Yeah, I've been even more hit 'n miss than usual the past several months, but things have been happening, (or piling up, whichever).
First off, Mischa is still doing great, the staples are
long gone and the incision is well healed.
The fur isn’t growing back very quickly, but adaptation to tripod status has been pretty close to seamless, (he does seem to have an occasional muscle spasm in the stump, which throws off his balance briefly).
He's discovered that if he plops down within reach -and postures like he's trying to scratch- that magical fingernails will scruffle around until that annoying, unreachable itch, (and several of its close relatives) resolves. ;-)
He's decided that kennels aren't actually horrible, (getting gushy food in one regularly while I move the truck in & out of the shop helps a lot), and that brushes turn out to be very nice, (still working at a couple of residual mats, but don't want to make it an overall unpleasant experience). His absolute favorite place is cuddled with the affected hip on my chest and draped, full length, across my shoulder. He’s a very long kitty. With, not quite lynx-like, but still huge paws, (Felis robusticus!).
He is still a little bummed because he's young and energetic and nobody wants to play with him, (I have to let him wrassle with my feet -under a heavy sleeping bag & a couple of stout blankets, really strong jaws on this little lion!), the other two are companionable, but Rose & Nemi are too middle aged & elderly, respectively, to be physically playful with such a big, strong galoot.
The vet's office, (once they were certain-sure that they were going to get paid), did good work, the surgery was neat and he had zero complications or after effects from the meds or the procedures. But I have to admit that, as a nurse and as a person, I was pretty deeply offended by their attitude regarding the finances. They were just fine with sending us home with a broken legged cat for a week or more until they got paid up front. If my step mother hadn't qualified, (over the phone) for the Synchrony/CareCredit account they would have sent us home with him untreated.
I understand that practices have payroll & overhead and need to be paid. And that in an economically depressed area there's a lot of need that can't be met, but as someone who grew up in a wilderness area, (where Search & Rescue was a popular hobby among us locals), and was a critical care nurse for over a decade, triage and care is an instinct for me and serious, painful situations need to be dealt with in (what I would call) an ethical manner.
So that's still kind of stuck in my craw that if we hadn't been able to produce $1500 on the spot, he just wouldn't have received care. Period. What’s even more annoying, I've known Eric, (and his late father, the original vet of the practice) for almost two decades and I know it's not him, it's his damned money-grubbing mother who's author of the policy. (Grrrrr)
Anyway, we did qualify and he was (well) cared for, but now we have just another two months to pay off the balance before the 26% interest kicks in, so I'm going to have to ask for help from the community on that. ::sigh::
I also have overdue oil changes and tags to register the two trucks coming up, so that adds to what I can't quite juggle right now. I've had stuff up for sale, (for several months, dammit), that would cover at least big chunks of it, (and which is why I‘ve been putting off writing this), but none of it's moving, so I'm going to have to request assistance for that, too. $1500 for the vet bill, plus two trucks at $112 each for tags, (Oregon tags are for 2 years). The oil change is $38 for the Toyota and $45 for the
Dodge. $50 for tire remounting, (I've got some used tires that will fit), and $150 for parts to cobble up the first two gates, (locks & extra keys & a used motion activated trail camera), so right at $2000, total. Pay pal is
ping HYPHEN pita HYPHEN 5765 at opayq dot com.
The vet bill is the only one that has a real time frame, (strongly preferring within 2 mos to avoid the interest), and the tags are due in April. Remounting the better tires should probably happen fairly soon, two on the Dodge do have slow leaks, but the vet bill is the only thing that’s near term.
In other matters, the appeal to get my ‘unlawfully’ seized horses back goes on, (and on..), but there have been some developments. I initially filed it with Oregon's Solicitor General named as the Respondent for the State, (as one apparently does), but first it got bounced from that office over to someone in the AG's office for a while -and an extension for their answering brief was filed because that Asst. AG was in the middle of a larger case, (which I totally understand & had no objection to).
But then the State filed something that sounded significant, Motion for Change of Respondent. I didn't understand the implications of the change until I received the Respondent's Brief at the beginning of this month and saw it was authored, not by the real lawyers in the SG or AG's offices, but by Lincoln County’s local 'talent'. ::snort::
Apparently the upshot of that motion for change was that the State of Oregon had looked over what I had to say in the opening brief and has declined to deploy state resources to defend Lincoln County’s actions & decisions. So it seems that the county's on their own in this. ::evil grin::
The state appeals court will still be the entity deciding whether they have to give back the horses who were taken ‘unlawfully’, but looks like it's on Lincoln County to defend its decision not to.
IANAL but that sounds like good news to me, and that’s how I'm taking it until I hear otherwise. I've filed a motion for permission to have the last word, (a Reply Brief, which I'm entitled to, but the higher court still has to approve). So I can point out all the things that LC is ignoring, attempting to elide and flat out lying about, (including the Appeals Court’s finding that the horses were taken unlawfully because they were boarded on properties not covered by the sleazy warrant they did get). Plus a few other things that they volunteered, (that I really don't think helps them at all, since it gives me an opportunity to respond, to [and with] their own presented evidence). So, currently in a holding pattern waiting to hear if the higher court will allow me the final reply. ::sigh::
And lastly, the farm.
