Back up Quartzville

 I've been busy.

Cats, 20 or more, dumped way out in the middle of nowhere

My rest of joints and strained this and that ended abruptly with Gleaners set up duties on Tuesday.  Now that was a lifting workout.    I'd not volunteered for set up duties before, where all the food is brought out of both freezers, frigs and from trucks arriving with overstock or outdated food from stores.   The food is sorted and displayed on long tables for distribution, which always happens on Tuesday afternoons.   I worked with the produce set up lady, learning the ropes there.   Fast and furious, I'd call it, but we could take breaks since almost everyone there has some kind of joint issue.  

I then went over to my neighbors for pizza that evening, but instead fell asleep on their couch.  she woke me at 9:00 finally, so I could come home.

Wednesday I went and trapped three cats quickly in Lebanon, to be fixed Thursday, before going to the monthly Gleaners member meeting.  This time, after the meeting, there was a potluck.   I was going to bake hand pies, but due to the high cost of ready made puff pastry dough, I backed out on that idea.   Instead I took accessories to another woman's bake potato bar contribution.   

Thursday I was scheduled to trap 3 more cats early morning in Lebanon from a different colony.  But realized I had double booked myself, now having three cats needing to go to the clinic in Corvallis.  The clinic tech in the end gave the cats a ride to her clinic to be fixed.  And I went off the other direction and trapped three in Lebanon.

On the way home, however, I thought, what if all six in this second colony could be done and texted the clinic to see if it was possible.  They agreed to do all six today.  I returned to the colony, this time with the dorp trap and caught two of the three remaining and left the caretaker a trap for the sixth.  She did catch that one too, later on.

Later on, I picked up the three now fixed, at the clinic, and headed to Lebanon.

Seesaw, a girl

Whiska, also a girl

Slick the boy

  I dropped them off to be recuperated by their people, picked up the 6th cat from the other location, and then went to a friends house.  We left number six there, and headed off with more traps way up above Sweet Home, above Foster Reservoir, above Green Peter dam (no reservoir because its been drawn down to nothing again, with result being chocolate milk looking water downstream).

Someone had dumped a whole lot of cats and kittens at a closed group camp in that remote area along Quartzville road.   At first, the reports were five to ten kittens.  Then it expanded to say there may be 20 or 30 cats.

oh my lord.

We arrived at dusk.  The only ones along that road by that hour were hunters giving up for the day.  It was pretty sad, to be blunt, to see cats, many of them Siamese, way out in the middle of nowhere.     Someone had left a huge drain pan full of dry cat food at the vault toilet.  I wondered if this colony started initially with some asshole camping there with unfixed cats who then lost or left the pregnant ones or if pregnant females were dumped up there and someone had seen them and begun feeding them or just what.

My heart sank to see so many.  We have no cat services in this county at all.  What to do with so many cats.  Someone else had grabbed a kitten already and unfortunately now claims she rehomed it (unfixed of course)..   Someone else caught four, only to have two of them escape a cage she had set up for them and they are now loose in her garage.  But, she says, the female is curious and already making her way into the house to check them out, from the attached garage.  Hmmm, I thought, maybe these cats are tame.   

We caught five quickly, then two other women showed up, but only one very large dog trap between them.  Its amazing people without even much equipment are eager to help these cats best they can.   It was fun to chat and joke with them.  Its beautiful out there, along the middle fork of the Santiam, in the pitch blackness of a fall night.    Fog had moved in, creating an eery quiet.   

12 in all so far caught there by various people.   I hope to help the other people catching them at least get them fixed.   All I can do.   Meanwhile, three of the five I caught are being fixed and I'll try to find the five placements.

I don't have photos yet because once back from way up there, as I call it, ha, I had to get chores done and get to bed.  Melanie, from Calapooia Critters, had offered to to drive the six from Lebanon to the vet this morning since the HVAC folks are here again, under the house as I write, to repair that downed pipe.  It shouldn't take long, they said.