The Jaxpety and The Pop-Up

Pop-Up had the crap beat out of him. There were 2 neck wounds on either side, which distracted me from another wound on his left front wrist that eventually abscessed.

I put him in the crate for recovery while giving him an extended course of antibiotics. Leslie encouraged me to get a large crate from Chewy, the largest dog crate possible, so that Pop could have a bit of room to stretch his legs. This crate? Cost $130. Ouch.

During Pop’s extended stay in the crate, Leslie decided that Pop needed a safe place to stretch his legs even more. He had an smallish outdoor catio that we strapped to the roof of his van for transport. Pop hated the little catio, which was about 4’ high by 6’ long by 3’ deep. I would put him in it when I changed his bedding, scooped his litter, and changed his food and water.

The pressing problem was what to do when he healed. He clearly was going to get beat up another time by whoever the intruder was.

We considered building another cat room, but that could take weeks of planning and purchasing materials and construction.

If I can buy cat supplies on Amazon, why can’t I buy a cat room?

Don’t laugh yet. I found this by Jaxpety.

The reviews said it was serviceable, though it needed reinforcing. But hey, I know a guy.

He Pop

Georgia never misses a good opportunity
to get in the way.

Georgia stops work to take a bath. Leslie attempts to give her some privacy while I take her photo to put on the internet.

After 2 days of reinforcing and improvising, we had this…

Leslie screwed The Jaxpety to the shed because it’s a bit tippy.

Now the test. We try The Pop for a few hours.

The board thing in the back is supposed be an interior door but we are going to make it into a shelf.

He managed fine. Leslie put the board shelf in place on the left and shored up the interior floors and stapled the wire with bigger staples.

The Pop-Up lives here now.

And me? I want another Jaxpety!

The Tort, Reformed: The Tale of The Tort

Minding my own business, I promise I was…

Which is usually how it starts.

Sitting in the car at lunchtime, because we’re not supposed to eat in the building during the time of covid19, I noticed someone strolling along.

I popped the trunk and slipped out of the car. There is always canned and dry cat food in my car for an emergency such as this. I emptied a large can of cat food into a plastic ware container and set it out.

She finished that and asked more more. I added a large portion of dry, and she finished that.

She melted off into the underbrush.

The next day at lunch, I put out a can of food and waited.

She didn’t disappoint.

I’ve never seen such a bold stare from a feral. Where did she come from?

Every work day thereafter, she was available. On Fridays, we have a heavy patient load with lots of cars and I park in an adjacent lot. She learned to meet me in that lot on Fridays.

Occasionally I was able to scratch her head for a brief second. She had probably been around people but wasn’t very trusting.

I started setting the havahart trap. She refused to go in. I changed the bait over and over, using something different each time. She sat down with her back to the trap and took a bath. One day I popped open a can of fish steaks and ate a couple in front of her. She was having none of my antics.

One day I was scritching her head and I scruffed her and lifted her off the ground. She extended all her legs but didn’t offer to hurt me. I tried it another day and held her for a bit longer, thinking I could drop her into the trap, and she scratched me, softly like a kitten.

Mmmmm, fish steaks

Let’s put the fish steaks at the entrance so she learns to stick her head in the trap

This became a test of wills between two stubborn females.

I would set the trap in the morning and refuse to feed her at lunch. She started following me to the office then, and waited for me at the back door, which just wouldn’t do at all. That could get me reported again. I started feeding her at lunch, too.

Oh for cryin’ out loud

Nag, nag, nag

This little miss needed a new plan. Leslie suggested that I could scruff her and stick her into a top-loading crate.

Which is exactly what happened.

A nice lady had offered to foster her before and after her spay surgery. My secret hope is that she would keep her, and to include the nice lady in our rescue circle, Leslie suggested that she name the wild child.

“Tortie”. Her name is Tortie.

I took the morning off work so that Leslie and I could take her to the vet. He got a call later that afternoon that Tortie was already spayed. The vet could tell from her spay scar on her tummy which he found after sedating and shaving her abdomen.

