Assholes of N. Albany

I am so upset tonight, I just want to sob.  The N. Albany woman, who called wanting help with a Lynx Point Siamese stray, was supposed to take him back.  I had told her over and over he had to come back.  I told her husband that.

But their total disinterest in him or his welfare was deafening.  She did not call me at all to find out how he was doing.  I held him in my garage three days until he could be fixed, without a dime in donations.  I told her he'd be fixed Thursday and back Friday.  I call her this morning to tell her what time I'll be bringing him back. She doesn't answer.  She doesn't call back either.

She calls finally about 4:30.  I'm at the post office.  She's saying he can't come back, that her husband told me he couldn't.  I say "he said no such thing".  She says he lied to her then, that he said he told her that.  I don't believe her.

I told her no matter, she understood clearly he had to come back and I would never have helped her if I had thought she wasn't taking him back.  She then says her husband will kill him if he comes back and she won't feed him.  WTF?

She's manipulating me and lying to me and has absolutely no compassion for the cat or for me.  Selfish woman, trying to dump a cat on me, trying to take advantage of my kindness.

She's upscale, lives in a fancy neighborhood in a fancy house.  She didn't donate a dime, either.  And she is trying to dump a cat on a poor person who already has too many cats.

I want to scream.  I want to call the cops on her.

I want to save this cat from her.

I don't know what to do.  There seems to be no compassion in this area or honesty or morality.  It's all manipulation and lying and serving ones' own self interest.  Those are the values here.

No place for kind hearts or stray cats.  No place for me.

Want a Lynx Point Siamese boy, freshly neutered?  He's semi feral, meaning, once he was somebody's cat, thrown out, left behind, ignored, whatever.   The usual around these parts.  And he doesn't deserve what happened to him and he wants to live.

I don't appreciate what that woman did to me or to him.  If you're reading this, lady, you need help.  It is wrong to lie.  It is wrong to manipulate.   You stole from me.  You saw my open heart, reached in, and ripped at whatever you could of it.  You lousy human you.

Help me turn this vile disgusting act of animal dumping (on me) and dishonesty into a happy ending for me and for the kitty.  As for her, karma will get her.  She probably treats people this way all the time.  Seems well practised.  Must be a miserable kind of life.

11 More Cats Over Being Fixed Today, Plus Others from KATA

I took over 11 cats today to be fixed at Heartland in Corvallis. Thank you Heartland for helping make a dent in the tragedy of overpopulation in this area.

They are currently the only option for fixing local cats.  They will also fix ferals.  However, the clinic is not open to the public and groups who get cats and dogs fixed there, still must come up with the money to pay for those fixes.

Safehaven has vouchers available, but the people I run into are not people who take the trouble to buy a voucher.  And those vouchers are only available to low income residents of Linn County.  There are no low cost options available in Benton County, outside of Oregon spay neuter coupons, that can be used at only one vet clinic in the area--Eastgate.  They lower the cost to $33 for a male and $49 I think it is, for a female.  And most of the vets who take Safehaven vouchers, if not all, won't do ferals.  So options to fix feral cats in the mid valley pretty much end when my Poppa funding ends in just over a week's time.

KATA does some spay neuter of community cats but they are severely limited by lack of low cost clinic space and lack of funds and transporters and gas money.

If people would make the effort to trap the cats they feed and transport them to the FCCO clinic, up in Portland, they could still get them fixed, but most people won't or can't do that.  I can't transport that far anymore due to my car issues.  It's leaking oil, has extreme mileage on it, and won't be running much longer, leaving me in a bind, for running it into the ground helping other people and their cats.

And because gas costs so much and most people won't contribute a dime.

It's all pretty sad.

But at least 11 more got fixed today along with I believe 10 or 12 more from KATA in Sweet Home.  Five of the eleven cats I took to be fixed today also came from KATA and their Lebanon volunteer.  They were two orange tabby boy kittens and three Siamese mix girl kittens, all rescues.

KATA rescued Seal Point Siamese female kitten over being fixed.

KATA rescue Lynx Point female kitten being fixed today.

