Yet Another Long Day

I'd gotten another referral, this time from a WA based barn cat placement group, to trap at the Lebanon chicken colony.  No way, I thought.

This time its the renter.  She is leaving in a week but fed the cats in the brief time she was there.   Unfixed ones, three adults and five older kittens.   Last spring, when the landlady had called me again about the colony, of course wanting me to do it all including find them all homes, I had told her to have the renter call me.  That never happened so I let it go.

Before---a year ago or so, I trapped three at the then empty rental trailer, found them placements, and five across the street where the old couple feed them.   But it wasn't easy, not with nobody at the other property willing to watch traps, the free roaming chickens uncared for by the neighbor who "owned" them getting in traps, oh man it was just a crazy dysfunctional mess.

Now its a mess again.  I have not seen any of the adults but one big male, who loves the kittens.   I trapped two of them Thursday but then the others vanished.  The usual there.  I left the drop trap set up and Friday once again, and already tired, went to the coast clinic.  This time I took Huckleberry who had not seen a vet since initially spayed, as an adult, back in 2013.

Above and below, the two tabby teens caught at the chicken colony in Lebanon 

And I took Teddy, one of my old boys, who hadn't been to the vet since 2014 when he'd had seven teeth pulled.

Teddy is now over 12 years old.  I'm trying to get the old boys in because if they get too old and decrepit, they can't go under anesthesia anymore.

Teddy and Huckleberry each had one extraction and their teeth cleaned, convenia injections and updated on shots and worming.

Waiting in the little X Ray room for the vet.  Huckleberry on left, Teddy on right.

Both checked out still in good health.  Teddy is here from a Corvallis homeless camp along with his sister, Starr.  I had a third cat here from that homeless camp---Honey, who died last year of multiple organ failure the vet attributed to cancer.  They're not young.

The trip took its toll on me.  I did get to bed fairly early Thursday night but not early enough, woke at 3:00 a.m., stayed up and was off by 4:30 a.m.  Once at the clinic, I waited in a long line of people checking in for surgery or drop in appointments with various dogs of all shapes and breeds and sizes and cats.  I was ushered into a small exam room, that seconds as their Xray room, to wait for the pre surgery vet appointment, and nearly fell asleep in the chair.  I looked at that Xray table, short sure, to accommodate nothing bigger than a large dog, but sure was tempted to lay out on it for a nap.

I went straight to a beach parking lot then, and slept in the back of the car.  I slept very very hard, dreaming a lot, mostly cat horror dreams, for two hours.  I didn't take my mattress so I woke up stiff and sore from the hard board in the back I lay on to sleep.

This was my feet, after I woke up, and was sitting up, sideways in the back, looking out at the rain.

I was still tired but the cats were done by three and I headed home.  However traffic through Portland extended the trip by an hour at least.  It was really terrible.

I pulled in then at the rest area, to use the bathroom and was horrified by the swarms of homeless young folk out front of the restrooms pan handling.   They were not the usual crowd there, who try to stay out of sight, mostly, sleeping in old cars at the second parking area.  These were twenty somethings and not shy about panhandling and I think the van parked right in front of the restrooms brought most of them there. 

I didn't even want to get out of the car.  Finally I saw several other women headed together to the rest room and joined in right behind them.

I got home early enough, before 7:00 p.m. and don't even recall going to bed but I did, immediately.  I woke at 3:00 a.m. briefly, to find I'd left the garage door open and all the lights on, remedied that, went back to bed.  In all I slept 11 hours!!!

Feel good today, not groggy at all, happy in fact, after a very productive week.  However, I don't want to drive through Portland again.  That's a nightmare I can't really handle when I am already tired. 

Tomorrow I'll try to trap the other three teens in Lebanon and hopefully the adults too.

It's not even the end of September and may freeze here.  There is snow falling in the mountains.  And it's cold.  Insane.