Rain, Color and Cats

  

Been pouring here in Oregon.  Sometimes the rainstorms roll in with wind that whines and moans around the edges of the houses, like its looking for something or someone it can't find and the wind is not happy, and on the edge of rage over it.

The wind bends and sways the trees, bored with the wait now, for spring to come with its glorious bursts when the trees can dress up and flower out and show off to one another and sing with the birds and wave and smile.   But spring isn't here and the wait is getting to all things alive and ready.

So the wind comes and at least its something, an adventure for the bare trees, like we humans dive straight down snow covered slopes--for a thrill.

I can't say I don't like these storms because I do.  I like watching nature sound off. The raging wind bending the trees makes my heart beat.  The drenching rains make me gulp for air and note the nearest mountain like the sky will drown us all if it could, if it wanted to and everywhere I look is water.  I know the sky too well and I know it has its anger but I also know it will check itself here, where I live at least. Here the sky loves the color green and is careful with its excesses because it is  proud of its work, conservative and controlled.   I turn my cheek up so the sky can more easily pound on my face but all I feel is a wet massage that tickles and makes me laugh.   

Inside, I create my own color with cans of paint.  I love color.  I like change.   Now the north wall is lime green and I can't stop admiring it.

So I took another picture this morning.  Those cats are one family. I didn't notice when I took the photo.  The two girls are seriously strange, Echo atop the cat tree, and her sister Fantasia on the dresser.  Meesa, the calico atop the green cabinet on the right, is their mother.  Although the girls remain close, except when they're fighting and they do so often, they are not close to their mother, who is far more sane.  Echo and Fantasia are obsessive, possessive and if they had been born humans with their personalities, would long ago have either been locked up for major crimes of revenge or jealousy or have their own reality show.

The Lebanon colony cats are still here, still waiting for homes.  Most could now be placed as shy house cats, who will come around.  The most obviously progressing of the group are Vino and Huckleberry.  Vino is the laid back surfer boy type, in personality, seen in the photo below on the left.  Nothing bothers him.  Huckleberry on the right, is also laid back.  She is the main support of the colony cats, the one the others want to be near, for comfort or direction.  Huckleberry is curious, trusting, funny and comforting.  Vino likes to sleep with her and so does the young male Willy Wonka, who otherwise, is a loner.  He still wants a mom figure.

Vino and Huckleberry

Hucklberry, Vino behind her.

Willy Wonka, still a momma's boy, but Huckleberry is not his Momma.  He doesn't care and often cuddles with her.

Bluebell, on the left, is the group clown.  She's so funny.  Vino's with her here, inciting a match.

Drama, as Bluebell and Vino play fight.

Mopsy McMuffin is the group little darling.  She's gorgeous and looks like she has make up on.  She's dainty, daring and funny!

I work with these guys daily and I have no doubt I will find more homes.  It just takes time and the right people at the right time knowing about them.

I'm going to add more photos later to this post.  So....stay tuned.

I could do the morning ritual here without a brain by now.  It is repeated at night too.  I get up, start my coffee water heating.  While it heats, I begin cleaning litterboxes.   I scoop dirty litter out into lidded buckets.  When they are full, I take them to the garage, where I sift them.  The solids go into the trash, while the sawdust I later take out to the compost pile.

I fill water and food dishes, and start the daily laundry, which is a lot of cat bedding.  In cycles I rotate by day around the house, washing bedding, so that by weeks end, all has been washed.  It is not hard or complicated as I've down the round the house bedding wash this way for ages.  

I also soak litter boxes and scoops on a rotating basis, so that once a week, all have been soaked in clorox, soap and water outside once then hosed down and dried.

I wash water dishes and food dishes as needed in the morning, too.  Then I sweep the entire house with my dollar store broom, after which I wash it, and let it dry out.  I mop most rooms daily, but sometimes it gets to be every other day.  Usually it's every day.  I sweep at least twice a day.   The cats run in and out to the cat yard many times, and come back in with muddy feet and they don't wipe them first either.  Fortunately, every bit of carpet is gone from this house and every surface is now easily cleanable.  Yay.  

Last year I replaced the square stick on vinyl tiles in the dining room with a single sheet of vinyl flooring.   I am saving up and hope to one day replace the living room stick on vinyl floor tiles, that are meant to only last five years (been on there seven years) with one sheet vinyl.   I never knew it was so easy to do this, until I did it, with the dining room.  It's the cost that is prohibitive.  I buy the cheapest, but it's still about $.80 per square foot.  This can be spendy.  

I buy the type that does not even need glued.  You just line out double sided tape at the perimeter and in lines across it, and roll it out.  It is very simple.   I tack the edges with the metal edging, that has holes to pound a twisty carpet tack into to hold it.

The vinyl squares were so easy to lay down initially, although it takes much more time to do than sheet vinyl.  However, they still allow moisture through around each edge, so any spills or even mopping, will get to the subfloor which here, is particle board, that then can turn to sawdust and swell and press board subfloors suck!!!  It's not even OSB, which is difficult enough with moisture.  It's some kind of press board.   I am not up on proper names, so I tend to call OSB and particle board all press board.

I see apartment buildings being built in Albany right now, OSB sides bare and exposed to all this rain.  Will there be mold later in those walls?  How could there not be?

Long ago, here's one of the age tinted rants so beware, contractors didn't put up buildings in the winter like they do now.  It was considered unethical due to the rain.  But now, ethics are not an inclusion at many workplaces I guess.  Costs are.  And profit.

Anyhow, my morning routine:  Coffee, litter box cleaning, litter sifting, food and water, laundry, dishes, sweep and mop.  The morning routine takes about an hour and a half, unless I get distracted, like this morning, taking photos and web surfing.  Bad bad me!

Electra is ill again.  I figured it would happen.  I smelled the infection before I heard the snorfling in her sinuses.  This is some bad ass deep sinus infection she has and I fear it will spell her end.  She had the convenia injection for pneumonia and got better quickly but I read pneumonia can take months to get over and months of antibiotics too.  The injection lasts ten days to two weeks.   I just don't have the money.  To get another, with the exam fee, probably looking again at over $150.  I'll do the best I can.