Blah Blah

 I don't know what happened with those two weeks of doing too much so that now I can't bring myself to do much of anything.

I haven't cleaned the traps yet from after returning all those cats early last Friday morning.   That's so unlike me.

I have no energy for drama right now whatsoever.   I leave my phone sound turned off.

It's been pouring too, so what can a person do when its so wet out but inside chores.

I'd like to finish a couple of colonies, using the funds we have left and the private clinic.   But the places to finish have disinterested unengaged caretakers which makes it so difficult.

Also, both locations the caretakers themselves have traps and could, if they applied themselves, catch the cats themselves.  But haven't and probably never will.

I'll get back to myself one of these days.  Maybe when the shock of winter hitting hard here and early wears off. The knowledge the next months will be hard, with the weather yucky and icky and if the sun comes out it still won't be warm, is depressing.

I'm toying with the idea of partial retirement---closing the spay neuter mission for now, since, let's face it, I can't really get cats fixed when there's no place to get it done affordably anymore.  

The decline of the most local option, the clinic in Salem, to pretty much insignificance in spay neuter help, along with the lying that went on, when the Portland shelter took over the Salem one, that nothing will change, when everything did, its been a blow.  Not just for cats in the mid valley but to those who help them, mentally and financially.   I have this gut feeling that Portland shelter wanted it this way, to rip the hearts out of mid valley cat helpers.  I don't know why I think that, just a feeling, a resentment towards them because they lied in the first place.   I had tried to be so optimistic.   They have so much money, I thought of course they'll see the extent of the overpopulation problem and jump in to set up even more clinics, expand them and help solve the problem.  Ha.  What a joke.  When any organization has a PR spin department, red flags!!!!!  

So I decided to look through old photos, poorly organized on my computer.   

This was the yard when I first moved in, before the ground began to sink in many spots from constant rain, before the two maples grew to massive girths and began  dropping branches on the house and car and had to be removed.  This was after fencing the yard, before I covered it to contain the cats.   Even then, the yard seemed incapable of growing grass, due to moisure content and clay soil.

I remember the episode from the next few photos.  On way to FCCO with a lot of cats, something flew off a vehicle ahead of me, just before Wilsonville on the freeway, slicing part of the sidewall of my tire.  No one slowed or gave way as I tried to get to the right hand side of the freeway.   When I made it off the freeway I realized there was a dead smelling deer very near me.  I had to remove all the cats, to get to the jack and donut, so carried them down a slope so they wouldn't be as afraid with the freeway noise.   No one offered help.   I got the donut on, and by the time I got to the FCCO, it was flat too.   The regular tire I'd taken off was ruined.   AAA came to the FCCO and fixed the flat donut and I then took off to find a tire shop to replace the tire.  Costly trip.

16 cats carried down a hill to be out of harms way from the freeway.

Tire with destroyed sidewall

Dead rotting deer near where I pulled off freeway.

Flat donut

That was way back in 2012.   Long time ago.  I just ran across the photos.

One of the many branches that fell off the maple before it was cut down.

Snow dusting the hills, taken over a decade ago

Who could forget the Guinea that showed up--very loud bird.  He or she vanished about the time I decided to drop trap the bird and send it off to a place who wanted it.  

And all the ducks who mysteriously showed up here now and then

Well I need to get busy, so much for memory lane.  I'll do it again, because I'm finally trying to organize my photos.  I like to look at them and some just need deleted.