Another KATA rescue Siamese mix female kitten being fixed today.

Two orange tabby kittens KATA Lebanon took in just yesterday who are being fixed today.  One is a boy, one is a girl.

I also picked up the Cascadia mother cat, whose two white long hair kittens were fixed last week.  Today she, and her other kitten, a little gray and white long hair boy, are being fixed.  She was abandoned and rescued by a sheriff's deputy.  Now someone in Cascadia is taking care of all four of the little family and now they will all be fixed.

Cascadia abandoned manx mother cat, being fixed today.

Gray and white long hair Cascadia male kitten being fixed today.

Also being fixed today--a long hair torti female, from the trailer park next to Heartland.  I got two orange boys fixed from that trailer the first of May but the torti had just had kittens two weeks earlier.  The people agreed to hand over the kittens to Heartland when she was fixed, so they would at least be fixed and vaccinated before going to homes.  But today, when I picked her up, they said they'd already given the kittens away unfixed.  I was not happy, because more than likely they will go on to reproduce, which is quite frustrating.

Corvallis torti fixed, who lives in the trailer park right next to Heartland.  I'd already taken in two males to be fixed from the same people.

An orange tabby Lebanon male is also being fixed. He was rounded up by Lebanon cat wrangler Heather.  She started checking with new neighbors after I encountered her a year ago, and got about 15 cats fixed around her place and took Blueberry and her four siblings in, from a junkpile out front of her place.  Now she's trying to keep the problem at bay, by making sure all neighbor cats in the area get fixed if they aren't.

Tigger, fixed from Lebanon.

Mikey, the Lynx Point from N. Albany, also is being fixed today as is my latest yard stray, Blackhawk, who is tame, but quite thin.

The Lebanon KATA volunteer has cats on her street, two of whom at least she doesn't think are fixed.  I took photos of other cats on her street when leaving last night with the cats I picked up from her, so she can check to see if they are fixed.

This young brown tabby was following around a Lynx Point male, new to the block, who isn't fixed.  So this may be an unfixed female.

Then there was this yard, where I saw five cats, including this medium hair brown tabby and a black and white long hair and three more cats on the porch (in photo below).  Don't know if they are all fixed or not.

I saw five cats in one yard, including these three, on the porch.  They may be fixed.  Don't know.

Kata in Sweet Home also took cats over to be fixed today at Heartland.  I am not sure how many, maybe ten or twelve.

Yard Stray Number 41, Blackhawk, Caught!

So my bleakness of yet another unfixed male causing havoc in my yard turned me driven, to catch him, and stop the spray mark carnage.

Blackhawk, as I've dubbed the latest flea ridden, spray marking, fighting yard stray male, did the unthinkable.  And the target of his outrageous act was Mr. Peeman  himself, my Sam, the insecure boy of the house, who goes into a pee marking frenzy at the smell of an unfixed male.

Blackhawk goes up to the cat yard "window fence" and acts like he is going to sniff noses with the outraged Sam, then turns around and sprays him down.  That was it for me, man.  To watch that happen to Sam of all cats, who is so insecure about his "manhood".  He goes bananas at the smell of an unfixed male.  Poor Sam.

I love Sam.

I brought out the big guns, the drop trap, the tuna warmed with fresh catnip.  I caught him quickly.  What cat could resist that smell wafting out into the evening air?

The rain had stopped for a short time, too, giving me a window when bait could be smelled on the air and not washed from it, like it was meant to be.

Sam then sat in the garage run ground level "window" staring at Blackhawk in the trap, eyes smoldering in anger.  How dare I bring that cat into his garage!

Blackhawk awaits neuter.

Doesn't help I have a Lynx Point male from N. Albany in a cage in the garage already, waiting to be fixed Thursday.

Mikey, the Lynx Point from N. Albany, also awaits neuter.

And Jake wanting in, or trying to slip in by me, to sleep in the garage. I don't know what is up with Jake, if he is owned or not, but he wants to be mine.  He wants to live here.  He eyes the cats in the runs and cat yard and he wants to be one of them.

