Five More Cats Fixed and Knee Again

 Whatever benefit I got from the injection into my knee ended yesterday.

It's not as bad as it was, at least not yet.  But I was disappointed the pain returned.

I guess cortisone might not help me after all.  He had said the cortisone wouldn't kick in for ten days.  

But in ten days was up yesterday and the pain began again.  I don't get it.  But maybe the benefit wasn't anything more than that he drew fluid off my knee when he injected it.   Pressure from fluid buildup can cause a lot of pain in a joint.    

Anyhow, Thursday I spent over in Sweet Home.  I went to check out some kittens seen in berry vines at the head of a driveway down which lives the adult daughter of the Holly colony caretaker.  She'd taken a girl kitten from the colony home with her in June.  So I got her, when I was checking on the kittens they had seen,. She's now a teen, and she was fixed yesterday.

I only saw one of the kittens, startled the poor little thing when I was on the railroad tracks looking for them.  That one was gray and darted off in a streak into the berry vines. They'd seen, they said, two orange tabbies sitting at the side of the driveway with eyes gunked shut.

I told a Sweet Home lady about them and maybe they'll try to catch them since they live close.  I gave the lady some wet and dry cat food to feed them in the meantime.  Their family lives in a storage shed with their dogs there, along that dirt drive that leads to some other residences farther down.

I was killing time up there, waiting to hear how many the Millersburg lady might catch, to know how many cats to round up in Sweet Home, to fill out the five appointments I had yesterday.  I was taking in two kittens I knew, from the RV park I've been working.   With the other teen girl I had three for sure and the Millersburg lady had trapped one more, the 7th to be fixed from there.  She never caught anymore than that one.  In the meantime I set traps at the RV park hoping to catch this long hair orange male.  Instead I caught a young black male with one eye that didn't really work, a micro eye I think they call it.  No infection or anything.

I went to the Millersburg lady's place last week.   She's trapping for a neighbor, and its the neighbors' mom's property, now vacant, but the cats are there, and love the place. There is property, outbuildings galore filled with interesting junk discarded from human use but oh so wonderful for felines and other animals, fields, what's not to love if you're a cat (or a kid or even someone like me).  The trapper lady  lives in this tightly bound development.  These developments have taken over everywhere, and they all look the same, houses crammed together, cleverly named little streets, look like a nightmare to me, like fake places to live, artificial or something, like fake fingernails and the smell of a hair salon, formaldehyde steaming from chemically formulated siding and flooring, Gestapo like housing associations, but that's the way things are now.  I don't even recognize Millersburg from when I used to trap there and it was fields and older houses and trailers.  The developments do give lots of folks really nice houses to buy.  I shouldn't condemn them.  It was all just unused fields before they became housing developments out there.  

So with four cats from Foster I headed home and the Millersburg lady came over with the little black tux girl she'd caught and those were the five that were fixed.   I drove the Foster four home last night, since all had people who could recuperate them.  The wild young male I just let loose as he was out of anesthesia by the time I finally got up there.  I've taken 21 cats to be fixed now from that RV park.  Five or six still need caught to be fixed.  Getting there.   There's a big improvement, one resident told me, no more cats fighting at night.

I was late to start off to go pick up the cats at the clinic yesterday afternoon.  I got distracted when I received a message from a lady who had picked up kitten traps to borrow last Saturday.  She informed me she had been exposed to Covid on Wednesday, was awaiting her own test results, would sterilize the traps and leave them by my garage.  I was messaging her back that it seemed way too early for her to be reliably tested if only exposed on Wednesday.   She agreed with this but has to go along with whomever contacted her about her exposure.  I guess she has to isolate for two weeks, which must be hard on her, being as how she is a self employed handywoman, doing all kinds of odd jobs to survive, anything she can find.

In the night, we got rain, as predicted.  It's nice to have the rains return.

Life is slower once the rains begin and there is no frantic pressure to enjoy the sun, for the short time we get sun here.  We give up to the rain.  We know it is the beginning of the long gray and that likely we won't see much sun again til June of next year.  Certainly no warmth til then.

Here are the photos of the five fixed yesterday.

Hulu, young black tux girl from Millersburg

Kia, brown tabby teen girl from Foster but originally born in the Holly colony.

Moya, black male from the RV park.  His left eye isn't functional.

RV park kittens Peanut and Hella.  The third kitten died of unknown cause. Their mom was fixed a few weeks back.  They are currently on antibiotic eye ointment.

This is the kittens mom and the kittens, two weeks after they were born.  Now one is dead but the other two and mom are fixed.

I enjoy trapping cats partly because it makes me feel wild again, not part of the sterile concrete and fabricated substance and car snarled world.  I think others may enjoy it for the same reason--a chance to be a little wild.