October 2009 – Page 2

Fully Recovered

After a week of house rest Ellie was feeling better and definitely ready for the cone to come off. While Ellie wanted to jump right back to her normal routine, we followed the vet’s advice and slowly ramped her up to her normal activity levels. This meant her toy hedgehogs had to be hidden for a few days after the cone came off to reduce the temptation for too much running and jumping, two staples of hedgehog play.

Soon enough she was fully recovered and the house was once more filled with the joyful squeaking of hedgehogs at play. Squeaking, and squeaking, and squeaking …

Templeton! Who Raised You?

Templeton was not sticking his tongue out at Scout but rather licking his lips after chowing down on catnip, which was usually followed by him laying on his back on the concrete sidewalk and wiggling around, a legacy now claimed by little Sam. While he is definitely his own cat, he does share many of Templeton’s traits.

He’s a full-on no-apologies I’ll-sleep-on-your-legs-until-you-can’t-feel-them lap cat, just like Templeton was. He sticks his head out the door to greet me the moment I come home, just like Templeton did. He then goes downstairs to his food bowl and meows loudly to be fed, meows even if his bowl has plenty of food but he can actually see a bit of the bottom of the bowl, meows just because he likes the comfort of having me come down and go through the motions of feeding him. Just like Templeton did.

He’s an excellent groomer and yet never has hairballs, just like — well, Templeton was an excellent groomer.

Where Did All The Birds Go?

Scout can’t quite figure out why there aren’t any birds in the birdbath when she sits beside it, even though she sees the birds playing in the water when she’s watching from inside the house. This is another picture from 2003, I broke the birdbath not long after.

Gargoyle

Templeton used to love to sleep atop the bookcases but as he aged he had trouble jumping that high. If he sat beside my bookcase to indicate he wanted up, I’d place him up there for a catnap and get him down when he woke up. On this particular day, I climbed on top of a chair so that we’d be eye to eye when I took the picture.

Waddling Clothes

Two young marmots play in a mountain meadow as one of the adults looks on. We came across this colony in the early fall beside the Skyline Trail in Mount Rainier. You can see how chubby even the youngsters are at this time of the year as they prepare to hibernate through the long winter on the mountain. Despite being wrapped in waddling clothes, the marmots move with surprising speed when they want to, bursting across the talus fields with a speed that belies their bellies.