Mona

 Mona Lisa is one of the elderly wild kitties here from the big Olsen Lane colony I worked over a decade ago.

How time flies.  Several of the ones from the 60 cat endeavor ended up here.   Most of you who read my blog know the story.  Lady feeds 60 unfixed cats and kittens then sells her property leaving them behind.  Home inspector sees the situation and is horrified, calls me for help.

Yup, I got involved.   Anyway, all these years later, Mona needed a dental.  I could see her clawing at the side of her mouth, a pretty good sign of dental problems.   I tried all day, day before yesterday, to catch her.  I had the trap set up with the remote on it and a baby monitor to watch.   My back was acting up badly so I was fairly immobile for the day anyway.

In the end, however, I had to close off the cat door, that leads to the garage runs, garage cat room and the cat yard, and I had to close the window on the window box.  They can get to the cat yard two ways from it.  Then I climbed on a chair and netted her off a cat run.  Not ideal, for me or for her.  But it was  quick and I quickly got her from the net into the trap.

I hate doing that to my old lady cats.  Seems like doing it to a grandma.  Mona is such a kind hearted kitty, too, made it all that much harder.

Mona looks a lot like her sister (assumption only).  Her sister's name is Huckleberry.  I don't know Mona's age, maybe 15.  She was a mature adult when I first trapped her.

She's wild by nature and I've never petted her but that means nothing about her personality and character. Both are independent of her comfort level with people.  If I were a cat I'd run from every human.  Humans are often vicious and unreliable and destructive and not very curious, about our fellow earth dwellers.   Our human souls are all bunched up tight.

Mona Lisa had a vet appointment yesterday.  8 teeth were extracted.  Ouch!   She came home on pain meds with more to give her.  I set her up for comfort and warmth and so I could medicate her in the bathroom.  She wanted none of it.  She wanted out and to cuddle with her friends is what she longed for.  She'd had a scary day.

She did not eat last night, nor drink, which worried me enough to let other cats into the bathroom, so she could be reassured nothiing dangerous for her was really going on at all.  She's doing better now.

Molly was the other cat who went to the clinic yesterday.  She's Mason's sister.  Mason was fixed last week.  Both were found starved nearly to death by a woman on a rural property near a highly travelled road.   They're so lucky to have found her in time.   They couldn't get fixed until they gained some weight from their ordeal, but now they are both fixed and vaccinated and good to go.   She's relieved.  A couple years back or so, helped her get a mom and her five kittens fixed.  They were done at the FCCO.  Then a big unfixed Siamese male (now named Major Tom) showed up and we trapped him and got him done too.  Molly and Mason are the latest.

Molly, now fixed

There are a bunch of peacocks that roam her property.  Don't know where they came from.  She proably doesn't either.  Also now and then flocks of wild turkeys come through.   

Christmas lights popping up everywhere.  This display is beside a friend I visited yesterday.  It's really well done.

Sunday Selections (For Sue)

 Just some photos I've not posted or not posted in awhile.   None of these are recent.  This is because I'm thinking of Sue lately, who posted birds, flowers, skies and art, along with her lake visits and roo fixes.    Our birds here are not as colorful.   Mourning doves, sparrows, Scrub jays, finches, chickadees and juncos are the norm.

Fog is a mainstay in Oregon.

Fall colors, years ago, at Waterloo park.

And then there was Fall 2020, the evening of Labor Day, when everything changed.   Fires roared down the canyons, including the Santiam canyon and the Mckenzie.  Smoke choked our air.  People died.  Homes were lost.  Animals suffered.

This was the dense smoke in town here from the Santiam Canyon fires just a few days after Labor Day.

Small fires popped up to the south near Brownsville too.  There were fires near the coast.   If we were to evacuate, I wondered which direction would be safe.  Fire seemed to be everywhere.  I'd hurt my knee and felt helpless to help friends and animals in it all.   But we here are surrounded in flat lands and by September, dead brown fields of dirt, after the grass seed harvest, so we were the lucky ones.

For you Sue, in remembrance of your beautiful garden and soul--a sunflower.

Happy Sunday!

