Goodbye Sweet Electra

Wasting Time

Now and then, I take metal to recycle.  Every time I do this, I forget what an extreme waste of time it is to recycle small amounts of metal for money.

This time, my scrap, which included that old computer I laboriously took apart to extract circuit boards, came to just over $2.  How many hours did I spend removing plastic from that computer for "clean" metal, because you get a higher scrap price?  Or separating out each circuit board, because over the phone, the metal place told me they drew a higher price?  What an idiot I am.  They threw the circuit boards into the general pile anyway, to weigh as ferrous, because I had not removed some little thing off them.

I stood there, hand joints swollen still, from that tiny work, feeling like some third world scrounger, and very much like an idiot.  The few cents I earned on nonferrous metal, which by Oregon stupid law, must be sent to me by check at least three days later, I refused.  The gas to go to the bank with the check would have cost way way more.  It was beyond ridiculous actually, the thought, of getting a check, all the effort and resources that go into it, which reduces your pay out also, for a few cents.  Jokes on me.

For ferrous metal, and any they can find some reason to call ferrous to pay less, you get 5 cents a pound, if that.   Think about it.  To get even $1, you have to collect 20 lbs of scrap.  To cover the cost of even one gallon of gas you might spend going to and from the scrap yard, you'll need almost 80 lbs of scrap.

So my scrap metal is going in the trash now.  This time I will remember what a waste of time it is, unless you've got a huge rig and yards full of trash metal people will give you, in your near vicinity, so fuel costs don't take all profit.

Doesn't help I was OCD about removing all plastic and wood from the junk metal, when nobody I've ever seen there with their metal goes to that effort.  When I think about doing that, I am embarrassed.  Live and learn, you'd think.

Scrap metal mogul queen that I am.

Searching for discarded cans and bottles for the deposit money is getting tough too.  So much competition for those cans and bottles.  Just the other day, I poked at a can in the ditch with my nail stick and it vanishes just as I'm positioning myself to stab it.   I look up and there's the old lady from two streets down, who has those damn little barking dogs.   She's stuffing the can in a fancy over shoulder cloth bag and glaring at me.  "I need it more than you," she growls, "for my 'lectric bill."  I bare my teeth and hiss.  "Well, aren't you the scary pussy," she snarls.  "You hear that?" I say, feigning concern, knowing she can't hear worth shit.  "I think your little dog's run off in the field.  There's steel jaw traps out in that rye grass.  I yanked one out just last week and recycled that sucker for metal money.  Got almost 10 cents. You better go get him."  She dropped her bag and limped off into that field parting the grass with her cane as she went.  I grabbed her can bag and pulled out three rusty Mtn. Dew cans and stuffed them into mine.  Ca Ching.  15 big ones.  Cents that is.

I'm just waiting for the Oregon legislature, ever in the dark on the realities of daily life, to pass a reclamation center bill, so that you'd have to take cans to some location, have them weighed, instead of counted, a good way to get cheated, and then have to wait for a check you then have to get cashed.  I've heard rumors they might do that.  Right now, in Oregon, you take your bags of cans and bottles to supermarkets, where there are can and bottle machines you feed them into, then get a receipt for cash. Supermarkets don't like this, but that's life, and they get to charge the five cent deposit for every single can and bottle of pop, bottled water and beer sold.  And they keep the five cent deposit too, if the can or bottle is never turned back in.   If the state switches to reclamation centers, that will require a car to get to, gas for that car and a bank account to use, it will knock out one of the last ways little people like me and so many others, can make a little bit extra for basic survival.

Boredom becomes a big thing, even for adults, in small towns.  There's nothing to do.  There's one theater in town.  I went there once with my brother, but there was a stench in the theater, almost like mold.  It permeated the building.  Hard to ignore.  My brother went to use the restroom and came out looking unhappy.  He's a contractor and the restroom was too filthy for him to use.

When I watch the Portland news stations seems like there is so much going on up there all the time.  Makes me a little jealous.  You must have a very high tolerance for boredom to live in a small town I think.  If you're poor, your possibilities shrivel further.  You are limited to a very small world.

Dreams and books are about the only escape.  I have an active imagination.  In my fantasy worlds, I do things you could not believe. 

I was so happy when I got that $200 car in 1999.  A car vastly enlarged my world.  Gas prices are so high, I can't go out much these days, but I still have that possibility.  A horse in the stable!  The horse is old and sway backed, but it still wants to run and I still want to ride.  Am I ever full of BS this morning.

It's been pouring for a week here.  My yard is full of deep puddles in the back.  The cats are unhappy.  I am bored, too.  Reception on the TV has been bad.   I scan and rescan channels, hoping something will magically shift and come in better.  I found three books to read at the Habitat Store for $1 for all three.  They were having a sale.  Now I have something new to read.

