Seven More Fixed

I over did it yesterday.  Big time.

So last night I was exhausted and in one of those moods where you don't want anyone to say a word.  I just wanted my bed.  It's not like I see many people anyway, which is probably good, when I get that tired.  I'm more likely to fire off.

Ganji has ringworm.  He's the last cat I caught at that old woman's house in Lebanon who wouldn't feed them.  That means he couldn't go for barn cat placement.  I meant to have him tested too, when fixed, because he's so thin, and with the ringworm.  It's not normal an adult cat has ringworm like that.  Might mean he's got a disease.  Or it could just be from starvation.  He sure is eating up a storm now. Or it could be he was sleeping somewhere with lots of spores, like under some house.

But it complicates things.  Ordinarily, I'd send him right back where he came from, if disease free, and let the ringworm, a fungus and common in the valley, self limit and it would.  But he's not wanted where he came from and wasn't getting food.  So he'll get tested Thursday, at the latest, at Heartland.  If he is free of disease, he'll have to get over his ringworm in my garage, which means I'll have to figure out a way to keep it cool for two months.  Sometimes these things happen.

I'd hoped his hair loss was from fleas.  But I had a feeling, and kept him apart from any other cat.  Course the spores can be airborne.

Yesterday, after netting the three adults in the trailer, I went to Sweet Home to pick up a second unwanted boy at the same place the orange girl and her five kittens came from.  All the adults there also are tamish.  Bobbi and Big Ben both went to my barn cat placement friend after their neuters yesterday.  Ganji was supposed to go also, but he couldn't with ringworm.

Ben

Bobbi

I was in search yesterday of a 7th cat since I had seven reservations.  Two people who have had traps for some time, to feed in, failed to catch their cats.  Second week failures.  So I headed to a new situation way out in the hills.  I'd been called by the older couple's daughter in law and for some reason, thought this was going to be a fancy property.   It's way out there, in the hills between Scio and Lacomb.

I finally found the property, no neighbors even close, a gate by the main two lane road, then up a hill through a clear cut to a place.  To be honest I didn't get much of a look, because the moment I stepped out of the car, yellow jackets swarmed me.   I had not been warned there was such a severe problem.  I was in capris and open sandals.

I probably smelled like canned cat food and tuna, from my time in the trailer that morning, trying to catch the adults, then resorting to a net in the end.

The older woman came out with a fizzling can of bee spray. It was almost empty and she looked like she'd about had it.  She carried the can like a gun, trying to defend herself and me too.  It was hopeless.  We had a brief conversation about the cats and this too is a removal and I can see why.  Someone had dumped a little pregnant girl out there, in the middle of nowhere, to die, only she found these folks and had kittens and now they are teens.  By now those cats must be being driven insane by the yellow jackets.

I left a trap rigged so it couldn't spring, instructed her to feed in it, only dry and only at night.  And ran for it, yellow jackets everywhere, stinging me and even in my hair.

I had been stung three or four times, and had to get out of there.  I drove down the hill from their place, but I had closed the gate behind me when I came in, as I always have done, since childhood, ingrained in me, "always close a gate".  I got out to open the gate to leave and was attacked again by yellow jackets, this time on my face, got two stings on my nose alone.

Yellow jackets were also in my car.  I would stop when I saw another buzzing at a window and get it out.

I went to the Scio store and asked for ice, explained what had happened.  I have had occasional allergic reactions to yellow jackets stings.  I didn't think I would this time because I'd taken an antihistamine that morning.  But I wanted to stop the swelling of the stings on my nose and one on my arm.  They even opened a package off the shelf of small zip lock bags to fill with ice for me.  The checker had had her own problems with yellow jackets.  It's because of the heat and lack of water, said on the news.

The old couple's son and daughter in law are hiring pest control she told me, after I messaged her about what happened, to kill the yellow jackets.  I felt so bad for that older couple, way out there, in this heat, with such a problem.  I felt sorry for those cats and wanted to get them out of there fast too.

So then it was back to the trailer park, after the 7th cat.  I was not about to give up.  There were still three wild kittens needing caught there, plus one male.  And a couple dozen already fixed cats that would fill the next hours with frustration and entertainment.   This was a drop trap job, after pre feeding, not a last ditch hope the fixed cats don't go in the trap desperation job.  I ultimately failed to catch any of the three wild kittens.

I caught a possum though, turned it loose.

I gave up finally and drove across the road, as a last ditch thought, still after the  7th cat to fill my 7 reservations.  This was where over a month ago, kittens had been seen in the parking lot.   And I saw kittens almost immediately crouched against a curb near the brush.  These were not the same kittens seen a month before.  Those were tabbies, with a young tabby mom.  This was a muted torti and an orange.  They looked pathetic.

Kittens against a curb in a parking lot

Took 20 minutes to catch the little orange mackerel tabby, who turned out to be a girl.  They'd run off into the brush when I got out of my car.

I never caught the torti.  I hope to do so soon.

I got home at 11:30 p.m. and still had chores to do.  So bed didn't come til 1:00 a.m., then I had to get up again to go to the clinic at 5:30 a.m.  Fortunately I got three hours of sleep in once I got home from the clinic and I went to bed very very early last night.

I'll be off on sleep for a couple days.  Last night, in the night, I woke to the strangest hacking sort of sound. I'm sure it was one of my cats trying to get up a hairball, but in my sleepy brain, I began to wonder if another possum had dropped through the cat yard wire and made it through the maze of runs into the house and now was living in here.  I did see two more outside night before last.  I'm going to trap them.  A friend with a large property, has said she'll take them.

Lots of animals seem desperate this year, from the heat and lack of water.  And then there's the yellow jacket issue too, from heat and lack of water. Smoke now clouds the valley skies from various forest fires, along with dust thick in the air from grass seed farmers turning under the dirt.  It can make a person choke.

I went to the clinic with seven cats, the two girls and one boy  I netted at the trailer park, Midnight, Kitt and Bubba, two boys from Sweet Home, Big Ben and Bobbi, and Ringworm Ganji from Lebanon, plus the parking lot kitten, Scooter.  I came back with five, because Big Ben and Bobbi went to my friend to place, and in the morning I'll return the three trailer park adults.   The little orange girl, Scooter, from the parking lot, can't go back there and now Ganji is in the garage. 

By net, by trap, through yellow jackets swarms and sleep deprivation, I got my seven cats!