The Heat to Come

It has not been very hot that last few days.  I'd call it just right even though there have been morning clouds.  But by Sunday, we may hit 100 degrees or hotter.  That's a bit too hot for my taste and will shut down most activity, particularly trapping.

I first had five reservations today, Friday.  Thursday evening I was offered a sixth and took it.

I was to catch a Sodaville mom cat and her five kittens.  Sounded easy enough. I'd taken her up the drop trap and dutifully set it up in the gravel beside the raised porch deck.  She has the  deck wrapped in plastic on three sides, to protect from weather, floor to roof.  You can go up the three stairs to the porch and door into the trailer.  That area isn't covered on either side.

She was supposed to be feeding all the cats under that drop trap.  But see this is where it went south with her before up there, the feeding under the trap little detail.  It never happened, was it twice before?  I can't recall now but I think I swore once I'd never go back there but I always do in the end.

It's way out rural, up a bumpy gravel dead end road lined in old trailers and shacks and No Trespassing signs.

She keeps her property perfectly however.  I got a bunch of kittens out of there before and 8 or 9 adults fixed, several of whom have vanished.  Now there was this young mom, with five kittens.  So I started out there very early Thursday morning thinking this will be so easy and I'll get all six and go home.  I'd already made a trip out to the Bellinger colony to return the three females fixed Wednesday.  Then it was over to catch these six.

Big surprise.  Not a cat in sight.  I had actually naively expected all the cats to be swarming around the drop trap awaiting food.  Oh what a fool to think that, to believe!

Two and half hours later I'd caught only one kitten and the mom.  I'd texted her, irritated I was once again wasting so much time here when I was fairly sure nobody had fed under that drop trap and wondered if there even were more kittens.  I finally left, gave up, took the two I had and cut my losses.  By now I had 9 spots.  And only 2 cats.

Titi, mom of five Sodaville kittens, of whom I caught only one.

Moonie, sweet Sodaville boy kitten, now with CAFA

Well hell, I will just go back out to the Bellinger colony and catch a bunch, I thought.  So out I drove.  Well, the place was alive with people by then, driving in and out, bringing their big dogs and turning them loose, nobody gave a shit I was there to catch their cats to be fixed.  Dogs sprung traps, followed me around, scared the cats.  I was also told five of the cats are long fixed.  Wow.  That would have been kind of nice to know when I was making a list of the cats I saw and counting them up.  I caught only one cat there, a black long hair male, before cutting my losses and getting the hell  out.

Boogie, a boy, fixed today

3 cats for 9 spots.

So I go to the Sweet Home location where I'd caught seven before to be fixed and where that black female came from, the 8th helped there, whom I drove to Portland to Karen, who got her fixed and placed her with a rescue.    I knew she had two in the back mud room.  She'd had that adult female and one kitten in there some time, trying to keep her away from the boys til she could be fixed.

I knew it might not be easy to catch those two in that narrow room with all that stuff in there.  There were several boards leaned up against the outside wall, at a slant and I thought those looked like a promising funnel snare arrangement.  I set two traps, one on top the other, at the one end of the leaned boards and draped a curtain over the opening left above the top trap.  Then I started moving things, on the opposite wall, where there were chairs and a cabinet and other things they were hiding in.  I wanted them to go behind those boards from the open end, then funnel into the traps.  Eventually, that is exactly what both did, one at a time, first the adult, then the kitten.  It was almost too easy.

Sparkle, the tiny young mom cat, with Twinkle as her only kitten

Twinkle, a girl kitten from Sweet HOme

5 cats for 9 spots.

I went to the RV park where there are at least four still needing caught and left traps and the trapping to the guy who feeds the cats but they caught nary a cat, in the hours I'd left them traps.

I had to go home.  I'd been told, very suddenly, that I needed to go to Portland meet up with ARCF to take back the female from Sweet Home who had kittens while in the trap.  They are weaned and she was being fixed Thursday.   I retorted I would have appreciated a few days notice that this was not a good time.  I noted my exhaustion, that I was trapping clear up in Sweet Home, but none of this made any difference.

So I dutifully set off at 3:30, after only a few minutes at home, to head north.  But the sleepies came over me and it was impossible and by just south of Salem I pulled off the freeway, found a gravel pullout, parked near a patch of berry vines and one tree, which offered some shade, and fell directly asleep.  When I woke up, I texted the lady and said I was sorry but there was no way I could make it.   I drove 7 hours alone on Wednesday, back and forth to the McMinnville clinic twice.  Then I'd also driven up in the evening, another hour each way, to take the kittens to NW Salem, to their foster.  Those were the orange boys from the Bellinger colony.  In short, I was a wreck.

I then decided to drive home the backroads.  I drove slowly, like an old lady.  I was emotional and felt a great desire to drive by Karen's place in Marian.  She died a couple weeks ago, by sudden massive stroke. 

I got home and went straight to my bed and fell flat on it and slept 2 1/2 more hours.   I can't do it all and certainly can't do it all alone.

Meow Village took one of the 9 spots. I decided to get the fungi crew in the bathroom fixed. Shroom, Truffles and Chanterelle no longer have ringworm of any sort and are just two pounds by now and ready to be fixed.

I was in bed early last night, but Moonie, the gray fuzzy kitten from Sodaville, and Twinkle, the kitten from Sweet Home, began to cry, where they were out in the garage,  just after midnight, and kept me up off and on, half the night.  Their cries were very very piercing and loud.

I finally went out into the garage and Moonie, the fuzzy gray boy kitten, was rolling in the trap then getting up and arching his fuzzy skinny back firtatiously.  I pulled him out of the trap.  I hadn't known he was so tame.  He clung to me, purred, kneaded, it was precious.  I played with him for a good half hour before going to bed again.  I am glad I found him a rescue to adopt him out.  He'd get eaten by something out there in Sodaville.

So today I did take 8 cats up.  I brought only 7 back however, since CAFA, a Salem group, took the little tame boy kitten, Moonie, from Sodaville.  Tonight I'm going to bed very very early and taking an Aleve pm to stay asleep even if the Sweet Home kitten cries in the night, which I don't think she will after her day in surgery.  I think she'll sleep as soundly as me.

The heats off now, for the weekend, of me at least, for getting cats fixed.  I can kick back, relax, sleep.  But temperature wise it is really going to heat up for a few days.  Ah well.