Longer Windy Wet Day

 Yesterday was longer than the day before.  I didn't think that would be possible.

I started the day around 5:30 a.m.  Getting up, getting ready to take the five cats to the clinic.

Finally, just after 6:30 a.m., off I went.   I'm always paranoid now, going to this clinic, like they're going to find something wrong I did and ban me for good.   I no longer get to go there often.  Used to be a highlight to go there, all friendliness and laughter and seeing others I knew.  Now, it's rare I go there and it makes me nervous.

I had three cats under the caretaker I'd registered--the trailer park, but didn't know her last name and when the clinic said the last name, I didn't recognize it until it finally dawned on me who they were talking about, as registered caretaker of the cats.   I'm lucky if I catch the first name of a caretaker.

The other two, from down by the river outside Lebanon, were under my name since I provide the feeder lady food.  

After I left off the cats, I headed straight through Turner, Marion and Jefferson but not home.  I was headed back up to the river location, to try for the final two.  The four--the big orange boy Julius, plus Moxie and his sister, the tabby, and the torti, have a barn home to go to if I get all four.

I already had the fixed Julius in my garage in a large cage.  Moxie was being fixed.  I just needed to catch the last two.   They could have been fixed today had a I caught them, but I spent six hours there, with a trap set, walking a quarter mile one way each time I went to check it.  At least I got exercise.  I finally gave up at 2:00.  I had to get back to the clinic to pick up the five cats.

Meantime, the feeder lady showed up.  I sat with her in her truck for awhile but things got tense.   Julius is tame but so is the little white and black female caught.   I suggested she hold the tame girl and get an intake appointment at the local large shelter.   It costs money, like $100 for one cat, to get them into that shelter.  It's not easy nor is it really affordable.  But maybe for one cat, so she wouldn't have to live on the banks of a river.  Feeder lady already knows I'm holding Julius and MOxie, have cats of my own to care for and a huge trapping job this week but when I asked her to help out Piper, she said "why can't you hold Piper?"

 She just wants to put out food.  Have no responsibility to the cats she feeds other than that.  She will put down other folks who don't help get their own cats they feed fixed, but she feels she's different and that its all my responsibility since I have a nonprofit.  "You mean to do all the work, pay for it all, hold them all when you don't want to feed them anymore?"   "Yeah," she says.     

I got out of her truck and went to my car.  I didn't want to occupy the same space anymore.   

The worst part of it, the barn home was for the four cats.  Now only Julius and Moxie are here who could go.   I'll have to catch two more at one of the fixed colonies, to go with them and hope they get along.  Julius is very tame but wants to be outside.   I'll be too busy to river trap up there rest of week and god knows feeder lady won't try and it will be impossible to get her to stop feeding anyway.  As for Piper, the tame white girl, she's not a good barn cat candidate and doesn't like Julius, so won't be going with him.

I went directly to the clinic from the trapping location, with one stop to pick up some cat food to drop off on the way home to an old old man.  

Clinic pick up was easy and they were very friendly.  A tinge of hope surged into my soul, after a dismal day, that the clinic would soon be like it once was and maybe I'd have one place to have positive human contact again.

I went the long way home, took the off road I needed to take, and drove up the driveway to the old man's place.  His place really is not livable and he's something like 90.  I don't know how old exactly---very old.  He's bent over from arthritis, still milking his cows by hand, still climbing up into the loft of the barn, on steep narrow steps, to feed the cats there.  

Got all the crew of cats fixed a couple years or so ago.   But he claims a bunch more mostly tame ones showed up this fall or in the summer.    They look extremely healthy, all of them.  I helped him lug those bags up those steps into the dark loft.  I flashed my light around as he put out food for the cats, trying to see how many are without ear tips.   The newcomers look healthy.   He tells me they were likely dropped off but I'm thinking maybe that's not the case necessarily, that maybe he took some in from someone or a relative and is just telling me what he wants me to believe. 

 I don't auto believe what anyone tells me about anything anymore.   

 I have three appointments next Monday.  I told him I'd come out this weekend, trap some, see what's up with the newcomers.   It was dark when I was out there.  Gets dark so early now.

I finally made it home.  By now it was closing on 7:00 p.m.  I unloaded Moxie and Piper from the car.  Piper's now in the bathroom and Moxie is in with Julius.  

Rain pounded down all night.  Supposed to keep at it all day too.   About time to return the trailer park boys.

I've posted videos of this loft before, back when I caught the cats he had then to be fixed.  The newcomers are mostly tame.  When I posted this video on facebook, if the sound isn't on, it auto generates captions of what fb's ai bot thinks is being said, only its so wrong in spots, its funny.