Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
I’ve always wanted to visit the Hoh Rain Forest when it was raining but so far it’s been dry on a handful of visits. I thought on this trip my luck was going to change as it poured rain while I was in Mount Rainier National Park and while hiking in Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park, but by the end of the trip when I was near the rain forests, we had clear blue skies.
It did make for a nice walk along Rialto Beach near sunset, I’ll give it that.
A dog’s footprints stretched out before me as I walked along Rialto Beach in Olympic National Park. They weren’t from my dog as Ellie was at home a state away, but my trip was nearing its end and soon enough we would be back walking side-by-side.
We adopted Trixie early in the year so this is her first Christmas with us. We weren’t sure how she’d do with the Christmas tree so when I put it up this weekend I left it without ornaments, just in case she knocked it over.
We have prior experience.
Not only is the tree still upright but so far she hasn’t tried to climb it.
I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel putting up the tree, I last took it down right after Emma died in January, and she so loved the tree that I can’t help but think of her when I see it. It reminds me too of Templeton, as the day we put it up in 2007 was the day he died. He loved the box the tree was stored in as much as the tree itself. It reminds me of Scout too, when she was young she used to like to climb up into it and sleep near the top. She learned we didn’t want her in it since we kept chasing her out of it, so she’d slink up near the center of the tree as she could then climb without disturbing the branches or ornaments, and she’d sleep in a spot facing the wall where we couldn’t see her. I only discovered her secret spot when I found the flattened branches when I took the tree down.
But nobody loved the tree like our sweet Em.
In the end it made me happy to put it up and see the three cats hanging out peacefully below its branches, and to remember the three cats who are no longer with us. It’s the tree that we bought when we got married and it’s gotten battered by the love our cats have shown it over the years, so we’ll replace it at some point but decided to give it at least another year until we see how Trixie does.
So far so good.
I’m amazed at how far Sam has come in accepting young Trixie.
It has been a long and slow road to be sure. She is relentlessly affectionate and if he gives her an inch of acceptance, she takes a mile. Back in the summer he started letting her curl up next to him (at times), then gradually over the months he’d let her sleep with her head on his legs, then against his chest, all leading up to what she really wanted: sleeping face-to-face. And I mean literally face-to-face, she pushes hers right into his. And bless him he’s allowed her to do it on multiple occasions now, I could hardly blame him if this was a bridge too far.
Which is not to say there aren’t occasionally tears. Sometimes he’d prefer a little more space, and while Trixie has gotten better about reading his moods, there is still more work to be done. And sometimes our young cat just has a little too much energy for her older brother.
They’re curled up next to each other on my legs at the moment after earlier hanging out together under the Christmas tree. How thankful I am that this is the new normal.
Eight years ago, after accidentally smashing my 24-85mm lens on a hiking trip, I narrowed its replacement down to two Canon lenses, a 17-55mm lens and a 24-105mm lens. The 17-55 was a better fit for my crop camera but making some guesses at Canon’s future plans I figured I would be moving on to full-frame within a couple of years, and so ordered the 24-105 lens.
Looking back I might have made a mistake for I’m still shooting with crop cameras. My reasons for thinking I’d be moving to full-frame weren’t far off, it’s just that it was Nikon who went down the path I thought Canon was going to take. While I like my SLR (the Canon 7D II) quite a bit, I’ve been increasingly frustrated by the limitations of my Canon M mirrorless camera (I guessed wrong on what Canon would do with that system as well), but am not quite ready to commit to a different system yet, so in the meantime I adopted a stopgap solution.
The lens I bought was a Sigma 17-50mm f/2.8 lens, similar to the Canon 17-55mm I looked at all those years ago, but it was both vastly cheaper (it was on sale for the holidays) and can focus closer, important for the pet photography that will be one of the primary uses of the lens. This is our youngest cat Trixie curling up (literally) on my lap while our oldest cat Sam sleeps on my feet. The 7D II I will use it on is much larger and heavier and noisier than my M, but it has a nice Live View mode that lets me hold the camera away from my eyes, and the Sigma strikes a nice balance in being almost as fast as my prime lens on the M, but with the image stabilization of the zoom. This picture was taken at a quarter of a second in the dim lighting of my office, so a fast aperture and image stabilization let me get a picture I often couldn’t get before.