Jake's fighting is getting less and less, over time since his neuter.  Now he is free to have a life.  But what life?  Does he have anyone who cares about him?  (other than me)

Electra is failing.  She's 14 and feeling it and looking it.   I don't think she'll be around too much longer.  She's my little buddy and I hate seeing her start to fail.  Vision, my 19 year old, on the other hand, is still thriving.  Miss Daisy, at 11, has gotten much thinner in the last year, too.

Those three, plus Comet, are my original cats.  All old kitties now.  I do have other older cats.  In fact, most of the cats here now would classify as seniors.  Kind of scary, eh?  Outside of three with chronic herpes--Shady, Brambles and Poppy, they're all very healthy.  But even Poppy is seven now.

Brambles and Poppy are both in the "returned" club.  Gone to a home but were returned.  A lot of the cats here, including Miss Daisy, are in that club.  Isn't it strange to think that many siblings of cats here, long adopted out, are also now dead?  Mostly because their owners let them outside, and they were killed by either cars, dogs or predators.  Just because people promise to keep a cat they are adopting inside doesn't mean they will.  I'm glad I am no longer doing adoptions.  I hated doing them.

The Albany bomber boy, the 17 year old who made bombs and was about to blow up his fellow West Albany high school students but was arrested first,  lived with his mother on a very short street in Albany--Raymond Ct..  I got a bunch of cats fixed for a single mom on that little street a few years back.  She had a son. The moment I heard the bomb boy lived on that street I thought of that and tried to find my records to find the exact house address. I was frantic that it had been that boy of that family and I didn't want it to be.

 But then I gave that up and just used google maps street view.  It wasn't that boy or that mother.  Thank goodness.  They were so kind to the stray cats I could not imagine that boy being involved.

The boy was arrested at his father's house (bomb boy's mom and dad were divorced or separated) on Violet street.  I trapped Nemo and Starry there along Violet street, along with five or six others.  It was so hot when I was trapping for those cats.  The three kittens had giardia so badly I couldn't return them to die.  Peko got a home.  Nemo went to a home for three months but was returned and has never been the same.  Nobody ever wanted Starry.

Nemo, from Albany Bomb Boy's father's street.

Starry, Nemo's sister.

The used bike I bought, that wasn't so great, is now at a bike shop in Corvallis.  I figure I need exercise.  Either it can be fixed or it can't and I needed to find out one way or the other.  I felt like a sucker buying it, thinking it was ok, then finding out it wasn't.  So off it went.  It's not in good shape but they said they can fix it.  The derailer is bent.  The cables are a tangled mess and the brake cable needs replaced so the brakes can be adjusted.  The front tire, and maybe wheel, need replaced.  The pedal bearings need replaced or repacked.  Etc.  Etc.  But the frame's good!  There's that.  I don't get it back for a week or so.

I'm excited, hoping it can be fixed so I can ride it.

But I'm not a road rider.   I got all paranoid over riding on the road after a few encounters with cars and getting skinned up and bruised.  Pavement is hard.  Cars are deadly weapons.  I'll stick to trails or bike paths.

So sure, my days as a cat wrangler are nearly over.  Hard to accept.  Change is hard but often it's good.

In honor of Memorial Day I was trying to come up with a list of my favorite war movies.   Here are some of them:  Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Empire of the Sun, Children of Huang Shi, The Hurt Locker, The Lost Battalion, Rescue Dawn. Saving Private Ryan, Shining Through, We Were Soldiers, Schindler's List, Defiance, Glory, The Great Escape, Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Windtalkers, The Big Red One, Miracle at St. Anna.....anyone want to suggest others?

Seven More Local Cats Fixed Yesterday and KATA's Kittens

I am still trying to get local cats in to be fixed as The End of Poppa Inc. draws very near.  June 10 is the last day I can take cats to be fixed.

Yesterday seven more local cats were fixed thanks to Poppa Inc.  They included an orange tabby boy, Thumper, from Corvallis.  It was not the owner concerned about getting him fixed, even though he'd gone missing earlier this breeding season, and come home injured.  It was a neighbor.  The neighbor also transported him to Heartland for the appointment and picked him up.  That's how dedicated some people can be compared to how negligant some owners can be.

