Weekend

 Our weekend was wet and windy.   

Branches falling killed two people in Portland area, one of them a teenager, which is terribly sad.

On Saturday afternoon, the camp host stopped by where I was sitting in my car at the park, and told me two cougars were seen at the bridge, at the top of the park, just other side of river, early that morning.   I thought to myself though, why is he telling me this and not the homeless campers up there, who sleep in their cars, or the frisbee golfers or the early morning dog walkers.  Why are there no signs up.

Maybe there are signs up by now.  

But that night, for some reason, I experienced terrible anxiety attacks and couldn't sleep.   I thought of Cumi, old boy now, who frolicks in the open, and of the two kittens and their mom still there.  Really there are only five true park cats, maybe six max, left.  

Misha, one of two park kittens now here, still wild, but wants to be a house kitten.  She's four months old now at least.   Her sister Little Dragon, however, would still probably do better in a barn home, if I can find one for her and the other two and their mom.  I've been holding the two here, well they run the whole property, til I can locate a safe outside place for them, but Misha is deciding to be a civil cat and loves to play too.

I hate going to the park.  I get so much crap there, off and on, from folk when I'm just trying to take care of cats left by campers, camp hosts and other dumpers.  I have shed so many tears over the animals dumped there or hurt there.  How much money have I spent going back and forth, providing food, trapping and getting cats fixed and so many homes from there?    Maybe its time to say goodbye to the park, get the true park cats out first.  You know?  To reduce stress and the gas money it takes---yikes.  I took this video of a very bored Cumi, on Saturday.   TC too was bored Saturday and roaming off among the frisbee people although they likely didn't see him.

We'll see.  I contacted Meow Village to see if by any chance they can help me find them a good place.  Cumi, TC, Princess, the torti mom of the kittens, and the two kittens, Phantom and Tball are the only original cats still there.  But I got a glimpse a few days back, of a black and white in the brush.  Who is that I wondered.  The camp host had told me about another camper who left behind a black and white cat, only a year old or so.   Do you know, he could be suffering like the boy left behind by the Alaska campers suffered, I wanted to say.  And....we need to help him fast.

I think sometimes why is the burden on me alone, to care.  I want others to care, help, back me up there, do some of the work.  PTSD is very real for people who help animals.  Sometimes the sorrow and anxiety are unbearable.  But that will never go away for me now.  It's not like I could stop helping animals and snap!  --no more nightmares.

Rocky may or may not be a park cat.  I trapped him originally near the boat ramp but I first saw him once, a year before that, running across the grass of the park.  I mistook him for another cat, long lost, and got so excited I backed up and over a huge rock, to try to see him better as he ran.  Thusly I got the car stuck up and atop that huge rock.  Hence his name---Rocky.

I thought I was feeding Rocky, who is buff orange, when in reality another buff cat had appeared--Buffy and by the time I realized it was not Rocky, she had two older kittens and was pregnant again.  Buffy and her two boy teens went to KATA in July.   Now KATA is no more and can not be of any help in placement.  

Cumi is an original park boy, born in the bushes there, to a tame mom a camp host got somewhere free and brought to the park.   His mom got a home through Felines First Rescue, once I got her fixed too, and then she too was abandoned by the camp host, along with all five of her older litter, about to reproduce themselves, and her latest litter of kittens, only a few weeks old.  One sister of Cumi's also got a home through Felines First.  His other three brothers had the unfortunate luck to be taken by a local nonprofit who turned them loose on their property, with no acclimation, to never be seen again.   It was one of those boys I had so hoped I was seeing, when I saw Rocky running across the grass.   As a result, Cumi and his sister Autumn, who is now in Canada, are the only two presumed alive of the five siblings.  Cumi is now seven years old.

Anyhow, yes, I've put a great deal of work into solving the cat population problems at the park, mostly by myself and in the shadows of anonymity.

Yesterday, Viv of Silverton Cat Rescue came down and together we went over to the bird ladies house to pick up the latest two strays she's come across.   They're quite young and beautiful.  One's a gray and white boy.  The other a cute tabby girl.   They're being fixed today so that the local private shelter will take them.  She has a date for relinquishment to that shelter on Friday.   

The bird lady is having back surgery tomorrow and may be in the hospital two days.  She'll be in no shape to take cats to Safehaven Friday and the cats had to be fixed before the shelter would take them.  Her sister is staying with her and maybe a daughter too, but having that pair, whom she took in out of kindness to the cats, taken care of elsewhere, was a great release on her and when we left she burst into tears and I gave her a huge hug.

My cats were bird watching through the window this morning.

If anyone local reads this, and has a safe situation for some outside cats and would care for them and shelter them, let me know, in comments.