Poof Isn't Pregnant

 Poof is not pregnant.   Ha!  I knew Poof would be a boy.

I went and trapped him quickly anyhow, just in case when the residential lady, one of the folks who feeds him, told me "she" is pregnant.  These are folks who cannot describe a cat's color even, for the life of them.   Her adult son walks their dog routinely in the park, sometimes followed by a couple of cats.

They love animals.  But they don't actually ever help getting cats who show up at their place fixed.   We're talking three or four adults there, none of whom will lift a finger when one needs caught to be fixed.

So I prefer trapping them by myself in the park.  But now there's the parking fee, so unless I pay out, I can't.  People pull into the parking lot just across the dike trail from them and dump their cats.  Sometimes dogs too.  By the score.

Many people who move to this county are shocked by the number of stray cats and dogs.   

Poof was covered in fleas, poor fellow.  But they're dead and dying now.

The tech at Rad offered to take him over to the clinic yesterday with her.   I'd put out a plea.   I had to be in Salem with Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail at 8:30 a.m.  I couldn't do the Corvallis 7:15 check in too, for Poof.  They were the three trailer park cats I was holding for barn cat placement.   I ended up taking Poof up to the tech in Lebanon and putting him in her chicken/hay shed for the night.  She wasn't home yet.  She took him in to the clinic with her yesterday morning.

So he's had an experience!

The hand off went fine except Flopsy and Mospy, who are very bonded, (the two blacks) were in the same small carrier and one of them pooped on the drive up to Salem.   The SCR lady is always prepared for such incidents though.  She had extra carriers along.

The rest of the day I spent catching up.  I had to vacuum out the back of the dryer and its vent, to increase efficiency, which had decreased.   I need to switch from towel cage covers, that take forever to dry and increase the already expensive electric bill, to fleece.  Right now cheap fleece blankees are on sale at Walmart for under $4 each.  I need to make this switch now.  I struggled to pay the electric bill.  It was high from running a space heater in the garage during the freezing weather to keep group after group of trailer park cats warm as they awaited barn homes.  And from trying to dry the darn cage covers.  Towels take too long to dry.  The door switch on the washer is also going haywire.  I watched youtube videos on how to bypass it, so if it gets much worse, I'll do that.  The door switch lets the washer start when I close  the door and stops it if I open the door.   

I finally had time to repair my old cheap aluminum fold up cart.  I use it to bring heavy items in from the car or even from the store to the car.   It's super light weight.  I've had it a very long time.   One wheel, held by two plastic brackets, broke a few years ago and I was able to glue it together, since it broke only on one side and then reinforce that with a metal hardware piece, glued and screwed across the broken area.  That has held well.   But this time, the other wheel broke off completely.

I had a 360 castor and decided to use that even though it is smaller than the other wheel.   I used pipe brackets and screws to hold it in place.  And since its a 360 wheel, used long enough screws to run them down the outside and inside of the wheel hardware to keep so it wouldn't spin sideways.

Eventually I'll get a new hand truck, but when I do, I'll get one with bigger wheels and that can also be used as a pull cart sturdy enough to pull traps with cats in them.     I'm really broke right now.  The electric bill was a killer.  I hope cleaning out the dryer and vents of lint, no more space heater in the garage since the cold weather broke and no trailer park cats to hold right now, plus switching to fleece cage covers, will help in months to come.

Long screws down the sides of the wheel hardware keep it from spinning.  I use what I have.  Might not look great but it works and will keep the hand truck usable until I can get another.

Broken off wheel out front.  The bottom of the hand truck is all corroded but its been around a long time and has a right to show some age.

I loaned a couple of traps out to a farmer who will catch his own two barn cats and has an appointment for them himself.  One of my drop traps is now in Sweet Home with a lady trying to catch the last cat in her colony.  

I probably now loan out traps to people catching their own more than use them myself.  Well maybe not more.  But it does almost double the cats that can be helped.

Today I will clean my car and that's about it.   I'm not taking Poof back til tomorrow.  I want to be sure he's not tame.   He's set up in the holding cage.  I cleaned it yesterday after the three that had been in it left.  He's not acting tame so far at all.

Five More, Plus

 I went over to the trailer park late morning yesterday.  It had been down in the low 20's the night before and finally unfroze.  

I set up the drop trap in one lady's front area and sat across the street in a chair provided by another resident.    She gave up after awhile and went back to her place--too cold, she said.  The other lady left too.  I then moved the drop across the street to my side out in the grass.

The only one left unfixed where the drop trap had been was a teen black.   The other six hanging out there are now all fixed.