An Albany male was also fixed.  Little Man was dumped in Millersburg as a kitten.  The people who had him, when I met him as a kitten, had other unfixed cats too.  I got them fixed, but they didn't want him fixed then.  But you know me, the diehard, the believer, so I called again even though it's months since I'd seen him or talked to his owners.  

They answered and did want him fixed, but had moved, in the meantime.  So Little Man went off to be fixed, but not until he kept me awake all night, night before last, howling mournfully from a comfy cage in my garage.  

Little Man, fixed yesterday, is a handsome mackeral tabby boy originally rescued after being thrown from a car, as a kitten, in Millersburg.

I also picked up a long hair tabby on white female, abandoned up in the Viewcrest area.  She was skinny, and KATA had agreed to take her in.  She turned out to already be fixed.  I named her Misty and she needs a home.

Previously spayed stray long hair young female, found across the freeway from Millersburg, way up a hill.  She's now with KATA, and hopes for a home.

KATA's volunteer in Lebanon had another cat from cat wrangler Heather, a muted torti.  She watches newcomers to her Lebanon area like a hawk, and if they come with unfixed cats, she's on top of it.  She's sick of watching kittens born in junkpiles.  She's tired of cats dying around her, unwanted, unfixed, discarded.

Lebanon muted torti fixed yesterday, rounded up by Heather.

Also fixed yesterday, a torti mother cat, and one of her kittens, a Siamese mix boy, who is now up for adoption, along with her, through KATA.  They have a lot of rescued kittens right now and yesterday, when I took cats back to the Lebanon volunteer, she'd taken in four more bottle babes from a man trying to feed them, after their mom was killed by a car.  She handed two off to each of two other mother cats she had taken in, each with four newborns of their own.  Both mothers accepted the orphans quickly.

This torti mom cat was also fixed yesterday, and now awaits a home with KATA.

This Siamese mix boy was fixed too and awaits a home with KATA,

To round out, I took in two white kittens from Cascadia to be fixed.  KATA is trying to convince their owner to relinquish them, as otherwise, they will be outside cats, and white cats don't last outside.  They stand out to predators and get skin cancer.  Their mother and a third kitten hopefully will get fixed next week.

Cascadia white kittens, fixed yesterday.

So on it goes, same old, unfixed cats popping out unfixed kittens, males free roaming unfixed and getting deadly diseases, that they pass along as they continue to fight, and clueless "owners" who let it all happen, oblivious to the larger consequences.

But seven more were fixed yesterday.  Seven more.

Here are photos of just some of the rescued cats and kittens KATA (Kitty Angel Team Adoption, whom you can find on Petfinder.com) have awaiting home.

This orange tabby tux mom cat has four darling orange tabby boy kittens.  Vicki of KATA sat out in her car trying to trap the mom cat for hours.  Suddenly the caretakers, who wanted her and her kittens gone, return and walk over, pick her up and put her in the trap.  She's totally tame.  Vicki didn't know! 

She is gorgeous and needs a home, once her four boys are weaned.

Two of her four boys.

They have this darling black long hair girl kitten, waiting for a home!

This is one of two mothers KATA took in with newborn litters.  A woman had two cats she fed outside, both tame, did not get them fixed, and now instead of two cats, there 10 and KATA has all ten, two moms with four kittens each.  However, each mom now is caring for two additional kittens who were orphaned when their mom was hit by a car.

And they have a Siamese litter, one of whom was fixed yesterday.  I believe two have been preadopted.  KATA never adopts out cats or kittens unfixed.  They'll end up like poor Hobo, never fixed and suffering the consequences, as does society.

 You want a kitten?  Adopt one, from a rescue or shelter.  Already a lot of wonderful kittens have been born unwanted in our area alone.  Here is a link to KATA's petfinder site.  They don't have all their cats, kittens listed.  Trust me on that.  Time is a factor.  They all work regular jobs full time.

