Photos

I made some art of photos I've taken.  I found these three photo frames on sale.  I want to hang them in my bathroom.  So this is one of the final projects.  It's Smolder, out in the cat yard atop a cat climb.  Distorted by Picassa.

And this one, of Sam, is now hanging over the can, in my bathroom.

This last of my art project photo conversions, is Barn Cat Friends, a photo I took out at the BS colony.

 The rest of these are just some snapshots I took last couple of days, which were full of sun.  I went nowhere though.  I think I'm going nowhere fast.  I don't feel so well, still, and now, my paranoid mind and aloneness make me think maybe I've got something deadly, something lethal, taking me over.

Smolder out in the cat yard.  My mower still isn't fixed, as I have not been able to get it to Portland to be fixed at the Black and Decker repair center, under warranty.  I got out the crappy push mower.   It is so dull it tears at grass.

The very old cat house, with a maple log path out to it.  It needed a path out for the winter when the water stands out in the backyard.  One day I'll get to the grass. With something.  Don't know what.

That limb supporting the cat run is from the maple that split.

The Cherry Tree is blooming.  If it gets pollinated, I'll have cherries.  Last years crop was very bad, sour and most cherries rotted on the tree, due to warm rain hitting just as they were ripening.


I do very little with cats these days.  I can't, anymore.  Technically, I have until June, to take in a few more, but I must limit my trips to use of Heartland's clinic, which means not taking many in, and maybe a couple more trips to the the FCCO.  It's my car, you see.  Drip, drip, dripping oil still.  Guess it won't magically just stop.  Had hoped it would.  Why not?  For awhile after I switched to super high mileage oil, the drip slowed.  Or maybe I didn't really look very close.  

Even if the car was not an issue, I can't do more with cats.  I have too many here.  I can't get caught up in situations where I might have to take some in.  I've just got too many already.  My job is taking care of them now.   Just the way things worked out.  I wish there were places for all the unwanteds.  I wish had money and land to create them a space.  To hell with selfish violent pseudo religious humans.  I'm not sure why I bother being lonely.

All these easter services all over the world.  Seems ironic.  And strange!  Doesn't it seem strange to anyone else?  We're such a violent blood thirsty and viscious species.  But its like a big secret or super ok for us to be that way while still declaring ourselves "the best most loved wonderful god fearing species to ever be"!  Peace, Love, and Joy on easter! (unless you're a hippy saying Peace and Love, then you're scum).  

Seems like everybody must be dropping acid to behave so contradictorily and not even notice.  

  I am too lonely for sanity to hold much longer.  I'm bored out of my mind.  I feel old and useless and redundant.

But my bathroom looks nice...

Click here if you want to buy Four Friends on RedBubble.

I'm getting a paypal account.  I can then try to raise money for a couple of nonprofits dear to my heart---Odd Cat Out, the new Poppa Inc. and a couple spay neuter groups.  If I can sell some cat photos to earn money for cat food and vet visits up at Odd Cat Out, be great.  If I can still get a few cats fixed, be great too.

Sick, Sick and Sicker

Ugly, that's what it is.  Whatever I've got.  Ugly.

Started last Friday night.  Suddenly.  My stomach region turned to cement, felt like, with sharp spines.  Chills and body aches and fatigue hit too.  I slept all weekend, with a few brief "up" periods.

Finally Monday came around and I thought was better.  I even did a few things, ventured out a couple of times.

Tuesday I decided be ok to eat something.  Wasn't.

Stomach erupted in double over pain, like I'd eaten a plate of glass shards.  Oh my.

Then came the disgusting part.  Have you ever had explosive diarrhea?  If not, try it!  I do not recommend the experience.  How about if you bend even slightly slinging stomach contents out your nose?  Lovely.

It went on six hours before I got scared.  The pain shot up my back and through my shoulders.  Death seemed likely or maybe like a dream vacation getaway.

Things went through my mind, like "Shit, I should have climbed the S. Sister or something, written a legal binding will that officially gives my cats to someone."  That kind of stuff.  But mostly I just moaned and rolled around and there was some cursing.

Here's the other thing went through my mind.  'Omg, I've got to clean the litter boxes somehow.  I can't die in here with the litter boxes dirty.  What will people think?'  A cat lady version of "Always wear clean underwear, in case you're in a wreck." Or "Die young and leave a good looking corpse."  There's no such thing as a good looking corpse by the way.

All I did was eat, for gosh sakes and not much.  I'd gone out after generic prilosec and Gatorade.  I had developed a powerful craving for Gatorade.   I wanted to eat everything I saw in the store.  Everything.  I had eaten almost nothing since last Friday near noon when I ate at a Subway up in the Portland area.

I thought it was a good sign I might finally be able to eat.

I get home.  I eat and my gut exploded in reaction.

