Rainy Adoption Day. South Seas In Trouble

If you can help, the South Seas are in great need.

Clicks on the Child Health and Hunger sites will help a lot, but donations will be even better. There are folks there helping the stranded, injured, and starving animals, too. So clicks and donations on the Animal Rescue site help fund that.

The broadband and TV cable went out early this morning. Now I have the new router, but as it is off the cable box, it didn't do me any good! My PC hadn't been on dial-up for such a long time, it had to do it's searching for the right phone number to connect me. But I was finally able to read and reply to some emails.

Today is our SPCA Adoption Day at Petco, so I got a cage ready to transport Patches, as she gets upset in a regular carrier. Before I rescued her, she had been mistreated and was locked up in a carrier with no food, water or box for a long time. She was a pitiful, skinny, starving, thirsty, pregnant, tiny cat when I finally got her. SPCA had her spayed right away, and fortunately she hadn't contracted any cat diseases. Now she is a healthy plump cat, but she is still terrified of men.

I was taking Pretty too, this would be her first adoption day. I put them in the cage, and Ray helped me load it into the van and get it strapped down with a seat belt. Pretty meowed all the way there. Patches just sat and watched the scenery go by.

After the foster moms had their dogs and cats set up in the display cages, I wrote each animal's name on the little cut out plastic dog and cat name tags, and tied them to each cage with pretty ribbon. There are two loose leaf books which have all our cats in one, and dogs in another. It has their picture, and description, as we don't take all the animals to each Adoption Day. There would not be enough room.

Then I came home for a while, in the drizzling rain. I had left Prime, my third foster cat, in the house and she was still sitting on my bed watching Benji movies on the Hallmark Channel when I got home. The cable had come back on just before I left.

When it was time to drive back to the next town to pick up the cats, it was in a steady rain.

They said that outgoing little Pretty had attracted quite a few people as she was gently sticking her paw out between the bars of the cage trying to get attention. But, alas, no applications on her. She was so glad to see me, and was so quiet on the way home. Maybe she thought that I had deserted her, and was so glad to be going home that she thought that she had better behave in the van! Reserved Patches just huddled in the back of the display cage, so I expect the only way she will get adopted is through Petfinder.com, as she doesn't 'flaunt' herself.

It has been a dreary, drizzly day.

Fixing Gates. Episode 6. Router. Adoption Day

Last episode tonight. It has been very interesting.

Today I knew that I would be helping Jay fix his gates. Thank goodnes it wasn't so hot. Ray was painting some of my cross-fences in the back.

Jay and I were cutting, stretching and reworking his chain link gates to make them fit the openings between the posts. One gate had to be made smaller, and one larger. We used fence couplings, in both cases. Jay still said that it was easier than moving the posts as they were set in a bunch of concrete.

After lunch I went into the next town, looking at laptops again. Kenya and a couple of other SPCA foster moms were setting up the cages at Petco for tomorrow's Adoption Day. As the two troublesome, bitey, scratchy cats won't be there tomorrow, I will take two of mine. Pretty and Patches.
The troublesome one's foster mom would put those two cats right at the beginning of the row. People would get scratched when they put their fingers in their cages to pet them, and would think that all our SPCA cats are like that, and walk off. It never gives the rest of the cats a chance, so I refused to take mine when they are there. It is a lot of hassle for me to get the cats loaded in their cages, strapped down in my van, unloaded at Petco, and then not even have folks look at them. It was so heartbreaking. None of my foster cats ever bite or scratch people when folks stick their fingers in the cages, they love the attention. They each have their own cage where they eat, but the doors are left open, and they have free range of the dog room. I often pet them through the cages when they are in them, so they don't feel that it is an intrusion, but a loving gesture.

Then I bought a Netgear router, and I have been fiddling with that ever since.

