Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
A shoveler swims past late in the day on New Year’s Eve of 2014, meaning she likely survived into the new year. The little bullfrog below almost made it into the new year but an egret plucked it from the shadows shortly before sunset. The bullfrogs move pretty slowly in the cold of winter and if spotted are easy pickings for the egrets and herons and bitterns that patrol these shores.
A few weeks back I had the worst nightmare I’ve ever had. The earth was going to be destroyed if I didn’t kill Boo and Trixie. They didn’t just have to die, they had to die at my hands. I learned from my mentor that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few — or the one — and since their young lives were forfeit no matter what I did, I agreed to do it. I picked them up and held them in my hands. They gave no resistance.
But I couldn’t do it. I would give my life but I wouldn’t take theirs.
I don’t remember anything else, so presumably the earth was destroyed by whatever malevolent force threatened it. Sorry about that.
A couple of weeks later I had the gentlest nightmare I’ve ever had, consisting of me walking around with my pants pockets overstuffed with pennies. That was the entirety of the horror of the dream, me walking around with jingly-jangly pockets weighed down with worthless currency. As much as I hate pennies, that’s a pretty easy cross to bear.
One of the things I love about the Canon M is how quiet and unobtrusive it is, which makes it a lot easier to take pictures of the pets without alarming them — despite what Sam’s appearance might suggest. The reason his eyes are wide open and his ears pinned back is that it was nearly dinner time, and he heard a noise downstairs and was at full alert to determine if he was about to be fed, with his ears angled back to pick up any noise coming from beyond the door. He had been curled up in my lap and kept hinting that it was time to be fed, starting about two hours before his actual dinner time. That’s Trixie back there on the bed, we were all hanging out in the room with the air conditioner with the door cracked open so the cats can come and go. Another nice thing about the M is I could put it down by my side to take the picture, so that I could include not just Sam’s hilarious expression (he was staring at the wall, not at me), but also my legs to show he was curled up on my lap, Trixie as a reminder we were all up there, and the slightly open door to show the real reason he was on Red Alert.
This record-shattering summer gave us one last weekend of cruel, hot weather and we had to retreat to the bedroom once again, but this picture is from a month ago. The weather was much cooler today and should stay nice from here on out until we are firmly in fall’s embrace.
A song sparrow sings on an early March morning. You can see some bird droppings on the blackberry below it, suggesting this is a favorite perch, as birds often eliminate their waste before taking flight.
I was photographing our cats Boo and Trixie playing together when I noticed Ellie patiently waiting in the doorway behind me. She looks so sad when her mouth is closed, so I got some treats hoping I could convince her to give me a big smile. However Ellie is serious about food and instead of a smile I got an intense stare.
She got her treat.
A break in the heat allowed us to open the windows during the day, so Sam took advantage to climb to the top of the cat tree to enjoy both fresh air and sunshine.
The route Ellie and I take on our walk through Irving Park is lined with old oak trees, so in the fall we are surrounded by ripened acorns that have fallen to the ground. They smell enough like food to Ellie that she wants to sniff them, but not enough like food to try to eat them. Still, she wants to sniff each acorn just to be sure, hope springs eternal when it comes to food with this dog. This morning a storm knocked a bunch of green acorns to the ground and some kids collected them and stuffed them into the largest hole the dogs had dug in the dog park. Ellie of course had to sniff them, although not for long, the green acorns didn’t hold the appeal of the ripened ones.
In the picture below, Ellie again “sniffs” the acorns. I put sniffs in quotes because this was our evening walk and the morning’s sniff had already revealed there was no food to be had, so she wasn’t interested in further inspection. I wanted a different vantage point than the morning picture however so I bribed her by placing one of her treats beside the acorns. We must have been in a vortex that swallowed sound, however, as several times she seemed not to hear me when I gave the “leave it” command and instead ate the treat as soon as I set it down.
Not the most productive weekend I’ve ever had, spent much of it with at least one of the cats (and sometimes all three) curled up on me. Sometimes I may have joined them in a nap. Saturday I spent much of the day in our air-conditioned room as the high winds and occasional rain made it hard to keep the windows open and the house was still pretty hot from the past heat wave. Today brought more (much needed) rain but less wind so we could keep most of the windows open, but the wind had stirred something up that upset my sinuses as I was a bit loopy and woozy today.
This picture of a sleepy Sam in my lap is from this afternoon, but he’s in the exact same spot as I write this late at night. I held the camera down at his eye level and over to the side so my legs and feet would be visible, emphasizing that he was curled up in my lap. The ability to move the camera away from my eye is my favorite thing about mirrorless cameras, I do it constantly for my pet pictures. It’s not a stable way to hold the camera though, which is why I’ve been thinking of switching to a camera system that builds stabilization into the camera.
I was walking up to see the geothermal features in the Artists’ Paintpots region of Yellowstone and was surprised to see this elk and her calf near the trail. The calf started nursing and the mother, despite looking at me in this picture, was rather non-plussed by my presence. No one else was around so it was just a quiet little shared moment between the three of us.
We finally got some much needed rain and I wanted to take a picture to celebrate it, but we also got high winds so I couldn’t take any macro pictures like last time. But when I took Ellie up to the dog park I saw this hole that had started to fill with water and it reminded me of another hole in the earth I like photographing, one from Yellowstone National Park (shown below). That one is one of the many geothermal features in the area and is filled with water from below, not above.
There are a few of these holes in the dog park, and since Ellie likes to run beside me in the park, I have to navigate around the holes so that neither one of us steps in one and twists an ankle (she watches me more than the way ahead, trusting me not to lead her astray). The parks folks fill them in occasionally but some dogs like to dig, so new holes always appear. They’ve been spreading sand at this end of the park the past few years and it’s a big help during the winter when rain is not hard to come by, as the sand drains well and it gives Ellie and I a safe area to run in. In the old days she’d still want to run out into the grass, but only one of us has a body built for running in such muddy circumstances, and these days even she isn’t quite as steady on her feet as age begins to take its toll.
I never imagined the dog park would remind me of my beloved Yellowstone so today’s visit made me smile almost as much as the goofball dog who waited patiently for me to take the picture, and of course expected a treat as her reward.
Boolie 