Debt Ceiling Deal Reached?

I just get home and there are news flashes a deal to raise the debt ceiling has been reached, with Obama and the leader of the house and senate. The deal has not been made public, however, nor has it been voted on, by the house or senate.

Could be the US will be paying its bills Tuesday after all!

If you are owed by the US, whether an American or in another country, the check's NOT in the mail. Not yet. Repeat, not in the mail yet.

Camping

Lava flow, on the cut off highway from 58 to 97. Highway 58 runs from just south of Eugene east past Oakridge, up to the Cascade crest and Willamette Pass, then down to join highway 97, a north south corridor east of the Cascades. However, you can take a cut off road just past Crescent Lake north and east to hit 97 further north. The Cascades Lake Highway also takes off from this cut off road.
Beyond the Cascades is Oregon's high desert region.
More scenery.
Lava off the cut off highway.
View of the obsidian flow from Paulina Peak, with a Pumice field above it.
My brother, at the obsidian flow. There is a metal staircase that leads up into it.
Black shiny obsidian, which is glass rock.
View from Paulina Peak.
Paulina Lake as seen from Paulina Peak.
Mt. Bathelor and the Three Sisters, in the Cascades, from Paulina Peak.
The Three Sisters Mountains, Faith, Hope and Charity, from Paulina Peak. Many novice climbs go up the south sister. I believe that one is "Faith".
Flowers on Paulina Peak.
East Lake from Paulina Peak.
From Paulina Peak.

From Paulina Peak.Both our tents.
This is my tent. The Neuterscooter vet left this for me a few years ago.
Cooking bisquits on the fire with a home made oven.
Campfire in foreground, stove with coffee pot perking coffee in background.

Before my brother arrived, I set up my sterno stove and made some hot chocolate, then supper.
Ant hill. There were about six very very active ant hills in our camp site. We tried not to step on them and just leave them alone, so they would leave us alone.
My brother clowning with the ax.
Cooking breakfast.
My brother's test.
My brother's tent and chair.

I went camping.

I lacked nothing in enthusiasm. But my planning? That left a lot to be desired.

Advice for me, if I camp again, and for anyone reading, who might be considering a camp trip: know your campground sites.

I waited too long to make reservations for mid week. Then my brother said he wanted to go, so I switched my two nights to the weekend. By this time, there were almost no reservation sites left, at my chosen destination, the Newberry Volcanic Monument, over south of Bend.

It sounded so interesting, to camp at a lake in an active volcanic crater. I'd never been there and had read something about it in the local paper. I thought to myself, "I better see that some day." In reality, it wasn't that interesting.

My brother made reservations. I paid for one night, he the other. Get ready to shell out bucks if you want to camp legally. I had no idea the price had gone up drastically.

$33 per night, for the both of us, since we had two vehicles. That's an unimproved site, no electric, no water. You get: metal fire pit, picnic table, access to a pit toilet and a flush toilet. In the case of site number 3, at East Lake, far from the lake, the picnic table was on a slope as was the entire site.

I arrived Friday afternoon. There's no cell reception up there and it's a really long drive. I was happy to be out and away. Very very happy.

I was disappointed in the site, but oh well, that's what you get when you wait til last minute now, with camping so popular. The site was sloped. There was no where flat for a tent, let alone two tents. I found the least sloped place and pitched my tent and put up my canopy.

I walked down to the lake then. The lake is beautiful, hot spring fed. The beach extends at least halfway around the lake, which is highly popular with fishermen.

I waded in, with my boogie board, as my form of float or boat. I got it at Value Village, was, at one time, going to try to construct some sort of a home made boat out of such objects, never got around to it.

I swam for about twenty minutes. I hit weed. That was not a lake where I would expect to have weed growing up from the bottom, tickling my legs. I find lake weed slimy and disgusting.

I turned around after hitting weed and swam back to shore. I dried out on the coarse sand beach and went back to camp to await my brother's arrival. He had said he'd get there around 7:00p.m. He had the stove and the wood.