I should have been able to move back out the first week of December, since the ridiculously punitive restrictions on where I live and what I own expired then, but the knot-headed brat who bought the property one further in from us a couple of years ago is blocking me from repairing the old logging road that's been there, (for access to 2/3 of our property), for decades.
The adjacent properties were originally owned by brothers, so the easement for that road was, alas, de facto, not recorded.
Don’t get me wrong, camping out in the shop has been an enormous improvement from sleeping in the Forester, I'm not whining about having to extend the situation.
I have electricity, (yay!), room to store stuff and move around out of the weather. And, sleeping on my father's old couch with my feet up has put all that fluid and edema (that had collected in my feet & ankles over the past several years from sleeping in the car), back into general circulation where it belongs, (which is really nice, I'm still occasionally wiggling my toes just to watch the tendons & arches that are visible again ;-) ). I've dropped 40 lbs in the last year because I invested in a little bitty chest freezer and a $15 second hand microwave, so now I can stretch my SNAP, (just under $200/mo), by catching sales on family packs of stuff, re-portioning it and stashing it in the freezer instead of having to buy single portions and stuff that didn't need heating.
Anyway, I knew that I had to get the repairs done before the pastures flooded for the winter, and had already made deals for the guy with the equipment to do the work on the road, so I approached the kid in September about a neighborly, working understanding with me being totally responsible for rebuilding and maintaining what the previous neighbor screwed up.
We chatted for 10-15 minutes, then I handed him the outline, a short, simple draft proposal, (one page), that acknowledged the damage the previous owner had done, (and that carefully indemnified him against any responsibility for said damage), outlined the work that needed doing and stated that we'd be totally responsible for the repairs and ongoing maintenance. He had no investment & nothing to lose.
I was trying to be more than fair and to assure him that I had no evil, sneaky designs on ‘his’ property. I just wanted to haul things up where they belong, (onto my own damned property), and be able to drive in & out to access them. As I had been able to long before he ever got here.
Should have been an offhand nothing burger. And probably would have been if I were a guy. He read it, nodded and said that we’d work something out and asked if he could look over the draft & think about it for a couple of days, I shrugged & said sure, of course. It was just a starting point, covering the basics and to show good faith. And swung by the next week to give him a few extra days and not make him feel like I was pushing.
He wasn't home & didn't respond to a polite text asking when would be a good time to swing by and talk about any adjustments he thought reasonable. Gave it another week, same thing, nada. Zero response. For more than two months.
So I was left balancing the weather, (the spot needing work has a good sized spring crossing it and needs culverts to make it a year round road, so doing the work before winter recharged the spring was necessary), and not wanting to fight with the kid, (he's basically a nice kid, just kind of selfish & short sighted as lots of twenty-somethings are). But that road's been there for decades and I have every damned right to use it. More than two thirds of the remaining farm is only accessible in the winter via that old logging road, the pasture that cuts through the property floods once the rains settle in for the winter, so you can’t cross it with a vehicle and the 25 acres with the other home/barn site, springs and potential garden spots are back up in there on the hillside.
So he blew me off, and I kept not wanting to make it into a real fight so I tried to read the tea leaves of his lack of response. Maybe he’s embarrassed and doesn't want to say 'Yes' outright, (changing from a previous almost-No from a couple of years ago) and just wants me to assume it’s a sub rosa agreement that we're not openly referring to. Okay, I can work with that. Maybe he dislikes confrontation with someone old enough to be his mother & doesn't know how to say no, so he's avoiding the subject. Silly, but entirely possible. Maybe he's just being a prick because he thinks he can and I can’t do anything about it. Hmm.
So finally, in December, (we've had a dry winter so far, but it was looking like that was ending), I told the guy to drop off the culverts and go ahead & do the repairs. Oh, boy, suddenly the kid remembers my phone number & texts, all bent out of shape. I explained that I was taking his word that we’d work something out, he gets snotty and puts the kibosh on any further work. I ask why he's been ignoring me about this for three months after saying we’d work something out and he goes radio silent again.
We're the first property off the main road, the gravel road going back to his place & beyond is private. That easement, that goes through our property to his (and on to the last remaining brother at the end), is recorded on the deeds. It guarantees access for all three property owners. But, see, if I get irritated enough, I can put as many gates across our property, on that private road, as my little heart desires. As long as I pass out keys to any of those I lock, I'm not denying access, just making it inconvenient. And that's not illegal. Or a breach of the easement rights.
At this point it's obvious I'm not going to be able to get the culverts in & the road fixed this winter, so the RVs I should be snugged up and living in are still stuck in the flooded pasture til summer and I’m still in the shop with all the stuff in storage. ::sigh::
So I apparently need to put the first two gates up and start ratcheting up the 'neighborly' pressure so he can realize his situation and just how inconvenient I can make his life -having to get in & out of his giant truck (in whatever weather and at however many gates I decide on) -going in and back out to the outside world. Every. Single. Time.
Pretty sure his wife won’t be happy.