this roof is supposed to lay flat. It is slanted, so the water can drain off of it into the gutters on the one side of it. I suppose the storm had other ideas on how it needs to exist to protect the kitties inside.

Yesterday, while we were still in the midst of a rainstorm, the Calvary arrived at my door. My barn roof was in danger of completely collapsing due to several rainstorms after the ice storm. I had been praying several days prior,  asking God what I could do. With limited funds, and most of Michael’s friends now long past. I couldn’t fathom how I was going to be able to save my roof where so many of my outdoor feral cats take refuge.

I had gone into town earlier on Thursday curious as to how the article regarding the feeding of the workers who were working nonstop to try to return power to so many. To my embarrassment,  I didn’t realize, that the reporter who had asked me so many questions intended on writing an article about me. The photo we definitely will not discuss. But it was mortifying to see. Now I know why she asked me so many questions. I just thought at the time, she was waiting for more workers to show up so she could talk to them.

I went to put the paper down, a section fell out containing ads to some of the local churches. I picked up my phone and I started calling looking for help. Literally hours later, I had in my yard gentleman who were covering my barn, cutting the limbs that had fallen off the trees into manageable sections and carding them away. They were talking to me about what else needed to be done. There were several churches involved. No one pressured me to become a member ( something that has happened in the past.) They were all just here to help.

A few days prior, I was outside removing storm damage. There was a lot of it. About an hour in, I went to lift a huge pile of pine boughs with my pitchfork. I dug deep into the pile, unbeknownst to me, underneath that pile was a huge limb that had fallen and been covered by pine needles. as I dug deep and lifted. I hit resistance. I also heard several pops, then a loud snap in my shoulder. Searing, hot pain ripped from my shoulder down to my elbow. I ended up in Urgent Care about an hour later.

The pain was pretty intense. After more than a few x-rays,  It was determined that nothing was fractured. Thank you Lord! But there is severe swelling and I have an extreme case of tendinitis as well as I have damaged my bursa. I was given medication to control the pain and reduce the inflammation and told to remain immobile for four days. I don’t quite understand how anyone who has animals can remain immobile for four days. But I’m doing my best. So all the men were here working I couldn’t even help them.

During the last storm, which was a pretty severe rainstorm. When I went back to the creek to see how overflowing it was, I noticed to my surprise,  a stump that is clearly over 200 years old, and was at least 10 feet from the embankment between two other trees, was now in the process of sliding down into my creek! I was stunned because it’s a huge stump, covered with Ivy, I thought it was buried deep enough in the ground to never be removed, except by mechanical means. The only thing that is keeping this stump from falling into the creek is the wire fence that stretches across the creek between myself and my neighbor. The wire is now twisted into a hammock type of pattern. The stump is resting precariously on top of this steel hammock! Should it fall into the creek it would create huge flooding potential.

Although it looks like a huge bush full of ivy, it is not so. I only wish it were. I asked one of the gentlemen if he would go down to the creek with me and take a look at it and give me some idea of what I could do about it before it does end up in the creek. Turns out his son is a teacher at the local high school and he teaches forestry. He has a program in his classes when it comes to finals. He challenges his students to locate people who are having issues with trees, or the land or plants whatever they can find. He then challenges them to create a team of other students form plan snd  contact the homeowner. Then they go out to the location, take a look at what needs to be done. They take photos before and after. Work on it together until it is solved put together a report and present it to the class. That is their final. The homeowner signs off on the work. That form is also presented to the teacher after the report is done orally. His son will present my problem to his kids on Monday and then they will be in touch. II feel incredibly blessed to have this opportunity. There is no way currently that I could afford someone to come in and haul this huge stump off my property. in my case, it’s not simply a matter of removing the stump from the creek. It’s also a challenge to cut down all the blackberries that cover the path over the culvert that leads to the other side of the creek. They will then have to cut more blackberries because they have to see what’s going on if the roots are still in the ground because Ivy is covering everything. It will be interesting to watch this take place.

Now  this morning, I am facing another challenge. Due to the high winds and heavy rain that we’ve had overnight, my main cat enclosure roof is leaking heavily. I’ve had to turn off the electrical because some of the water is becoming very close to the wires  snd outlets.  This shuts off the cats, access to light, their heated water bowls, and their heated cat beds. I still had some dry straw leftover, so I just stuffed as much straw as I could into the cubicles and sleeping places so the kitties could stay warm. I will be unable to do anything as far as buying another tarp until my next check. The last tarp that covered the barn and the cat enclosure (because they are attached) measured 40′ x 24′. The tarp was several hundred dollars. So the Kitty is tapped.

Because of my current injury, I can’t even go out and measure the cat enclosure. I put up plastic tubs underneath the major drips, and just hope that the roof doesn’t succumb to the next storm, which is supposed to be pretty substantial arriving within the next few days. What’s that saying? “When it rains it pours!” Boy ain’t that the truth.