You're not supposed to bring wood, something about transporting pests. I think though it has more to do with the scam going on. With my brother so late, and me cold from swimming and the sun gone down, I gave in and bought wood off the camp managers. What a scam. A little tiny plastic wrapped bundle of wood that's mostly bark for $6!!!!

I started a fire, but the wood was hissing wet, a further grit your teeth scam. Fortunately my brother arrived about 9:30 p.m. I think, and had dry wood with him.

He was worn out from the long drive but we pitched his tent too and started a real fire with dry wood, before finally going to bed.

Then began a night of sliding (tent surfing). I repeatedly ended up in a ball at the down side end of my tent. My brother was experiencing the same troubles. I didn't get much sleep. You could have rolled down the slope inside the tent. My brother's tent looked like it was about to roll on its own by this morning.

Site number three should not be rented as a tent site. It was not just the slope, but also the numerous ant hills. We did find two places to pitch our tents that would not cover an ant hill, and then piss off its residents.

Last night I tried piling stuff at the down slope side of my tent to prevent slidage of myself in the slick sleeping bag on the slick tent floor. I thought about harnessing myself to two upslope trees for the night.

I should have worn stick on skid preventers!

The other issue with the site was the location at near the entrace of a 100 plus camp site. Traffic! It was nonstop by our site, like being on a busy street.

Now I realize getting a site that is as far into the campground as possible would have been wise, so you would not experience such high traffic, but once again, when you're doing things last minute, on a weekend, you take what you can get.

We had to prop things level, like the stove, on the picnic table, too.

Neither of us got much sleep due to the sliding slippery slope we were surfing for the night in each of our respective tents.

Saturday, we grogged around, made some good camp food and coffee, and drove off to see the Newberry Monument sites. This included a drive up to Newberry Peak. The road was long, steep, not well-maintained, gravel with nonstop washboards!!! Teeth and body jarring!

There were people both hiking and biking up that steep peak, which smothered me in guilt. Briefly. Because they looked like they were suffering severely.

At the top, there was quite a view. A young ranger, from SoCal, who got the job as an intern (unpaid position I think--good for taxpayers!) was answering questions about mountain peaks in the distance and talking about how the area has recently seen fairly shallow underground temperature increases, indicating volcanic activity.

There are two lakes in the crater, Paulina and East Lake. There are small resorts on both and the forest service campgrounds, like the one we stayed in over at East Lake. The main attractions are fishing and hiking the crater trail, along with viewing the obsidian fields or just camping.

Then we went down and walked the couple hundred feet to Newberry Creek Falls, which was unspectacular if you've been around Oregon much. Oregon has tons of far superior water falls. We left there and pulled in at the obsidian fields. We had to pay to park there. We had to purchase the day use area pass, which is $5 per vehicle. There's a lot of paying out now, compared to what used to be, to go camping.

We weren't there long. By afternoon, rain showers pelted the camp. My brother muttered "The curse continues." When we were young, we went camping all the time but every time we went, it seemed to rain. The rain clouds following our family camp trips became legendary, so that other people planned camping trips on weekends when we were not going.

This morning, we packed up and were gone by 11:30. My brother had to get home.

There was a pit toilet only two campsites from ours. About four campsites down there was a single occupant restroom with a single flush toilet which was like luxury, in a campground. It was not very used. Nowadays, tent campers are the rarity and this campground this last weekend was no exception. The majority of campers still came with campers, trailers or RV's, pulling boats, or loaded down with bikes and kayaks. If you are then a tent camper, there are no lines at the pit toilets, that's for sure.

I'd like to own a bike again, I sometimes think, but I don't like to bike in Albany. I don't think it's safe or even pleasant or practical. I will watch for a cheap bike, that fits my height and neck problem. I used to love riding my bike, before my neck injury. I can't lean over handlebars with my head cocked slightly backwards and up, like you have to do on most bikes. That position doesn't fly with my neck problem. Then I'd need some way to carry it in my car, which then starts me into a spiral of add ons. I'm not much into owning lots of things. Not really. Not things I rarely use.

