Messed Up

I messed up royal this weekend.

I went at it with a vengence, trapping for today's appointments.  Only I didn't really have appointments today.  I just thought I did because I always do on Mondays.

When I went to make appointments every Monday beyond January, I didn't write them down immediately on my calandar.  When I did write them down, I assumed I'd gotten appointments every Monday.  I had to make those appointments over two months ago.  Late last  night, I suddenly recalled I did not receive a reminder call about my Monday appointments on Friday.  I freaked out. Big time!  I had a garage full of cats by that time.  I'd been unable way back two months ago, to get appointments the first Monday in February because they were already full.  But darn it I'd written down later I did have them.  I messed up.

I have the three girls from Ridgeway in the bathroom.  They had been joined by a young orange and white teen I caught up there Saturday.  That was after I picked up Theresa and went to Cascadia just to check out all the unfixed cats she knew about.  She knows everyone up there.  There are so many properties in Cascadia now that are homeless camps.

This one she had been told had almost 20 cats in a barn and they didn't feed them.  We drove up the driveway, past about four old boats and many old cars, past the actual property owner's place, up the muddy road hill.  Theresa said he rescues boats, the old guy, along with homeless folk, and lets both retire to his property.

Just up around the corner from his place, were several campers with occupants, but the "barn" (a shack) where the cats were supposed to be, was blocked off by a camper there now and she has dogs, who have bitten people before.  I found a way to turn my car around somehow, on the muddy narrow road, and slide back down and around the corner to the owners place, a shack cabin that he built himself.

There he is, Theresa said, in his car.  Sure enough, he was sitting in his running car.  Theresa hopped out to say hello.  He's over 80 and hard of hearing and has dogs too that she is afraid of.  He's out of firewood, so he sits in his car with it running to keep warm sometimes he said.   The porch was covered in wood debris.  There was a dog crate on the porch, door propped open.

He was trying to catch the cats and planned to dump them back at a Sweet Home homeless camp.  He said a woman there brought them up to this camp when she was staying here awhile, and left them when she went back to the Sweet Home camp.  He said he had no money to feed them and only could give them a can of dog food now and then.

Theresa looked at me and I looked at her.  I didn't want to take in five cats. That's all there were.  Not twenty. My heart went out to them however.  Starving, about to be dumped somewhere they didn't know, where they would not be fed.   I set traps and quickly had two of the cats.  Later on, I caught the other three.  Looks to be an adult female, not that old herself, an adult male and three teens from her last litter.

These are the Cascadians.

Now I had a lot of cats.  Five, the Cascadians, who would need a barn home.  The three girls from Ridgeway--Vicki, Calici and Bobbie, supposedly going to Portland end of the week, if tame enough, to get homes there.

I stopped on the way home at the Ridgeway orange colony and set up the drop trap. There are still those two big buff boys I wanted to catch there, to be done with it.  The couple who live in the house are useless at helping.  In all the cats caught there, 16 already, the only one they assisted in catching was the extremely tame one female, Vicki, now in my bathroom.  Otherwise, they're no help at all.

I waited and waited on the buff boys to show up and finally saw what looked like a kitten eating under the trap and yanked the cord, dropping the trap over him.  It was indeed a young cat, about the age of one of the teens now in my bathroom and I assume they hadn't noticed him before.  Or something.  I'd never seen him before up there.  Nonetheless, needs fixed.

Squirt, a young orange tabby and white, whom I hadn't seen before

When I finally got home Saturday, I put him in with the the three girls from same place, already in the bathroom.  I intended he'd get fixed today and returned.  Yeah right.  That would now not happen, because I didn't really have the seven appointments I thought I had.

I put four of the five from Cascadia all in one large cage together. The teen boy from Cascadia stayed in a trap, since I did not want to put two boys together, at least at first.   My other cage contained the tabby from Egg Place.  I went to bed and thought this was a good day. Except I am worried where to find a barn home for the Cascadians.