The Storm

I cried my eyes out last night, watching on TV parents reunite with kids who didn't die in their school when the monster tornado hit Moore, Oklahoma.  I cried my eyes out to hear of teachers who covered kids with their own bodies to protect them.   It was too much for me, to hear of kids in trouble and people trying to save them.  Stories like these build up in me and overflow.  I don't know why.  But it's ok.

This morning it's the same.  TV on, the storm stories, the tears.  I was glued to the Sandy Hook shooting story in the same manner, searching the tragedy for bits of brightness and beauty.    The shooter is only a dark shadow barely visible in my memory of Sandy Hook.  The bright faces of the children who lived and of the teachers who gave their lives to save them stand out in my mind like the sun.

My Boston marathon brain remembers people running toward the blast, all kinds of people, charging as one into the debris cloud.   Makes me think I could do better.  I don't want to be a dark shadow on the earth.  I want to be like the people who ran back into the bomb zone.  I want to be like the teachers at Sandy Hook and like the teachers in Oklahoma, who shielded the children with their own flesh and blood.

The story of the American woman, in Somalia, there to do good, to save children, kidnapped by bandits with another aid worker, also made me sob when I saw the story on 60 Minutes.  She was held a long time, forced to make videos.  She was in bad shape at the end, suffering from a severe urinary tract infection, eyes sunken and dark, in that last video.

She described that night, when it all ended.  The face of one kidnapper, on guard that night, suddenly turned to total terror.  Moments later, all the kidnappers lay dead.  What caused the guard such fear?  The sight of American Navy Seals, surrounding the camp.  They took the woman, and her coworker, across the desert, then.  At one point, she said, they heard something, and six of them lay atop her, to protect her with their bodies.  They were kind, she said, and very polite. When the helicopters arrived to extract them, the seals vanished.

There was a hint of what had gone on, at the inaugural address.  Obama greeted his secretary of defense on the way in to give his speech then said "Good job tonight".   No one knew what he meant then.  Now we know.  The woman's plight was discussed at the highest levels of our government.  At some point, Obama said, "Go get her."  So the seals did just that.  She and her coworkers were there to save children, putting themselves in harms way to do something good.  When she became a victim of violence herself, she was not forgotten.  Bring me to my knees in tears, these stories.

KATA called me a couple days ago.  We discussed a couple of kitten posts on craigslist.  One said, Take all or None.  Said their toddler was harassing the mother and her kittens something awful.   So V of KATA called that one, and they still had them, so I said I'd go get them.  I drove on out, into the coast range, to pick up a darling torti mom and her four young boy kittens.

Mama Mia, the torti mom, of four boys, with two of her beautiful kittens.  Sunday is the orange tabby and Scooby is the Flame Point.

That's Jaguar, in the back, Jaggy or Jag for short, and Sunday in front.

Mama Mia nurses Scooby while  Panther, a medium hair smoke boy, and Jaguar, the black, eye me.

Heartland will take them, which leaves KATA a bit of breathing space for the next heart wrenching call.

I kept them in my garage until today, when they go, along with Hobo, the Lebanon old stray male, who was fixed last Friday at Heartland.  He's old and a sweetheart.  Last night, I brought him into my bathroom, to give him a confidence boost.   He strolled around, but just a little.  Behind those shaggy aging eyes, is a worried soul.  He's not sure what is going to happen to him.

Hobo, before some of his long soft hair was shaved, due to matting.

 My fear for him is the combo test.  He's roamed Lebanon unfixed for years and that's not good.  Too many people up there don't fix their cats, but especially not their males.  The males fight.  They catch then spread FIV (feline aids) at high rates through bite wounds.  His only salvation might be his pacifist nature.  He's a lover not a fighter.  What if he's positive, what should I do?  I can't keep him, but to put out an FIV boy, to live as a stray, that's not right either.  Well, let's hope he is negative.

Heartland took a chunk out of area unfixed cats with their low cost clinic Sunday.  They fixed 50 local cats.  I salute them!

Go adopt Hobo at Heartland!  Please!!!  He needs somebody and he's just a sweetie, no trouble at all will he be.  He wants a warm place to nap, a lap, some petting, food and that's about it.  He'll need groomed and brushed, with his long hair, which is now mostly shaved, due to mats.