I start thinking I'd sure like a kayak, but how often would I end up using it if I could scrounge up bucks to buy one, I think to myself and just maybe my little thrift store boogie board is fine enough. Those rigs loaded down made me grateful for that little foam boogie board, so simple to throw in, no big investment to buy, just a few bucks, no crying if its lost or damaged.

I guess it's one of those things. I would not recommend this trip or that camp site to anyone but neither do I regret going.

I do wish I'd remembered to pack a long sleeve shirt and some silver ware. But I survived without either.

There were many great sites at the Cinder Hill campground on East Lake that are flat (tent suitable) and just off the lake shore that would have been great. Also, if you want to enjoy this campground, take a boat, even if it's a raft, and your own wood. The lake is beautiful. The stars are magnificent from the darkness and altitude of the mountains.

Despite the bad site, I had great fun, just getting dirty, making camp food, staring into the black sky and it's plethora of stars from the lake shore at night and sleeping in a slipping sliding sleeping bag in a tent on a slope!

Did I mention one of the biggest pluses of the trip: NO PHONE OR TV!

Lost Cat's Legacy--Other Cats Helped

The two kittens, hopefully big enough to be fixed, up at the clinic today.
Pathetic young calico, who has three kittens, up being fixed.
Black tux unfixed male, who now will be fixed.
The two kittens again. There are in all six kittens, three from each mother. The calico's kittens are smaller. They should be fixing size in a couple of weeks.

If the treasured lost cat is not found or is, his legacy stands: four cats already are up being fixed because of him.

Up being fixed: two feral kittens, of six, between two females, one of the mothers and a black tux male.

I'll catch the second adult female, but not til next week.

I hope that lost cat is roaming there. They all love cats, well, almost all of them there do. Most residents there are kind-hearted people. He'd be lucky to be lost in there, rather than if he were roaming many other more hostile and heartless locales.

His legacy is inevitable now. Life, for other cats.

If they breed relentlessly, they get killed by angry landlords, neighbors, fed up people, disease, and other cats suffer also. So, he's saved four already, that lost cat, and prevented already thousands upon thousands of future births and suffering, costs to people, and other cats and kittens dying for lack of homes.

That's a significant legacy.

Lost Cat Hunt Engaged

I was called by someone given my number by a friend. They lost their beloved older cat, over six weeks ago. He went out one night and never came home. My suspicion is that he is deceased, killed by dogs, predator or car.

However, they have received multiple calls from one trailer park, that he is there. The trailer park is a mile at least from their home, so it seems very unlikely he would end up there.

I gave them the site: www.pethunters.com. It is an excellent site and has lost pet behavior pages. Looking for a lost outdoor allowed cat is not easy. If a cat does not come home, usually there is a very bad reason. The cat has been chased out of its known territory and is afraid to come back. The cat has been killed and eaten by a predator. The cat has been killed by dogs. The cat has been transported out, either intentionally or unintentionally. The cat is closed in somewhere. The cat is injured. The cat is dead.

However, stranger things have happened and cats end up far from home.

They would have no hope except for all these alleged sightings at the trailer park. People have been calling from their ads, wherever they've seen them. So over I went to try to determine if the sightings are accurate, made up, or another lookalike cat.

I can't determine one way or the other. I urged those who may have seen him to take a photo of the cat they think is the lost cat, so the lost cat people can tell, yes or no, if it's him and if not, move on with their lives.

But, while over there, I ran into someone I've helped before and she has two unfixed adult females, both with three kittens and an unfixed adult male. So I have one of the females in my car. I briefly set a trap for the more elusive female and her kittens, but it began to rain.

I first encountered her years ago, on Columbus. She was living in a little shed, with no electricity or running water because her house burned down and was declared a meth hazard, something like that. Her husband, a long time meth dealer and user, had just died of cancer to boot. She told me all this, from inside the shed she lived in, with nothing at all anymore to call her own but those cats she loved. She wanted the cats fixed. So I took them in. Later, I encountered her over on College Park drive and she had more cats she'd found needing fixed. Then, she moved to the trailer park and was working at a gas station and doing good.

