Summer Over?

 The news weather man tonight announced with finality the end of summer.  It's fall weather now, he said.

Well it really isn't technically fall until the 22nd, but our weather switched fast to cool, even a few drops of rain, with no more heat predicted, just 60's and 70's.  Low 70's.

I'm heartbroken.  I love summer and we got barely two months of summer weather this year.  Most of it was extreme, either cool or way way too hot.   I like the low 80's, for summer, but those days seem long gone, when summers were so pleasant with maybe a couple days where we'd think it was scorching.

How can the summer haters forget what June was like---the torrential downpours we thought would never end.  And finally, after the 4th, the summer days got warm.  FINALLY.  And now already---over?    NO!

Ten months now of crap weather?  Cold, gray, drippy, depressing?  I can't handle the thought.

I easily rounded up five cats for today's five appointments.  I have five more next Monday and that's it for the month.

I went to a new Lebanon colony, only I'd trapped on the same street years before.   Lots more unfixed cats now.  I only had two spots for that colony and trapped two tuxedos, a boy and girl, Mustachio and Boots.

Boots, the girl.  She was in heat.

Mustachio, a boy with half length tail

Down the block and across the street, I talked to a couple I'd talked to before, years ago, about the cats.  He still feeds them and now that KATA is gone, whom he used to rely on for help getting them fixed, he had given up hope of help with that.   He was happy to see a person like me, with my traps, coming around.  I had to damper his enthusiasm with news of the difficulty in finding spay neuter spots these days.

These four need fixed--a mom and her three older kittens

Dusty, a sweet tabby tux boy, got dumped off up on a Sodaville property.  They'd contacted me in August about getting him fixed, but I had no appointments til today and told them so.   They waited and today Dusty got fixed.  They get so many being dumped, it makes them so angry at heartless people.

Dusty's a very nice boy but he howled half the night last night in my bathroom.  So
I'm a bit on the tired out side today.

Also, the vet student down in Harrisburg trapped two more.   She was just going after a new show female but caught a male too.  So I put off the bird lady's latest problem cat, a male gotten as a kitten by a neighbor who now fights with her own cats since he's always outside.  She wants him fixed and told the neighbor lady she was going to get him done and we will get him done, to recreate peace in the hood there.   I really cannot believe the numbers of people who get free unfixed kittens, then just turn them outside, never getting them fixed.   

So I went down and picked up the two cats from the vet student at her place in Harrisburg.  Olivia and Marvin were fixed today.    This makes 38 cats she's trapped whom I've helped her get fixed but before she found me she trapped a few too.  I just can't believe how many she's caught there, but I'm sure happy its finally getting done.

Olivia, after surgery

Marvin, after surgery, recovering

The Cedar Creek Fire, down near Waldo Lake, made a run west, with the east winds, then turned to the north, when the east winds turned to south winds and is huge, but many evacuation levels in Oakridge and Westfir have been downgraded to Level 2 (be ready), at least.   

If you're on facebook, go to Cedar Creek Fire, and scroll on down to see an interesting video, of the union pacific fire train, unloading 500 gallons a minute, along the tracks via fire nozzles.

Here's a still from the video:

We had a bit of rain yesterday and more is to come this weekend, so the fires, though they may burn for a couple months longer, will gradually die out.   We've only got two big ones going in Oregon, but other states have many many fires still burning.

This year, the state gave out lots of money to small fire districts to get equipment and staff, to be ready to jump on fires, the minute they are spotted and its paid off.  We also now have digital cameras watching for fires in the forests.  Nonetheless the Cedar Creek Fire has burned some of the most beautiful country in Oregon, that isn't already a burned stick forest, and shows no signs of giving it up either as of yet.