I probably have norovirus, the doctor says.  My blood work says I don't have liver, pancreatic or gall bladder issues.  I do have an inflamed irritated angry gut.  Probably norovirus.  Maybe norovirus.  They don't really test for it, just go by symptoms.

Guess I know better now how a cat feels suffering from distemper, why they don't eat.

Doc tells me not to worry about eating, not to even to try, that I could go two weeks without eating a thing and be fine.  Doc tells me to only take a couple sips of Gatorade every 30 minutes, nothing more, for a few days.  Ok.  Will do.

On the upside, I should be much trimmer in another week!  Weight loss by norovirus.  Personally, I don't recommend the diet.

So when I feel I'm teetering on that line between worlds all I can think of is "I should have climbed the S. Sister and made better plans for my cats upon my death?"  Ok, I'll make better plans and get me a topo map of the south sister.  Up I go this summer, if I'm still breathing.

The south sister, one of the three sisters, the easiest of the three to climb, volcanic mountains in the Oregon Cascades.

One more note, to have a nurse tell me it's going to be ok, when I was scared and had been so sick, was like  maybe a visit to heaven right here on earth.  Those simple words. No, I haven't got religion.  I got some human kindness.

Early Neighborhood Solution

When I first moved into this house, I was a nervous wreck.  I'd nearly killed myself in the move from that slum shack in Corvallis.  It was hell, to take apart the cat yard and all I had to do to move, mostly alone.  My brothers came one day and loaded stuff into a truck and brought it over.  But I had to do the rest alone.  All the little nit picky things of wrapping up a life one place and moving it to another town.  My stay here was supposed to be temporary, from the start.  My brother promised me he would resell this house in a year so I could live somewhere I wanted to live.  That didn't happen.

I nearly wrecked out my neck, too, with such hard labor as taking down a fence and heavy lifting.  I was in pain for months afterwards, and could not move without pain.  I had the added problem of having nowhere for my 12 cats, to go outside, or anywhere really.  The place was wall to wall shag carpet, original from the 70's, and stunk to high heaven of a plethora of previous tenants and their habits and pets.

You don't want stinky carpet if you have cats.  Or even want to breath.  I hate carpet.  Carpet catches everything and keeps it forever.  Carpet is the devils' spawn!!!

Anyhow, I was also nervous about living in a middle class neighborhood.  I'd had terrible problems over in Corvallis, with the houses surrounding the slum shack being middle class.  While neighbors were nice, they hated the ugly non maintained slum and had no problems telling me so.  I longed then to live amongst my own kind, the poor, but I also loved living in a house for the first time in my life, even though it was under 400 square feet.  The size was perfect for me, actually, had it been maintained or insulated at all.  I dreamed it would be mine one day, to properly care for, to create into a beautiful efficient permanent and loved home.  I liked the location, so close to Bald Hill Park and walking paths everywhere.

Moving to a cul de sac in suburbia land, where there are no parks anywhere within miles, just cars cars cars and concrete, was like moving to a foreign country where I did not even speak the language.  I still do not speak the language here.

This house by comparison to the ill maintained slum shack felt like living in a mansion.  I felt guilty just for having a decent place to live. It was overwhelming, to think of the work involved in converting it to something workable for me and the cats.  Carpet is my enemy and it would be the first thing to go.

Fitting in here was something I wanted to accomplish but I knew it would not be easy for me.  I have always been very very isolated and alone. I have no people skills.   I have more in common with outdoor people, hiking people, nature people, but here, well I could not figure out what people value.  I still haven't.  I'm still lost.  I moved 20 miles.   I moved from a town that values parks and trails and bike paths and organic gardening to a completely alien culture.  That's how different communities can be.

It's like relocating a lone feral cat.  Doesn't work.  If you're going to snatch a cat away from their home territory, all things familiar, their haunts, their safety zones, you gotta send them off with their family or friends, at least.  I still think I'm going home one day.

But now, when I go back over there, I see Corvallis has changed too.  It's wall to wall student housing.  The university has expanded, taken over much of the housing and town.  Many of the poor people I once knew in Corvallis have also been forced across the river into low income Albany.  I don't go back very often.  I thought I would, but I don't.  I should, I know, go hike in one of their many parks once a week, to get into shape again.  There's nothing here like they have there.  Nothing at all.

When I first moved in here, a group of Mexicans lived in the house behind my back fence   There would often be 15 or 20 adults in the backyard evenings, partying.  The adults spoke no English.  The kids did.  There was a young boy, maybe 12, who owned a pellet gun and every night he was out there shooting it.  He didn't limit his shooting to his yard.  The pellets zinged by my head, and even plunked against my house.  I hated that kid and his gun.  I appealed to him through the fence and he mocked me. I had told him "if you don't stop shooting that gun through the fence I'm going to call the police."  He smirked and said, "They won't arrest me.  I'm just a 12 year old kid."  I thought to myself, 'Boy, you got a lot to learn about America.  They arrest kids for bringing a nail file to school."  I took to wearing a bike helmet and safety glasses to protect myself when out in my yard.