I asked her why she didn't call me to get these latest ones fixed. She said she'd been told I was dead, killed over a year ago in a car wreck. "oh! I exclaimed, "That explains it."

"How did I die, tell me the details. Where was it I allegedly died and did I die instantly or was it a prolonged thing?" She gave me a look. "Why do you want to know, it obviously wasn't you?"

"I have a fascination with these things," I defended myself. I was thinking privately 'What an extremely creative excuse for not getting some cats fixed.'

Also, my middle finger on my left hand is killing me. It's my own stupidity, the reason.

I had a wart and I can't afford the $15 to $20 for over the counter wart remedy. Besides, it's stupid to pay that much for basically aspirin. That is the main ingredient in most wart removers, aspirin acid. I have injected dissolved aspirin into plantars warts on my feet before with great success. I decided I'll do that for this wart.

However, I was very distracted when trying to inject tiny amounts of aspirin dissolved in boiling water just under the skin in the wart surface. I was headed out berry picking with someone and they had just arrived. We were talking as I quickly tried to accomplish the injection.

Several hours later, the pain in my finger escalated to the almost unbearable point. My berry picking friend thought it amusing. The pain increased by leaps and bounds as I tried to help with the lost cat situation. My finger began to swell. The pain was prompting profanity to seep from my lips at indiscriminate times.

Even the gas station attendant gave his opinion and advice on my finger problem. I told him I need that finger working for flipping people off. He said his girlfriends middle finger is swollen and awful too because she was attacked by a dog.

He said "Go to the doctor, they'll burn it off." I said, "No wart removal coverage." He said, "Ok, so put super glue on it, and duct tape on top of that. When you rip off the duct tape every two days, it pulls off the super glue which pulls off some layers of the thing."

"Sounds reasonable," I said.

But my immediate problem is living through my first home remedy.

Tonight I could not keep a clean needle out of that horrible swollen thing that once was the top of my middle finger. Suddenly, an eruption of infection burst out. "Oh," I thought, "it wasn't a wart after all." There's a splinter in there somewhere deep. Great.

Maybe it's a splinter and a wart, or a splinter that caused a wart. Hell if I know. Either way, that aspirin acid is probably killing everything alive in my finger tip, acid burning it from the inside out. I probably should have thought about what I was doing.

Well, I'm hoping to live through this. I hope my flipping finger comes out of this working.

Pitbulls attack cat

From the crime watch:

Pitbulls: Albany Police responded to a call about two pit bulls attacking a cat in the 2400 block of Ninth Ave. Sunday evening. Officers found the dogs running loose in the neighborhood and cited the owner for having dogs at large. The cat, apparently a stray, got away and could not be found.

There are too many dangerous free roaming dogs in this town, and they kill a lot of wonderful cats.

I know the cats living as strays in that block. One of them was likely the victim of these vicious dogs. There was a short hair orange buff male, a long hair older orange and white male, two black young males and a black female, the mom of four tiny bottle babes, that KATA took in.

I wonder which of the above cats the pitbulls attacked and likely fatally injured. Fricking lousy pet owners in this town. That little black female was the daughter of another black female, tame and dumped out over there, like so much trash.

Leaning Tower of Maple

That backyard maple with the split down the trunk to ground is worrisome. The split is wider and the one side is leaning and diseased.

My brother had a tree guy come look at it, but his price was really high, to just cut of the six bigger branches that then branch out themselves, way up there, at the top of the cat wire. We couldn't afford it. Six quick chainsaw cuts then cutting up and hauling off the debris. The trunk can stand there split like it is up ten feet. No problemo without the heavy branches pulling it apart until it falls.

Course the branches have to be tied off first, to fall right.

Then my brother was going to come up and do it, but he thought it would be a massive amount of labor, especially cutting up the branches and hauling them off even though he wanted the decent diameter wood to burn in his stove at home. He's also very busy. So he never made it up.