Episode 6 [October 2]The Morning of Creation (1946-1980) National Parks.
"This episode includes Biscayne, Dinosaur National Monument, Isle Royale, North Cascades, Olympic, Redwood, and the creation of Alaska’s parks. Although the film ends in 1980, several recently added historic sites are mentioned, including Andersonville, Little Rock Central High School, The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Sand Creek, Manzanar, and Shanksville, PA (the final resting place of Flight 93). With WWII coming to an end, more than 32 million people visit the parks in 1950. This episode explores the fact that more and more Americans are introducing their kids to parks and the concept of "loving the parks to death" emerges. A majority of this episode is devoted both to Adolph Murie and wolves in Alaska, as well as the battle to conserve huge amounts of land in Alaska. Murie and his study of wolves in Alaska is introduced in this series: “Let us be guardians rather than gardeners." Wolves’ reintroduction to Yellowstone in 1995 is also highlighted here. Parks are under pressure not only from visitors but from business interests wanting to rebuild the country and exploit water for hydro-electric dams. Echo Park and the push to save Dinosaur National Monument from being drowned by a dam are big highlights as is George Hartzog's tenure as director and his push to change some policies, such as the feeding of bears at garbage dumps in Yellowstone. The episode ends with a quote by Terry Tempest Williams, who is quoted extensively in the series: "The challenge for the 21st Century is the story of restoration. The national parks are not just a gift, but a covenant with the future. This is what we have now, and it is in your hands." This episode includes Biscayne, Dinosaur National Monument, Isle Royale, North Cascades, Olympic, Redwood, and the creation of Alaska’s parks."

It is sad to know that this is the last episode today.

Nat.Parks Need $.Cancer Site Needs Clicks

It started out cooler and cloudy, but once the clouds dissipated and let the sun through, it was quite warm. Definitely AC weather.

Jay wanted me to take him to the next town to exchange a chain link gate he and his mother had bought yesterday. I wanted to buy some stuff for my new laptop, so I took him. We took the measurements of the opening in his fence to get the correct gate size. After having stopped at several other places, we discovered that they don't make a gate for that size opening. He had measured a neighbor's gate, when he installed the fence, but didn't know that their gate was custom made! So now he has to modify the gate that he has. There is no way that he can move the posts.

We stopped at several thrift shops, and even though they were having sales, I didn't find anything that I wanted. But Jay bought a few things. One was a bicycle seat, but it didn't have all the hardware where it sits on the post, so we had to go to a bike shop to get that.

I looked at the computer transfer cables at Best Buy. I know I can get the same thing for much less on eBay, but it would be a hassle and expense to return it, if it doesn't work. Or maybe I'll just use my external hard drive, if I ever figure out how to use it. I also needed a thing where I can plug a phone line into the computer, in case the power goes out, but they were out of them, and wanted $46 if they did. So I came home empty handed.

Episode 5 [October 1]Great Nature (1933-1945)

"This episode deals with the many additions to the park system under FDR’s watch, including battlefields, which had once been in the care of the War Department. Roosevelt expands the definition of what a park could be to include broader historical sites like Castillo de San Marcos, Appomattox, the Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, and the Lincoln Memorial. The nation is in the grips of the depression, and FDR turns to the parks, inserting the Citizen Conservation Corps (CCC) as part of an economic stimulus package. FDR pumps $218 million in the parks, more money than in the previous decades combined.

George Melendez Wright raises the importance of protecting parks for their wildlife habitat, not simply for park visitors. Melendez makes a four year, 11,000-mile journey to study badgers, coyotes, hawks, mountain lions, owls, and wolves, among others. Wright is concerned that so many predators are unwelcome across the country, viewed as competition for hunters rather than a key part of a complex ecosystem. Pearl Harbor is bombed. CCC recruits are redirected to fight World War II, and the government faces pressure to open up national parks their resources, but Interior Secretary Harold Ickes fights these proposals, and eventually hires Ansel Adams to take photos of all the national parks. The subject of race takes center stage in parts of this episode. Two very touching stories shed light on the Japanese-American Internment camps at Manzanar. The episode ends with African American woman Marian Anderson singing at the Lincoln Memorial, after the Daughters of the American Revolution denied her the opportunity to sing at Constitution Hall because of her race. This episode deals with the many additions to the park system under FDR’s watch, including battlefields, which had once been in the care of the War Department. "

The National Parks Conservation Association asks you to donate to preserve these beautiful parks: http://act.npca.org/npca/notice-description.tcl?newsletter_id=26404128

Not a very interesting day.