boolie

Los Hermanos

The brothers keep me company on my couch during Thanksgiving break.

A couple of quick snapshots after sunset, taken a week apart in October, as I hiked out of the local preserve. I like the blue light of the second picture the best, the park closed a bit after sunset so I had enough time to wait for the soft light of dusk before leaving (I’m steps away from the park entrance where my wife was picking me up).

That’s Brown’s Mountain sneaking in in the background, I usually try to include the mountains in this area if I can since they were so fundamental to me getting oriented on the trails when we moved here and life seemed a whirlwind. I’ve been meaning to try some other compositions but to get here I have to make it past a couple of favorite trails that often have good views of wildlife, such as the last picture where a female Gila woodpecker sidles round a saguaro in the last light of the day. Hard to pass up a chance to watch the desert fauna, at which point I have to hurry on down the trail. One day though, one day …

Well Well Well, Nikon, We Meet at Last

The title is a slight exaggeration in that while this is my first Nikon camera it is not my first Nikon, that distinction belongs to the Coolscan III film scanner I had many years ago. The Z fc is an experiment for me on multiple levels, I’ve long wanted a camera with focus bracketing so as long as I like the camera I’ll be picking up Nikon’s macro when it comes back in stock. I’m hoping the Z will take over for when I want to go even lighter than I can with my little Sony’s. Plus I want to try out the Nikon user interface, and as well see if I like the flip-out LCD screen as much as I think I will. Came close to getting the Z7 II when Nikon had a sale on refurbished gear but I wasn’t quick enough on the draw, but I think this one will be a lot of fun too.

If Trixie seems a little unsure it’s because she’s been in a mood all day, Sam had a checkup at the vet today and seeing the cat carrier brought back bad memories of her last vet visit, which we are all trying to forget …

The 5 a.m. Club

The brothers woke me at 5 a.m. yesterday (more precisely, Boo woke me to pet him a bit then Sam jumped up for a snugglefest) and, unable to get back to sleep, I eventually got up for a sunrise hike. The scene repeated this morning except I immediately fell back asleep after they each got their pets. We’ll see what happens tomorrow, I wouldn’t mind another early hike, but I would prefer if they’d wake me closer to the time I need to be up and at ’em when the park opens.

On the medical front, Trixie is officially out of quarantine after her biting incident and Boo’s blood test came back with no alarming results though it doesn’t tell us why one of his markers was high.

Smaller of the Larger

I’ve posted a lot of the smaller creatures of the desert lately, even if the larger of the smaller like tarantulas and black witches, so let me post one of the larger creatures of the desert, even if the smaller of the larger as this white-spotted fawn is still fairly young. It was gently browsing through the desert in the late afternoon sun with a sibling and their mother. I wasn’t completely taken aback when we moved here to find deer in the desert, we had mulies in the high desert of central Oregon, as well as blacktails and Columbian whitetails in the wet western valleys. Still, with the extreme heat of the summers it amazes me anything can survive here.

A week later I was back in the same area, the sun had just set and I was nearing the park border where I was meeting my wife, my hike ending, when I met a different mule deer doe and this older fawn, their day beginning.

I Call This One Bitey

The other day Trixie was due for a routine checkup but knew something was up and hid under the bed. I coaxed her out by softly calling her name and, feeling safe, she came right to me only to realize she was betrayed. I carried her wriggling form to the cat carrier to cries of “Judas! Judas!”. She needed to go back in to have a tooth dealt with but this time knew better than to trust me so I had to move the bed to get to her. I best not repeat her words from that morning.

This was her first time under anesthesia and she must have been pretty terrified when she was coming to as she bit one of the vet assistants. We have to keep Trixie quarantined at home and watch for signs of rabies but that’s not a problem as she’s an indoor cat (I mean, except that one time). Thankfully the vet called to let us know her victim is doing well, I guess it’s not that unusual (there’s even a medical term for it) but it’s our first time dealing with it.

My deepest gratitude to all the vets out there who have to deal with terrified patients who don’t understand they’re trying to help.

(Today’s title is a nod to one of my favorite Simpson’s episodes, Marge vs. the Monorail, it’s similar to a line from Homer about the opossums living in the monorail cockpit. I watched it yet again in honor of Trixie and it still makes me laugh after all these years.)

The Ways of Boo Are Spreading

We keep an array of cardboard boxes around the house for Boo to sleep in, while he has his favorites he likes to mix things up from time to time. I’m not sure he knew what to make of Sam suddenly deciding to take over the box from my latest REI delivery but it has become one of his favorite places to sleep (when not curled up on one of us). I saw Boo one day just watching Sam sleeping, I couldn’t tell if he was delighted that his older brother was taking after him, annoyed at the loss of one of his box choices, or a little of both.

The Hardest Part of Working From Home

For the past year or so while I go into the office during the day I can usually finish up my tasks from home. Depending on how deep of a sleep they are in the brothers often greet me at the door, Sam is always eager to jump into my lap once I get settled and sometimes Boo as well. The hardest part of working from home can be finding room in the lap for the laptop.

In The Interests of Human/Spider Relations

Last Sunday evening I headed out for a quick hike, while I brought my camera I really just wanted to get out into the desert for a little while. Late in the day as I started the hike back towards where my wife was picking me up, I saw a small black form in the middle of the trail ahead of me. As I approached it looked to my still-learning eyes like a tarantula, only shrunk in size 3 or 4 times. I was aware the adult males might be on the move in the fall but instead of fitting in the palm of my hand this one would have fit on my watch face.

I took a few quick pictures but wanted to encourage it to move to a safer spot, this trail is popular with cyclists and trail runners, so I tapped the ground behind it with my feet. Their eyesight is even worse than mine but they’re very sensitive to vibrations so I expected it to scurry up the side of the trail to more hospitable terrain, but while I could get it to move further out of harm’s way eventually it just stopped in the trail and raised its abdomen. Even as a neophyte I know that’s a sign of an unhappy spider.

I checked where the tread marks were and felt it had moved enough to be safe from the line the cyclists typically took and, tapping my toes having exhausted my ideas about how to get a tarantula to move, I continued on my way. A cyclist passed me several minutes later so I decided to backtrack to the little thing, though I really wasn’t in the mood to see a squished spider I was hoping for the best.

Thankfully when I arrived I saw it had fully moved up to the edge of the trail. In the interests of human/spider relations I avoided saying “I told you so” and was just happy it was in a safer place and pointed away from the trail. I took a few more pictures since it was so relaxed and continued towards the trailhead.

Snout Slurp

An American snout enjoys the remains of lantana fruit in our backyard. After the monsoons this summer and fall when the flowers were in full bloom I’d close my mouth as I walked past this bush to make sure I didn’t accidentally inhale a butterfly from the mob that flittered about. We recently had landscapers dig up the many bougainvillea plants in the backyard and a couple of palms that had died or were struggling, initially I was unsure on whether to keep the lantana but after seeing how the butterflies loved it I decided to keep them.

Author: boolie