So Long Kittens

 The kittens left this morning.

The two boys, Beetle and Spook, will be going to a friend of the vet at Radpets.

I left them at the clinic this morning, with four other cats, three of them females.

I just handed off Safron, the little black long hair girl kitten.  I'd called her Ghostie, but my friend's sister wants her and immediately named her Safron.   She has a brand new cat carrier, brand new litterbox, kitten height size and a zillion toys.  My friend will make sure she gets spayed.  She's still too little.

I will miss them.  But....I have my bathroom back.  

The four I took to be fixed today at Radpets include Calypso, who is from a large Sweet Home colony, while Scatter and Rose, are teens from a trailer park in Albany.   I was going to give the Sweet Home lady both spots I had open because the mom and second kitten at the trailer park vanished into the maze of trailers and backyards Saturday night and were not seen at all on Sunday.

But....I received a call from an Albany cat loving man who had a stray female show up with kittens.  He was trapping the kittens when he caught the mom too, with one of the kittens in the trap.

So I gave him the fourth spot for mom and went over and seperated her and the kitten out.  The kittens are fat, healthy and darling.   But they are little hisser spitters, at six weeks old.  He still is trying to catch the last kitten.

So that worked out really well.   And Felicia, the mom, is being fixed today.

I haven't got a photo yet of Calypso, the young muted calico from Sweet Home.

Safron, the little girl kitten

Felicia, from Albany

Rose, a young torti, from Albany

Scatter, Rose's best bud, from Albany

We've got some nice weather again, even may get on the warm side today and tomorrow, no rain until at least Friday I think it is.

Last night, when I headed over to get Felicia, I saw the beautiful moon.

Peggy said it was beautiful early this morning too.  She saw it when she drove the muted calico she'd caught down early to me, to take to the clinic in Corvallis.

Summer 2025

 

So Long Summer 2025.   I had a few adventures, went to camp twice at Waldo Lake, but the 2nd time it was clouded in smoke from the Emigrant Fire, which did not stop me from a ten mile kayak trek.  There were day trips to Waldo too, and trips to the reservoir and up the very algae clogged south Santiam from Foster Reservoir.   A short trip to Alsea Falls.  A brief look at the balloon launch from the side of the highway at the Art and Air Festival.

Lost Slinko and Rogue and Gracie to old age and Slurpy to a likely brain tumor.

Tried to take the summer off from trapping but did not suceed.

So, helped lots of cats too.

I spent my days and adventures alone.  I didn't want to, but could find no one to join me.  I'm used to that.

Wondering if I'll get another summer to enjoy life.  Or if our country will be burning by then.   Retribution, revenge, anger, but mostly a purge of all speech and thought opposed to current admin. 

 What will become of us?  I don't know.  I can only hope for another summer with time spent somewhere beautiful and peaceful with water.

The long gray begins.......

Funny Friday

 We need some laughs today.

How about That Oregon Life's story that ICE in Portland is now deploying cougars, that pepper spray just wasn't scary enough.  Here's the link:

Four cougars on the job at ICE building in Portland.

And Here is another Oregon Life article on national guard troops begging for reassignment after training included photos of naked bike riders.   Portland is home to a yearly World Naked Bike Ride and they recently called for an emergency naked bike ride to combat Trumps invasion of Portland.   I would not want to look at those photos either.

Guard Troops Beg for reassignment after briefing including photos of naked bike riders.

The old Airplane movies, who could forget.  

Three Black Kittens

 These three bathroom kittens are darling.  They're from the Lebanon colony.   I vaccinated them Monday or Tuesday.   The days have been a blur, recovering and cleaning from the effort that went on, from Thursday through Sunday, then on beyond, with holding five adults and the kittens.  The adults are all in barn homes now.  The last two went yesterday.  Today I put a couple tenths cc of profender on each.  I'd seen a tapeworm segment on one kittens butt end.  

The fluffy kitten is the girl.  The other two are boys.   They love each other so much.  I've been unable to find a rescue for these three so far.  I even tried Portland area ones.  The rescues and shelters in our state are quite territorial, taking in cats, kittens only from certain counties are areas, compounding the difficulty, since our county is barren of help for cats.  

Anyone want three black kittens?

Here are the two young adults from the colony who went to Silverton Cat Rescue Barn Cat Placement yesterday.   I'm told they got a great barn home.

I didn't name them but this teenage fluffy calico is adorable.

This muted torti is likely her sister.  They are both just beautiful!

War Ravaged Portland

 Was I ever surprised to hear the National Guard has been deployed by the feds to "war ravaged" Portland.

When I read it, shock was first response, since I was in Portland at the time, waiting on the 30 Lebanon cats being fixed at the FCCO, then I was overcome in hysterics.   Being exhausted didn't help.  I sometimes can't stop giggling when I'm tired.

Since then, the funny memes on social media outdo one another.  And prompt more giggles from me.  The extremely large knitting community in Portland is busy wrapping trees in bright colors (preparing for war they call it).

Yes, Portland has issues like homelessness and crime and drug use, just like we have here where I live.

