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

Books I've Read Lately

 I read quite a few books but don't write them all down and have already forgotten the last Vicki Delaney book I read and passed along.  I decided to list some, like blog creator Live and Learn does.

I read one in a couple days I got at Winco Foods for $2.98.   I loved it.

Never Coming Home by Hannah Mary McKinnon

 Yup, that's the title, and that's its author.   

When I first began reading it, I was a little bit disgusted.   Lucas tells the story in the first person.   He's visiting Nora, his mother in law, who is dying of cancer.  (or so he thinks).   He's being the faithful loving son-in-law.  Even though......his wife has been kidnapped and after the first ransom note, and a botched ransom delivery, there's been nothing from the kidnapper.

Lucas's fairly new wife is wealthy and so is Nora her mom.   But Michelle, his wife, has a brother, who is a drug addict and still living at Michelle and Lucas's place.   Lucas has pledged to Nora he'll take care of drug addict Travis, and NOra has offered to put Travis's share of the inheritance under a trust controlled by Lucas.  How nice for Lucas.  How long will it take for his kidnapped wife to be declared dead, he wonders to himself when thinking about her money.   Lucas is a very detail oriented man, when it comes to making sure all his plans come to fruition.  Or is he?  I loved the ending!   Couldn't have been better!

The back of this book had a catchy phrase:  Missing Wife; Happy Life.   Yeah maybe, Lucas. Or whatever your real name is.

Here's another one I got for $2.98 at Winco.

Fractal Noise by Christopher Paolini

This one started out so tediusly I nearly scrapped it.   It was never exciting.  In fact, if you never read it, you won't miss much at all.    A research spaceship is approaching a planet they are to study for possible colonization.  Only they discover an anomaly on the surface---a large perfectly symmetrical hole.  What is it, who made it and should they investigate it?  And if so, which of the scientists should go?   The scientists on board, private contractors, are all rather pathetic in their own ways.   Alex, the biologist, is depressed and, as a character, really insipid.  I wanted him to get killed off.  But the other three main characters are no more interesting.   A loud obnoxious Russian is another of the four who ends up landing on the planet, then doing a long walk to reach the hole.   He hates Talia, a religious zealot, and soon they are constantly fighting.  The fourth member of the expedition is Chen, who is even more insipid than Alex.  The book is about the trek, their fighting, their pasts, two of them end up killing one another but Alex trudges on to see the hole.  There's no research of the hole, and it exists only to give a tiny little bit of plot to this useless book.

Yeah that was a waste of time book.

Winter of Secrets by Vicki Delany

  Rich folk can be a pain, especially young rich people.  And Constable Molly Smith's town, Trafalgar B.C., has been invaded with them, at Christmas.  They've arrived to ski, drink, and cause trouble, in the entitled manner of the rich.  Some townsfolk are not happy about it.

  When a car goes off into the frozen river, resulting in two dead rich young men, Molly and the law investigate.   The coroner brings a surprise discovery after the autopsies.  One of the young men didn't drown or die of cold--he was murdered.   Could it have been the driver who killed him, whose rich sister and now parents are in town?

  The young visitors and their friends have been causing all sorts of trouble at the Airbnb where they're staying.  Fights, vandalism, you name it.   

  Molly just wants to ski the fabulous powder coming down.   Instead she now must help in the investigation.

I've read a few in the Molly Smith series.  I like them.  Delany develops the long term characters well.   YOu think you know them after the first Molly Smith book, I swear.  I read one other Molly Smith one after Fractal Noise, but I forgot the name of it already.   Guess I could read it again and not even notice.

Books are like movies or TV show episodes, some are good, some are lousy.  With the TV, a push on a remote button fixes the problem of a lousy movie or show.   With books, I just quit the lousy ones, dump them in a box, and send them back to where they came from or a thrift store.  If they're extremely bad, like Fractal Noise, I feel no one should waste their precious time on something like that and recycle it.   The latest one I started will likely also go that route.

What am I currently reading?   I don't even know.  Grabbed it off a pile.  Another cheapo or freebie and already I don't like it.   Teen girl is abducted by aliens, to start off the book.  Again.  And an alien shows  her the half alien offspring, they ripped from her womb, like it would make up for all the torture and probing in other times she's been abducted.  She's really horrified to see the "creature" that is her baby.   They send her back down to earth, telling her they're done with her.   Next chapter starts out with an alien coming to earth through a portal.  A drunk homeless man is the only witness.  The alien just wants directions to the White House.  In return for those, he somehow cures the drunk of his addiction.   Ok, whatever, this one I'll liklely recycle too.

Yesterday, the Brownsville colony man leaves me a message that he has no more cat food, their power has been shut off and the roof is leaking.   