I finally called the cops.  I didn't know what else to do.  The officer came.  He was more interested however in the pickup parked facing the wrong way in front of my place.  I didn't know whose pickup that was and I didn't care.  But the officer seemed convinced there must be someone else in my place and that's who owned the pickup.  I denied that accusation loudly.  "Then you won't mind if I ticket that truck," the officer challenged.

 I actually did mind.  I knew it had to belong to some neighbor.  I didn't want a neighbor thinking I called the cops on their pickup.  But I have always been fearful of the police too.  It was a dilemma.  I said "No, I don't mind.  It's not my truck and there is no one else in this house! You can search my house if you want."

So he ticketed it.  It was a neighbors' truck and I got off to a very bad start in the neighborhood.

The officer claimed he would go talk to the offending kid with the gun.  I don't know if he did or not, because the shooting didn't stop.  I solved it myself.  This is how.

I waited one evening until the adults were inside.  There was the 12 year old and some younger kids out back.  I told the kid through the fence I knew his parents and relatives were illegals and if he kept shooting that gun, I was going to make sure they were all deported and it would be his fault.  I knew he wouldn't tell his parents I said that, but I knew the younger kids would.

The shooting stopped.  I don't know if it was as a result of what I said or something else.  A few months later, the whole lot of them moved.

Problem solved.

My problems here are not just my inability to assimilate into a different culture. I also struggle as a result of being surrounded by the grass seed industry.  I thought I could survive it ok because I didn't have a big problem with allergies in Corvallis.  But I do here.  The pollen comes first, with a vengeance, then the dust, from the grass fields that march to the edge of town and surround it for miles upon miles.  The pollen is only the beginning.  There's the grass seed harvest that charges the air in particulate matter, then the churning up of dust clouds that occlude vision in turning the soil before planting again, it's a respiratory killer. You have to have respiratory and sinus systems that recognize nothing as enemy to exist here.

Obvious to me now, I don't possess that system.  I thought I'd be ok, but not so much.  This year I'm going to try stuffing my nose with Vick's vapor rub, hoping to keep out much of that stuff.  But ultimately, I need to leave.

I want to move up to the Sherwood, Tigard, or Hillsboro area.  Why?  Because I know many people up there.  And I could spend my time working at my friend's sanctuary, if nothing else.  I'd like to live at the sanctuary, like in a trailer out back, with a fenced yard for my cats.  I'd just be the cat cleaner lady and maintain the sanctuary and be happy as a clam.  But it's not zoned to allow that there.  Darn it.

And because I'm so darn lonely here.  I have not found a "tribe" or a community.  Moving on no money is almost impossible however.  And to move with cats, well, that really makes it impossible.  I moved here with 12 cats, which at the time, was the most I'd ever owned.  Most of those cats were elderly.  All have died except for four--Electra, Miss Daisy, Comet and Vision.  Comet, who is nine years old, is the youngest of those four.

I did myself in quickly with the move here, to Linn County.  With cats in trouble on every block, how would I not.  I did not know it was so bad here for animals.  But am I doomed to life here, with little to no normal human contact and almost no recreational activities to be had?  Can I find a way out, wrangle a way to move to someplace where I know people or could find friends?  Probably not.  I haven't given up.  I'm always trying to figure a way out.

Solo's Vet Bill---Please Help!

Solo's vet bill is due.  I just got an e-mail sent around by a friend up in Portland of Odd Cat Out, the sanctuary run by Poppa Inc's president who took her in awhile back.

Solo is from Albany.  I trapped her behind a house next to the 7-11.  She was trying to eat out of the dumpster there. Just a tiny kitten trying to survive on her own. The house people would not help her and wanted her gone from their yard, too.

Keni, the kind hearted, took her in at Odd Cat Out.  But Solo had a congenital defect that had to be repaired.  So it was, but my friend doesn't have the money to pay the large bill.  Others have helped some, leaving about $600 still needing paid off.

If many people could even give just $10 that would help.

Go to Poppa's website to donate for Solo.  Go to the left hand green column and click on make a donation.  Poppa is a 501c3 nonprofit.

Please spread the word!

Sick

I came down with something, suddenly Friday evening, right after returning from the FCCO clinic.  My stomach was tied in knots, felt like, and extremely painful.  I was experiencing chills and body aches.

I was very fatigued.  I laid down, in my clothes, was just going to rest, but then did not wake up for nine hours.  I thought I was better, but I wasn't.  Diarrhea.  Chills.  Aches.  I somehow managed to return the cats yesterday, the 8 from the Lebanon colony and Mr. Bluster, from the old woman's colony.  Came home then, and the chills overtook me once again.

