Water

 It rained gallons today.  Like in five minutes it flooded the street out front.  For a minute I thought maybe I'd been transported into a Louisiana hurricane.  It was too strange. 

 The lightning began last night at 8:00 p.m. sharp.  I was driving home from Sweet Home and smoke was still thick.  Lightning flashing cloud to cloud through thick smoke is lovely.  Lovely like maybe if you're voluntarily living inside Game of Thrones.  I expected the clouds to part and three dragons to swoop down to ignite the city.  

Why wouldn't I expect that by now.

I started trapping Wednesday at one Sweet Home location that is super dysfunctional.   I knew I'd experience very poor luck there and I did have very poor luck there.  Caught only three of six to eight unfixed cats, listened to lots of lies, exaderations of all sorts, and I was already worn out.  My knee had been doing better but then suddenly nights its been awful.  I get very little sleep when it flares up.

I named the three kittens for places lost to the fires.   This is Opal, for Opal Creek Wilderness Area.

This is Detroit, for the lake and the town and all things lost. The kittens are all girls.

This is Breiten, for Breitenbush road and hot springs and the place where my friend lost her beautiful little retreat cabin to the fires.

Thursday I went to the RV park.  The lady with all the dogs, and three cats in a tiny camp trailer, had called and told me she'd be evicted if she didn't find a place for the cats (and most of the dogs).  I wasn't going to get involved but then Heartland said they'd take the cats Monday.   I decided to get them yesterday.  I was there to pick up the orange female at another camp trailer really.  The female has three kittens but they  are not quite big enough to be fixed.  Close, but no cigar.  So I figured I'd pick up that orange female to be fixed, and then get the three fixed ones from the dog lady camp trailer, since I had a place they can go.

So I went to the dog trailer, to get the three cats and she brings out five cats.  What?, I say?  Five?  Yeah I have five, she states.  So I load up the five, and she gives me a bag of wet cat food cans she said is for Pest, the boy, because he likes it.  Two of the five she had are not fixed. Then I get the orange female too.  Then two more tenants want their cats fixed or they can't have them there, so I loaded up one big boy--Howl, is his name.  I already had a torti from another place, across the river.

So I had 8 cats then, to fill my 8 reservations.  Boy that was easy.  Plus three fixed ones.

I headed home then.  I was about five miles into my drive home when the cell phone rang and it was the lady at the RV park so I pulled over and called her back.  Well, now she wanted Pest, the black boy back, and the bag of wet cat food too.   Oh brother I thought.  Actually I was too numb to think or feel much of anything.  I just turned the car around like some robot and drove back to the reservoir and RV park and handed her the carrier with Pest in it and the bag of wet cat food cans.  I took my carrier back then, and drove away.

I let Willow and Grasshopper out in my bathroom once home.  They're really scared.  They were fixed the day after my knee injury.  I'd picked them up just after my knee injury in fact, while rather in shock over the sudden uselessness of one leg and with that knee bound up, for support, in black electrical tape I'd had in a side pocket of my car.

They're shy but coming out of their shells today.  They lived in that tiny camp trailer with seven yapping dogs who never went outside.  And three other cats. This will be an adjustment for them.  Quieter cleaner lives.  More space!

Grasshopper and Willow

I took the other two from inside the camp trailer, who were not yet fixed, to be fixed today.  She had said Shadow is a boy but he's a girl.   Anyhow, I took 8 cats in all to be fixed.  I took four from the RV park, the torti from across the river and the three girl kittens from the other place I'd rather not talk about.

Shadow, fixed today, another girl, from the dog trailer

Little Thunder, also a girl and fixed today from the dog trailer.

I overslept this morning, then had to rush loading up the 8, and never even got a shower before I had to race off to Salem, 15 minutes later than I usually leave.  At least the worst of the thunderstorms were over, I thought.   They had roared most of the night, last night, and my knee had burned in pain, like I was lying at the base of some tree burning up in the wildfire zone.  

But...during the day, there were more downpours, the likes of which I can't remember seeing here before, and more thunder.  I just kind of stared into the distance today, unaware and turned off.

I'll add photos of the other three fixed once I actually take photos of them.  They're all out sleeping it off in my garage right now.

Howl, a gray tux boy, fixed yesterday from the RV park.

Zoey, an orange tabby female, fixed yesterday from the RV Park.

GG, a beautiful torti, fixed yesterday from Sweet Home