 First of the month, I bought a can of paint for the kitchen.  Long ago I painted the cabinets and trim Cinnamon Stick.  Now the walls are Juicy Cantelope.  The two colors in combo are the best I've found so far.  I LOVE them.

Feast your eyes....

Very Hairy Tame Harry

I mentioned Harry's hair in a post about clipping the long hairs in the spring, a few days ago.

Harry is one of the long hairs.  I usually spell his name "Hairy", but for clarification sake, today, I will spell his name "Harry".  Who cares, right?  Hairy Harry doesn't.

Harry came to me a few years ago.  Heartland Humane had called and asked if I could take him.  He'd been brought to them in a live trap.  He was sneaking into someones house through their cat door, desperate for food and that was enough to grant him a death sentence in their eyes. So they live trapped Harry and took him to Heartland Humane.  Harry was just very hungry.

But he was wild and that meant Heartland would have to kill him as they don't hold feral cats or cats that even act afraid there. They didn't want to kill him.  He had a right ear tip already.  Heartland wondered if I would recognize him, because maybe it was me who taken him to be fixed for someone. And then maybe I could return him to whomever it was who had originally asked my help getting him fixed. I didn't recognize the poor boy, but I did get him out of there so he wouldn't have to die.

He went first to Wilvsonville and a woman who claimed she would place him as I, as always, already had plenty of cats to care for.  I became skeptical,  however, and worried for his safety, when I asked where he would be going.  First she told me it was to an old man who would hold him in a shed for awhile before releasing him but that two cats she'd placed there had already been killed by coyotes.  Then she claimed he would go to a woman who fed the cats table scraps in a garage.

So I went up and reclaimed Harry from this woman and good thing too.  He was extremely ill.  I took him straight to the vet where he got a long term antibiotic injection, then brought him back here and put him in the garage room cage, where he lived, for almost a year.   I opened the door so he could come and go after two weeks.  He had access to everywhere---the garage room, cat yard, with runs into the house if wanted to come in.  But for a year, so great was his fear, he lived mostly in that large cage in the garage room, swiping at me, like a true feral, if he was in the carrier in the cage, when I was cleaning the litter box in the cage.  Twice a year I'd shave down that horrible oily fine matted hair of his, and he was good with me doing that.

Then came his vet visit a few months ago.  His ears were badly itching.  I knew it was not mites causing his problem so off to the vet he went and at the same time, I clipped his hair again.  After that, he decided to move into the house permanently.  He just doesn't go often now out into the cat yard.  He's an old man now and he likes his heat and his pillow.  He has a deep faltering interesting cracking meow. He follows me around mornings until I brush and pet him to his satisfaction.

Harry, the angry lonely abandoned boy, condemned to die by some asshole in Corvallis because he was lonely and hungry--he's come a long way.   He didn't trust anybody.

When I first took him from Heartland, had him in the back of my car in one of my traps, I knew what he wanted and I gave it to him immediately.  I ignored his growls and opened the trap a crack and slipped in a plate onto which I'd emptied an entire can of wet food.  I stood back, and smiled at him.  "Go ahead, don't mind me," I said, "I know you're hungry and you like wet food."  Eyeing me, then the plate of food, then eyes back on me again, he stepped forward and gulped it down.  I gave him another.  Then another.  That's how we met and how Harry and I became friends.

This is him now, now that he's old and charming and quirky.

All that lighter colored hair, along his side, that's fine undercoat hair I need to comb out, or, clip off when it gets a bit longer.

I've been brushing out the fine mats again.  He has always had severe dandruff too, besides oily skin and ears.  His hair has not grown back long since his last clipping of a few months back, but its starting in.  Those tufts along his side on the left are fine mats I've been working out with a mat buster.  Angel has the same type of fine extreme undercoat and oily skin.

Pay Back

Pay back?  For what?

Well, my body paid me back for sudden over use.

My sacro illiac joint was so inflamed last night from jaunting like a teenager up and down canyons in Silver Falls state park it kept me moaning and groaning in bed trying to get comfortable until I gave up and slept on ice bags.  Sometimes I wonder if it will ever heal, ever since I injured it in a sudden twisting movement when I slipped out trapping the Lebanon Let Em Breed colony last November.  I hope it will heal.  Last night I got reminded its still not healed.  But I sure had great fun yesterday getting out there.

Here are a few more photos, some in altered states.

I'm still searching for a home for Slinko.  A guy in the mid west says he will adopt him if I can't find him a home anywhere else.  What a nice guy.   He got featured on the blog Life with Cats. 
See it here!