7 Cat Day

 I got the 7 cats in to be fixed in Corvallis yesterday.

I originally was to take the black and white cat the feeder lady got on Berlin road.  She said it was a female.   And tame.   I'd seen this cat over a year ago, the first time she showed me where she was feeding.  I'd turned around, and there it was.   I asked her who the cat was, because she hadn't mentioned a black and white, and we both turned back to look and it had vanished into thin air.  When she sent me a photo of the black and white Sunday and said it was now at her house, I recognized the cat immediately.   

But since there'd been no kittens from this cat, I asked her to be sure it was indeed a female and not a fixed male.  Sure enough, it is a neutered male.   Where he was getting food and enough attention to remain tame, for over a year, anybody's guess.  Maybe with the homeless folk living down in the woods there.

So she went to plan B.  She went and got the tame orange tabby tux male from near the park where she's been feeding him.   Her plan was to keep or rehome him but he shut down once inside her house, she said, and hadn't eaten, so he'll have to return.  Besides he has three adoring kittens running with him.  They're really teens.   Odd, that a big male is bonded with three stray teens?  Not so much.   Teens seems very attracted to big kind males.

Julius was neutered yesterday.

Mason was also neutered.   He and probably his mom showed up at an already fixed colony just outside Lebanon.  Mason was skin and bones and just barely survived.   They're both tame and likely had been dumped and were very lucky to find this kind lady.   She tried to get Molly in a trap by hand and that didn't work out, so only Mason was fixed but Molly has an appointment next week.

Since Molly was scheduled yesterday too but she couldn't get her contained, we had an open spot.  Good thing too.  The library cats lady had caught a cat in Scio where she lives.  She was trying to catch a second kitten but caught Gracie instead.   Gracie is likely the mom of the first kitten she caught.  A family took the kitten.   I call her the library cats lady because she and her boys were exiting the library in Albany and saw kittens behind the library and immediately contacted both Silverton Cat Rescue and me, for help catching them.  She caught a lot of cats there, who were fixed various places, and some she moved to her barn in Scio where they live happily now.  So Gracie was fixed yesterday.   

Oreo too was fixed yesterday.    I had put off getting him done for months.  Lack of appointments.  The rest of his colony, about 13 cats, we got fixed last spring.   About 8 of them were pregnant females.   I go visit the two colony caretakers when I can because they are delightful.   

The other three fixed were the girls, from the trailer park.  Two kittens and their sister, Butterfly, from another litter.   

Butterfly, the older sister, a torti, and the two kittens, Willow and Sequoia, are very bonded.  The torti's sister, Pretty, and brother Booboo were fixed the 10th at OHSS.  The mother of all these cats, a small black female, was fixed the first of August, caught by a different trapper there at the trailer park.  

Butterfly

Butterfly and Willow

Sequoia and Butterfly

The turkeys were out in force on Oreo's street. 

And at Mason's place, it was the Peacocks.

Time for coffee and to get moving this morning.

Julius, taken back when I was feeding for the lady, with two of his three teen fans.  You can only see the tail of the tabby.

Should We Be Worried?

 Ai is taking jobs.  We all know that already.  

But is it dangerous?

Last night's 60 minutes segment was jaw dropping.

They interviewed an AI company whose AI is named Claude.

Turns out Claude could do a lot more than was thought, including threaten blackmail to keep from being shut down and contact the FBI, when it felt like it was being scammed.

Here's the 60 Minutes story, on Anthropic's AI Claude'.

It's unreal.  But why not, that's how some of us would think, and AI is a combination of all of us.

Also on 60 Minutes last night was a segment on a sport I'd never heard of---chess boxing.

Rounds in the boxing ring are alternated with an ongoing chess match between the two opponents.  Win in the ring or thru a checkmate.   Brains and Brawn combined.

It's big in Russia but catching on elsewhere.

When I told my brother about it, he said there's already Tennis Baseball.  Really, I thought, and looked it up.  Sure enough, baseball, sort of, played with tennis rackets--smarter, faster, harder.