It wasn't long before I began picking them off, one by one, with the drop trap, the unfixed ones.  I caught a massive male I named Megatron.  Black tux.  I caught a little black tux too, who turned out to be a girl, named her Cottontail, for the records.  And then two more blacks, both young adults.  Flopsy and Mopsy.  Silverton Cat Rescue barn team will try to place the three young adults.

I picked up a kitten at another trailer.  There are four in all there.  She also has a bunch of unfixed dogs.   I told her to look up PAL, a Salem nonprofit that helps get dogs fixed.   

She told me the kitten was a girl.  I knew it wasn't but I said nothing.

I went home with the kitten and the four wild things for the five Salem appointments today.  There are no more appointments for the trailer park.  I"ve tried and tried to get folks to request appointments at the FCCO and or OHSS, since that's what needs to happen to get more.  I can't make more myself.   Rules, you know, at the clinics.

One resident has made all the FCCO and OHSS appointments for the cats fixed thus far.   But she's tired of it.  Rightly so.   

For now I can't do anything more there.   I returned the kitten and she'll keep him inside.  The big boy goes back tomorrow and the other three remain here for SCR placement.

After I took the cats to the clinic, I went to try to catch that lone Siamese way out the rural road.  This time I saw the cat but it never went for a trap.   I waited three hours.   Then I went to the park.  The residential lady said Poof, the buff bobtail long hair, is pregnant.  I had my doubts.  Looks male to me.  And these folks are known for not being able to even describe a cat by color, so I wasn't particularly believing them.  But I don't want anymore kittens born in the briars at the park.  Poof got dumped there months ago.  

 You got to have a parking pass to not be in violation at the park now.   Those cost $9 a day.   I don't have one.  So I circled through fast and saw the cat.  I looked around for park employees, didn't see any, set a trap, waited ten minutes, caught the cat, grabbed the trap and took off.  Whew!!!!   Doesn't matter I'm volunteering.  Not to the county.  

Poof's tail is really distinctive.  Looks like a hairy water fountain.   

Here are the five who were fixed today from the trailer park.

Cottontail, a girl, black tux

Mopsy, a girl

Flopsy, a boy

Megatron, a black tux huge boy

Atlas, a boy kitten

Here's Poof.  Since I was told its a pregnant she, the clinic agreed to work in Wednesday.  

Super beautiful Poof

I get home tonight and get a text, the first one in some time, from the Lebanon feeder lady.  Shes reprimending me for not telling her I would feed that Siamese out there, that it could have spared her a trip out.  WTF!!!  She never told me she was still feeding, in fact she said the opposite.   And she hasn't answered a call or text.  Not even about finding Moxie dead, a cat she fed.   She only texts me when  she wants something of me.   I responded it was up to her now, that I would not be back out there, and that I'd spent hours on three occasions trying to catch a cat that was being fed, because she'd told me she was "letting that spot go".   At least I'm done with it and at least she told me she's still feeding.   And I know why I couldn't catch that cat.   

Freezing Rain? Snow? Ice? Not Here.

 We are having sunny days.

But they are cold.  And at night, temps dip to nearly 20 degrees or mid 20's.  

This has been going on awhile.   Cuts my trapping hours, that's for sure.   When bait freezes over.

Last night it was down to 21 degrees.  Tonight, tomorrow, won't be warm enough for bait to stay unfrozen til about 11:00, then frozen again by 4:00, so those are my trapping hours, that five hour window, for the five spots Monday.  That's usually the time of day no respectable wild cat is out and about too.  

By the time I tried to get going late this afternoon to trap at the trailer park, it was already too cold.

A friend came down, thinking maybe she could help with feeding that poor Siamese left out there on her own.   I don't even know if she's still alive or not.   Haven't seen her in two weeks.  But to be fair I've only been up there 3 times in that time.  

I've tried to find someone closeby with a heart who could maybe even trap her.

Anyhow, she was going to get here at 11:00 a.m. then it didn't happen til after noon.  So I knew we would not see the cat at the time of day.  We went anyhow.  She wanted to see where it was.  No sign of life anywhere.

To come back, we drove through Waterloo and turned to head back to Lebanon and I thought I saw a dead cat along the road.  I had her turn around and go back.  I got out and went and looked.  This is a couple hundred feet from another place that Lebanon woman fed.  

Sure enough, it was Moxie, the black teen she fed, although he's pretty close to adult by now.   I had to turn him over to check for the right ear tip but there it was.   He'd been hit by a car.  I don't even know if she's still feeding the cats there.  She was, even after she quit the other place, because she was taking a bus there.   But I haven't heard from her again, since I drove her to feed last Sunday.  And she doesn't respond.  I sent her a text anyway, to tell her he's dead.   No response.  

