Sophie is Found!

Sophie's owner called me to tell me they brought Sohpie home yesterday afternoon. She was up north of the rest area, where there is also a little park. Someone called her to tell her they'd seen her up there and they went down immediately. Sure enough, there she was. She ran back into the briars when they tried to get her to come to them, but was coaxed out for food, in about 15 minutes.

Yahoo! Woopee for Sophie. She's back home.

Long Sleep

I had a good long sleep last night which I needed. The orange tabby kitten I took in yesterday, of four, was the wrong orange tabby female kitten, the already spayed one. I asked the vet to check first for a spay scar, and they found one.

As for the orange and white female kitten, who was not able to walk more than a couple steps, the vet found a lump on her abdomin. He went ahead and spayed her and when she was opened up, searched inside for the lump. He found a large hard mass at the secum, the valve between the small and large intestine. He milked it through the valve into the large intestine.

The caretakers have a friend they said was giving the cats chicken bones. They asked him not to do that, but he claimed it wouldn't hurt them. The vet thinks this is some crunched up bone material, hard, too much for the cats small intestine, never made it through the valve, causing a blockage. He thinks she'll be able to pass it now. She had some swollen lymph nodes in her belly area, so she's also on antibiotics. When food gets caught up like that, it can start to rot.

Hopefully this is the cause. I also instructed them to keep her lubed, feeding her warmed wet food mixed with water and even some olive oil by mouth. He had initially told me he thought she'd swallowed a chicken bone. The vet examined the intestines and found no perforation from a bone sticking through from the inside, which is a good thing.

I called them, to get those kittens in, because someone else cancelled. This likely saved that kitten's life. Just at the right time!

The folks taking Suzy, the black female, and The Hulk, the gray male, should have gotten back from their vacation yesterday. I may try to call today. Hate to, in way, call the day after they get back, but if they're worn out, they can say, "Let's wait til the first of the week."

The people who called ten days ago, wanting two kittens, called again last night. Seems slightly strange. I'd called them back immediately, the next day, after initially talking to them. I've been hesitant and was actually happy they had not called again, figuring they got kittens elsewhere. They wanted them as barn kittens. Initially then, they claimed they would keep them in the house a month. Now they claim they'll keep them in the house a few months. I just don't know, two kittens on their own in a barn....boy, kind of tough to think of that. I'll try talking to them again, and ask them to fill out the adoption papers then make up my mind.

Someone e-mailed interested in Candy. I was happy and immediately e-mailed back the adoption paper for them to fill out. Haven't heard back, but that was just last night. They have two cats, love them, they said, want a third, a loving cat, which Candy is. She loves to be on your lap and be held.

The Santiam Rest Area is Flooding

The Santiam River is raging and flooding the rest area where I spent so many nights after Sophie, the lost Siamese. I hope, if she's still alive, she made it out of that torrent The woods where she was hanging out, along with the tabby on white, are totally flooded in the south bound side, clear up and into the overflow parking lot. I'm glad I pulled my trap from those woods. It'd be gone. Even the picnic tables are submerged.


This is a picnic table, or the very top of one.

This is the road, underwater now, that led down by the river, and underneath the north and south bound lanes of I5, to the north bound rest area side.

New Photos of Blizz and the Other Deceased Woman Cats

Button, one of the two little girls.
Blizz, the little Lynx Pt. boy, is just perfect. But wild.
Blizz and Kimo. All the kittens are very bonded.

Kimo standing tall.

Five Cats at Vet Today

Today, I took up five cats to be fixed. I took up the last four kittens from the Millersburg Road Chaos colony. Last fall, I trapped and took in ten adults to be fixed from there. Then, mid October, I took three of seven kittens up to Wilsonville to be fixed. They did not want these kittens eartipped, but, unfortunately, two of the orange tabby tux female kittens look just alike. I looked at photos I took of the three fixed last October and e-mailed the caretakers a photo of the orange female fixed already. But their power and internet went out in the storm last night, so they didn't get to look. This morning, from memory of looking at the photo last night, I chose the one I don't think is yet fixed.

They had one of the four unfixed kittens suddenly have problems walking three days ago. It can only a short distance. The kitten seems to have pain around the rear end. I took that kitten up also, to be looked at by the vet. Sounds like a pelvis injury to me. The kittens go outside and play wildly, even with the fixed adults. He could have taken a fall, or any number of things.

I also took up, as cat number five, a torti from the 13th street cats. I took up five more last Tuesday and six before that, although the big male died under anesthesia. There are two more cats there, one feral, one tame. They've all been tame so far. He is extremely happy to be getting them fixed and so is his neighbor. He is out of work, as are so many people these days.Millersburg Road Chaos kittens, two girls and a boy, being fixed today. The torti they call One Eye, due to an eye injury incurred three months ago. The orange tabby looks just like the other female orange tabby fixed in October. I hope I chose the right one. I asked the clinic to watch for a spay scar.This is the injured kitten, who is at the vet today being assessed.This is the torti, cat number 12 to be taken in from the 13th street cats to be fixed. She is being fixed today. There are two more cats there needing fixed.