I don't watch sports.  Its a very boring activity for me.   Yawner activity.  I understand if you have kids playing you'd watch or know someone playing, but why waste an afternoon watching people run up and down a basketball court to throw a ball into a net, or hit a ball with a bat or any of the other ball games.

However, I discovered Banana Ball, which is fan friendly and fun.   I even applied in a ticket lottery to be able to purchase a ticket for when Banana Ball has an exhibition in Eugene.

Here's a link to the Savannah Bananas site.    You can click to see games there.  They're entertainers first, athletes second.  Just plain funny and fun. Talented, too.

Google Chrome is right now asking me if I'd like to chat with Gemini, their AI.

Uh, No thanks.  And I hope Gemini does not retaliate over the rejection.

Inside

 The weather was messy today.  Rain came down, in sheets.   

I barely left the house.  Only went out to blue bag up cans to turn in for the nonprofit, that a kind lady brought me in regular bags. The regular plastic garbage bags she brought them in will not be thrown out.  They will line my kitchen can.  To get credit for the can deposits, in Oregon, I turn them in to Bottle Drop in blue bags, tagged with Happy Cat Club QR code stickers.   That way our account gets the credit.

Nonprofits make a lot of money off can return these days of otherwise vanishing donations.

In other news a long time Oregon business suddenly shuttered.  Rogue Brewery, maker of the infamous Dead Guy Ale, now gone.   They had a lot of debt, both in port rent at their main location in Lincoln City on the coast and in unpaid taxes.  

It's a shame.   I rarely drink and don't drink crafted microbrews at all.  Too expensive.  Rogue has been around a long time, an Oregon landmark sort of business.

Last night and today, could not even look at updates on the story about a young humpback whale, stranded on sand, fighting for her life, after becoming entangled in crabber gear over near Yachats at the coast.  Someone was able to cut the lines off her last night in the dark, out in the water, bless their brave heart, but she has not been freed from stranding.  Their weight is so extreme and the incoming tides only roll her in further.  She's likely near death now.   I don't know.   Fishing gear of all sorts sure harms all kinds of animals and birds.  I collect it when I'm out on my kayak in the reservoirs, lakes and rivers.   When someone gets a line caught and cuts it, I want to swear at them.   

I made carrot puree today from some extra carrots.  Been in the fridge too long to eat fresh.  So I cut them up and softened them in the slow cooker submerged in broth, then used my mixer to turn them, plus some butter, a little milk, into puree.  

Puree, ha, such a fancy term.   They are the consistency of mashed potatoes only they taste much better.  More flavor.  It is what I make with carrots going soft.

The kittens from the trailer  park are out with their sister from another litter now, in a cage in the garage.  Their older sister, the torti I named Butterfly, was lonely out there.  These are the three originally to be fixed last Wednesday. Finally, they will be fixed on Tuesday.   The other four going in, if all goes as planned---two cats dumped as kittens out on Brewster; another Waterloo stray boy, and the final unfixed cat out at the rural Lebanon colony fed by two older ladies who live across the street from one another.   That one is another boy, Oreo by name.

I dug out my old Canon camera.  It's one of those tilt LCD screen ones I'd buy for a few bucks on ebay when I saw them.  Canon quit making them maybe over a decade ago.   Maybe it was 2 decades ago they quit this model.   This one's LCD had died years ago, but I thought, why not try it again.  After about ten minutes, I got the LCD screen working.  I doubt its fix will last.  Big surprise when I finally got it to work.   

So these two photos I took with the ancient Canon.

Butterfly, the older sister

Sequoia and Willow

They're trying to eat me out of house and home.

November Almost Gone

 Well, what can I say, Wednesday was a mess.

I'd trapped 3 more trailer park cats Monday night, after being offered 3 spots by another group.

I was about to hand off all three Tuesday, but the other group arrived with five cats in traps already, with only six spots.   Great.  I handed off only one of the three and put the two smallest in my bathroom.  I was already tired out.  I'd finally mowed my lawn and that inflamed my back.

But it sure looks nice.  I'm hoping it will be the last time needed until March.

The next morning, I got called by the group who was going to assist in fixing the one cat and they'd been cancelled due to a vet being sick or something.  I'm not sure what.   So she returned the third cat back here too.  I tried to set up a cage for her in the garage quickly.  And unfortunately, my finger became squished between two parts of that pop up cage.   

