Portland Trip

 Yesterday I drove 20 cats to Portland to be fixed.

It was from the barns again, just outside Albany.   I took both my drop traps to them a few days before and they began feeding under them.  I also left them traps to set up and feed in, which they did.   I thought we'd catch a few Tuesday evening then the rest on Wednesday just to break it up a bit and give a better chance of getting 20.

Well they caught 17 Tuesday night.  This is an elderly couple, both over 80.  He was pulling the string on the drop trap in one barn and she in another.   He caught three under the goat barn drop trap.   She thought she had four in the hay barn, two of them already fixed, but she actually had about seven cats under it.

So I did the transferring out to traps.  My headlamp went dead out there as I tried to get them out but eventually got them into live traps.  The rest we caught by setting traps.

Wednesday I took my neighbor to a procedure she had to have, under anesthesia, then picked her up again when she was done.  After that I headed out to once again try to find that lone cat on that rural road, but didn't see her.  There was a homeless entourage there in the pullout.  It consisted of a very old small camp trailer, a blue passenger van, with some logo painted over but not enough you couldn't see someone tried to paint it over, and a utility rig loaded in junk metal with a generator running off it to the camp trailer.  It has been very cold out.   The cold often lasts til late morning.

I parked and went around the group of vehicles, to try to spot the cat.  I never spotted her but left some food in case she's still alive and somewhere in the brush around there.

I decided to stop by the colony when driving home, since it was on the way.  I'd told them I'd be out later.  I saw a cat in a trap by one barn and collected her.   By 4:30 the other two traps had cats in them and we were done since they had only 20 spay spots at the FCCO.

In the meantime I got the back mri results by mychart.  I was really kind of shocked at the results showing a lot of damage especially at one vertebral level and stricture of spinal cord there (stenosis) to 4 mm, which really was scary to see.  I felt very vulnerable then, like I shouldn't lift anything heavy at all, or my spine would pinch off there.  

The doctor referred me to neurology.  I think that might take a long time, but I don't know.   The main damage is caused by calcification of the disk, nerve endings etc and even a ligament or tendon head that attaches.  Something like that.   I don't want to read it again.  

I got up at 4:30 a.m. yesterday morning and by just after 5:30 was headed to the clinic with the 20 cats.  I had to load them all first but took it easy.

It was too cold to have them in the car night before.   I went to my friends house and spent the day there.  she wasn't there, was at work, but I watched TV when I should have been napping.  Oh well.

Got home after 7:00 last night I think.  I could have been home sooner but I had to stop for gas and then returned a bunch of cat phone calls there, just to take a break from driving.

Now I just need to return those 20 cats.  They have more there need caught.  Hopefully they can get some more appointments.  

These 9 are from the goat barn.

And then the next 11 are from the hay barn.

Long hair buff teen

Two short hair buff teens

There were two kittens, one gray long hair and one muted torti long hair

Dlh gray teen

Dlh muted torti teen

There were three gray tux short hairs, one a kitten and the other two teens.

And a flamepoint teen.

That's a lot of photos but will need them for reference next time around.   

The problem is we didn't catch the adults at the hay barn, only teens and kittens.

Return of the cats:   It went very smoothly.   I first went into the goat barn and put out a lot of dry food, then also plates of wet food.  Then I released the 9 cats from the goat barn.  The woman of the couple watched, but it was easy as I'd driven up near the barn.  I left the empty traps there and asked her what she thought my chances were driving through the field to the hay barn.  Sure would be easier than hiking each trap out.   My car is very lightweight.  In other words, low chance of sinking in to soft ground.   If I'd gone earlier, with the ground still frozen, I would have not thought twice about it.   

So I went for it and drove out through the field around their house and yard out to the hay barn.  There I repeated what I did in the goat barn--put out a lot of dry and wet too.   I put all the dirty papers in a bag I'd brought along, folding up the cage cover towels, then drove through the field back to the goat barn to get those empty traps.  I arrived home with the traps cleaned of dirty papers and cage covers ready to start laundering.  This made things very easy.  Catching up on laundry will take a few days but otherwise, this was as easy as it gets, and would have been easier if I'd taken a nap at my friends place during the day yesterday since I had to get up at an ungodly hour.