Cats and Trash and Broken Sirens

Black unfixed male in the park

 I get lied to a lot in the course of getting cats fixed.  People come up with overly fantastical tales about where cats came from to get them fixed at head of the line.    People promise to donate when I get their cats fixed and then never do.  People promise to feed in traps, to make it easy to catch the cats, then just don't bother.  

On and on, the lies add up.   I can barely believe anyone anymore.  Some people really think I fall for their tall tales.   I just don't let on.  Why would I?  The cats need fixed and I don't have the time or desire to confront their untruths.

Yesterday was cat round up for today.  I have five spay neuter reservations at the Salem clinic, the last for the month.

Collecting three of the five needed was easy.  I knew I would be taking the last three kittens from the Corvallis homeless camp.   The homeless lady, according to her grandma, loves cats.  She'd been caring for this mom cat at a camp, who had a litter last summer. I got three from that previous litter fixed, who ended up as teens at her grandmas' out on Berlin Road.  But she'd been unable to get the mom contained until a few weeks ago.  Then when a situation over in Corvallis where she was living turned south with some guys who kicked out the kittens and mom, she took the kittens to grandma, but couldn't find the mom.  She was on a city bus then, and saw her behind Bimart, got off the bus, ran and caught the mom.   It's not far from where she'd been staying.   So mom joined her kittens out on Berlin Rd.  I got mom and one of the kittens fixed a couple weeks ago.  Today the last three kittens will be done.   

There are two lynx Point boys and a seal point girl kitten.  They hadn't named them yet, since they are not sure what they'll even do with them.   So I named the boys Bumble and Tumble.  The girl is Rumble.

This is the girl--Rumble.

Sunday morning I set out to try to catch two more, to fill the five spots.   I sat in Lebanon outside a house for a long while trying to catch the one remaining unfixed cat there yesterday morning.  They've had my trap for weeks, but keep randomly setting it, instead of selectively trapping for the one cat.  Then they just catch one of the fixed ones, in front of the unfixed female and that makes it all the harder.   But once the trap was set, and I had a bottle under the door with string around the neck to selectively trap for the adult female, the cats all vanished.  I knew then they hadn't been reliably feeding in the trap.   I knew my time there would be wasted and left after two hours to try elsewhere for two more cats.

In my time there yesterday morning, this is the only cat I saw, a fluffy already fixed teen I'd caught several weeks back.

I went up to the park, where there are at least four unfixed cats.  The feeder lady was there.  We are not on the best of terms anymore.

After she left to go home,  I caught the teen.  The teen is a relatively new arrival and hangs out with what the feeder lady calls her mom.  He or she was with their mom when I caught her.  The mom is massive and fuzzy, but I never caught her, partly because it began to pour down rain.  There's also an unfixed black roaming male who is also fed in residential.  I went over to a residential feeder afterwards and unloaded two cases of wet food for them.  They're poor but try hard to not be a burden by requesting cat food.

So Brambley, from the park, became the 4th cat for today. Brambley turns out to be a girl.  I'm getting him or her tested because I'm actually hoping to place the new show park cats and no longer have to interact with folks who have grudges against me.

Brambley, a teen, sex unknown

I went  and helped a Scio woman trapping near the library yesterday evening.   She had a friend with her.  They're young and a lot of fun.  They got involved trying to catch half dozen or more cats, after exiting the library and seeing kittens in the field behind it.  She already caught two of the kittens a week ago, who briefly stayed in my garage.  They were fixed through SCR spots in Salem and now will be barn cats at the Scio ladies place.  She's determined to get the rest fixed too.

She wanted to catch the mom of the kittens only last night, since I have a drop trap but I'm taking it out to the Seven Mile colony today and she'd only have access to use it last night.   So I took it over and set it up, beside where the cats are being fed.   I sat in my car, she and her friend in the smoke shelter for tenants of the apartments.  They feed the cats.

The other cats there are easy catches compared to the adult female.  The Scio lady has FCCO spots later in the week for them to be fixed.  I had one spot left open for my appointments.  I could take that female in to be fixed if caught.  

But mom never showed up.   She selectively caught a young male, that I thought could be a female the way a big black long hair male was following it all friendly like.   We put the cat in the trap in my car.  I could take the cat to be fixed if we didn't end up catching the adult female.

 And then this happened.....lots of sirens, two ambulances and a firetruck go by, but the firetruck's siren is broken and just screaming.  It was ear piercing and went on and on, since it turned up the street by where we trapping and stopped shortly after, siren still screaming.   The screaming ear piercing wail did not stop when the truck stopped, but went on and on.  We covered our ears as it hurt our ears, joked about it then knew we had to get out of there.  Just as we were leaving, the firetruck finally drove off too.  We knew the cats would not come out after that for a very long time.

The fifth cat going is the boy Marble, who I thought might be a girl, due to the overly friendly overtures of the big black long hair male, towards him.  He's getting fixed today and she'll catch the rest, hopefully, this week.  It's good she caught him, because then came the whacko siren incident and all the cats vanished.  If she hadn't caught Marble when she did, I would not have had a 5th cat for today.

Marble, from the library colony

There are two or three black tuxes to catch, another orange tabby teen, the black long hair adult, the mom, who looks from a photo to be a torbi, and maybe a Siamese male too.   There may be others.

Someone was feeding the ducks in the parking lot

My friends loaned me a small rolling garbage can, to put some of the litter in.  This is because the garbage company did not pick up trash last Thursday as usual, because of our one inch of snow. The trash route for Thursday will not be picked up again until next Thursday.  The loaned cart is about a quarter my usual cart size but will help a lot.   I can load it with bags but will also label it "TRASH" for pickup, so the garbage people have no excuse to ignore it.   My neighbors son forgot to put out the trash week before the no pickup Thursday and now they are overloaded too.      And a cat rescue in LEbanon did not get picked up either, due to some snow, on Thursday, and they're in the same boat I'm in---trying to find options for dirty litter.

Last night, the Scio lady came back to my garage with me to borrow another trap, and took a bag of dirty litter with her as a relative had some room in her can.  That was very helpful.