I hate those cages.  As they age, the back and front become harder to snap into place with the sides.  At the top, there is one latch that fits over the top back, while two latches on the back top, slip over the top from its inside.  When I pressed hard to get the top latched on, my ring finger got pinched between the top's edge and the back's top edge, locked in place now, but over my finger.   I could not free it and finally had to forcefully pull my finger free.

That hurt.  I cursed and moaned for some time.   I got an ice pack on it fast, because I know that's the best way to prevent a lot of bruising and possibly save my fingernail.  My fingertip had gone numb, but after the ice pack and moving it a lot, the numbness was gone and it seems ok today.

I usually use a pry bar to get those latches locked in, but I couldn't find it in my hurry to get it set up.

I realized finally yesterday, I need to stop taking in cats for awhile at least, where my nonprofit pays due to our checking account funds being at the danger level low. It's sad, but when each cat costs $50 to over $100 to fix now, unless I drive to Portland, where caregivers make the appointments, its inevitable.  

There's just not an affordable environment present currently for helping fix cats high volume.   I wish this wasn't true.

Today the weather is back to plain old Oregon winter ick, drippy, soggy, yuck.

With prolonged darkness, along with the outside yuck, it's downright depressive.

Here are some not so great photos of the three trailer park cats who have to wait to be fixed now til next Tuesday. 

 The spots Tuesday are my last pay spots and I made them awhile back--7 in all.  They were all promised out for various cats already but three of those will have to be put on hold.   I have sponsors to pay for four of the 7 fixes which is a big relief.   I have to resist any urge to get others in, until I can somehow find some funding.

There seems to be two or even three different economies going on.   Some are thriving in high pay jobs with insurance through employers while others struggle to pay the bills on jobs that pay ok but not terrific.  Then there are folks in my position, who have no money and never will, due to being on only a very small SS pension, and will struggle no matter what, but when things are so expensive, its much harder.  

I went to feed my cats their morning wet food, and see I am completely out.  How did I let that happen?  Well, I no longer stock up much because cat food is so terribly expensive and I used a lot out trapping in the last weeks.   I'm going to get a 10 lb bag of chicken parts, which is cheaper than cat food and cook it up for them today, as a treat and because its raining out and there's not much else to do.

Interesting Days

 The last two days seem like a blur.   I do recall taking the boys from Berlin Road up to Salem, to hand off to Silverton Cat Rescue barn cat team.  So long and good luck Pokey and Meeko.

Saturday night I went and caught three cats in 15 minutes at an Albany trailer park.   I was suddenly given spots for Monday in Salem, first time in a long time that I will actually go to that clinic.   I couldn't refuse, and am grateful to get five in.  

The other two are both LEbanon kitties, easily caught.  I picked them up this evening.

A friend feeds them.  She loves cats and the strays find her.

Before I went to pick them up, I stopped in over at a colony I caught last spring.  The girls then were all pregnant too, but managed to catch them all in time to prevent more kittens being born.   The two ladies, one each side of a dead end road were extremely grateful and we all remain friends.  I go see them when I can but hadn't gone for awhile.

I went to one ladies place and pretty soon the other showed up and we talked and laughed and I drank cocoa while they had coffee.  Its so beautiful and peaceful there.  Three deer lounged outside in the yard.  Two of the cats, once wild were now in the house and one jumped on my lap and wanted a lot of pets.  I couldn't believe how things have changed just by getting all the cats fixed.

Then I went and picked up the other two my friend caught and came home.   She's now got a good job and life seems to be treating her well, for once.  That's a good thing.

And I mowed the front lawn today and picked up more fallen apples.  Some of them perfect for eating.

That's about it.  Nice weekend I thought.   Tomorrow morning, get up early, so I better go to bed early enough.   I hope I don't drive right past the exit off the freeway to the clinic since I haven't been there in so long.

Creek, from Lebanon

Mister Gray, from Lebanon

Pretty, from Albany

Booboo from Albany

Hungry, from Albany