I had the thermostat on 70 and still was freezing.  I slept with one of those heat frisbees I have here for sick cats.  Felt good!

I ate something foul, I guess.  Or have Norovirus, which is going around.  But it can also be spread through food.  One of those things.

Today I'm slightly better, thank goodness.

I haven't eaten since before noon Friday when I had a sandwich from a Subway in the Portland area.  Suppose I'll be Subway paranoid now.

No fun to be sick.

13 More Local Cats Fixed

Since Poppa isn't officially closing until June, I took four more cats to be fixed at Heartland Thursday. They included one more, one of the big roaming males, from the Lebanon colony the old woman feeds.  I call him Mr. Bluster.  At one time, someone owned him, probably took him in as a cute kitten, then just forgot him, as he became an adult male who roamed and spray marked.  Maybe they even moved and left him like a piece of trash. That's how people are now. They value nothing.

Mr. Bluster!

In the meantime, I had given up on the second young adult she needed caught because the old woman was putting the stick in the trap, through the mesh, to hold the door open, earlier and earlier in the afternoon, making it unlikely we'd catch that second black tux, unless I was up there.

But Thursday, just after I got back from Heartland, she calls, to say, "We got her.  By accident!"  She'd not properly inserted the stick the afternoon before, so the trap couldn't spring.  So the trap could spring, and had food in it, and by accident or fate, the right cat went in and caught herself.  She was fixed yesterday at the woman's own vet clinic in Lebanon.

Fluffy, black tux female, fixed Thursday.

The other three cats fixed Thursday at Heartland were three kittens from an Albany house.  Their mom is very pregnant again.  They didn't want her fixed, even though they already have too many.  I was also supposed to take a different adult female to be fixed from this house, but they didn't have the cats ready and she fled into the fireplace up and over the insert into the wall.  I was frustrated.  They had this chance, and blew it for her.

Black female kitten fixed Thursday, from Albany.

Black and white male kitten fixed Thursday.

Black male kitten fixed Thursday.

I'd also received a call from Slurpy's colony caretaker, outside of Lebanon, concerned about a black cat with a possible broken leg.  So I went out there last night with my drop trap, after dropping off the short hair black tux female from the old woman's colony, who had recuperated here.

I drop trapped 8 unfixed cats in all and saw at least four other unfixed cats.  I had taken only five traps and one carrier, thinking I would just trap the bad leg cat, but it was a good thing I did.  After I ran out of traps, I began transferring cats to the one carrier I had and another they had, then doubled up two cats in one trap.  I'd already asked the FCCO, if I caught any, could I bring them up and they had agreed to it.  All 8, including the bad leg male, whom they say has a healing wound, were fixed today.  Three males and five girls, one of whom was pregnant.  All had severe ear mites.  Will add photos soon.

DLH black female with bad right eye, fixed today at the FCCO.

DLH Chocolate Pt. Siamese female fixed today.

The Siamese girl again.

DMH brown tabby female fixed today.

The brown tabby girl again.

Another black female fixed today.

Small gray long hair female fixed today.

Huge black long hair male with front leg wound, healing, fixed today.

Huge brown tabby male long hair fixed today.

Big Lynx point Siamese male fixed today.

Lynx Pt. male again.

Getting all kinds of calls from people wanting me to remove or take cats.  I tell them no.  I can't take in every unwanted cat.  Why don't other people get involved?  Why do people let their cats breed or feed unfixed cats, then wait til the problem is bad, for the cats, then cry and whine that nobody will help them, like little helpless babies in diapers?

If an 82 year old woman, with memory issues, can get a handle on it in her Lebanon neighborhood, so can everybody else.

I'm a private citizen, just like all the people calling me wanting me to take their cats, feral and tame.  A private citizen only poorer than many other private citizens.  If you have a heart in this world, it will be exploited by the vampire crowd, out to suck your warm living blood.  Most people these days seem convinced of their own helplessness too, which is pathetic.  Or maybe they are just lazy.

Hey people, you can do it.  Read up.  Get informed on the options.  Decide on a plan and implement.  You can do it.  Really, you can.

I got some shoes today, while up at the clinic.  My shoes, that I've been wearing everyday for too long, fell apart.  The rubber sole was worn through, so I could feel every bump.  Parts of what was left of the rubber sole, had detached, and would trip me when they caught as I walked.  I couldn't take it anymore and went to Fred Meyer.  I tried on dozens of shoes.  Only one pair in the entire store fit well enough to buy and they don't fit great.  They're light colored too which is bad.  They'll soon be stained brown from dirt. I wear shoes hard, and they get dirty.  I have one pair now, that someone sent me, that I save for nice occasions.  Soon, I hope, if the weather turns, I can switch back to sandals or thongs.  That will save my shoes.