So his daughter came up. She's an adult and very tough. But she didn't like the look of the tree and thought it might be dangerous to do without any real equipment, so we went and took a walk and had lunch while she was here and that made me happy.

So it's up to me now. I've the sawzall and have cut some of the branches using that. But even on the small diameter ones, the sawzall heats up badly and can only cut through half before over heating. On bigger diameter branches cutting half through one drains the battery. Then I'm left to saw at it with a handsaw. Which means, I need to start early in the day.

I've used the hanging cinder block method to make the branches fall where I want. I use the extendable handle pruner, like an old person's picker upper, to clutch cable rope and wrap it around the branch I want to secure. I loop it through, in a hitch, then run the cable rope whatever angle is needed out over the better half of the tree and hang one or two cinder blocks from it, a measured distance from the ground to pull the bottom down one way and the top the other way. Has worked very excellently.

This weekend, I got to get at that. That tree looks bad and if one side splits off, it will take out my cat yard fence, at the least, and if one of the other branches goes, with all its off branches, it will damage my roof and maybe the neighbors roof.

I tried to call in a couple favors, with people who have chainsaws and experience with this sort of thing, but I did not receive call backs.

So it boils down to me and my sawzall and I better be good at wrangling those heavy maple branches down like I want them, so I don't get hurt and nothing else does either. I'll wear boots this time, proper eye wear, my bicycle helmet and even gloves. It's all in the physics of planning, to make it come down exactly as I want it to, with the hanging cinder blocks, but it is hard to estimate the weight correctly.

This weekend is the big date to take out one of the bigger branches on the bad side. Wish me luck.

Silent NIght of White Lightning

I determined once again to go after the two unfixed females at the nursing home colony. I went late. No reason to go while the crowds of people come and go. This is a difficult trap location.

I believe I've gone over the challenges before: fixed cats; raccoons, possums, multiple feeders, large area, nowhere to set traps discreetly, so that the large numbers of people and cars coming and going, do not disturb a cats desire to enter the trap.

Once again I failed to catch either female. The colony has morphed once again. Now it's two males, two females and a lone kitten.

At least one of the two males was once owned. He gets beat up when he arrives, by Foxy, one of the fixed females, who likes to take him on. So does the old guy fixed black male. Unfixed males have no friends.

The orange tom has seen better days. He slinks for good reason. He has only enemies also.

The little black long hair girl likes the old black fixed guy now that he's fixed. I wish he would lead her under that drop trap. I almost had the orange tabby. He was under the drop trap and I was reaching for the string to yank it down, when in drove a van and off ran the cat.

It's like that every time I go, like it's not meant to be.

Lightning, so distant I could hear no thunder, lit the sky. It began in the south east, moved west for a time, then back to the east and then north. The displays were spectacular against the dark clouds moving through. Periodically the wind would whip up and few splats of rain would hit the roof of my car. "Here it comes," I'd think. But the storm never hit.

I was getting sleepy. It was after 3:00 a.m. I think. I was looking at something on the passenger seat of my car when I heard a mother raccoon chirping for her babies. This caused me to turn back towards my drivers side window and at that moment the sky lit up.

At first I thought I was witnessing a UFO event.

It lasted only seconds--a fireball descending in an arc, and just as quickly, vanishing. It was large but I have no idea how far off it was. It was streaming flames in at least three places as it hurtled. It illuminated the sky in that spot. It was off to the south east of my location, traveling north and downward. I saw it in a space between the branches of a tree, that soared above the storage sheds and behind them. The angle between the ground and that object, from my line of sight, might have been about 30 degrees.

What was it? For a moment I wondered if a plane had gone down, maybe struck by lightning. Then I decided it had to be a meteor entering the atmosphere. I have seen shooting stars before but never a ball of fire. Or maybe I have. I seem to remember spotting something similar once. Maybe they're common.

The raccoons were out in force tonight. A mother and two babies. A lone male.

