Saturday, May 24, 2025

Hold Your Tongue!!!!

 I'm telling myself, Keep your mouth shut!   

Why?   I almost revolunteered to drive 20 cats up to FCCO next week, or the week after.  I can't even keep the date straight these days.

Originally I had offered, but that 20 cat Brownsville colony transport/trap did me in for awhile.  So I told them a week or more ago, I just couldn't do this 20 cat transport.

But today I met the colony at least, since I will help trap and loan traps.  It's the latest vet student colony.  Not the same vet student, and its at the barn where she keeps her horse, not at her place.  She's fourth year and is about to graduate.  Think----busy!!!!   

I went out to see the colony today first time.  The barn owners are my age or therabouts and we immediately clicked.   They have a mom cat and her five kittens in a home built cage, so they can try to tame the kittens.  Cats everywhere around the barns, coming out of trails in a field beside the driveway.  A few of the cats are already fixed.

Vet student arrived, bleary eyed tired.   I asked if she'd been up all night.  I think she nodded yes.  Her husband arrived and said he had ten minutes to spare only, to get the lowdown on the plan.

That's when I almost opened my mouth to offer to do the transport too.  Something kicks in to see worn out young people.  I want to get them a sandwich and tell them to leave their phones with me and then be really stern they're not to come out of their bedrooms until well rested.  What an idiot I can be, inside my head.  Someone needs to be lecturing young people more about the virtues of enough sleep, I feel.

Ah shoot, I'm redundant now.  I keep forgetting.   An old lady.  Keep your mouth shut.  Someone please lecture me on old age and getting enough sleep and not lifting too  many heavy objects.   Bring me a sandwich too.  And remind me no one cares about old ladies, not what they say or what they do, so I better care enough to shut up.

We settled on the plan quickly, so the young folk could get on with their busy lives.  Myself and the barn owners will do the trapping.  Young husband will arrive early morning of surgery to prep and load the van to transport.  Everything he needs for that will be there waiting for him, to make it efficient.

I then took a variety of back roads to the 2nd colony I was to visit today.   This would be Brownsville 1 colony.  Not the big one, the one those 20 I took up came from.   This is the one I started just before, and took six up we trapped to the FCCO.  

One of the females at this colony had kittens two days before I trapped, so she never went to be fixed. She needs fixed now!!!  

 There are a few other adults to trap.  I have appointments June 2 in Salem for the rest of the adults.  The ten kittens, between two females, will be fixed later on, when they're a bit bigger.  Five of the kittens are from a female I took to the FCCO in that first batch.  They informed me she was lactating back then, but the caretakers had not seen kittens with her, after she came back from being fixed, until recently.  The reason I went down today was to take them a drop trap to set up for them to feed under, to make it easier, we hope, to catch the straggler adults next weekend.

Here's a video of those five kittens from the long hair black mom they call Poof.  Poof is already spayed, at least. 


They're having a blast in the warm sun today, chasing each other, wrestling tumbling and then---eating!  They said Poof hadn't taken them up on the porch yet to eat cat food so they were still only getting what they could from her nursing.  Ah, I thought, and took over some dry cat food, in a plastic jar, and poured some out near where they were playing.  They were gobbling it like tigers in about ten seconds.


Driving back down the steep hill to the road, I stopped to watch three deer in a yard.


At least I got the front lawn mowed this afternoon.   Not the back, but I'm feeling accomplished just to get the front done.  Quiet day after I returned from visiting the two job site colonies.  I don't exactly have a social life.   If I go do something, I do it alone.  

The street's been quiet.  I suppose some are off enjoying the three day holiday weekend.  Today its nice and sunny.  Not sure what the forecast is for Sunday and Monday.

13 comments:

  1. I feel like I am in the old lady category too. Advice from a life time of experience by older people is not really valued.

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    Replies
    1. No it isn't valued Andrew. I should not be shocked. Did I listen to old foks when I was young?

      Delete
  2. That would be a great saying on t-shirt..."Hold Your Tongue"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Or. Keep Your Mouth Shut! There's too much talking in this world anyhow. Actions are better than talk anyday.

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  3. I am so glad you managed to restrain yourself and not offer to take the twenty cats. I hope you are enjoying the sunshine.

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    Replies
    1. We only got one day of it, EC. Yesterday. I wake up this morning and its all icky out. The forecast said it'd be ten degrees colder today possible rain tonight or tomorrow and I paid no attention.

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  4. Congratulations on not speaking up and thinking about yourself. I know it was hard, but if you don't take care of yourself, no one else will.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks, so happy I didn't volunteer to sacrifice myself. Working on that.

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  5. Good job sitting on your hands and not volunteering. You're important too.

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    Replies
    1. I need to say "no" a lot more. My car won't last much longer no matter what I do. There's nobody going to be helping me out when that happens.

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  6. Yeah, don't try to transport the 20 cats. It's good that others have volunteered to do this. It sounds like all of you need some rest.

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    Replies
    1. No kidding on the rest. I need out of the city really, somewhere beautiful, to get away.

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  7. It seems that appreciating our elders is cultural even within suburban United States. Young neighbors and local residents all around are very kind and make me feel valued without expecting something in return. I hope more folks treat you half as well as you deserve.

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