 I took off the old shoes once back in the car and tossed them in a trash can.  They had foot measuring device there in the store.  For the hell of it, I measured my feet.   Size 11 right foot, 2A (in width).  But if you leave a half inch toe room, means size 11 1/2.  Left foot, size 10 1/2, width, 2A.

 It's not easy to find long super narrow shoes and I have a high arch to boot.  You need born rich with such feet.  And the bad part is, most brands now don't adher to actual size guidelines. I might fit into a 10 in one shoe brand while in another I prrobably take an 11 1/2.  Most women's shoes are too wide for me, not to mention too short.  And all men's shoes are too wide for me.

After dozing in my car for awhile, along a curb, it was finally time to go back to get the cats.  There is a volunteer there who has been out of work now for years and is now extremely poor.  She's about my age.  She immediately noticed my new shoes and mentioned them.  I felt terrible because her shoes also are broken down and bad but she's not got the money to get another pair.  I had the money because I got a gas reimbursement for $15 per trip, for transporting cats, from Poppa.  It covered the last six months.  So I got the shoes.  I am fortunate.

There are so many people struggling.

The old man next door doesn't live on much either and his house is falling apart around him.  Oh well.  There's nothing he can do about it, physically or financially.  He drinks a lot.  He gave me three bags of beer cans last week and I got $11.45 returning them!  He's going to give me more bags of beer cans tomorrow!  I'm also taking my empty cat food cans to the metal recycler to sell now.  I don't get much but I get more than if I put them in the recycling bin!

Cat Catching

I got asked to help an old woman catch some cats in Lebanon.  She got five strays fixed herself some time ago, but had two more, in their late teens, show up.  They're black tuxes.

They were bringing in males, four at least I saw.  So far I just caught one of the two teens, the girl, very recently impregnated.  And I caught one of the big boys.  There are at least three other big boys coming in.  It isn't so easy to catch cats selectively amongst a lot of fixed cats.  And you can't see out back where she feeds to see if the trap is sprung or not.  Makes it harder.

The neighbors claim there are three teenagers, two with long hair.  She took the short hair girl I caught to her vet to be fixed.  I brought her home last night to recuperate.  Weather has turned nasty with downpours and wind.

One of the cats she got fixed is a black tux too.

This is Button, a big female and she's already fixed I'm told.

This is the teen girl fixed yesterday.

I was trying to take photos to tell who is who, but it was almost dark and I had to take them on maximum zoom and my camera batteries were nearly dead.  This is the long hair I know isn't fixed yet.

It was almost dark two nights ago, when I saw this one, and took its photo.  I can't tell if its the short hair female I caught the same night, later, or not.  Looks longer hair, with more of a white mane, but it's so hard to tell.  Too far away, photo too distorted from darkness and from trying to hold the camera steady at maximum zoom.

Same cat again.

And again.

To me, it looks like a different cat than the short hair girl fixed yesterday.

She feeds this male, who is missing part of one rear paw.  He lives across the street and is already neutered she says.

She feeds this apparently abandoned super tame neutered male too.

This is Tomtom, one of the five strays she originally paid to get fixed.  The other four are Buttons, the black tux female in the first photo, Mama Ivy, a mackeral tabby female, Nightnight, a black female and a torti, whose name I've forgotten.

This kitten peered at me from a neighboring junked out property.  Has a collar but you never know in this area, if a cat with a collar is owned or just left behind.  Probably not fixed either.

I caught a huge long hair orange and white male, who hisses and growls at me if I even look at him.  There is a short hair orange male who also comes through, a short hair brown tabby, with huge balls and a medium hair brown tabby tux male.  I'd love to get all three of those males caught too.

Dead Mower Walking

A year ago, I purchased a refurbished Black and Decker electric mower from an Amazon store.  March 6.  It came a couple weeks later. I was so thrilled to have a way to cut my lawn.  No more rolling neighbor eyes when they glared at my lawn, I gloated to myself.  And it was green as green could be.  And quiet!  And easy!  I just plugged it in to an extension cord and pulled a lever and off it went.  No yanking on cords or trying to get a stinky loud gas mower ungunked to run.  I could mow my front lawn in five minutes.  I could mow the cat yard in about the same.  Grass doesn't grow much back there.  The ground is like concrete, only made of clay.  Nothing grows much in cement soil.

I mowed the front yard a few days ago.  No issues!  Made me happy!

So today I go out to mow the cat yard, which is so lacking in grass, it is a quick mow.

Not today.  I get the mower out there, plug it in, it runs for three minutes maybe and there's some clicking weird noise in the motor compartment.  The mower quits.  Dead.  I am stunned.  I can't believe my reliable little easy machine isn't running@!

WTF!  I want to kick it but I don't.

I check the outlet with a lamp.  It works.  I check the extension cord.  It's good.

Darn it!