The cats were not hungry. I scooped up cat food piles in gravel in three places, but I should have come home, after seeing they'd been fed, in several locations, probably by several different people. Wishful thinking, I guess, made me stay.

Employees came out and casually took smoke breaks sitting, legs crossed, three feet from a set trap. This would illicit silent cursing bouts from me. Cars came in, to park for the shift, in the dysfunctional curved narrow parking lot. One employee unknowingly backed her car up to park until she almost knocked my one trap closed. It was set as close into the berry vines as I could get it.

The silent flashes of white that lit the sky far away finally faded away. An employee arrived for the early morning shift, around 4:30 a.m., and started her day with a cigarette smoked two feet from a trap.

At that point, I thought "Holy balls of fire, it is time to go."

Boy!

I decided to try to go camping later this summer, at the Newberry Monument. I tried to call to reserve a campground spot. However, when I was about to pay, the amount they wanted made the unimproved site $23 per night, instead of the amount listed on the website of $16. I asked the man why that was. He didn't know why the discrepancy and told me he would transfer me to a customer service team. After that, I was transferred back to the main phone menu and waited five minutes on hold for a human being then gave up.

I tried to log in to register then, but found out somewhere years ago, I had a user account there, with long forgotten password. I asked they send me a new password. They did, but it did not work. I tried again and auto service sent me another new password which didn't work either.

There you go. For now, I gave up. Guess if I go, I'll camp along a road.

Five Albany Cats Fixed Today

Walnut street sisters, fixed today.
Bad photo of NYN, the tabby tux female kitten from the VV colony, spayed today.
Orange tabby kitten from VV colony, neutered today.
Last brick house cat needing fixed from the Brick House four, the only male.


Five Albany cats were fixed today. I took up Sunny and Not Yet Named (NYN) from the VV colony, a boy and a girl, and they were fixed. They go home tomorrow.

I took up the last cat of four needing fixed just off Queen, the only boy of the four, and he was fixed and is now back home. Done there.

I took up two girl kittens from over near the hospital and they were fixed and now they're home.

There you have it. Five more Albany cats will not be breeding.

I made rice noodles with ginger and brussels' sprouts for dinner. I also made a tart, out of my tree cherries, maple syrup, cinnamon and Bisquick, which was all I had to use for dough. It unfolded in the oven. I should have tied it. It was still really good. I saved out some of the cherry mixture, heated it up again, and used it for topping, also.

Come to Oregon. We're All Wet!

Our cloudy rainy cool weather continues here in Oregon this summer. We have not seen summer yet, except for two days over the weekend of the 4th of July.

Today, after taking the kittens to Heartland and cleaning, I picked up my neighbor at the airport. They have been on a two week vacation. Being a federal employee, she too is concerned about the debt limit thing. She asked if a deal was passed. She's avoided watching news, also. I had nothing to report except that I did not think a deal had been passed. I too now want to remain inside the bliss of denial and ignorance.

I have found places for 8 VV colony kittens, but there are still nine VV kittens in my bathroom? How can this be? Are they seeding and more kittens growing in there?

Giggles, Winnie, Rumba, Pebbles, Bambam, Surri, Blase (the gray boy with no visible personality), then Sunny and his best friend, the tabby tux girl, not yet named. Sunny and not yet named (NYN), will be fixed tomorrow.

Giggles, Bambam, Pebbles and Surri have bad colds.

Sunny is getting over his, but will it get worse after getting better, like Giggles' did? I wonder.

Speaking of seeding, this foul Oregon summer of rain and cold is really messing up grass seed harvest. Some fields have been harvested but the stubble usually baled and sold as straw, lays in almost every field.

Maybe hot weather will come and dry it out. And maybe it will lay there and mold further in the fields and the ringworm problem in the valley will be worse than ever when the soil is tilled up and clouds of dust encompass the valley full of whatever was in that soil, now airborne and breathed in or descending to cling to the fur of kittens.

I predict a vicious ringworm fall.

Note to self: take in no more outside kittens because you'll have them forever. They'll bring their fungus with them.