Next morning, Sunday morning, I over sleep.  I think it will be a super easy relaxing day, since I already had plenty of cats caught to fill Monday's 7 appointments, way more than enough. 

Then I go out to check on the Cascadians in the cage along with Tibby the Egg Place tabby.  There is only one Cascadian cat in the cage.  There should be four!   The cage has large wire mesh in the floor, probably 4 inch by 6 inch holes.  I had forgotten about that.  They're covered anyhow by the plastic tray cage liner.  But the cats had gotten that cage liner up and since the cage was sideways on the card table, one end stuck out over the floor.  Out they went through those huge holes.

I found the escaped calico teen quickly in the shop area of my garage.  One little nudge with a net and she obligingly trotted into a trap and I had her.  I spotted the two escaped adults behind my big garage cage/room wall, between its wall and the garage wall, which is only about six inches of space, plenty for a cat though.

 I blocked off their exit both sides and set traps both sides and the male was in a trap within a couple hours.  It would take me til Sunday night to find the female in the trap.  She easily outwitted my block in strategy but I had a trap set also in the main garage.  Whew!  I didn't sweat their escape much.  Why bother?   I just let them naturally go for food or to hide from me, like with the teen, and provided the space to hide that would get her contained.  They've been sleeping off their big adventure.  They really like food since they've been so badly starved so long.

I was already getting another Ridgeway Road cat, to be fixed Monday, from farther up the road way beyoond the Ridgeway orange colony.  They would deliver the young female cat to me Super Bowl Sunday. They were bringing her after the game, they said, but they ended up bringing her about the time the game started, said they were recording the game. 

She's a sweet thing from their neighbors.  The neighbor lady has dementia and can't drive anymore and lives a half mile up this long driveway up in a clear cut, all alone with her husband, who is so cheap he's turned off the hot water heater and most of the time, even the lights, to save money.   It was quite a battle to get them to agree to fix the cat.  This one at least.

I was starting an Albany situation too, family has seven unfixed cats.  I was just going to get the adult female done there for a start.   In the end though, my Portland friend said I could bring up the five Cascadia cats to be fixed at the FCCO Wednesday, since she had reservations and now no time to trap given her sewer backed up into her garage.  She and her boyfriend have had to dig out part of the line, look for the clog, it was a huge disaster.  And an expensive one.

So I went and got four of the Albany cats, to be fixed, instead of just one, since I wouldn't be taking Cascadia cats to be fixed today.  Four from the Albany household along with the Ridgeway tame girl, the orange tabby and white teen from Ridgeway and the Egg Place tabby would be the seven fixed today, while the five from Cascadia would be done Wednesday and the three Ridgeway girls in the bathroom would go up end of the week.

Best laid plans.  I suddenly realized I had no reservations at all today, late last night, panicked, cursed, cried and then finally conceded this fact and took back the four cats from Albany, at 10:00 p.m. last night no less, just so they would not have to spend the night confined here.  I  messaged the Ridgeway folks with the tame girl, who was by now in my garage too, that I had no reservations today and I'd have to bring her back unfixed, and went to bed. 

I happened to get up at 6:00 a.m. this morning.  I had been going to sleep in since I didn't have to take cats up to the Salem clinic by 7:00 a.m..  I had a message from a Meow Village friend in Salem.  They were gifting me two of their spots. 

I was happy and jumped into action to get dressed and load up the Ridgeway tame girl and the Tibby the Egg Place tabby.  Those two at least were fixed today.  The other unfixed cat who could have gone, the teen orange and white, is doing just fine in the bathroom with his colony mates, so there wasn't the urgency on him.  But being in a cage is not fun and so Tibby went.

Tibby, the Egg Place tabby, is a boy and was fixed today along with Miss Kitty from Ridgeway Road.

Both go back to their Sweet Home people tomorrow.  Along with some cages and traps I don't use.  I had to move too much stuff to contain the escapee garage Cascadians.  Now's as good a time as ever to get rid of that excess.  KATA has volunteers who WILL use it.  Off it goes.  I feel lighter already.