I go online and read up on electric engine repair. I find out the engines are simple--composed of three parts--the DC magnet/coil motor, a rectifier, to switch the current from AC to DC and the switch.  I check the switch, after unscrewing screws whose heads have somehow been stripped.  Did I mention this is a refurbished mower?  They don't replace stripped screw heads?  Or did the refurbishment crew strip them?

The switch supposedly causes the most issues, due to corrosion or pulling on the wires.  Switch was fine.  I check the rectifier.  Looks good to me but what do I know about rectifiers and whether they are working or not working.

Then my eye is caught by something, although I don't know what the hell it is, but it's something missing, that's easy to see.

Oh boy now I'm mad.  That's the magnet ring and a piece off it is missing, torn out.  I have an arrow pointing to it in the first photo.  In the second photo, you can see what the outer ring looks like, on the left of the first gray metal motor housing bar, that runs down from the top.  You can see the ripped out section just to the right of the first gray vertical metal housing bar.  You can see the end of one brush sticking out just to the left of that second gray bar.

A replacement magnet ring costs $75!!!  OMG!!! NO!!!

I got violated by Amazon and a refurbished mower.   I have sent an e-mail to the Amazon store I bought it from.  It's the weekend, they won't answer til tomorrow.  In the meantime, I wrote a nice little review for Amazon.

Read it here!

I bought a mower, used it a dozen times, and it's history, a pile of shit.

What will I do now?  Guess I need a goat.

I'm mad!!!  Yes I am.  My time is valuable.  Who says it isn't.  I spent hours trying to fix a machine that should not need fixed.  I want to bill somebody $50 an hour labor for working on it.  Black and Decker!!!  I'll send it to them first.  On their site they say "Buy refurbished tools.  They're so wonderful and it's the ultimate in recycling and so green!"

Let's see how green my grass is, once I spray it down with grass killer.  I'm doing that too, because I don't have the money to lay out for another piece of plastic shit that breaks after a dozen uses.  I'm going to write in my grass with grass killer "Black and Decker Reburbished Shit Machine"!   I want that seen from the heavens!  I'll have to write small or use part of the neighbors lawn.

Jefferson, OR Bans Feeding Animals Outside. Starvation for Ferals.

The City of Jefferson, Oregon, which is north of Albany and in Marian County, has banned all feeding of animals outside within city limits.  This means not even your own pets on your own property.  Talk about nanny state laws.  Talk about government controlling people.

This action, although seemingly aimed at wild turkeys, will result in many feral cats suffering prolonged deaths due to starvation.  Jefferson has many seedy neighborhoods where tenants get cats and leave them behind, unfixed, who then breed and form feral colonies, fed then by the kind hearted.

Sure it is stupid to feed cats and not get them fixed and we have many programs in Oregon so that can be done free or exceedingly cheaply.  We also have many lazy people who don't fix their pets and lazy control freak city councils who decide to control people's lives and kill victims.

If the council in Jefferson wanted to create nanny laws, a mandatory spay neuter law would have been more humane and more effective.  Instead, they plan to fine kind people, ordinary citizens, make criminals of them, who take pity on a stray cat.  This is how nasty, violent, distorted and inhumane our society has become.

You can read about it by clicking this link.

Can a city be charged with animal abuse?  Because that is what they have chosen to do, starve cats to death, cats who are dependent on those who feed them.  Now, those who feed them can be fined if they do that simple act, as the result of a city ordinance.  The ordinance calls for citywide animal abuse.  Jefferson should be charged with animal abuse.

I am currently living in poverty zone.  I spent too much of my precious few resources helping save those Albany apartment complex cats.  I gave up even my prepaid cell for now, unable to afford a new minutes card. I have a landline, but no long distance capacity on it.  No big deal though.  Nobody calls me, not ever.  The calls I used to get were all people wanting help with cats.  I can live without a phone.

I have driven so few miles since that final trip to Portland, when I got the last two girls fixed, my car bucks and complains now if I start it for a drive to a store.

I'm trying to save it too, stretch out its existence, by driving it rarely.  Yes, it still leaks oil, but it leaks less oil if I don't drive it.

Last week I ate from a pot of black beans I soaked and cooked every day.  Not that bad, except towards the end, when I added an onion, that might have been a tad rotten.  Grocery Outlets' produce is really awful. I  need to adhere to my rule:  never buy anything fresh there.  The onions in the bag I bought there had sprouted by the next day.