Most of the country bakes in the terrible heat wave while Oregon molds in rain and drizzle.

Great tourist draw, our rain and cool, however, for a heat baked nation.

Come to Oregon. We're all wet!

Preparing for Zero Income Living August 2 and the Debt Ceiling to Not be Raised

By this time, I have no faith that the WA clowns will get anything done by August 2. I truly believe the tea party fanatics want to take this country down. They have already indicated SS checks will not be paid if the debt ceiling is not raised.

It's so close now and the tea party republicans in the house are unwilling to do anything.

I have lost hope a deal will be struck.

That means I need to prepare, best as I can, to begin living on no income August 2. If a deal is made in the mean time, I will heave a big huge happy sigh of relief. But I have to figure out something now, because I don't know if a deal will happen.

On August 2, if a deal hasn't been made, I will shut down my power. I have no choice as I will be unable to pay the bill. The billing cycle is from about now on, so I should shut it down now, but I am not prepared for that.

I will cook on Sterno and buy three cases of top ramen to eat as those noodles cook quickly.

I have an oil lamp and candle holders and that will be my light.

There will be no more warm showers or laundry done here.

Fortunately, I have no debt. I cut up my credit card long ago, when Wells Fargo screwed me over on those bad vaccines and their fake promise to protect me, in the contractual agreement, from defective purchases with the credit card. I paid off the balance. Good riddance.

My car insurance is paid up for another seven months.

I can't store much cat litter. I use a lot. I'll have to come up with garbage bill money for sure. Any money I have saved will go into cat litter and cat food and the garbage and water bill. There will be nothing for rent or electricity so I hope my brother is ok with no rent for awhile. I'll cancel my landline. I wish I could find more cats homes before this shit goes down.

The tea party is who I hold to blame for the misery to come.

They want to kill SS. There will be widespread suffering and chaos if SS checks are not paid. There has been no national preparation for such a thing.

Rocky, Billy, Happy and Cindy Lu--Goodbye and Good Luck!

Cindy Lu.
Rocky, with Pebbles and Giggles.
Rocky before he came here.
Billy.
Billy before he came here.
Happy.

Today, Rocky, Billy, Happy and Cindy Lu moved on in their young lives. All four went to Heartland. Cindy Lu will be fostered by the employee who is also taking care of the bottle boys.

Rocky, Billy and Happy will be neutered today and go up for adoption.

Sure, I worry about them. I have a ritual goodbye thing I do now, when cats or kittens are either adopted or move on to another group. It's a release of them to the care of the universe and a recognition I am helpless to protect them further.

I realize the universe has no soul and cares not for, nor takes note of any living thing by no fault of its own. It's nature is that of an inert object. There is the argument that the universe is itself alive and is the caretaker, the safe harbor, for the collective soul of all things.

But a tiny kitten---who cares for such an insignificant life in this vast universe?

I do.

I hope others do also.

We are all equally insignificant to space and time.

Two Kittens Gone. Four Leaving Tomorrow.

Thank god for Heartland.

Safehaven would not help with all these kittens from that big colony. Nobody else would either.

Heartland today took in the teen mom's two boys. Yes, my bad eyes strike again and both are boys. Tomorrow, they're taking the way over two pounds now Rocky, Billy and Happy. Plus the employee fostering the bottle babes, who aren't really that little, is taking the long hair torbi tux, who is beautiful, to foster. Yahoo. That's six gone from here!

I still have Pebbles and Bambam, the youngest pair. I have Winnie, the delightful funny Siamese girl. I have Giggles the calico. I'll have Rumba, the Lynx Point male. I'll have the older torbi, whom I haven't named. I have the gray male, who is two pounds but not very friendly and might just get fixed and returned.

I have the orange tabby and now the tabby tux female, freshly netted, whom the caretakers want back also.

I netted her today when taking out the feral housing unit, suspecting she is over two pounds, which she is. Those two will be fixed Friday and immediately returned so I don't start getting resentful that they don't take better care of the kittens that could get decent homes, where they are at least flea treated and their ears cleaned out of impacted ear mite debris.

