Six More Fixed and Leaf Wars Take Their Toll

I'm fighting the battle now.  Big time.  The leaves are falling and I'm trying not to get buried in them.

This means an almost constant battle, trying to get them out to the street.

We have three leaf pickups here.  Each pickup spans a two week period and I don't know during that two weeks when the leaf pickup people will come.  The first two week period begins November 5 and I have a pile out there ready and waiting.

I have to remove them from the top of the cat yard wire too.  Not easy.  And clean them from the gutters.  I spent hours cleaning gutters a few days ago.  Gloppy, icky job, I tell you.  I move the ladder a few feet, climb up, slop out the gutter as far as I can reach, with a gloved hand, climb down, move the ladder a few feet, climb up, repeat.  Over and over and over.

After awhile, I'm dazed out, in another world, glazed over.

I even considered a short nap on the ladder, when it was at just the right angle, and I leaned my head against a rung.  Then I came to my senses.  Napping on a ladder, not a good idea.

I rake them in the yard and dump them on a small plastic tarp and drag the tarp to the curb and dump the pile onto the bigger pile just off the curb on the street.

I did take a break from the leaf fight to take six more cats to be fixed Monday.  I took another from the south Albany trailer park.  I had two reservations saved for them, they'd known that for two weeks and they had four more cats needing fixed but made little effort to catch more than one, so I only had one from there.  Smokey.

Smokey, fixed Monday

The other trailer park across the river came back to haunt me.  She called, the trailer lady, said she had all three kittens inside now and could I come get them fixed.  This is the place where I've had to net adult cats inside her trailer, and spend hours catching outside cats.  I knew one of those three kittens was already fixed and told her so.  I caught him outside under the drop trap.  So there were only two needing done.  I told her to have them ready in a small space.  She said she was ready.

I go over and she's not ready by any means.   I have to chase them down with my net, even move furniture and the washer dryer.  I was already sore from cleaning the gutters.    So I was not very happy with her.  But these are the last two needing fixed there.  11 fixed and she finally got 8 of the kittens into Safehaven for adoption.  So it's all good there now. Both Tempest and Hallow are girls.

Tempest, a teen girl, fixed yesterday

Hallow, another teen girl fixed yesterday

I picked up two in Waterloo from the Sweet Home cat wrangler also.  Finally, the Siamese mom.  Whs had taken in two of her teen kittens earlier and ARCF took in another.   She'd had a single kitten after that, but it died.  Now Luna is fixed, along with another kitten, Minnie, from the same property.

Luna, fixed yesterday too, from Sweet Home

Minnie, a little girl, was also fixed

As I was about to leave Waterloo, with the two cats, and head home, a guy comes to my window.  He has the van parked beside me and it wont' start.  He offers me $20 if I can jump it for him.  I consider it.  My car has three dash lights constantly on now and I wonder if I should be jumping anybody.  I tell him I don't take money for just helping someone out of a jam.  In the back of my mind I am remembering all the times I've had car trouble in the middle of nowhere.   So I get out my jumper cables and he hooks them up.  It's pounding down rain.  But its taking awhile, because his battery needs to charge a bit.   He comes to my passenger side door, opens it, and sticks the $20 under my coat and insists I keep it.  What a nice guy.  Pretty soon he gets his van going, unhooks the cables and I head on out.   I'm excited though, to have an unexpected $20 and I have not eaten all day.  I stop in at Pizza Hut and enjoy their buffet.  It was very wonderful.

I only had five cats, since the Albany trailer park folk only had one, which was kind of lame.  And since the other trailer park lady had two instead of three because one was already fixed.

So I add in Twinkle, the last unfixed kitten in the bathroom, from Sodaville.  She came in a hair over two pounds, so qualified.  And put up the last spot for grabs on a facebook group because I'd had seven reservations.   Ashley, another local trapper, grabbed it up since her parents feed some cats, not all fixed, and they caught a torti and took it up yesterday morning to be fixed.  She endured the backed up traffic too, like I had to, from a wreck.  Stop and go for miles upon miles.

Tiny little Twinkle was spayed yesterday

On the way home, after I picked up all seven cats, including Ashley's torti, I got this suddenly on my phone.

The text alert came with loud screeching.  My phone was somewhere on the passenger side floor and I was scrambling for it with one hand, trying to figure out what imminent danger this time was at hand.  I read only the first two words, since I was driving and immediately ducked, I don't know why.  I guess I figured a tornado must somehow be overhead.   When I saw nothing but blue sky, I stared around awhile, trying to see where this tornado might be.   Well I guess one touched down near Scio or Jefferson or inbetween, which wasn't that far from where I was.

We get these sometimes in the area.  Just small ones, but they sometimes thrash a barn or a few buildings.

I have someone coming Thursday to look at kittens.  I hope they adopt a couple.   They're all so sweet.

Timbers, a little boy

Timbers, Kona and Biscuit

Rowdy

Rowdy, Kona and Biscuit

Biscuit

Have a great evening everyone.