I live an even more limited contained life.   I don't see anybody.  I don't do anything outside of the chores here.  I don't talk to anyone.  I wish it was different, but it's not.  I'm trying to find a used bicycle I might afford.  Scared to buy one off craigslist because most listed there are stolen.  There are not bike paths in town here, so I don't know why I'm thinking a bike would be a help. I am so paranoid of riding one on car streets.  Been hit three times, maybe four, riding a bike, by a car.  After twice, I started getting freaked out riding on car streets.  Guess there's not much choice.  Unfortunately I still cannot walk far due to the injury on my left foot.  It is better, but if I use my foot too much, goes right back to the pain.  The walking cast/brace I got at Goodwill for that foot, was the best $4 I've spent in a long time.  Really has helped my foot a lot.  I doubt it would even be partially healed if it were not for that purchase.

I acknowledge how stupid it was of me to get involved with those apartment cats.  I didn't think I'd end up with some of them, but I did, or that I'd have to bear the costs, in gas, bait, and other things, like buying supplies for the sanctuary who originally took 8 of them.  I bought those supplies out of fairness, to that woman, for taking the eight, although two are now in a different foster.

I always think people will do the right thing, never leave a community member alone in such a righteous endeavor.  I always think I'll find them homes, get food and gas money contributed, all that.  But in the end, nobody does help and I'm left to clean up the aftermath of my own polyannish stupidity.

You see how Jefferson deals with people's irresponsible behavior.  They torture the victims.

  I don't like my life much right now.  Too alone, too limited.  Trying to figure something out.  It's hard being poor here, because there is nothing to do if you can't get out of town to go somewhere else.  It's ok if you just live here, and can go elsewhere to enjoy recreation or to shop.

Torti Talk

I have tortis here.  Lots of tortis.  They seem harder to adopt out.

Tortis are your in command women cats with all the associated stereotypical baggage attached to such a label.

Tortis would rule the world, gladly take it over.  Probably would run it efficiently too.

Tortis are typically awesome hunters.  (my cats are not free roamers)

Tortis and calicos are always girls, except when they are not.

Meet Calico John, a big male calico I trapped in Albany a few years back.

Yes, Calico John was a boy all right!  Male calicos are rare and NOT valuable as some people seem to think.  Urban  Myth time!  They are usually sterile but they still can spread disease.

Tortis are three colored cats that are primarily one color.

You can call them calicos too.  The most common dominant color is black, plus dark orange and white somewhere to grab the three colored torti label.  When a torti is mostly orange, I call them fire tortis.  When the dominant colors are faded (gray, peach and white), they are called muted or dilute tortis.

Tortis have a reputation as possessing dominant personalities and that they dislike other cats.

How wrong!

Their counterparts, the calicos, whose three colors exist in more equal doses, are known as smart clowns, funny and acrobatic.  If they were humans, they'd be the entertainers, the comics, the actors (who mostly aren't so funny), the boy and girl band members, the attention seekers.  Why the torti gets a bad rap, as too smart, too talented at hunting and too dominant because of their brain power, I don't know.  The CEO's of the world, the leaders, the dictators!  But I've known some not so smart tortis!

Tortis can be hard to adopt out unless their colors are unusual in some way.

Don't be afraid of a tortis brains!  Or they commanding presence.  Or their self assurance.  They're wonderful cats.

Do you really want an inbred purebred instead?  Give me a break!

My torti/calico crowd (I sometimes interchange the terms on cats whose tricolor combo could be called either) can really include muted calico Deaf Miss Daisy!

Miss Daisy's been with me over ten years now.  She was thrown from a car out on Seven Mile Lane then burned her paw pads on the scorching pavement of August until she curled up in a ditch and a kind farmer I knew back then found her there.  He called me up and said "I found another one. Come get her."  So I did.  I tried to find her a home, after getting her loose teeth pulled, and various other medical problems under control.  She was loud, due to being deaf.  Took an entire year for her to fit in with my other cats and I had very few other cats way back then.  An entire year.  And she yelled loudly a lot.  Tried my patience!  Now she only screams in delight when she sees me coming home!  I love her so much!

Mums!

Speaking of muted calicos or muted tortis, Mums is here!  (photo above) She hails from the Shovel Killer Christian Neighbor colony in Lebanon.  An old woman wrote the Corvallis paper bemoaning how people treat people who help stray cats.  Seems she was feeding strays.  One neighbor, a Christian who played in his church band, wanted to kill the cats with a shovel. Hence the colony name.  I took out 11 cats.  I still have Tugs and Mums.  Tugs, a classic torti, is Mums sister.  While Mums is easy going, Tugs is mischievous and more of a loner.  However, as she ages, she has become quite the social butterfly.  These girls are now almost six years old.

Tugs!

As for classic tortis, Gretal is here also.  I met Gretal when driving Highway 34 one evening.  There she was, with her brother, an orange tabby, just skinny scrawny teenagers, shoulder to shoulder, scared, walking the shoulder of Highway 34, leaning against each other.  They were right across from Safehaven.  Someone had tried to turn them over an hour or so earlier and been denied as they were full.  So she dumped them.

