Over Developed

The bird lady's Prius is broken.   

Somehow the automatic opening back hatch shorted out, draining the hybrid's battery.  She tells me you can't just jump start a hybrid and slap a trickle charger on it.  I'd never thought about that problem, with a hybrid.  She doesn't have the money to get the battery out of it to a shop to fix it.  I told her I'd be her driver til she does.  

A friend of hers, who also works with the Gleanors like she does, brought her two cats in need of fixing badly.  She had me come get them.  When I picked up the cats she loaded me up with food she couldn't use.  I was grateful.  My card got cancelled because of a fraudulent charge and I haven't shopped since that happened.  When I drove down her formerly dead end gravel quiet street, I stared in disbelief at the high rise apartment complex, weather wrapped in bright yellow, sprouting just beyond her house.

Nala will be spayed today

Millie will be spayed today

There are three of those big yellow buildings, she stated with malice.  They'd extended the street, that had dead ended in a wooded area two houses down from hers, into this monstrous development.  "That is butt ugly," I said.  How will they control the speed and number of cars rushing by your place?  "They won't," she said.  I already knew that.  But her quiet street is about to become a thoroughfare for a massive complex.

Not a tree left standing.  More barren concrete and more cars.  Lovely.

Two blocks or so from me, they're putting in a development where there had been a field.  I don't know if the cars from it will dump onto the street I use, or the one the other side of it.  That's all we need there too, more cars, more people.

Over on Columbus, that heads south, toward highway 34, until I left turn onto Seven Mile, to cross the freeway and curve around to highway 34 that way, a big electronic road sign says Columbus will be closed from March 22 through August.  That's so the fricking developers can have new water and sewer lines go in for their montrous housing project across from Seven Mile that will fill a former farmer field.   How dare they make everyone else pay the price for their projects?

I use Seven Mile from Columbus everyday.  So do a zillion people.  Others go on down Columbus to 34, where you can only right turn onto 34, to head off to work in Corvallis.  All this traffic will be diverted including me, to several miles of go arounds.  All to help out the developers make more of a big huge traffic mess by building more houses.   It's not like current residents will buy those houses.  Californians will buy them and move up here.  Our county is now over run with out of staters who buy houses here after selling theirs, driving up housing costs and rent and driving Oregonians out, to the far reaches, to homelessness and gutting a formerly nice state.  Is our intent to become little L.A.?  Really?  What a wonderful aspiration.

Before I got the two cats from the Bird Lady, I picked up the 2nd of two big boys, trapped by their caretaker over in Lebanon on Cascade.  She's living in a tiny camp trailer for now, by a mobile home her mom lives in. The property has clean junk, perfect for cats, lots of interesting places for them.  These two boys had shown up a long time ago, but have been fighting lately.  I loaned her traps and she caught them herself.  She's a very nice young woman I think.  She named the boys King and Pretty Boy Flloyd.

King will be neutered today

Pretty Boy Flloyd also will be fixed

I had just five spots for today, at the Salem clinic, but by afternoon yesterday, was gifted two more.  I had the two from the Bird Lady and the two big boys from Lebanon.  Next I headed to the Sweet Home wheelchair man colony and trapped four there.  One of the four was that kitten I wanted to catch, the white one with orange tail and ears.

Moments after I arrived, as the ducks waddled back down to the pond, from where they'd been cleaning up the last of the dry cat food, two guys in blue pass by my car door.  I take a second look and they're firemen or paramedics headed right to the wheelchair man's door.  

I asked one of them, "Did he call you?"  "Yes," the man said.   I heard them call his name from outside his door, then vanish inside.  They were only there a couple of minutes however.  One came down the steep drive from the road with two thin white blankets and handed them through the door to him.  After they left, I said "Do you need blankets?"  He said he didn't and went on about something, that they just come by sometimes and give him things.  But apparently he had called them about something.

I caught the four cats, including the kitten, and left, all within an hour, leaving wet cat food out for the milling cats, since the ducks won't eat that.

Marble, a girl, will be fixed today

Birch, also a girl, will be fixed today also

Sandy, a boy, will also be fixed

This little boy kitten was with me an hour before being picked up by Keitha's Kitty Rescue. He has a URI but I was already cuddling him before they stopped by to pick him up.  They have his brother too, who was very ill and is still at the vet.  They have named this little guy Stewart, I think.  I'd be calling him Stewie!

Another cat was brought here Wednesday night, from the murder house way down in rural Tangent.  There are no nearby neighbors.  I think there are maybe four or five houses on that entire road.   That was the place where I got all those orange cats fixed for the new owners who bought it, after the man was murdered there, by his nephew, beat to death, left in the yard to die.  That was after I'd met him, when I caught those kittens, nearly dead from cold and starvation, out on the road, just a couple dozen feet from the driveway.  

Anyhow, the couple had a petsitter at the house about ten days ago who told them a black cat had showed up crying, but ran off when she got close and that he had a terrible wound on his leg.  So the owners didn't see him once they got home til Wednesday.  She found him laid out in a horses stall.  She went and got a carrier and he went right in.  I said I could get him fixed maybe, but couldn't take him in.  So he's been here a day, in a cage in the garage, mostly sleeping and eating.  He talks like he's tame but does not solicit attention and that wound on his front leg looks awful.  I haven't got a photo of it yet.  It's probably a bite wound from fighting somewhere.  It's that time of year for unfixed boys.  Many never survive.  He's going to get fixed and his leg taken care of Sunday over at Heartland.

I got the chores done last night and was in bed early so ended up early, too.  Over development may be ruining parts of Oregon, over crowding the small towns, driving up costs to cities and individuals, clogging highways and streets with even more cars, and trampling recreation sites with the sheer volume of people.  At least I'm old now and won't see the worst of it.  

Update on black kitty:  He's tame, has injuries on both right feet.legs and right lip, and the couple who found them in their horse stall have decided to keep him.