Time Warps

 When I am super busy, seems like time is different.

I was trying to recall what day this week I drove Chatty and Sunny to Salem, to meet up with Silverton Cat Rescue barn cat team.   Oh, I think, finally, that was yesterday.   Oh, and it was just yesterday also when I returned the two Lebanon kitties.   Ok then......

Seems like days ago.

I came home and slept a bit yesterday then went to Gleaners distribution.  Gleaners has been such a big help to me already.   I can't say enough good about this nonprofit.   Treasures I got there yesterday---a jug of V8 juice, two types of swiss chard, which is what I'm going to have for dinner tonight, in an apple swiss chard onion salad plus lentils (also got at gleaners) and some mushrooms! I already knew where I was going after that.  

I'd been contacted about a colony way out, north of Sweet Home, beyond Waterloo.  Big colony really.  Lady feeds them.  House is vacant though and falling apart.   Permission must be had to go out there, from property owner's son.  The requests to help this one cat there came from multiple people.  

The feeder lady was gone however until Monday evening.   So we arranged to meet there Tuesday.   I was expecting the situation out there to be worse than it is.  Always nice to find out the cats are healthy looking and well fed.   Lots of cats need fixed, but she has FCCO appointments upcoming and even has ordered a drop trap.

Meantime, I got there and quickly set up my drop trap along the side of the house.  Not without some drama.  I tripped on my own pants, which do not fit (too big) and fell on my side onto the concrete.  On the way down, I remember thinking  "if I catch myself with my wrist, will it snap"  Ha.  Funny what one thinks of.  It did not snap, nor was I injured in any way.   

However, I'm getting rid of the pants.   I've worn short pants and sandals all summer.  So it was about the first time I'd worn jeans for months, only to discover I need some wardrobe changes.  The problem buying clothes these days is non standard sizing.  You cannot assume because the size says one thing, and that is the size you've worn, that this particular brand will be similar.  At all.

 About five teens came running out to eat under the drop trap.  Then the girl with the plastic jar around her neck came out.  I yanked the cord dropping it over six cats.  I let out two teens, transferring them to the live trap, then releasing them, before she got in the transfer trap.  Took all of ten minutes to get her safely contained and in my car.

It killed me to see unfixed cats and not just catch them all instantly to be fixed.   But these days, with no real high volume affordable spay neuter out there, and the HCC bank account on low, I had no choice but to target only her.

Poor girl.  There's a piece of the bottom of the plastic, jagged too, sticking out over one eye.  The kid that works on the property said its been on her head since the first time he saw her, months ago.

This morning I'm taking her to Alpine Animal Hospital where she'll get that thing off her and be free of it.  And she'll get spayed too.

I don't like to think about Florida, getting hit again by a massive hurricane, so soon after Helene tore through.   Milton is supposed to smack into Tampa.   Their big hospital there isn't evacuating.  They have awesome features to remain hurricane proof, including their own capacity to produce power, a water barrier wall that repelled storm surge from Helene, their own deep wells for a water source.  I hope they'll be ok.

People can leave, get out of its path, but animals, birds--they can't.   What do you do, I also think to myself, if you lose everything, your home and pretty much everything else?  Where do you go, how do you start again?   I heard a lot of people can't even get flood insurance anymore in Florida--too expensive.   Its like wildfire insurance is, in parts of California and Oregon.

I've learned a lot watching the news coverage, about preparation for such storms, like to take a video of everything you own and send it to someone not in the path, to have your go bag ready, so you can evacuate in a hurry, put your name and any vital info, in waterproof marker, on your body, all kinds of useful tips.   And stay out of the flood water---its full of bacteria and toxins.  

Our biggest threats in this part of the country are wildfires and earthquakes.  Some people feel Mt. Adams could be about to erupt, but not like St. Helens, no big explosive eruption, more like a lava oozing event if it happens.  When St. Helens blew, I recall it so clearly still and for a few years, kept some volcanic ash I brushed off my car in a glass vial.  I don't know why.  It's gone now.  I remember how they warned us not to wash our cars, that the abrasive ash would scratch up the paint and clog up air filters.  When the news cycles are slow, they start running fear articles about the Cascadia fault zone and impending massive earthquake.  But that's gone on for decades and nothing has happened so I am immune to thinking much about it, as a viable threat in my lifetime.  Not much a person can do about it anyhow.

Good luck Florida and all the lives, human and animal, in the path of Milton.

After I drop Rosa the cat at the clinic, I go to Corvallis for an apple glean.  My shoulder got all better fast, so I'm good to go.  I used ice and I have this vibrating heat pad that worked wonders.  We're supposed to take buckets though.  I don't have any buckets but I do have empty cat litter containers.  Their plastic handles have broken off, but last night, I drilled holes in their sides and added rope handles.