Back to Tcha Timanwi

 Marys Peak is sacred to the Kalapuya Indian tribe.  

The mountains real name is Tcha Timanwi.  Oral history of the Kalapuya's refers to it as a place of refuge natives climbed for safety during massive floods in the valley.  It is the tallest mountain in the coast range at 4097 feet.  I think it got the white name Mary from a settler named Mary Lloyd who first crossed the creek that becomes the Marys river.  Another version of its name is Chintimini.

I wrote an essay about it either in high school or early college and since then have called the peak Tcha Timanwi.  Chintimini is easier to pronounce, however.

It's also the place some very cruel person dumped a young mom and her kittens to die horribly and slowly.  Cowardly and cruel behavior.

The first facebook post about the dumping came from a Springfield woman on September 8.  She and her friend saw them when hiking and caught the first two kittens.   She contacted me on the 16th, and I went up and did not find them but I did leave about 5 or 6 lbs of dry food.

One of the first two caught by the women who spotted them the 8th.

Then about three or four days ago, I was forwarded a new post by someone else about them.  That woman went up and caught one of the kittens, who she took to a rescue.  Another woman contacted me about them but had immediately gone up, seen the mom and set her own trap.  I went up the next day, despite deciding not to, to stay out of it, and checked her trap.  The mom cat was inside.   I set three more traps.  She checked them later on and there were two more kittens in one of the traps.

The lady who caught the other kitten then went up to the check the traps again and even spend the night camping.   We think all still living are caught now.  The woman who caught mom will foster all three kittens, as the rescue who took the first thinks that kitten would do better with siblings.  Mom is at the radpets being spayed today.  She is named Marys.

The other kitten caught the 8th of September.

It's a good news story.   

The last two kittens caught.  I don't have a photo of the other kitten caught by the woman who saw them again recently.  

Marys the mom

I also took Scamp in to the clinic this morning to be fixed.  He's the last of the river path kittens needing to go in.  And I took Missy and Spots, two cats from the Lebanon hoarder man.  He's in the hospital and his daughters are trying hard to get anybody not yet fixed in to be fixed while he's gone.  But they're horrified by the state of their angry father's trailer and his hoarding obsession and how awful it is for the cats.   They don't know what to do.  I got 60 or so fixed there a year ago and it was nightmare dealing with him and the exhaustion.  I never went inside the trailer.   I feel for those women although we joked about how damaged many of us are from our parents behaviors.  I did not get photos of Missy and Spots.

Marys and her kittens will be fostered by the kind woman who caught Marys, who, without fanfare, without discussion, just went up and set a trap.  I get uncomfortable posting such stories because people then think I did it all and I did almost nothing  They were saved by others.  I didn't do much, just went up to look one day and then helped with trapping one day housed mom after she was caught, got her fixed, but now she and her kittens will be fostered elsewhere.