Below are the five 13th street cats fixed last Tuesday. Also fixed last Tuesday was the black adult rest area female.

Black tux male teen, from 13th street cats, fixed last Tuesday.
Torti teen, from 13th street cats, fixed last Tuesday.
Orange tabby male bobtail teen, fixed last Tuesday from the 13th street cats.
Another orange tabby bobtail teen, fixed last Tuesday from the 13th street cats.
This is the adult female calico, with the BB in her uterus, fixed last Tuesday from the 13th street cats. S

It's Pouring

Oregon is getting drenched in warm rainstorm. This, after all the unaccustomed snow. But, I hear, temperatures may cool and the rain may stop in favor of more snow, by tomorrow night.

I think about the big trees out back. Well they hold up in saturated soil?

The soil back there is compacted clay. That should be helpful at least in holding fast the roots. One hybrid maple has roots solid and fast, under the garage floor. If it rips, it rips.

Maybe the cat yard wire will help hold them up, eh?

Well I don't want my next long about to be nap interrupted with a tree crashing in on the garage and house. That wouldn't be fun. My car's in that garage.

How would I visit my vacation home, the rest area, without a car to do so in? Or live at all, if homeless, without a car to sleep in? I think about that sometimes.

My housing situation has always been worse than shaky. I've lived homeless a couple times. Having a car to live in makes things so much warmer and safer.

When you end up homeless or moving constantly due to bad housing situations, you end up losing an attachment to most things material, like money and stuff. I've realized you can live without almost everything. But things alive become very very dear to heart, like these cats here. I guess they're about all I would worry about, should a tree come crashing through this house.

Right now I'm healthy and that's a good thing, because if you're homeless, if you're sick or in pain, then life is indeed extremely hard. It's a merciless scrap to the desperate end. Like that lost Siamese out there.

That shriek I heard, was it the second night, I can't even remember. I think it was the day I arrived early in the morning, around 3:00 a.m. I'd set a trap beneath the shed, then heard that shriek. It was metalic, yet there was animal to it also. That's when I saw the guy headed out of the woods, who then darted again behind a tree. He was smoking a joint. I got my pepper spray out and headed into the woods. I found the metal cat house someone put out there, on its side. The house has only one entrance, which makes it a danger to cats, since they can't escape.

I still wonder if that noise and that metal house on its side, had anything to do with the disappearance of the Siamese. I assume the man tripped onto it in the dark and ripped it upwards, but would it have landed perfectly, on its side like that and it was only seconds before I saw him come out from under that tree, which is a good forty feet through brush from that cat house. He claimed, however, to have heard no noise, which had to have been a lie. I heard it from several hundred feet beyond where he emerged.

I found no white fur, no blood, no evidence of struggle other than a slight spot of bare ground with leaves massed at one side of it, more like a human had slipped there, then hit that cat house. It was just moments after discovering the overturned cat house that I saw the tabby on white cat for the first time. Then I wondered if it was a cat fight I heard, the sudden shriek of surprise or shock, when two cats meet suddenly for the first time. Or was the tabby on white asleep in the cat house when the man stumbled into it?

I don't know, but seeing the tabby on white very nearby, rather soon after the shrief rather alleviated my fears that a predator had taken the Siamese. Surely the tabby on white would not be twenty feet from where a predator just grabbed and killed a cat.

I have seen canine prints, big ones, fifty pound dog or more, down at the boat ramp, and fresh ones this morning, along the road to the river, and under the overpass. It rained heavily in the night, most tracks would have been obscurred or have blurred out edges from the rainfall in soft silt. All these sets in various times, I have found, are the same size. Is this a coyote in the area? I've seen one frequently in the field just north of the rest area. But there are numerous dogs walked and let loose along there, at all times of the day and night. I"m still going with domestic canine on the track sets.

Canines leave four paw pad prints, like cats, but unlike cats, they leave claw marks above each paw pad print.

However, this morning also, I found fresh cat prints, down beneath the overpasses. I found a cat trail, too. I also climbed up the rocks between the two overpass bridges of the north and south bound lanes of I5 and popped my head up to be buffeted by the wind and rain between the travellers north and travelers south.

I have loved being out in the night again. I've always loved feeling the weather, the night, the cold, the storms. I have missed this. I guess this is also why I have returned over and over to the rest area. I like stalking the woods at night, tracking and feeling the storm against my face. If I have a rest area at least to do this, thank god. There are not many wild places in Albany, OR.

