, along with mother Sage.

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