The Bird Lady

 It's been a difficult weekend.  

Cat round up went badly and the bird lady is in the hospital dying apparently.   

Started Saturday on the cat round up.  The Sweet Home people said they could get all five of the main cats they take care of into carriers.  I have five spots tomorrow only.  They had three carriers, they said, but could fit two in two of them.  Nonetheless, I loaded two more carriers and four traps into my car before heading clear up above Sweet Home, to a short dead end street with a short branch off street at whose end was the house.

They had zero cats in carriers when I arrived and the adult daughter was miffed.  She claimed they had three in carriers but they all got out and away and now the pregnant one was inside the house hiding somewhere.  Her elderly mom was in the process of leaving, with a friend, so she wouldn't be stressed by it all.   I had been told she had Alzheimers, then other different things, by the adult daughter but she seemed competent and lucid to me.  They do not get along.   Family feud thing and now I was in the middle. An obese dog waddled slowly around the junk encrusted perimeter and forlornly dropped huge piles of poop out behind him.

I gave the adult daughter instructions, set the traps up, told her to let them do the work, and left myself.

Finally much later they caught two.  I'd gone up to look at how low the reservoir is right now, even with all this rain.  That's because the fish people sued, and it can't be filled til May 11 and since often the rains give up near then, except in La Nina years, Foster Reservoir has to be filled by using water from Green Peter Reservoir, which means Green Peter will stay low unless we have lots of rain and run off after Foster fills from Green Peter.   One lawsuit and a sympathetic judge can ruin a lot for everyone.   We wait nine months for a couple months of sun, to enjoy the reservoir, not go on fancy vacations, and the lawsuit may end that joy.  At least this year there's a third La Nina going on, which unfortunately is causing this tremendous amount of rain we are getting but maybe Green Peter can fill back up after they drain it down to fill Foster for the summer, due to the fisher people lawsuit.

I sent my opinion letter in about the whole thing, to the Corp and I said in it if you want to save fish then quit killing them.  Ha!   Well, its' true.   I don't even know how any get through the maze of fishing boats and shores lined in fisher people with lines out, to spawn.  I'm not a fan of fishing people.  The fishing litter left by them is damaging and tremendous in volume.  Every year at the Reservoir I clean up so much line, bobbers, hooks, you name it from the messy destructive fisher people.   

Looking towards the bridge from Caulkins boat ramp.  There's only a narrow channel of water.

Caulkins boat ramp high and dry.  I usually put my kayak in here since the other two ramps on the lake are incredibly steep.

If the reservoir is full the gravel area out to that point is completely underwater.

So when I got her call that they had caught two I went back and got them.   I kept resetting my traps for her, so they were properly set, and tried to keep her from thinking she could put them into carriers by hand outside.   

After I'd gone home, to take a nap, they caught a couple more big males but not the two pregnant females or another tamer male.   One of the pregnant females was in a live trap, caught on the back porch, but for some reason, they opened the trap just moments before I arrived, after driving back up clear from Albany, and she ran off.  So by Saturday night, I had four cats from their place and needed only one more.  By Sunday morning, it was pouring again and it poured all day today.

 I picked up from her, about 2:00, a tame boy who is the offspring of one of the unfixed mother cats.   That would be all I could take up tomorrow--five cats.   So I came home.  

Just after I got home, I got the call.  Said it was from Evelyn and it went to voicemail too quickly for me to answer.  Evelyn is the Bird Lady.  So I called back and it was Evelyn's neighbor who answered. She was at the hospital and all she could say was maybe I should come say goodbye.  I asked her why Evelyn was in the hospital and all she would say was "Evelyn's given up."

I quickly put on my shoes and found my keys and put the cat that was still in the car into the garage and drove to the hospital.  I found the room.   I went in.  Two neighbors and another friend were around the hospital bed.  She lay flat there on her back looking gray and pale at the same time.   I couldn't find out what was going on, why she was dying or even there, so I asked Evelyn directly.   And she told me point blank.  She said her bloodwork was upside down because she'd been starving herself to death and wanted to die and was depressed.

Ok.   Yikes.   I had asked her how she'd lost so much weight last time I was at her place and she feigned surprise that she was losing weight but I knew she knew.  I'd taken her food lately, just little things, like chocolate crossaints she used to love, and cake with mousse layers.  I'd see her eat maybe one or two bites and put it off somewhere.  She'd try to give me her meals on wheels frozen dinners.  They were gawd awful, in cardboard partitioned trays, frozen, and omg without taste, mushy and watery once heated, and completely inedible.  I would starve to death too, if I had to eat those even twice.   

I didn't get much time with her tonight at the hospital, had to leave, all of us, two of her neighbors and another friend of hers, because she was getting help with bathrooming.   I stared at one neighbor and asked her if she knew what was going on.  She knew no more than I'd heard.  Her daughter had not talked to any of us and stood outside the room in the hall texting during the time I was there.    The bird lady has lots and lots of relatives, two sisters just in this town alone, others elsewhere, all kinds of relatives but the only one I've ever seen is her daughter, maybe twice before.

So I don't know if she'll just be let to die, finish herself off, by not eating?   I don't know.  She's about 80 I think, and has not been able to walk more than a few feet for two or a little longer years, since the fall, the delayed surgery, nerve damage down her leg or legs.    The depression set in, to have her life change suddenly, to no more driving, little walking and unable to get out of the house, without a lot of ta do.  Anyhow, her life went to hell being confined to her house.   I understand completely.  

I'm still in shock over seeing her like that, giving up, ready to go, when I saw her just a couple weeks back and she never said a thing although I could tell she wasn't eating much anymore.  I've been seeing that go on several months. 

But who can blame her, or would want her life, to sit in a chair all day alone.

Anyhow.....I'll be taking the five Sweet Home cats up tomorrow to be fixed.