He was born down along the river in the berry vines to Fluffy, a brown tabby girl.  I'd caught and fixed Fluffy's mom Growler.  I caught four of Fluffy's siblings when young and got them to rescue, but she and I had a falling out over her refusal to help trap, and I had nothing to do with her for months after, except to encourage her to catch the other two and get them fixed.  She didn't.   I finally caught one of the two, a girl.   

I didn't know she'd moved her feeding place for the cats, but she did and that Fluffy had kittens of her own.    Finally I went and caught Fluffy and her by now teen black boy, Moxie's brother, got them fixed and sent that pair off with SCR to a barn home.   Again, I encouraged her to catch the rest.  

She got Moxie and Julius, a big orange boy, into carriers a few months back, and I got them fixed.  SCR had a barn home for them and the two sisters.  I held the boys in the garage and encouraged her to get the girls but she didn't, then she came and wanted the boys back, said the sisters needed them there.   That was the last I knew of those four.  Until today.

So long Moxie

Moxie wasn't quite yet a year old.  He was hit by a car.  Sorry buddy.  

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.

Insurance Woes

 I suddenly realized my old car liability insurance had gone up by hundreds, when I went to renew it.

I've had no wrecks or tickets in decades with this insurer.  Is this my reward?  

I couldn't sleep night after I discovered the increase.  How can I survive on a fixed income in a world so expensive?  What do I let go, I wondered.  I feel trapped into this decline in quality of life.  Not that I have ever lived with much.

The nonprofit is a blessing.   It keeps me occupied and pays to insure the other car and for its gas, and for all the cat food and bait and cat fixing.  That's when we have donations.   But I get to help tons of cats and people who otherwise could not get their cats fixed and they get to feel relief.   And I help private businesses like that darn trailer park.   So in all, what I do is very good for the community in general.  Too bad its not a pay job, however.  

There have not been decreases in living expenses, like was promised by the country's admin.   Except gas prices are down some.  But food and utility prices have only gone higher and higher.  I don't buy anything else really, than food and pay for utilities and gas, the latter being for the nonprofit car since I rarely drive my car.  Turns out I probably wouldn't drive more than once a week, and just to the grocery store, if I wasn't helping cats all the time.  Oh and to the lakes in the summer.  I can't wait for summer. Maybe the personal car will last til I drop.  It's really a dream come true to have the high mile car with the nonprofit now.  I know it won't last that much longer, but for now, I can seperate my personal and business lives even more. (and have a car that isn't all stunk up from hauling a zillion cats to be fixed).  Both cars are old enough to be practically worthless.

Yesterday morning I was up early to take the black boy over to RADpets to be checked for sex, spay/neuter status and updated on shots.   If he got that done, he could go to a barn home today.   A good one, that is extremely safe.  Otherwise, the lady who had fed there would probably have kept him and she can't afford more cats.  Or anything else.  Her truck is broken down.   She just had hip replacement but is having to ride her heavy 3 wheel bike to work.  (which in reality will likely help her hip).  They're trying to sell the house she lives in since her mom died and left it to both her and her brother and they have to split it.  Anyway.....getting the black boy she'd fed to somewhere else is kind of crucial.

And very helpful to her.   Its hard on her not being able to feed him or the Siamese out there.   It is sadder for those cats.   I can't see how she'll survive, even if they sell the house.   She has a friend wanting to sell her and her nephew, who gets his fathers half of the house sale proceeds, their junked out property.   Yeah, to me, driving by, looks like a  junkyard.   She believes that would be her saving grace, if they sold and bought that place, because what they're asking for theirs and what her friend is asking, well there's a difference of several thousand.  So then she could pay off her credit card debt and fix her truck, she hopes.  None of my business anyhow I know.  I hope that family can figure it out and be ok, is about all I can say.

I came home after taking him to the clinic, and called the insurance company.  I knew the phone people probably don't make that much either.   I told them the truth, that I was horrified to find out the policy had gone up hundreds of dollars and that I'm just trying to survive now and I can't afford that much for liability insurance on an old junker car.  

The guy was helpful and rewrote a new policy that is half what they were going to charge for the old.   Relief flooded through me the rest of the day.

It was then time to get Scooter and Fish, the two trailer park cats fixed last week, into carriers, and go meet up with Silverton Cat Rescue barn team.  They had a place for them to go.   

After leaving them with the barn team member, I headed to Lebanon to pick up the feeder lady.  Her bus wasn't running that took her to Waterloo so I gave her a ride.  We went to where she'd fed the siamese again but she could not call her up out of the brush or flatlands.   Darn it.   We then headed to Waterloo via backroads, came around a corner and there was a Fed Ex truck pulled to the side of the icey two lane road, lights flashing.  I could see down the embankment that there was a car with tires straight up in the air---upside down in other words.  The Fed Ex driver was down trying to help occupants out of the upside down smashed up car.  I bet it slid on ice.  A woman and an older man got out but someone was still inside.  I heard sirens in the distance and we left, to avoid getting in the way of first responders.