The 200 troops going will be local Oregon national guard.  Our neighbors and friends.  I hope the people of Portland remember that, treat them warmly, take them lattes, Voodoo donuts, and otherwise shower them in good memories.

There are always the instigator types, who use any opportunity to gain attention for themselves or create trouble.   I hope they stay home in their parents basements this time.

They'll only be there because they're being ordered there by a President who lives far far away and likely could benefit greatly from time alone in a canoe on Waldo Lake.

Treat them nice, Portland.   Jon Stewart's take on it cracked me up too.

Hungry Cooper's Hawk

 I have a sometimes filled bird feeder in the backyard.  It's more to entertain my cats than anything else.  They watch it from the cat yard like cat TV.

It is no longer highly frequented, likely due to my failures to put seed in it.   The birds who have come to it are primarily chickadees, English Sparrows and finches.  Also there are resident scrub jays, sometimes engaging in family feuds, living in the big fir tree just across the fence in the neighbors yard behind me.

They are too big to get feeder food from the feeder.  But they they scavenge the seeds the other birds flick off (don't like).   The cheaper seed bag mixes have a lot of seeds disliked by the finches and sparrows, like millet.  

Out front I have a forsythia bush.  Sometimes small birds in flocks race through the area and stop, maybe for a rest, in the safety of the dense forsythia.   

This afternoon, I was in my chair, and saw movement out front.  To my astonishment a small hawk was trying to perch on a plant holder, that no longer holds a plant, that stands about four feet tall beside the forsythia.  It was unable to gain purchase on the curved thin metal of the plant holder, however, and dove suddenly into the forsythia.   

The small birds inside scattered out every direction.  I thought the hawk was gone.  I went out and looked into the bush and the hawk flew out the other side.   I thought the sight of my face so close would scare it off good, but the hawk only flew to the apple tree, where I snapped its photo.

Cooper's Hawk, intent on small bird dinner in my yard

From the apple tree, it flew behind the forsythia and to my neighbors roof, where it eyed me.  Then without warning it dove down straight for the forsythia again, then dodged when it saw I was still there, and headed over the roof to the backyard, where it is much more likely to hunt small birds with success.

Its not like I don't know this hawk.   I was sitting in my car once this summer and it dove down in the foot wide space between the side of my car and the fence after a fat mourning dove, who somehow escaped.  The mourning doves have heavy bodies and get airborn slowly, must make inviting prey.

If you have a bird feeder, the hawks know your yard.   They know who eats where and where its easier to catch dinner.

But I've never seen a hawk dive into a bush after small birds.  I thought maybe it had been successful and there was an injured or dead little bird in the forsythia that the hawk wanted back, but I looked again and saw nothing.

I know the little birds have been eating on the apples in the tree too and I suspect the hawk got one there the other day.

I've had hawks in my yard over the years many times.

Usually they are Cooper's Hawks.  This may have been a sharp shinned hawk, with those red eyes, not sure.

This one is a Coopers' Hawk, pretty sure.

I'll never forget this bird showing up, making a huge racket, living in my yard off and on, had no idea where it came from.  I was about to drop trap it and get it out to a lady who said she'd take it, when it vanished.

Guinea Fowl

I returned the 15 FCCO traps this morning and the cage covers I'd borrowed from them.   I also delivered three of the Lebanon colony cats to Silverton Cat Rescue Barn Team and the threesome got a great home.  Family with kids who love animals.  Always good to hear.

Here are Booboo, Dodger and Glitterbug just before I loaded them up and drove them to Salem.

Glitterbug's the girl.  They're all three young and you know how the young adapt so much faster than us oldies.

It's been raining and will continue a few more days.  I'm trying to recover from all the work.  Yesterday was pretty much just plain work, at cleaning traps, after returning all the cats to the colony who had overnighted here, setting up the five going to barn homes in two cages, doing laundry, catching up on chores for my own cats.  Now and then--collapse from being so tired.

Tomorrow the other pair, both calicos, go to their barn home but I only have to meet SCR here in town, to transfer.  Two more kittens from my bathroom went to Keithas Kitties yesterday too.  Still three in there.

This afternoon was for relaxing and that's when I saw the hawk drama out front.

Goodbye Elephant's Child

 I just heard a blog friend has died.

I never met her, didn't even know what she looked like til today, when I found out she died and saw her photo on someone's page.

She's been following my blog and I hers for many years.   I knew her as a faraway friend.  Through her, I learned a lot about Australia, by touring her city through her photos, then google maps.  

Canberra seems so exotic and faraway and beautiful.  The pond she visited with "himself" (her husband), to get her "roo fixes" and for peace, the art festivals, the balloon festivals, the gardens, her garden, the birds she fed, bright and colorful and demanding....the ice bubbles she blew in the winters that froze in colors....

She was always positive and uplifting.  Kind and left encouraging comments.

She made humans look good, better than we are, because she was better.

She volunteered for Lifeline, a suicide prevention telephone.   

She was warm white light energy in a sometimes dark world.

She loved her kitties too.  I bet they miss her terribly.

Sue had MS and then got a very rare aggressive cancer, but that's about all she said about it.  

Elephants Child.  I'm privileged to have known you even from far away.