The Tort lives with the nice lady, not me, and has been been having her own indoor adventures in a confined crate for socializing. One day the nice lady let her roam free in her room which also has shelves for storing random things. After 15 minutes of leaving and returning to the room, she couldn’t find the Tort. She didn’t find her until the next day, when she saw something that looked like a fabric belt from a bathrobe sticking out from a rolled up yoga mat.

And that is The Tail of The Tort.

The Tort, Reformed

My work office was closed for about 2 months for COVID quarantine. We returned to work mid-May, and less than a week later, I was minding my own business, I SWEAR I was, just sitting in the kitchen eating my lunch, when some movement out the back window caught my eye.

Guess what it was?! You’ll never guess okay it was a cat.

She strolled along the back path like she owned it, probably because she did.

I shot straight up from the table so hard that my calves hit the chair and it banged backwards against the cabinets. And then I crept over to the window.

She stopped to sniff some low foliage.

She turned and did something that confused me. She marked territory like a male. She is clearly not a man cat.

She’s a tortoiseshell cat, called a Tortie.

Guess what is about to happen here?

That’s right! We’re going to have a Tort Reform.

An Anniversary, 1981

From back in the day…

Old Film, Resolved

So I have received an email from the Old School Film People with a link to the Dropbox BECAUSE THE PHOTOS ARE READY.

This is unbelievably fast service. I mailed the film on a Friday, and the scans are ready exactly one week later.

I didn’t request any hard copies, just the scans.

I’m ballparking a date of around 1968, and I think I have some other photos from that era that will have the date on them. Because the chemicals that were used in processing the C-22 film in color are no longer made, as in not available for the last 40ish years, the images are in black and white. But we are clever pioneers, and know how to colorize them.

I don’t know how many photos the roll held, but if memory serves, a typical roll was 12. I got SEVEN back. Seven little nuggets of gold.

In the meantime, join my trip down Memory Lane…

PHOTOS.

This is Rebel, the offspring of Happy the Evil Pony and Sultan the Horse. Rebel was born at a time when no one could spend any time with him, like to calm him for petting or to break him for riding, because of school and work schedules. He was a surprise bonus. Rebel was wild. WILD. My mother was giving him a carrot once, and he acted sweet, then he almost bit off her middle finger, like latched onto it with his teeth and bore down.

This is baby Sugar. His mother was Dolly the Shetland Pony. I think that Dad probably got Dolly in some sort of trade, and that perhaps when Dolly arrived she was pregnant. Don’t ask me for actual facts; I think I was about 12 when all this was going on.

This is BigBroBob and Sugar at the northwest corner of our house. See that old metal chair that had the rocky motion? That chair and others like it had multiple coats of paint which could be peeled off in bits. That is a forsythia bush behind Bob and Sugar.

Here’s Rebel again, running away because he is WILD.

Rebel in the field. The sun is setting.

Here’s where things get fun. Friend Adrienne enhanced the photo below. I could tell that it was someone standing behind the ponies and in front of the clothesline.

Yup. That’s me.

Further fun awaits. Here’s Dad and Mom, looking like he has arrived home from work for the day.

Remember the colorization craze that started a few months ago over at MyHeritage? Well, anyway, you can enhance and colorize a limited amount of old black and white photos.

Check this out.

Here’s a side by side comparison.

Is this Dad’s 1957 Ford Tractor that he bought in 1967?

Here’s a link to the blog where Dad and Mom buy a Tractor.

I am so pleased with myself for finally sending off that old roll of film.

And you? You know what you have to do now.

Old School, Old Film

I found some exposed film in my mother’s things.

Keep in mind that my mother died in 1999.

I am sometimes trying to be a better person and get caught up on tasks.

I found a lab in California that will process old film, and I requested their free mailer, then I lugged around the film and the mailer in the bottom of my handbag…

…until I had some time off, and I went online to request help in filling out the order form.

Guess what? Due to COVID-19, they no longer accept new orders.

So, by golly, I found another lab, this one closer to home.

The best part? They are Old School.

There’s a good chance there won’t be any recoverable images. I almost felt sad parting with my little roll of exposed film that someone in my family had handled.