I've still got his facebook page active, too. Find Slinko's page here.

He loves to play!

Sam gets in on the action too.  He's so athletic and loving, but still my Peeman, insecure and sometimes VERY insecure.

Since her dental, when all her teeth were removed, Poppy has blossomed into a healthy and loving kitty, who also loves to play.

I recently began the annual spring haircuts for the long haired cats.  First up was Angel, who has the longest finest hair you could imagine.  I think she was built to live in Siberia.  She has inch long fur on the bottoms of her feet.  But her fine undercoat mats.   Took me an entire day to get it all off, and to trim her ear fur too because otherwise she gets yeast infections.  Too much hair.  But she's happy now, to be free of it, and was very very patient with my clipping job.  She remained in the bathroom for three days, so I could make sure her ears were dry and free of any yeast.

Hairy has similar hair, but since he stayed inside, and rarely ventures out to the garage room or cat yard, after I took him to the vet some time ago over his own yeasty ear troubles and his last clip job, his hair hasn't grown back so long.  He has fine hair that easily mats however like Angel.  Hairy is old and now, very tame.   He follows me around mornings, until he gets petted several times.  He's so funny to also have come out as tame finally, although he is a surly tame, very independent minded and not needy at all.  He gets what he wants on his terms.

Calamity, on the right, has several friends here, although she can be a bit of a drama queen.  On the other hand, everybody loves Juno, the seed warehouse Siamese who suffered heat stroke.  She gets along with even the drama lovers here because she knows how to move out of the way and not be a target.  She loves to play and loves life.  She's on the left, cuddled with Teddy, from the homeless camp.

The Lebanon crew are very funny.  It is Hawkeye, the last cat caught, a little girl, who now moves into a position so I can pet her backside each morning.  She sits atop a carrier just beneath the bed, waiting for it, knowing when I'll come in, in the morning, to start chores.

Mopsy McMuffin is getting chubby.

Vino is laid back as ever!

I overdid it on the hike yesterday.  I went from zero to sixty in nothing flat and now when I am flat on my back, my injury incurred saving these lovely Lebanon cats can make me use colorful language.  It was worth it, the lousy pain last night, to visit such a lovely part of Oregon that is really very close to home.  I feel revitalized in spirit and eager to go out again.  Oregon rain has returned, pelting us good with wind too.  But that's life in Oregon.  One day it's bright sun here and the next--a deluge.

Play Day

My Lebanon friend and I headed up to Silver Falls state park this afternoon.  We were only there a couple of hours, but I will be sore tomorrow, from the hike.  We did not hike the ten falls trail, which is over 9 miles and includes three trials, but we hiked from N. Falls, via the rim trail, to Winter Falls, then cut down Winter Trail to Canyon trail, took a left at their connection and went down to see about four waterfalls before retracing our steps.  Except on the way back on Canyon Trail, at the Winter Trail turn off, we remained on Canyon Trail all the way back to N. Falls and the parking lot.

  If we'd wanted to hike the entire loop we would have continued on the left fork from Winter trail down Canyon trail all the way to south falls and then back the Rim trail to the N. Falls parking lot and Becky's car.

The final falls we saw, N. Falls, spooked Becky badly, because the trail went behind it under a massive overhanging cavern of rock.   I looked up, after she said something about being spooked, and she was gone.  She literally sprinted the trail behind the falls up the other side, which included some incredibly steep concrete stairs.

I caught up with her along a chain link fence, which lined the cliff side of the trail.  The other side was rock cliff, sometimes low enough I had to duck to keep from hitting my head on a rock.  She was talking to a man who had asked her to help him figure out how to take a picture on his smart phone.  She didn't know how.  She asked me to help, but I didn't know how either.  I've never had a smart phone.  Some young people were coming up the trail at that time, so I asked one if he could help.  Kids, you know, they have grown up on smart phones.

We're the super friendly types on the trail, saying hello to everyone.  One guy we chatted with said he was from Eugene, but the two teen girls with him were exchange students from Europe.  One was from Finland and the other, Norway maybe.  He was beat red and sweating trying to keep up with them.  He said today isn't so bad as yesterday, all day at the Lloyd Center Mall in Portland shopping.

Although on most of the trails, no dogs are allowed, wouldn't you know, but way out, there's someone with a pitbull.  This reinforces the stereotypical image of pitbull owners as being self centered, ignorant white trash with small penis issues.  Not all pitbull owners are that way, we all realize.

And we finally made it back to Becky's car.  It was a grand adventure.  Silver Falls state park is not that far away from where I live and yet I've only been there once, when I was very young.

