So it Begins--the Long Gray

 No sooner did autumn arrive (yesterday), than we got hit by a downpour.  Granted its not like a flooding downpour, except down in SW Oregon.   But its wet and gray and the air is cold moist and its icky out.  It'll be this way at least a week.

Not ready to wear real shoes yet, I put wool socks on, then my sandals. We do that here. We cling to summer like a toddler sucks his binkie.

Have one FCCO trip end of week.  Tenants at a complex still need four of five older kittens fixed.  Their mom, who is tame, got fixed some time ago.  Tenants have by now found her a new home.  She'd been abandoned by some other tenant.   I took one of the five kittens to be fixed a few weeks ago, a black tux female.

I set up the drop trap there under the stairs, and went over this morning to see if they'd be near it and caught only one.  The others ran off, way down the side lawn between the buildings and under the fence to the shed they live under.   Once they run off, they rarely return til night.  Tenants will try to catch anymore they can tonight.  We have to start days early there because of how hard it is to catch them there, since they're only nearby early morning and night.   And because of the rain.

A tenant took this photo awhile back of mom and her brood of five.  Well mom got fixed and is in a home now and the black tux girl kitten on the left is fixed too.  This morning I caught the black tux in the middle, behind the log.

Mustachio, now in my bathroom, has slept all day long, just was very very sleepy.

My neighbors rolled out and camped at the park just outside Lebanon, where I've caught so many cats. Official first camp trip in their new used RV.   They thought camping was a lot of work, with the RV, that was the official review I got from one of them upon their return.   Anyhow--it's broken in.  They think they paid for three days but got kicked out today, since B loop closed for the winter today.   I'm sure they'll get a refund if they had paid for another night because the person who took their reservation would have known or should have known B loop would close today.

Anyway, been slow days with the rain, just want to nap the days away really.   The U.S. House hasn't passed a budget for the country in I don't know how long and the current funding runs out the 30th.  Shutdown then happens and federal employees get furloughed and not paid.  My neighbor will be one of those.  She's not a high paid government employee so I hope for her sake they do their job and pass something.   My niece is in the army and they don't even pay soldiers if they don't pass a budget or a short term budget of some sort by the 30th.  They're so darn dysfunctional but funding the government is one thing they need to do, gosh darn it, shakiing my fist in the general direction of D.C.

The long gray has begun.