There are three other kittens out there and they claim they want one or two of them, implying I could take the other.

I returned the mom of the kittens today also. I returned the four males from the Kind Man colony fixed yesterday too. He doesn't want me trapping over there for awhile, since he's got some stuff to do, but he said the neighbors already mentioned the relative quiet. Not so many male fights and not so many in heat female yowls.

Nobody there has donated anything yet. I doubt they will either. I don't know why I think that. Gut feeling.

Well, at least I'm getting some kittens out of my bathroom. I can't use the toilet easily with kittens attacking my feet when I'm trying to......well...go.

I got another e-mail last night, someone wanting me to take some ferals. I said I couldn't do that. Then today someone called wanting me to "foster" their cats. Not sure what that was about, because I quickly cut her short, telling her I don't do that. I didn't even want to hear more.

There's somebody out there handing out my number as a "shelter" I guess. I don't know who. Wishful thinking on people's parts. I can't adopt out a cat for the life of me. I get no inquiries. Too many free kittens out there. My petfinder website and my phone message clearly state I don't take in cats from the general public. Why do people ignore that? It's rude.

I fixed my stove today. One burner thermostat didn't work. I ordered the new part online. The stove is over 30 years old so they don't make replacement parts for it, but there was a part supposed to fit it, so I ordered it and it came. Today I took apart the front and installed it. At first it didn't work. Then I realized the wires went to different contacts than in the old switch, so I figured it out and now it works. Was glad of that. No fires or short outs or anything like that involved either, which is always good.

Also, I am having trouble sleeping over the whole debt ceiling limit circus going on in WA. I don't think they're going to come together and agree on anything in time. Then I wonder if I'll get my SS check or if I'll suddenly go to zero income and how I'll survive then is a big fat mystery to me, or how long it would go on, not getting an SS check. Three republicans introduced a bill to make sure priorities in payment are set, if the ceiling isn't raised, and SS checks are not a priority to the republicans. I think the republicans would just love it if they could line up the poor and the old and shoot us like they like to shoot everything.

Is my bad attitude showing? Well, wouldn't yours, if a bunch of Republicans could affect your life so drastically that you were trying to figure out where you might camp and what you'll with a house full of precious cats, if your income suddenly moved to zero?

Nobody seems worried about it. There have been no news stories or paper articles that I know of that cover what will become of a zillion seniors and disabled folk if SS checks don't get sent out. Guess I shouldn't either.

2nd Feral Housing Unit, Revised, Ready to Go

When I hauled off three of the six feral housing units that Albany business made on request of another woman, who did not pick them up, I knew they would be a lot of work to make adequate. They were made of OSB, which soaks up the moisture and not painted on the inside or bottom. The hinges on the roof were pulled out on one side already on two of them. Aw well.

I thought about finding a willing burn pile for them. The other problem, the holes for entrance, exit were so low they allowed for no space for added bedding inside.

I finally decided to try to revising them. I added insulation, collected styrofoam and glued it to the sides after painting the whole thing, for protection against moisture. I cut and fit old boards I have around, from things like dressers gone bad and even couch wood pieces over the insulation after also painting them. I repaired the hinge issues. I added a shelf, since basically these things shape wastes almost all the height space. For the one that was to be outside, I added old flower pot carpeted tunnels in and out.

So here are a few photos of the second one, now about to be loaded and taken out to the VV colony, after revisions by me:

Side view, hinged roof up.
Inside, with added insulation, second walls over it, floor and shelf.
Entry hole.

I've made other feral housing units out of other things.


This one is just a plastic storage container with two holes cut, for entry, exit, in it with a knife. It's stuffed with straw.

This one I made out of a somebody's unwanted water bed platform. Both sides had drawers, which I removed, added a front panel and screwed the doors to the top, for added beds. This unit was going to be under cover anyhow, in an open shop. The cats love it.

And this one, I just made out of old boards I had around and added plastic pot tunnels.