More Cats, Sleeping at the Lake and Knee

I've been taking it fairly easy lately, after the massive numbers of cats and kittens helped this spring and summer, especially those removed to safer places.  And after my knee injury.

My knee was doing so well, too.  I thought.

Then last night I was in Waterloo, again hoping to catch anyone I could of cats left to fend on their own when the camp hosts who cared for them left.

I was just following a friend across the grass, her with the flashlight, me without one.  Suddenly my left foot tripped over some protrusion in the grass and there are a lot of them there.  Felt rooted into the ground, like a rock maybe, something hard.  I started to go off balance and down, and instinctively my right leg tried to save the day by catching the fall and it did, but as my knee bent and strained to pull me out of the fall, there was another pop behind my knee and the severe pain again, was instant.  I could barely walk afterwards.

I was mad at myself.  I should not have worn sandals in the dark.  They don't fit right and I lift my toes up to take a step the front of the sandal doesn't lift and can catch things, like bees, or edges of rugs or rocks in the dark.  Discouragement flooded me last night as I tried in vain to sleep.

We caught a cat up there but it was a Waterloo Residential colony cat, long fixed and ear tipped and what was she doing so far from her home up in town, to be down where she was.  Hungry, my guess.

this is her last night

I still have Camelia the muted calico from Mountain Shadows.  My friend who places barn cats has space now but didn't want to come get her unless I had other cats to go too.   I felt it a good time to reduce the numbers at the Albany colony, as there have been complaints lately.  So I set traps and caught two in the night.  Low and behold one of the two has no ear tip.  She or he will be fixed and move on.  The other is one of the many fixed last November.

This Albany colony kitty, who will move on to barn placement, has no ear tip, so will be fixed tomorrow.  I was not shocked to catch an unfixed cat there, despite already catching 22 cats at that location, 17 of whom returned after fixed.  

This guy was fixed last November and will move on to barn placement.   The woman who feeds them is nearly 90 years old now.

So Camelia and the two Albany colony kitties will move on tomorrow, the one after being fixed. Also being fixed tomorrow--Big Max, a stray in Albany and 3 wild things from Brownsville.

Big Max is a huge half tame very angry very stinky male.  About time he got fixed.

I went up to the lake Friday with my raft, no camera or anything, spur of the moment.  But I was so tired by the time I was out on the lake all I could think about was a nice long nap.   You can imagine, then, how happy I was, to spot a piece of old dock, washed against the shore, bobbing with the waves of countless boats.  All the beaches were crammed in people and there was nowhere else I might lay for a nap.  This shore is not accessible to people.  Perfect, I thought, and rowed over.

I tied the raft to one end and climbed onto the dock.  I knew that piece of dock.  It had been farther north along the same shore the last time I was up there, on the move, like a piece of driftwood.  I had no towel, but I did have a windshield sun reflector I was using to keep the sun off my legs when I rowed.  It was hot, near 100 degrees out, but I was sun screened up.

I lay on the reflector, reflective side down, and used my life jacket as a pillow.  I pulled my hat over my face and leaned the 3 foot Styrofoam paddle board I have with me, over me too, as a shield against the sun's rays.  Then I slept, even dreamed, and would wake suddenly to loud noises, from boats, and take some time to come out of the haze of dreams to remember where I was.

I wanted to get up, be productive, row around, maybe swim, but I was too weak to do so, in the motivation department, and the allure of sun dappled sleep on a rocking bed, sound of water everywhere, was too much to overcome and I napped again, off and on, for hours.  I would sit up now and then, when boat wakes violently rocked the dock and sent my raft nearly up onto it, and hang my feet into the water, and kick at the water and splash water onto the dock to cool it, or just for the heck of it.

I'm not sorry I spent the day napping on the lake.  Not one bit.  It was easy and enjoyable and dreamy.

I forgot to add, before when I wrote the blog, these two photos of Rogue, a beautiful playful boy.  I took this through my garage window, as I sat with coffee inside, and looked out through it up at him in one of the cat runs.