We are still currently missing five outdoor kitties, everybody else is fine and accounted for. The inside kitties are a little bit squirrelly having to deal with all of this noise of the storms. The racing up and down the halls and the stairs, havie increased in the last few days to almost a frantic pace. I know they are unsettled.They don’t seem to have much of an appetite either right now.

The freezing rain and ice storm has finally passed. There are still large patches of ice scattered around the property. I spent the majority of today picking up what limbs I could manage and throwing them in the burn pile. The larger ones I will have to wait until they thaw out a bit before I can take the saw out and chop them up and throw them in the burn pile as well. We had five days of no power. I honestly think that if it wasn’t for Kota and the kitties, snuggling with me on the couch. I don’t think I would’ve made it. There was one night. It was so cold in the house. I could hardly breathe.

It was quite eerie during the freezing rain. Pitch black outside the highway completely devoid of any traffic. No sounds at all, just dead silence. I wrapped a blanket around me and opened the sliding glass door. I was leaning on the wall just listening. I was waiting for the ominous sounds of limbs cracking and  dropping to the ground.

I could hear so clearly. I knew that some of them were coming from my trees. However, there were so many dropping. I knew they weren’t all my trees. I could hear them all around me. Curious, I went over to the front door and opened it and listened and I could hear them across the highway just dropping it was the most eerie of sounds. I heard at least three trees falling. One tree hit was such a thud. I knew that it hit something besides just the ground.

After the storm passed, and I could finally get out of my driveway. I went into town to do a little bit of grocery shopping. While I was there, I was thinking about all the guys who were working in horrendous conditions, trying to restore power to the people of Sweet Home and beyond. I wanted to do something so I picked up a thank you card. I went back to the truck and I filled it out and I was sitting there thinking, wondering how in the world I could get this card to majority of the dedicated workers?

I happen to glance up, and I noticed three of the trucks were parked behind the store. So I went over to the trucks, but I noticed that all of the occupants were sleeping. I wasn’t about to wake them up to give them a thank you note. Unfortunately, even though I’m 6 feet tall I couldn’t reach the windshield to leave it there. Those trucks are huge, I started to leave and another truck pulled up and I thought OK well I know he’s not asleep. I went over he got out of the truck and I handed him the card and just thanked him profusely for all they were doing and still doing to get everybody back to normal. I told him I don’t know how you can but please just make sure that as many of these dedicated people see this card so that they know how appreciated they are. He started laughing, and he said I had good timing. There were several ladies from town, not part of any organization. But they have been cooking for days and they were serving lunches for all of the guys that had worked and are still working.

I turned to go, and this lady walks up with her cell phone. She asked me what I was doing and I told her that I was just thinking these gentlemen for everything that they did. I thought she was just a normal citizen like me that wanted to come over and thank them. She asked me if she could take a picture of me with the guys (there were three of them by that time.) I told her I hadn’t had a shower in five days. I kind of joked and asked her if I could run home real quick and take a shower and then she could take the picture. Thank God I was wearing a wintet cap because it turns out she was a reporter for the local paper. She interviewed me for about 45 minutes. I’ll just say this it won’t be my best photo. Lol. But at least these guys know that they are appreciated not only because of my card but the food and the love in that booth were the women were waiting to give them an actual dinner besides a greasy hamburger and fries.

we are supposed to have snow later today, I will welcome snow a lot better than I welcome, freezing rain. I do know that more of my limbs are in danger of falling. They have been starved for water for six years because we’ve been in drought. Then we had torrential rains, which made them extremely heavy, and now on top of that, we had an ice storm and freezing rain and wind so there’s more ready to just take the plunge to earth. I believe that’s part of why my cats are hiding. I know that sound of those limbs breaking was freaking me out  with their acute sense of hearing, I can’t even imagine what they were thinking except to hide. hopefully, as it gets warmer, they will start coming out. But I will not stop putting food out just in case they happen to decide that it might be safe to finally come out and eat. It was so cold that my heating bowl for my water were not keeping the water warm enough and the water was iced over. It was bitter cold, and it was really scary to be alone in the dark with my animals listening to all of these limbs crashing down to earth. If I had been outside, I would be hiding as well.

Similar to most of the United States right now, Winter has descended on the Pacific Northwest with a vengeance. We had such slamming winds in the last few days, that now, not only does my barn roof leak. But my cat enclosure roof is leaking. Last night, the rain was coming down so hard and at such a slant- in our supply closet. The leak shows not from the roof. The leak shows midway on the wall. I’m still trying to figure out how that happened? If anyone knows and can enlighten me, I would appreciate it.