I spent the next three days trying to find them and catch them in a howling freezing rain and windstorm.  I just camped out in my car along that highway til I got it done because they were going to die if someone didn't help them.  Hansel got a home.  Gretal didn't.  She's now almost 8 years old.  She had to have all her teeth removed, as she is allergic to her own teeth.  Now she's one happy kitty, and comes to let me know when she wants wet food, loudly meowing in my face.  OK Gretal.

Eight year old Gretal!

I have Poppy too.  The darn people over on 34th street who get cats then don't take care of them and let them breed, they called about Poppy and her siblings and mother.  I was going to get them all fixed and return them.  But then I found a home for her mother.  When Poppy, a teenager, cried in the trap, I couldn't return her to living under a filthy apartment just off a busy street.  I did return her siblings.  They're dead now.  The line of townhouse trash apartments over there, where she came from, are death traps for cats.   People there get them, then they leave them.  Poppy has had chronic herpes since she came here.  Born with it over there, exposed in the womb, deep in her system.  Poppy is seven years old.

Poppy

I also have Slurpy, from out near Lebanon, the Save the Kittens colony.  I pulled 24 kittens out of the woods, out of twisted old dead car bodies, and out from under pallets out in knee deep grass.  I got a lot of adults fixed also, in a non helpful environment, to put it mildly.  All the kittens were sick.  Some died.  Poppa's president and her friends fostered many of them.  Heartland took in eight but returned three when they became ill, including Slurpy.  She never got a home.  She went to another rescue briefly a year and a half ago, who said they could find her one.  But then they told me to come get her, that she was ugly and I raced up there to get her back.  I was mad!

The kind hearted and greatly adored Slurpy gives Deaf Miss Daisy a bath.

Chirpy Slurpy.  Slurpy is a happy torti who often chirps and twirps when she is really happy or excited.  She is kind hearted, selfless and wonderful!

Ok, we can't forget Starry.  Starry is from a swamp in N. Albany.  I trapped her and brothers Peko and Nemo in the steaming searing heat of summer.  I trapped their mom too and returned her once fixed, but the kittens had giardia.  Peko got a home.  Nemo also went to a home, but was returned a ruined kitty after two months.  Seems they'd put him alone into a room and left him.  Outside of food and water, he got no attention at all.  Once back, no more of him being all over me to be petted and held.  He's terrified of leaving here again so he stays in the cat yard.  I don't know what went on in that Salem home but he will never be suitable again for a home.  He has friends here and is happy however.  Starry on the other hand is super friendly.  Talk about an attention seeker, that would be her.  If I start petting another cat, she wants petted.  She wants on my lap when I watch TV.  But she's also very giving, the first to offer to groom other cats who need some love.  She is also a clown!

Starry!

We can't forget Meesa.  Meesa comes from down town Albany and a problem location along a street where lots of drug addicts get cats and leave them.  A kind couple feed the unwanteds.   I met Meesa's mom first when getting cats fixed along that street.  She was a tame girl and had kittens already, Meesa being one of them.  But these folks who owned her mother had rooms in their rental waist deep or deeper in junk and trash.  You could not get into those rooms but that's where the kittens lived.  I urged them to find the kittens and tame them and all that, but they just threw them outside to fend for themselves.  They migrated down the block eventually for food to the kind older couples porch.  Meesa had her first litter there the next summer.  Only one survived, a male.  I got him fixed.  She had another litter that fall.  I got called.  Come get them, they pleaded.  I did. But when I was told by the man he'd given a neighbor permission to trap and kill the cats he fed, I didn't return Meesa.  I couldn't do that to her.  So weak I am.

Her two boy kittens got a home together.  Her two girl kittens are strange indeed.  I call them the Quirky sisters.  Echo and Fantasia.  I never found them a home.  I tried, that's for sure.  Meesa, their wildish mom, is still here too.  She's a torti tux.

Meesa!

That's it for the true tortis here, I think!  All of them except of course deaf Miss Daisy, would love a great home. And Gretal who is too attached to me and too shy of anyone else to go elsewhere.  At this point, since many of the cats left here have been to a home and been returned, I am picky, choosy, willing to wait for the right match ups, if they come and if they don't, well then they'll remain here all their days.

I have a true calico--Haley, from the Albany business, and her sister, Raindrop.  From that same business, I have three torbis (tortis with tabby stripes)--Stiletto, Alexi and Cougie.  I have one other torbi---Chessie, from another cat killer Albany complex.  Stiletto and Alexi, although young adults already when I took them in, have finally tamed down and would love homes of their own.

Haley on the left, Stiletto on the right.

Cougie, a torbi!

Raindrop!

Alexi, also a torbi!

Chessie, fixed at a Neuterscooter clinic, at my expense, sports a left ear tip.  She's a darkly striped torbi.  Chessie has become extremely playful lately.   She's not a young girl, but I don't know her exact age.