Jake was back this morning.  I think he lives nearby.  I think I saw him on a porch five blocks from here, but am not completely sure.  He still returns to fight with area cats.  My neighbor said she broke up a fight between him and Simba late two nights ago.  Simba used to be the one fighting with everyone.  I got him fixed three years ago.  He's owned a street away.  Now he's Mr. Peaceful and it is Jake rabble rousing.  But he's settling down some and when he showed up this morning, I gave him some wet food that arrived yesterday, in a huge box from Amazon, sent by a friend in Canada!

Jake visits this morning.  His nasty bad boy behavior seems on the wane already.

One scene of storm destruction yesterday, showed two dogs, roaming, searching for their home.  Another scene, reporter was describing destruction and two horses inexplicably wandered behind him, amongst collapsed structures and twisted cars.

Many animals lost their lives yesterday.  Others are lost and will never be found by those who loved them.  It's up to others to love them now and help them.

The storms will always come.  There's no stopping them.  I was amazed at how anyone could survive that twister that ripped apart part of Oklahoma yesterday.  It is inconceivable flimsy soft shelled humans survived while sturdy structures were ripped apart, digested and spewed out in the dark swirling innards of atmospheric chaos.

Update:  Hobo is dead.  He was positive for leukemia.  I wondered about it when I first picked him up and his tongue was so pale.  I had hoped his anemia would be parasite caused and his lack of energy from a laid back nature.  But no.  That area is a feline leukemia hot spot.  Around the corner across the canal where I got 30 or so adults fixed, two males tested positive for leukemia and were euthanized also.

At least Hobo did not suffer a prolonged difficult death out there on his own.  He was once owned, if you can call it that.  He was covered head to toe in fleas, and his ears, crammed full of ear mites and ear mite debris.  His long beautiful hair was matted and dirty.  Yet he was so kind and so grateful for help.  Damn those idiot people who got him, probably as a cute little Siamese kitten, then forgot him, left him to fight, become diseased, and suffer.  Damn them to hell.

What a beautiful sweet boy was Hobo.  Rest in Peace my friend.

Selling Modified Photos on Redbubble

I've added a link, to my blog, down on the far right, to my redbubble art site.  I want to make money for local spay neuter.  Poppa is closing very very soon now.  I won't be able to do squat anymore, to help stop the local overpopulation problem.  There's one local nonprofit still trying, however, with limited funds and no publicity.  That's KATA, up in Sweet Home.

I've so far earned $12 selling on Redbubble, when I had just one photo on there.  I haven't received that yet, because unless you have a paypal account, which I don't right now, but soon will, you only get paid once you  get $100 in your account.

So, I'll be putting KATA's paypal account as my payment preference, to raise money, even small amounts help, for them to use in local cat spay neuter.  I have to try!  I can't just wither away here.  Well, I could, but it'd be really boring and wasteful of my life.

Check out the site.  I've added a few more works.  I will be adding more routinely.  What I have on there now can be bought as prints, post cards or greeting cards.  Click here to go to my Redbubble!

Mango Gets a Home. Grumpy Cat May Get a Chance

I visited with Mango at Heartland yesterday morning.  I had just delivered seven cats there to be fixed.  They were a mom and five kittens from Lebanon, plus Grumpy Cat, renamed Hobo, the old stray Siamese mix, who showed up a few months ago at an otherwise fixed feral colony.  Hobo is a train wreck.  He has ear mites so bad he'd scratched the back of one ear raw.  He was covered in fleas, long hair matted severely, has very few teeth, is old and unfixed.

By afternoon, KATA called to say, "Did you see the Heartland post?  Mango got a home!"   Fear immediately took me over.  There are so many bad people out there.  Who adopted Mango, good people who will care for him the rest of his days, and play with him and love him, or lousy people, who won't even clean his litter box and who will leave him, when they move.  But I have to just hope it was good people.

After initial fear left me, other emotions replaced that.  Of joy.  Relief.  Happiness.