Eventually I picked up Boulder, the black cat, from the clinic, came home with him, and put him in the holding cage for the night.   This morning he is leaving to go with SCR barn team.    I went to bed very early.   It was a busy day.

It was nice to walk around a bit at Waterloo park.   I don't go there anymore due to the county's $9 day use fee.  But the Lebanon lady has a parking pass.

After the ice is gone, the weather has been beautiful.   Unfortunately, we have almost no snow in the mountains.  The skiers and boarders must be so disappointed.   Next summer's water supply is also a worry, since mountain snow provides it.

Two More Days of Break

 I was going to take a break.  Really.   

But up early, I decided to try for the Siamese out along that rural road.  Guess who fed her, since she was a kitten?  No, not me.  She'd be long out of that situation.   That darn Lebanon lady.

I'd caught the six she fed elsewhere along that road.  But there was one left at another place she fed along there.

Then about ten days ago she texted me.  I hadn't heard from her in a quite awhile.   Her truck broke down.  So she'd been borrowing her brother's truck.  Then it broke down.   She's got no money to fix her truck and her brother won't fix his.  So there you go, suddenly that poor Siamese, the only one left I thought, left to fend for herself.   What a horror.

Anyhow, so I went over this morning and set a trap for a couple hours.   I saw the Siamese but when she saw me she vanished into the brush.   Unfortunatley when I checked the trap a bit later, it was not her in it.  It was a big black male.  Strangely, with an eartip already.  Who is he, I wondered.

She'd mentioned she would see a black cat now and then down there.   Great.  Now what to do with him.  Working on that.

Last night the neighbors and I had a little party.  Spur of moment.  Was fun.  We got halfway through a game of yachtze then I think we forgot we were playing.   Wine was involved.  On my part, a quarter of a glass.  Or less.  I'm not into wine.  They were!  I can't handle the sulphates in wine.

I just did cleaning and watched something on TV this afternoon.   Lazied out.   I had put rural road boy in a large trap (he's a big cat) on a holding shelf.  Fish and Scooter are bonding well in the holding cage.  They leave Monday.  If rural road boy is still here he'll get the cage next.

Friday I delivered two drop traps to the Seven Mile colony.  They mostly trap their own there.  I helped them get 26 fixed last January and February but then one of the couple experienced health issues and I didn't even want to call them this summer because I thought she maybe had died.   But she called me in November and then got FCCO appointments finally for next week.  

The cats out there are beautiful.   Like models.

Rural Roadie

Here are some of Seven Mile cats needing caught: 

Pretty kitties!   Hope we can get most of them but like I said, fortunately they catch their own, for the most part.  I'll be transporting to Portland and providing traps.

Break Time!

 It's break time from trapping. 

I'm happy to announce!   Last night I was just too brain blitzed to be out there, but I was out there at the trailer park anyhow.   Most of the cats are now fixed, so mainly I tried to keep the fixed cats and owned cats out of the traps, without a lot of luck.  

Then two loose German Shepherd's came along and sprang the traps twice!   When I saw their shadows in the dark near the trap by the canal I thought I was seeing coyotes at first, til I flicked on a flashlight.  No, just two dogs going out for a cat food dinner (escaped their fenced yard).   

I finally came home with only one more kitty, a young fun loving black and white one.  One of the two cats rolling around in the street in my last posts' video.

Today, three are over being fixed at the clinic--Scooter, the little black and white; Fish, a young adult black, and lastly Sprite--a gray tabby young female.

I'm taking Gulag back in a few minutes.   She was not a boy.  In fact, she was already spayed.   Yet another.  One of the ladies even has a name for her.  Wish I'd known but I didn't know, so oh well.

Besides returning Gulag, and picking up the other three later in the afternoon, I have no duties.

Tomorrow, I will drop off another tame owned cat from the park, then head to Salem with two of the cats whom I've been holding for placement.   I'm calling them Jet and Speedo.  They're darling together and now well bonded.  Silverton Cat Rescue barn team has a place for them.

That will leave Beetle, Fish and Scooter here, to place, most likely.   Sprite is wanted back at the park, as she will eventually be taken to Safehaven by a lady who has worked to tame her.

Scooter, at the clinic today along with Fish and Sprite 

Look how cute these three adult boy buddies are, even though I had to repeatedly suggest they leave the area of the trap, by leaning out of my car or flashing my lights at them.  They are all fixed.  One was fixed last August and two were fixed in the December FCCO trip.   They are always together seems like.   

I haven't even watched the weather on TV lately.  Been too busy.  Just as well.   Seems like people are killing one another at higher rates than ever.   Better to stick with the cats and the cat people.  The dogs too, of course.