I went and bought some bags of cat food to take down to him but Keithas Kitties offered me a 40 lb bag.  I met her along the way down, pulled off the road, and I rolled the bag to my car.  It was too heavy and awkward for me to carry to my car, given the state of my joints.   

When I got down to the colony (had gotten 30 cats fixed for this man), I gave him the cat food and asked if his power was shut down due to failure to pay.   No it wasn't.  Turns out years ago, he rejected the new smart meter due to conspiracy theories over those devices, that they spy on you and that wifi waves damage the brain or cause cancer.  There were all kinds of conspiracy stuff going around about them.   Rejecting the smart meter which can be read remotely by the power company, resulted in a meter reader fee added to his bill monthly.  He refused to pay it, and now, years later, its in the $1000 range he owes and they shut off his power.  

This guy is likable, but conspiracy (he's into all of them), blame someone else for everything--those things rule his life.   So he's going to go without power over his fears of a smart meter.   I wanted to tell him after the smart reader was put in outside my place, my electric bill plummeted.  The old one obviously had been faulty.  I was thrilled.

This morning, I need to get going.  The boys, Pokey and Meeko, from Berlin Road, are leaving, to go with Silverton Cat rescue barn team.   I meet them in Salem.   So I better get a move on.

Awesome Six

 Don't you just love the pouring rain, and early darkness evenings due to daylight savings time.

Um, no.

Yesterday we had a break from the pouring rain.  Today its back.   Darkness comes so early with the time change.  Depressing?   Hmmmm.   I guess I really don't mind it as much as I like to think.   I do enjoy complaining however.

Via a stroke of fate or good luck, just as I was asking neighbors to close the trap at the trailer park last night, the mom cat got caught in my trap.   Just like that, I'm done there.

The clinic agreed to do an extra on my four appointments and someone else failed to catch their cat, had already paid and offered the spot to me.  That was awesome.  Meeko, the tabby tux boy from the rural road, is getting fixed on that donated paid for spot.

Six cats went with me off to be fixed.

Freya, the darling little torti tux from the trailer park, and her mom Madonna, were two of them.

Freya, the last kitten needing caught at the trailer park

Madonna, the mom, at the trailer park

Meeko, the tabby tux boy from the Lebanon rural road, is being fixed today

The other three being fixed today came down from Sweet Home.  Stitch, Kitty and Sib.

 

They think Stitch is a boy but don't know the sex of the other two.

Kitty

Sib

Stitch

I don't have anymore spots til next week when I have a big trap job in store and a trip to Portland.

So...let it rain, let it pour.

I don't care.  I can sleep the rest of the week away.   

All Night

 I didn't expect good luck catching cats at the trailer park.  There are two left needing caught.

They're fed two places four trailers apart.   But no one there to check the traps.  The octogenarians go to bed at 8:00.  The other trailer involved, a girlfriend stops by to care for it while her man friend is on vacay.

The second time I drove back to check the trap, I had been lucky and caught the second torti teen.  The first torti teen I caught and had fixed had, days later, been hit and killed by a car.   I also caught a long hair black female, who was fixed (Stranger) and the black tux boy kitten (Scatter).  But there was still the mom cat who has not been seen in awhile, and the other torti teen.  At least the torti teen is caught.  Mom may be at her original colony, on the street behind the trailer park.

The woman who feeds that colony has appointments to get more fixed.  

Anyhow, it is what it is.  I went and checked at 11:p.m.--nothing.  I checked at 2:30 a.m.--nothing.  I would go to bed, fully clothed, set the phone alarm, jump up in a haze, go directly to the car, drive over, check it, come home, be back in bed all in under 30 minutes.   I checked it at 4:30 too, nothing and again at 8:00 a.m.   Nothing again.  Now the lady on the street behind is checking.  The 8:00 a.m. check was really at 9:00 a.m. because we turned our clocks back last night.

If the mom isn't seen I'll have to trust the lady on the street behind will catch her eventually.

I'm not going to let it bother me one bit.

It rained so hard yesterday!!  It was unbelievable.   I went to feed the cats for the Lebanon lady, unsure if she had regained ability to drive, and ran into her over there, so was able to return her parking pass.  She was walking fine too, with a cane.  

I had to get home then and get the two adult cats out of the cage into a carrier together and meet up in Salem with Silverton Cat Rescue barn team.   They had a barn home for them.    That took longer than expected.  The teen boys kept going into the carriers, with one of the adults.  But eventually I had the right cats in one carrier.  They are all very laid back and tolerated the shuffling.  Off went Abby and Slabbo to a new barn home.  Sure will beat living along the side of that killer road in the berry vines and trash.