I took a lot of photos but I'll just post some of them.

Switchback on Winter Trail.  From the N. Falls parking lot we took the Rim trail that rose to the top of the canyon and followed beside the road, to the Winter Falls parking lot.  We had tried stopping there to park and hike but it was full of badly parked cars, that took up two spaces each, most out of state, which made us make native Oregonian entitlement remarks about having their out of state badly parked cars towed so we native Oregonians could get a spot.  From that point on the Rim Trail, we took the Winter Trail, which was steep, but downwardly steep, with switchbacks.  It finally met up, river level, with Canyon Trail.

Another beautiful water fall, might have been Drake.  You can walk behind this one too.

We met many people who seemed completely lost and would ask where the trail they were on went and how could they get back to such and such a place.  We had one map brochure.  I would recite the trail system, which I had quickly memorized.  In the end, we gave the one map brochure to the group who seemed the most lost.

This waterfall is just past the little trail that goes up to Double Falls, but I can't recall the name of this one. In this photo, the bridge at the top is where the trail takes off up to Double Falls.

Double Falls

Rainbow at the bottom of Double Falls

Winter Falls

Might be Drake Falls, can't recall the names.   You can walk behind this one.

Looking out through Drake Falls, from behind it!

N. Falls

N. Falls with people in the cavern behind it

N. Falls, taken from behind it

N. Falls hits its pool

N. Falls in all its glory

Part of the trail behind N. Falls in that rock cavern

Some concrete steep steps.  My knees were aching!  Lots of up and down extreme today.

We had fun today and we didn't even leave for the falls from Lebanon until almost 2:00 p.m.  It's not far to Silver Falls state park.  We took the back roads.

One problem with this long trail system is there are no bathrooms and very few places to get off the trail to pee if you need to pee due the steep canyon walls.   I told Becky we need devices like this to carry next time. (click link) There are several different ones now on the market and would sure make things easier on a girl.  Pee like a guy with The Whiz!

We've had three very sunny days but the forecast is for storm after storm starting tomorrow, so I wanted to do something today.  Great day at a beautiful state park.  But there were lots of people there.   Like I say, there were no parking places available at Winter Falls and we got the very last parking place left at N. Falls.  If we hadn't got that one, I guess we would have gone back home.

Slinko Comes Out--New Vid and He Still Needs a Home

Slinko is awesome.  No way around that label for this kitty.

He's all boy.  He's rowdy and wildly playful.  He's enthusiastic and he couldn't care less if he accidentally runs into another cat when he's playing.  The drama screams from outraged cats seeking victim status do affect him.  He doesn't understand.

He tries hard to keep it gentle when I'm petting him, keeping the claws in.  He is wonderful.

He didn't understand much about group dynamics when he came here, so he kept a low profile, and was OK with me thinking he was feral.

Cold weather, snow arrived, cat yard wasn't good enough and in he came.  Wasn't long before I noticed his arched back and prancing back feet---sure sign a cat wants some attention.   Then he wouldn't let me be.  He runs through my legs when I walk.  I don't think he is trying to trip me, on purpose, but he trips me.

This is an awesome cat.  He no doubt would act shy guy at first in a new home, but eventually he will take over.  He LOVES to play.  He also likes to cuddle.

I'm downsizing the herd, if I can, finding anybody tame enough a home, if I can.  Age is taking its toll here, however.  Many of the cats are rather ancient.  I miss Electra but it wasn't a great shock that she passed.  She declined rather quickly in the last year.  She was somewhere just over 15 when she died.

I can't imagine Hairy or Vision will last another year.  Vision is now 20.  Hairy somewhere in a cloudy area 15 or over.  Miss Daisy is over 14.   Those are my three most elderly.

However, the group 8 and over encompasses the vast majority of cats still here, outside of a few.  Those few are who I focus on and they include Slinko.  I also want to find Smolder, Sage's son, a home.   He'd love a home.  He's huge and all black and very sweet.  He did go to a home once, but he hid and they didn't like that, so they asked I come get him.  His brothers and mom got homes, so I just know out there somewhere is a home that would match with him.

Sure, both boys are happy as heck here, but if I find the right homes for them, they'd do ok. 
 

Life Goes On

I miss my Electra kitty.  She liked to curl next to my head with her back against my hair, for warmth, nights, while Miss Daisy would be curled a bit lower on the pillow, to my right also, but against my face, often with her chin laid across my cheek.  I didn't dare move or the whole pile would be disturbed.  Often I had to move.  My sacra illiac inflammation is still causing me great pain at nights, interrupting my sleep, waking me.  Then I moan and groan awhile, before drifting off again.

