Big Week

 I've got a big weekend and week ahead of me.  

I'm trying to prepare for success, in advance, but realize things go wrong.

Tomorrow a friend with a chainsaw is coming over, to cut down the 8 foot tree stump in the cat yard, which is no doubt the place escapes are happening.  The stump is falling apart from rot, too.  It has some knobs that stick up into the cat wire, where wire has grown into thin branches that keep growing out of the top each spring.  Yesterday I began trying to cut those dead branches free of the wire, so the stump can come down without taking down the cat wire too.  It's tedius with the tools I have and has to be done from a ladder.  I have a hand saw and pruning clippers.  The handsaw blade is a foot long.   My sawzall is battery powered and the battery is very old.  The charge, if cutting a branch, will go out in three minutes of use.  So the Sawzall is virtually useless as a help.

The rotting middle of the stump

From a distance

The top, with old small branches that grow and push through the wire every spring.

I'm quite excited about getting that rotting stump out of the yard.  I'll add photos when its light and I can get some.

Saturday I'll try for any of the three remaining at the ditch colony.   I'll be happy to get even one of the three I know of.  I talked to one of the feeders yesterday.  He and his wife live in the RV park near the colony.  He didn't mention the fire at the park.  I saw that last night on the news.  Four trailers were involved, three were total losses.   I hope his wasn't one of them.  Seems like he'd have mentioned it if it were.

I took my car in yesterday.  The noise was the shrieking of the power steering/water pump belt, which is on the bottom. They were terribly busy and the son said he'd have to put it on the rack to tighten the bottom belt but was more concerned about the rust on the power steering pulley and possible wobble in it and the rust pattern out from the water pump.  There is no coolant loss though, in the radiator, and he put a bit of grease on the belt shrieking and that stopped the noise. They were too busy to put it on the rack to check and he said the belt seemed tight enough.  But they told me to stop by once a week for them to check the water pump for leaks and to watch under my car, up behind the front passenger side tire, in case it begins to noticably leak, in case it is the water pump failing.  My brother was sure the sound in the video I sent him was a failing water pump.  I guess time will tell.  He also said putting grease on a belt doesn't stop a bad water pump noise, however so maybe it was just a belt issue.  He also said to come on down, and he'd fix it, meaning tightening that belt and /or replace the water pump.   I certainly will do that if the noise comes back.  The mechanics up here are backed up a month or two, in appointments but I really like the one I use now.  I think they're the greatest.

So Monday I'm supposed to get five cats to the Salem clinic and ten more to McMinnville.  The ten going to McMinnville will be the remaining unfixed cats in the apartment of unfixed cats.  I have great doubts about this endeavor, however.  She was only able to catch one of her own tame cats Monday afternoon, to take to relinquish to the local shelter and had two appointments.  If she can't get even two into carriers, how will she get ten into carriers on Sunday?

Four of the five that will be going to whs were to be kittens of a stray mom, out from a rural farmhouse.  However yesterday the lady said one was very ill, lethargic and vomiting.  She described a cat on deaths door and I immediately was concerned about distemper.  She took him to the vet however, and he was sent home only with wormer.   Ok.  That's not a cat on death's door.  But the vet assured her to tell me--not distemper.   Nonetheless, only three will be going from those four on Monday, leaving me open to try to catch one or two at the ditch colony.

On Wednesday and Thursday, I"ll be trapping at the 30 cat Lebanon colony.  I think I've taken 8 in so far to be fixed there, or was it 9.  She has 15 spots at the FCCO clinic in Portland on Friday.   We waited months to get these appointments so I want to be sure I utilize all 15 of them.  There are more than 15 unfixed cats there, but she could only get the 15 appointments.  The cats I catch will be fixed Friday and returned Saturday and then I get a day of rest.  I have five more spots the following Monday and those will be for remnants at the 30 cat colony.

Also I've been watching the Olympics.  I got quite addicted.   The most beautiful win I thought was Italy's mixed doubles curling team.    The final curl was fantastic, when with a graceful slide, the woman of the pair shoved off sliding and pushing the stone and man scraped away in front of it with the curling broom, and knocked two opponent stones off the goal and they landed it!  It was so exciting.

Shaun White, the dinosaur of the halfpipe snowboard event, made the cut, falling on his first go round, but came through on the second.  So he's in the final for Thursday.  I am torn between wishing the oldsters would hang up their gear and let the youngsters have at it, and in wanting the old warriors, being ancient myself, to triumph.

The big air trick ski jumping is done on a perfectly formed ramp with a backdrop of what looks like nuclear plant cooling towers.   At first I thought how disgusting.   Then I thought, no, this is adaptation.  Those jumpers go all out for it and if they lose, they seem to shrug it off, although I'm not sure they really do.  But I hope they do.   The winner was a sleek and beautiful young man, from Norway, whose jumps were perfectly executed with great ease.   Since he won with his first two jumps and they only count two of the three jump scores, he went last on the final jump and had already won.   He took a winners jump run, carrying a flag of his country in one hand, during the jump, like it was nothing to add carrying a flag to a difficult jump trick.  It was splendid.