I think the two teen boys left want to be tame.  

Today I need to do some catch up.

Snap Ends

 Food assistance ends today for so many people.  In our very red county, a massive number of people rely on Snap assistance.   Like nearly 10,000 people.   Almost half of those are in Sweet Home.

I qualify, but after some very bad experiences long ago, I no longer get food assistance from Snap.  I gave it up.   For one person, its not that difficult to afford food if a person is willing to eat whatever they can find.  For families with kids, especially teens, it has to be quite difficult.

When I go to the store, I just stare at the food prices now.  They're unbelievably high.  I ran to the store last night, to look for a bag of candy as I saw so many kids out trick or treating.  But I ended up in a lengthy conversation with a vet tech who is also a veteran, who had stories to tell and a very cute dog, who wanted to lick my hands.

By the  time I got home, with two cases of cat food and the bag of candy, it was after dark and only three groups of kids came by.   I love to see the kids' costumes.

I'm short on wet food, after all the trapping and the week of feeding all those places.  It's so expensive these days.  It's difficult to keep up on all the expenses.

I take the two adults in the garage, Abby and Slabbo, to Salem to hand them off to Silverton Cat barn team.   It could be a challenge to seperate out the two teens from the adults.  But after Abby and Slabbo go, I'll  just have the two brothers.  Meeko, the latest I trapped, will get fixed Monday.  SCR is going to find a barn home for them too.

After I take the adults to Salem, I'll be back at the trailer park here in town, to set traps for the two not yet caught there.  Trouble is, a couple neighbors are sort of warring over the cats, who feeds them, who doesn't, its a little bit crazy.   I try to remain neutral, like Switzerland, to get it done.

It's kind of sad, what's going on here, with the government.  Besides Snap food assistance being cut, as a result of the shutdown, the Affordable Care Act health insurance subsidies are in danger.  Trumps budget calls for an end to them and that is why the democrats are hold outs on passing a fund the government resolution in hopes the Republicans will remove the subsidy cuts from the budget.  

But, the rates for thousands if not millions of Americans are about to skyrocket, double per month or more, which will cause even more pain and suffering.  All this is self inflicted, by our current government.  A lot of the people on Snap actually work full time, but at jobs that pay very little.   The number of people using Snap and also Medicaid that work at Walmart or McDonalds for instance is ridiculously high, meaning taxpayers are subsidizing billionaires who own these companies while simultaneiously humiliating and judging their workers as leeches.  Who are the  real leeches?   Ha!  We all know the answer to that one.

List of some of the companies whose employees must rely on Snap and Medicaid.

I do see what I would call abuse of food assistance cards, like kids there with their parents card, loading up on junk food at the corner convenience store.  That's probably the most I see, and I have always wondered why the card isn't limited to real food, not soda pop and candy and all those bad for you foods and drinks.  Which makes me think, "Hmmm, does food assistance benefit or harm people, or is it more a perk to the retailers?"

Caught!

 I'm not normal.  I know that.

When I can't catch a cat, I lay awake nights devising new schemes on how to catch that cat.

The schemes came to fruition today.

Caught the last teen, the last cat needing caught, at one location the Lebanon woman feeds at.   Coincided with the last day I had agreed to feed.  I do hope she lined up the next "volunteer" among her family and friends, if she needs further help with it while recovering from surgery.  She has a lot of family nearby.

I blocked her number too, because I can't handle more.

I don't like doing that, but sometimes I have to let things go.

I am super happy to have caught all at the one location.  Two of the adults fixed last week already going to a barn home tomorrow.  The teen brothers will await a home together.  SCR is very good at what they do.  I trust them.   This teen, whom I"ve not yet named, will get fixed Monday and unite with his brother in a few moments.

In the video, teen black and white male Pokey, is thrilled his mom Abby is in the cage with him and he can express his adoration.  She's not that excited.  Slabbo is on the left.  He is one laid back boy, and seems to enjoy sleeping and eating.

I weakened and let Meeko in with the other three.  I'll have to seperate them out tomorrow to get the two adults ready to go to their barn home.  His brother, Pokey, was so happy to see him.  They're curled up sleeping together now.

My neighbors are roommates.    He's a truck driver, she's retired.   Truck driver man, 71 years old now I think, had a big wreck three days ago in his semi, and broke his back for one thing, not sure what else.   I'm friends with her, not him, so I don't know much about the wreck except it could end his truck driving and may be a long recovery.   

Halloween today.   I didn't get any candy and will just make sure my lights are off.   If I get candy, sure thing no kids will come by and I'll stare at that candy and end up eating all of it.  Not good.  Good thing its too expensive anyway.