Miss Daisy and Starry miss Electra, a best buddy of theirs, the most.  Yesterday Miss Daisy would not let me from her sight without loud howls of distress.  Starry last night was moody and distant and woke me with dreams where she twitched and cried and was happy when I touched her awake from them.

Starry still seems to think she will be find Electra sleeping in the bathroom sickbay and is disturbed to find Fantasia there instead looking miffed and guilty together, as she often does, to be discovered.

Starry is a giving cat and also needy.  She was left on her own in N. Albany swamp with her brothers.  They were all sick and all would have died.  Although Peko went to a home and it stuck, Nemo was returned from another home after two months and nobody ever wanted Starry.  Except me and she's welcome here for her life and loved and she knows it.

That's why I've got to find a way to fund the cats here, keep them in food, litter and vet care.   They are happy here, loved here, and not just by me.  They have an entire family here and they get that and it is a clan of very happy cats.  They worry about nothing at all at last.  I do the worrying, about finding the money for the basics, because that's all we need here, the food, the litter and the vet care.  That's it.  The rest I can make or make do without.

Speaking of making.......a few months ago, during that first cold spell, three raccoons suddenly showed up in my driveway.  They were playing, of all things.   Those three never returned after that, but a big male has shown up, but not often, about every two weeks.  So I knew I would need to make a stray feeder.

Raccoons can't jump vertically.  Neither can skunks or possums.  If you feed outside cats, do it on a platform high enough up a raccoon can't stand on its back legs and pull itself up on.  Use metal or plastic legs so the raccoons cannot climb it either.  You can put a jump stool out a couple feet from the platform for smaller or older cats to use to jump from it to the platform.  I don't put out much cat food anymore, since I found the dead neighbors cats homes.  But I put out some, for the barely cared for cats from a block away and for one stray I got fixed who still returns now and then for a snack.  But I don't want to feed raccoons.  The stray feeder is done!

I just used 2x2's for legs because that's what I had, so I hope it holds up.  Then I slipped sections of old sewer pipe I had over them so raccoons can't climb up.  The platform itself is a metal cage tray I got free when Heartland was getting rid of junk they had accumulated.  The roof is also an old metal cage tray.  I painted the top of it white to reflect heat.  And the rest, just scrap wood.  I think it's awesome, for being made of stuff in the garage already.

I also made this yesterday from an old cage bottom, and trimmed branches from the cherry tree, used for legs and supports.

Rain started yesterday afternoon, really pelting soaking rain, so I quit on the cherry tree roller cart.  I need to add lashing to strengthen the cross pieces (now just nailed to the legs) and add more supports.  This will be lined with garden screen, filled with dirt from the compost pile and I hope to grow salad greens in it.

Also, with gardening season coming up, I made my first slug trap.  It's just a two litter bottle with the top part sliced off, then turned inward with duct tape around the edge.   I put cheap beer in it, if I can justify, because even cheap beer is expensive now, maybe too much so to waste on killing slugs.

Slugs like beer.  Lay this on its side in the garden, with beer in it, and it's soon full of drowned happy slugs.  And other bugs.  Otherwise, I kill slugs the hillbilly way.  Slugs are lazy and when they leave the safety of their daily hide out, at night, to go eat plants, they like to travel easy.  If there is cement around, they'll use that for travel to and from.  That's where I engage in slug stomping.  Yeah, I know how that sounds---white trash.  I don't care.  I go out, maybe 11:00 or even midnight and stomp on the traveling slugs.  It's a quick death.  You think salt is easy on a slug?  Or poison?  I wouldn't use either.  Beer or stomping, the humane ways to kill slugs.  Or, you can slip them into a neighbors garden at night.

The Lebanon colony cats are settling in and acting like they've always been here.  Not that I'm still not trying to find them safe homes.  I am. But they're looking good, that's for sure.

Mopsy McMuffin and Vino

Willy Wonka, who is irresistibly cute and annoyed by the camera.  The two photos below are also of him.

Willy's still shy and kind of a momma's boy.  He likes the security of one of the older colony cats.  Usually it is Huckleberry, the laid back adult muted torti, but Vino will do too.  He forgets himself sometimes and comes right up to me, wanting petted, then suddenly its like he recalls he's not a house boy and fluffs and arches up which I ignore, mocking him and teasing him and handing him a treat, which he sniffs and fluffs down and tries to look like he never acted all scared to begin with.  He's on that edge, wanting to be a big confident male like Vino but still kittenish and needing reassurance.  Look at the size of those paws of his though.  He's going to be huge when he grows into them.  He's going to be awesome and those distinctive down arcing white whiskers make him just adorable.