While Canon has been moving in a different direction than I’d prefer on several fronts, I’m very thankful for my cameras, it’s remarkable what we can do today compared to when I started in the mid-90’s. Sony is getting pretty close to having a camera that does most of what I want, and rumors are Canon may get serious about mirrorless next year, but in the meantime the Sigma should tide me over.
A hoary marmot collects grasses and flowers late on a fall day in Mount Rainier National Park. I didn’t think it could add more without dropping what it already had, but I was wrong. After adding that last bit it was either satisfied with its collection, or felt unable to collect any more, and trundled off towards its den.
Trixie using Boo as a pillow. It took a long while to get Boo to accept Trixie, but our two youngest cats are now friends and can frequently be seen (and heard) running and playing throughout the house. Even so I was a little surprised that Boo let Trixie climb on top of him as they took a nap.
This was Scout’s beloved cat bed. It’s probably best she didn’t live to see it used in such a disgraceful fashion.
Between being overly tired or sick, I’ve spent a lot of time this fall not doing much of anything but sitting on the couch covered in cats. It was supposed to be an easy year for me at work but my project proved unexpectedly difficult and left me mentally tired at the end of the day. To top it off traffic, which has been getting steadily worse since we moved to Portland years ago, crossed a threshold this year and I’m spending almost as much time on the road (and sometimes more) as when we used to live much farther away.
By the time I get home and take Ellie on her walk, eat dinner, and take care of the cats, I’m so tired I fall asleep on the couch surrounded by the little ones. On the weekend I just want to let my brain shift into neutral and not think about much of anything. Making decisions, even minor ones, has gotten more difficult, so I put off what I can. I haven’t been hiking at all this year apart from a few days in January, at first because I didn’t feel up to it after Emma died and later because I was either too tired or didn’t want to get back in the car after dealing with traffic all week.
The past couple of months it feels like I’ve been sleepwalking through my life. I’ve had this post half-written for weeks but stringing nouns and verbs together didn’t sound too appealing in my free time. It wasn’t a conscious decision but I realized I not only wasn’t taking pictures, even of the pets, but wasn’t editing my backlog, usually a favorite way to pass the time.
I’ve taken a few days off to extend my Thanksgiving break and am starting to get back on track. I’ve been able to get a bit more sleep, and this weekend I was back taking pictures of the pets. No hiking yet as I hurt my foot, it’s nothing serious but it hasn’t mended enough to risk it on the trails quite yet. It’d probably heal quicker if I stayed off it and stopped taking Ellie on her walks, but I can’t give that up, it’s one of the best parts of my day.
This picture of Sam sleeping on my legs is from September. He and Trixie are curled up on my legs at the moment, with Boo beside us and Ellie asleep in her dog bed below my feet.
We bought a portable air conditioner to get us through a miserable record-breaking summer and tide us over until we could see if we could get central air conditioning installed in our old house. Boo loved to stick his face into the stream of cool air flowing out of the vents, although I’d guess he was drawn more by curiosity than a need to cool down. We spent so much time in our little bedroom that I almost came to view the air conditioner as a member of our family. While not a large room, it did a fine job keeping the room cool even when it broke 100 degrees outside and despite the body heat from two adults, our black lab, and three cats.
I tried all summer to get this picture of Boo and this was the best result, although it isn’t sharp. I had to move quickly and in the low light my camera usually couldn’t focus fast enough, and if it did because I had to hold the camera out to get the framing I wanted, camera shake made the picture blurry (which is what happened here). Plus the sickly light from the fluorescent bulb in the lamp isn’t that pleasing.
That said, I love the picture and it makes me smile.
Today’s title is a reference to Miles Davis’ groundbreaking album Birth of the Cool.
Boolie 