One More Shot

I gave it another shot at the rest area last night. I'd slept all day yesterday so I figured why not. But it was just another frustrating night. Dog owners. They'd drive up, and turn out two or three huge dogs to run wild and to take a shit in the picnic area. Over and over again, this was repeated, until, early this morning, when a big fat cowboy hat guy came out of a huge trailer he'd spent the night in, and turned his hound loose, who raced up to me in the dark, spooking the hell out of me, I could no longer contain my frustration. I went off on him.

At first I tried to explain why I was upset about the free roaming dogs, that I was trying to find a lost cat, that dogs were supposed to be on leash, and walked only in one area, but he didn't give a shit. That's when I blew up and told him off good.

I was in the process of picking up my traps, convinced this is a senseless endeavor. Dog owners have sealed her fate in part. In all my time out there, I saw only one man pick up his dogs' shit. I saw a ton of dog owners let their dogs run, shit and pee in the picnic area, often peeing on the table legs or tables themselves. I saw dangerous dogs let loose to run, big dogs, little dogs, and not one owner seemed intent on behaving according to the rules posted at the rest area, except a handful.

Also last night, four young men pulled up in a white car, got out their big cans of beer, dumped their trash out the door of the car, into the parking lot. One of them couldn't wait, and was unzipping his pants as he exited the car. He looked over it me with a sly grin before pulling out his penis and taking a whiz near the sidewalk a few feet from my car. I stared, incredulous. Then he turned to me and said "Happy New Year" and they drove off, leaving their trash, mostly empty beer cans, in a pile beside where they had parked.

I guess the rest area fascinates me now. I think it'd make a good movie just called "Rest Area". You never know what to expect, really. It's kind of disgusting and seedy, but I think as a movie it could be dressed up enough to be digestible, with a plot thrown in.

I call the rest area "my vacation home". I can go there for a night whenever I want to. It's not so bad, really. LIke a cold C grade motel. Lots of action and drama. Lots of abnormal behavior. Lots of sad stories from people who live in their cars. And then there are the truckers. Many are nice but many are also extremely sexual.

I made a new trucker friend. He's from Texas and wants to call next time he's through here "go to dinner or something". I can imagine what the "or something is" and I've already forgotten his name and recycled the paper he wrote his number on. Before he took down my cat website, he had told me about getting stuck at the pass, down at the CA OR border, so he went off with some woman trucker and got a hotel. Well, I never would have guessed.

I felt like saying "Mister, from dealing with cats, I know the cats who have been breeding all sorts of partners are full of parasites and diseases so no thank you. No Thank You, Mr. Texas Trucker, not interested."

Some of these promiscous truckers must harbor all sorts of diseases and maybe even be the breeding grouds for mutating viruses, since they likely get exposed to different strains of everything all over the country, sleeping here and there and everywhere. Man alive. That's just disgusting.

You don't see most of the truckers. They pull in, in the overflow area, park, and go to sleep, in their sleeper compartments, engines idling away. That rest area doesn't have many trucker spaces and it's tight parking there, especially if the RV's pulling cars or pickups don't have the brains to pull forward far enough. The trucks pull out straight ahead to get back on the onramp to the freeway. They come around when getting off the freeway, looking for a spot in that line up, but there are pull in passenger spaces facing south, too. Often there is no room for trucks to go on through. More than once I got awakened by a truck's headlights blasting in through my car windows. After the first time, I knew the routine. They were stuck, couldn't squeeze through between me and the rear end of some other rig, usually a badly parked RV pulling a car or trailer. So I'd have to move.

ODOT says they can't make that any bigger because it floods clear to the parking lot at times, from the river. It's kind of dangerous as a passenger car to park in the car spots in the overflow due to the big rigs trying to get through very tight spots between the backs of cars and the backs of big rigs and RV's with their excess vehicles.

You wouldn't know the economy's not so good if you park in the overflow area. It's the RV's you see, the excess, huge trailers, too. The RV's are often pulling an extra vehicle, or a trailer filled with expensive toys like ATV's, or even a boat. You see the excess in the overflow parking lot.

You see the sadness over in the regular parking lot by the restrooms--the ragtags, the rubber tramps, the lost souls down and out, filling jugs from their trunks with water to fill an always leaking radiator, always out trying to fix a broken up possession packed car. But they're almost always friendly and smiling, too. These are the souls you can talk to, who have empathy for a lost cat. You can't talk like that to the arrogant pedigreed RV'ers' or those camping out free in their big trailers with their big dogs shitting in the picnic area who have no empathy whatsoever that a cat is out there somewhere, scared, hungry, and dying.

But there is a cat out there suffering somewhere. I never found her. But I tried. Oh how I tried.