How?

How did the tree hold up in the severe winds that tore through the valley on Saturday?   I stood out in my driveway by the car half the day, in awe, watching the trees bend and whip under the force of the gale blowing through.

Mary's Peak, over west of Corvallis, registered a 91 mph gust.

I'd moved my car to my driveway near the street so branches wouldn't hit it if they fell from the maple and crashed across the driveway or onto the garage.

Only one branch ripped and fell from the maple, and not the damaged branch, but another, farther up.  It came straight down, like a spike or an arrow from the sky, and pierced the cat yard wire, tearing through it.  But in the end, the wire caught on it and held, so it hung from the damaged wire a few feet off the ground.

I went out in the wind, wearing my bike helmet for safety and chased all the cats inside from the cat yard and closed the cat yard off to them, making them none too happy.  Later when the wind died just a little, I pulled the fallen branch through to the ground inside the cat yard.  Still later, I cut it up with my Sawzall and its now in the seasoning bin, for campfires next summer out somewhere.

The power flickered off twice during the day, but came back on.   I didn't care if there was power or not, one way or the other, wouldn't affect me much having none.

Yesterday morning, after a night of confinement, the cats were snarly and grumpy and I got up early to repair the yard wire, so I could let them out (get them out).

I've been trying to create an Amazon account for the nonprofit, so I can publish ebooks and maybe make some money for it, since nothing else is working to raise funds.  But I ran headlong into the tax form issue.  I have to fill it out as if I am Poppa Inc.  But no matter what way I filled it out, it came back as invalid, so that I guess Poppa Inc's president is the only one authorized on the IRS to create an account as Poppa Inc.  Or something.

I e-mailed Poppa's president then, and am still hoping she might reply and we could make a solution so I can try this route to make money for the cats.   It'd be easy if she'd just create the account, and do the quick tax form, I bet, but that'd be if she is inclined and has the time.

But she's not that much of a communicator either, so I dare say I'm likely up a creek, and I haven't seen her in a year or has it been longer?  May have been longer.  But she is the parent company and me the affiliate, without a say, without the ability to esign anything as Poppa Inc.  I'm itching to try my hand at ebook publication and to do it for the nonprofit, in other words, to profit nothing myself, but the  money going for the cats food, litter and vet care.  Something we all need here, since nothing else is working at all.

The sun is out today.  Go figure.  No wind either.  Too bad I didn't sleep last night after pumping my stepper machine too long and inflaming my back.  I forgot to take Aleve, thought I was like 30 years old again or something, and that an hour pumping that hill climber would be nothing.

So no sleep and now I can't keep my eyes open and the sun is out and it's winter here, in Oregon, so that sun is a rare sight indeed.  But that's for those with open eyes.  Not me, not today.

I can't wait til next Tuesday.  Election day.  And, hopefully, my mailbox will no longer get stuffed with useless expensive campaign fliers.  I don't even read them.  What a waste.   Here was one's days worth from last week:

Viktor still waits at Heartland for a home.