Five More Cats Fixed and Smoke Thick in Valley

 The fires everywhere are slowed to near standstill as the wind has abated.  We may get a few showers next week.  The smoke is thick however and we need moisture and stronger wind to blow it out.  

I won't say the fires are not still a huge problem, because they are.  At least they are not being driven by high dry wind through canyons igniting trees, from the top down, whose cinders rain onto structures and ignite those.  Now, one firefighter declared on the news last night, almost ecstatic, the fire is on the ground and we can fight it there.

I feel safe here where I am in part because I'm surrounded in acres and acres of bare dirt fields, having been harvested for their grass seed and plowed under and raked smooth in preparation for replanting seed.   These endless brown fields, bare of all vegetation, are very effective fire breaks.

The event that shot fires through the canyons was historic and unprecidented and probably a once in a lifetime thing.  The low pressure that formed and pushed down from Canada, bringing snow to Colorado, created the high east winds that brought us fire through the canyons.  This is not a normal event and we can't blame it on anything but the weather quirk.

I don't go outside except to the car, quickly, because the air is dense in smoke and sometimes also ash.  But that will go away.  Its a wait game.  Covid shutdowns already taught us all how to entertain ourselves inside.  No big deal.

People wear masks now that scoffed at wearing masks to prevent Covid spread.  The reason is you can see the smoke and ash and smell it and understand that is a bad thing to breath in.   I don't know why it makes me laugh that the anti maskers are masking up for dense smoke.  A deadly virus might not be seen or smelled but its still there.

Those forests won't grow back in my lifetime.  So many trees were damaged but still stand, there will be massive salvage and safety cutting that will have to go on even before the roads are safe.  Winter wind storms will take down a lot of the damaged trees not cut.  It's strange how there are even houses left untouched in Detroit, where all the businesses and many residences were destroyed.  Probably half or more of Mill City still stands, I think.  It's hard to know yet.  I guess its because the fires were driven by high wind and torched the tree tops and if your house had embers drop near enough, then your house goes but your neighbors might not.  Almost like you see after tornados when they tour neighborhoods one house standing here, the next gone.

Monica, a local cat lady, tried to get into there yesterday.  I gave her two of my spots last Friday and she was going to use one of them for a pregnant Mill City cat but the people hadn't kept her in or something so she wasn't fixed.  Monica wanted to find her, see if she was alive, at least leave out food and water, but was denied access by the law.

Yes I trapped five cats, all of the cats left needing fixed, over at that Albany situation.  There are so few people out and the dense smoke blankets us in a red or yellow haze, that seems to frighten people with religious leanings into thinking the world is ending.  Makes for perfect cat trapping conditions.

 I had already trapped four boys there.  Three of them went to a barn home down outside Brownsville.  But now they're in the house, not in the barn.  The excuse is because of the wildfire smoke.  Yeah ok.   They are big time cat lovers.  Today I took down their sister, Little Panda, to join the boys.  So I only returned four to the low income cottages where I trapped them.

I didn't have to do any work.  Sure, I set the empty traps but the tenant feeding them carried the traps, with cats inside, to my car.   I cared for them in the back of my car, prior to taking them to be fixed, and released them from the back of my car today.  This was all easy on my bad knee and crutching it existence.  I was happy to get this place entirely "fixed".  Tux, a year old male, had a terrible wound on his left flank and the clinic even stitched it up and gave him a long lasting antibiotic injection.  Above and beyond!

Here are their photos:

Little Mama was spayed yesterday

Little Panda, who not only was spayed, but went off to live with her brothers.

Poor Stormy, originally tame, was used as a kitten breeder, by the old couple, who adored kittens, but kicked them out once teens.  Now she is fixed.  Finally.

Hitler also was fixed yesterday.  At last.

This is Tux before he was neutered yesterday and before incurring a flank wound.

This was Tux's wound, before the vet at the clinic stitched it up and gave him an antibiotic injection.

 

Very wonderful to be done with the Albany situation.  I'll keep helping with cat food as needed.