Heartland might take in Hobo next week, possibly on Monday or Tuesday, give him a chance too.  He doesn't have many teeth, but needs a couple of the ones left pulled.  They could do that there and they fell in love with him when he was there to be fixed yesterday.

So he'll stay in my garage til then.  He likes the cozy bed in the cage, sometimes just sits there purring happily.  His purring motor sounds increase in level when I touch him and he really roars in delight to be petted.  I tried shaving mats off him before I took him to be fixed, but my clipper blades are too dull.

Heartland shaved more of his mats away.  I was given $20 by the woman with the mother and kittens for gas, so I gave it to Heartland and asked if they would thoroughly clean and then treat Hobo's ears. They did a great job.

Hobo is a humble cat.

The big boys get in trouble this time of year.  They die by the score if not fixed out on the roam.  They are killed by cars, predators, and people who hate cats.  They get diseases.  They get beat up by other big boys and if they are lucky, they run into somebody to help them, smack dab, like Mango did, in the parking lot of the gas station near the freeway, late night, when I was almost out of gas.  A star crossed that night for Mango, when our paths crossed.  I hope his luck holds.

Good luck, Sweetie.  You know where I live.

Bald Hill and Grumpy Cat Two

I got happy the other day.  That's because I made time to take a walk in a favorite park.  Over in Corvallis.  At Bald Hill.

I love that park.  I used to live near it.  I recovered after back surgery by walking up it four times a week.

There are miles of trails.  You can access the park from an Oak Creek Drive parking lot, a half mile or so from 53rd, or on Reservoir Road, or from an entrance to the south of the fairgrounds on 53rd, where the bike path comes from campus, through the fields, clear from 35th st., including over a covered bridge.

Miles of the paths are paved.  Others are not.  You can go up off the paved path, at the porta potty, up the hill where the barn relic is, then head up Bald Hill proper, on foot, mountain bike, or horse, although the horses are supposed to remain on the special horse trail to avoid you know what left on the main trails.

About halfway up, the trail splits and you can head on up the trail you were on, or cut to the right and skirt the west side of Bald Hill and finally come down and along the bottom of Bald hill all the way back to the north and east and come out at the barn.  When almost to the barn, you can cut to the left on a trail that winds around, crosses some creeks, then cuts straight between pastures to a gravel road and you go back down to the Oak Creek parking lot from there.  Or you can turn to the left, go up the gravel road to another trail that goes up another hill, in the forest.

Anyhow I love it.  And I get happy when I go there, and for several days after.

Gratitudes

  Enter the forest and head up Bald Hill from this hole in the forest wall. Bald Hill park is a magical world to me.

Bald Hill trees are works of art full of character and life.

This is the Flip Off Tree.  That's my name for it.  I don't know what pisses off a tree, but I'm sure trees too get pissed off.  I looked up the hill, in the direction of the flip off, but could not discover, with my non tree brain, what might have brought a tree to such anger.

Flip off tree, side view.  A flip off by a tree, is a very very lengthy insult.

There you go, straight on.  The finger, so to speak, from a tree.  I guess I should say,  "the branch". 

This tree seems to be busy and comfortable with friends.

And these trees seem engaged in dance or conversation.  As I said, the trees of Bald Hill are of exceptional  character and beauty.

A bench and billboard halfway up Bald Hill.  This bench sits where the trail forks.  

This poor dog was lost on the trail and still is not found.  The fliers were everywhere.

The creeks are very dry, for this time of year.  We need rain.

I visited some Lebanon friends, the people who almost exactly a year ago, called me about cats they needed help getting fixed.  Well, it was a lot of cats.  24 or so kittens and 16 or so adults.  Now, a year later, they had a big male show up, tame but not fixed, hungry, sort of a train wreck.  The back of one ear is raw from him scratching at it from having ear mites.  So I coaxed him close and scruffed him.

He looks just like Grumpy Cat, the now famous frowning feline.  At least I think he does.  He'll be fixed tomorrow.

Isn't he awesome?  He has mats and fleas and earmites and is older and drools.  But isn't he awesome?

This is not so awesome.  He's scratched himself raw because he has ear mites.