Monday's Cat Catch

I ended up in Sweet Home, Sunday afternoon, in pouring rain, to try to get cats to fill my clinic spots.  Heartland had said I could bring seven.  I had six at the Salem clinic.

I'd bugged Heartland about spots for a Tangent woman who claimed to have a barn full. I had alerted her Saturday we could get many of hers done at Heartland Monday.  She didn't tell me to forget it that she was going on vacation.  She should have, because that's what happened.  She strung me out and ultimately bailed out.  So then I was up a creek.   Can't do that to a clinic, make reservations and be a no show. 

That's how I ended up in Sweet Home in the pouring rain.  Car loaded in traps.

I caught 11 there.  There were at least two more in that colony needing caught but they didn't show up or they would now be recuperating in my garage also.  I'd taken some plastic to cover the traps when set to protect them from the rain.

I had only caught one cat--Howard, from the Lebanon complex, thus far.

Now I had 12 and someone else was trapping in Albany.  I hope she'd catch at least one.  She didn't.

But she did take six of the cats to the Salem clinic for me Monday morning, so I could deliver six others to Heartland in Corvallis to be fixed.  Heartland was done with the cats by noon, so I picked them up there, brought them home, then headed directly to Salem, to have lunch with a friend who lives near McMinnville.  Then off to the clinic to pick up the six fixed there.  I was tired, dragging seriously, when I got home.  I collapsed on my bed and slept three hours fully clothed.

Anyhow, this morning I'll take all 12 back to their locations.

Here are their photos.

This is Howard from Lebanon

Now the 11 from Sweet Home.

Bugs, the torti kitten, and Samurai, who turned away from the camera, her brother, are the two smallest kittens at the colony.

Samurai

There are four kittens a bit older than Bugs and Samurai.   This is a very sweet boy teen Josi.

The other three in that age group--all girls.  This is Pickle.

This beauty is Twill

And Dill, Pickle's lookalike sis

One adult boy in the mix I caught.  The other two I think are both boys were off somewhere.

Gates

Then there are four under weight adult girls in the mix.  I wish they'd feed them better.  Food is just thrown out on a board.  No rain protection.  Then her little dog is always out, eating the cats food.

Cinnamon, the beautiful torti, is now fixed. 

Sugar, the tabby tux sweet girl, now fixed too.

Rosemary, a very small tabby on white medium hair girl, now fixed.

Posey, a charming black and white girl.

So anyhow, it was a good Monday for mid valley cats.   There are, like I say, two more, one I know is a male, maybe the other one is too, but that's for later.  The neighbor had a female with kitten show up too who need caught.

For now though, 12 more area cats fixed and that can only be good.

You know what's funny about Oregon, even though everybody pretends to politically fight, probably like everywhere?  It's the culture. 

When I'm out trapping, I meet so many interesting people from all walks of life.  Maybe we're all different, and we are, but we have so much in common too.

Pot has always been a big deal in Oregon, hidden away mostly, when it wasn't legal.  The hippies came here in droves in the sixties and seventies, like this was their mecca, and hid their pot fields in second story forests and fields  Now those hippies are old and many are rich but they're still hippies at heart.  And those grows are still out there, only now mostly ignored, even if not a registered commercial operation.

Pot's accepted and legal now. Now you can grow pot in your yard if you want, and people talk about how they cure this or that with pot in some form.   Across all political landscapes, from rednecks to yuppies (the well-off hippies), from anarchists to loggers, to the average joe's, people get high, or drink wine in their overalls or carharts or have their favorite local beer. Wine is big here too and so is beer, home brewed or specialty.   We should forget divisive politics in Oregon.  We're so much the same here.  People also like their coffee and their out of doors and everyone is skeptical of big corporations and big government. The government says corporations have the status of human beings and we don't buy it here.  You can't pin down anyone to a certain box and slap on a label.

Some day, long from now, when most of our area or the world has been destroyed by something, a meteor or volcanic eruption or whatever, and civilization has sprouted again and archaeologists are digging up old cultures, they'll find skeletal remains wrapped around pot pipes and bongs, or with skeleton arms wrapped around cats and speculate about the peculiar culture of the Pacific tribe once called Oregon.

I don't get stoned.  I don't ride a bike down rural roads from one winery to the next, tasting the fruits of each's labor with many others.   I don't visit breweries or have home brew equipment.  I do have cats.  I do have precious books gleaned from free stacks or library sales or thrift stores. 

My favorite thing in the world is, after a long day, to lay on my back on my bed in the dark, one small lamp clicked on, reading, surrounded by my cats, with the stars shining bright through my curtainless Oregon window.