This is the room where we store our cat food, cat litter, cat carriers, and other supplies that we need when we care for our kitties but the water is coming in between two boards. I believe the front board on the enclosure just got hit with so much hard rain. It just leaked between the two of them? We also have major leaks in one area that concerns me, which is by the electrical. I’m going to have to figure out how to stop the holes where the water is finding its way in.

initially the roof was extremely stout. During this recent rebuild, several of the limbs of my spirit tree when they were removing it hit the edge of the cat enclosure roof and bent it. The company responded making good on the major repairs right where the initial hit happened. But I can tell now that it completely shifted the entire roof in small degrees virtually almost all the way around the whole enclosure. Now the rain is coming in.

I am starting a New Year’s experiment right now regarding wet and dry food. For the most part now, the majority of our kitties are turning up their noses at Purina’s Natural blend. Reading the ingredients I see that this product has all five of the toxic ingredients you need to look out for. This seems to be a bit ironic to me; considering it’s supposed to be a new healthful blend.

So we decided to try other brands that contain less than five ingredients that we know now to look out for. Our first try is Merrick Grain free Hairball, we were unable to find a bigger bag than 16 pounds. We started them on it this morning, it will be interesting tonight when I go out to feed if any of it has been touched I’m finding when it comes to dry cat food, my cats are a lot smarter than I am in alerting to me  which brands I need to stay away from.

Both myself and Aspen are missing her sister. I’m not sure if it’s the absence of Laurel that has made a very remarkable change in Aspen lately. This morning we had a Xfinity service man here fixing a problem with Wi-Fi. He was here for over an hour, and I was quite surprised and pleased to find Aspen in the kitchen while he was here. I talked to her gently and snapped my fingers, and she actually came over to see me. This is highly unusual, because when they’re strangers in the house, the cats hide. She was quite content to stay by my side, the rest of the time that the gentleman was here fixing the problem. This gives me a tiny glimmer of hope, that she will eventually be able to go on and have a normal life in a home that will love her forever. I still cannot pick her up, so there is still work to do. She certainly gave me a smile this morning though.

Today is New Year’s Day. It is also Kota’s Sixth birthday, a day that enters him into the first part of his senior years. I honestly had pause these last two years that he would even make it this far. He is doing quite good. He is not on any type of drug to get him through his day. He is not excessively shedding, the seizures are gone. There is no more gulping of grass along with daily vomiting. His persistent eye infection (that they could never seem to  clear up) has disappeared. It went away virtually overnight after I took him off of all commercial canned dog food.

When it came to the seizures, it wasn’t the vet or the drugs he gave that stopped them. It was a friend of mine back East. She sent me an article from Natural Dog. The article explained  how some larger-breed dogs are extremely sensitive to exposure to electronic equipment. This exposure, the author explained can bring on seizures!

As I read the article, it was clear to me that his couch (which faced at one time the television) needed to be moved. I moved it to the other end of the living room and about a week later, his seizures just quit. They have never returned. I still do keep the television on during the day just for the noise factor  Michael was quite the talker and storyteller and after he left, the silence sometimes overwhelmed me.

Yesterday morning, when I got up. I saw Laurel. She was asleep on the couch in the cat room. Well…I thought she was asleep. When she didn’t come to the third food call in the afternoon, I went to check on her and discovered that she was gone. She had passed sometime in the night. I know this because I do 25 minutes of interactive play with all the cats right before I go to bed. She had been telling me for about a week that she wasn’t right. I was listening, I tried to get her help, but I was too late.

It’s strangely, quiet in the house now. Aspen is missing her sister. She must have discovered that her sister had gone on to a better place. I don’t see any open grieving in her. She is eating, she is drinking. But she is also trying to find me  during the day and be with me. I know from past departures, that if the resident kitties get a chance to say their own goodbyes, the grief is still here, but it’s not as devastating for them. I don’t know if Aspen was with Laurel when she passed away. (They often slept together in the night). I would bet she was close knowing this to be her last time with Laurel. Based on how she’s acting, I know she had her chance to say a final goodbye. It also will explain why at 2 AM I was awoken by Aspen, sitting out in the hallway in front of the bedroom, and she was meowing very pitifully. I got up and picked her up to comfort her. But the meowing continued. I put food out, checked the water, bowls. In retrospect, I know, she was telling me In the only way she could, that her sister was gone.

I couldn’t bury Laurel, the rain, and the mud prevented that. I have a good friend that lives up the mountain and I called her. We took a walk in the woods that are behind her house and on her property. We found a nice spot in the forest, covered Laurel with leaves and said a prayer. Essentially, we just gave her back to nature and to God. I am sure her and Michael are getting acquainted.

It is strange, how empty the house feels despite the presence of three animals and one human. But that’s the way grief works. It’s a process. A way for us to come to the realization that’s something. Precious is now missing. I believe we gave her a longer life than she would’ve had before she arrived here. At least that is my small comfort this morning.

Goodbye, Sweet Girl. I was blessed to have known you. I just wish it had been for a little bit longer.