Road Trip with 12 Cats

 Exhaustion finally claimed me last night.   Well, even before that.

I managed to trap 11 of the cats in Sweet Home on Tuesday.

I didn't get up there to trap the cats until 8:00 a.m.  Originally I planned on getting there at 6:30 but then realized how ridiculous that was, since it was still dark and below freezing at that point.   I had five cats from the Scravel colony in my garage, recuperating from their surgeries who were fixed on Monday.  

I only caught maybe four of the 11 cats I caught on Tuesday in single traps.  The rest I drop trapped, mostly one at a time.  This was frustrating and time consuming but they were not coming to eat at the same time.

I'd already taken two from this colony previously to be fixed and they'd gotten one other fixed at some point.  I don't think there are others besides the 12 I caught and the three already fixed.  They haven't told there are anymore at least.

I finally left Sweet Home with 8 cats, leaving traps set at the colony, which caught two more during the day. 

Once home, I had to unload the 8 I had, feed them, then load up the five from Scravel, now in the vet student's big traps, and return them to their home.  I took the old man of that colony two more bags of cat food too.   I really admire that old man, 84 and still doing all the chores to keep up his place, including cutting wood to heat his house.  You don't find many people like that around anymore.  

Once home, I cleaned those big vet student traps and even repaired some minor problems they had.

 I returned Tuesday evening to Sweet Home and caught one more cat at the colony and picked up the other two already in traps.   I knew there was one more tabby to be caught.   At least.  I now had 11 cats from the Sweet Home colony caught.

Wednesday I returned the vet student traps to her.  She couldn't come out of her place.  By now both her and her boyfriend were positive for Covid.  Their house has such a steep driveway only four wheel drive vehicles can go up it.  Climbing up it to put the traps by the garage, I had to do switch backs up because otherwise my ankles were at too steep an angle.   Looking down it, to the road and my car at the bottom, I got this strange sensation, not dizzy but my gosh that's steep.  It's not a long driveway from the road, but man alive it is crazy steep.

 I went back Wednesday night to the Sweet HOme colony and caught that one tabby, using catnip to get her high.  Then she finally went under the drop trap and I yanked it down and transferred her into a live trap and came home.  12 cats to take to the FCCO from the Sweet Home colony yesterday.

I went to bed early enough I thought but was up too early, by 4:00 when the alarm was set for 5:00 a.m.   I had to transfer each cat to a clean trap, the whole thing, cleaning the dirty trap to use for another transfer, before loading the cats in my car to leave.   It was icey and foggy until I was beyond Salem. The roadsides were white with frost.  Traffic was clogged in various spots once I got north to Wilsonville.  Wilsonville is like the gateway to the metro area.   Traffic on the freeway often is horrendous once you hit Wilsvonville but on the return home trip, traffic was terrible the entire way, right up to Albany, where I exited.

I'm not used to congestion and  people and cars everywhere. It really got to me yesterday, the sheer volume of cars everywhere.  How do people live in such congested crowded places.   I felt straight jacketed and suffocated by the fumes of cars.  Just a concrete jungle.  A big human ant hill.  It's no wonder people turn violent or nuts living like that.  It's not like developers aren't trying to turn the entire valley into one big human/car clog.

Granted, I was exhausted already.  Nowhere could I find, this time, to take a nap that I would think to be a safe place.  I picked up the cats right at 4:00 and home I came.   I got home about 6:30 p.m. and I was dragging and pessimistic from being tired.  But I got the cats unloaded from the car and fed and then it was off to bed.  They would have been fine recuperating in the car overnight if it hadn't been below freezing.  

This is why I love my little car and those small tomahawk traps.  That's 11 of the cats in one layer at the back of my car.  I could have added the 12th there.  The 12th cat is in front of those behind the two front seats.  There are pee pads inbetween the layers of traps.  I could have gotten four more traps in right behind my seat, and four more the other direction behind the passenger seat, if it was forward position.   20 cats in traps easy.  Add four to six more if I remove the passenger seat.  The little big car, I call it.

Now I do have to get dressed and get up to return the Sweet Home kitties.  They'll be happy to be home.

It was nice to see a couple familiar faces at the FCCO clinic check in/out table.  Felt like home to see vet tech Leah's face and the memories that come flooding back, from decades of clinics and experiences.