Author: boolie

Pride

Our cat Sam yawns while playing with a rainbow cat toy on the carpet in July 2019

Sam wanted to show his enthusiastic support during Pride month and would like to point out the delay in posting is nothing to do with him.

The Growing Banana

A banana yucca fruit begins to grow along the Upper Ranch Trail in McDowell Sonoran Preserve in Scottsdale, Arizona in May 2019

A banana yucca fruit begins to grow along the Upper Ranch Trail in McDowell Sonoran Preserve. I hadn’t photographed them last year when we moved to Arizona, I saw all and noticed little, but this year I realized how beautiful the entire process is from bud to flower to fruit. Towards the end of Ellie’s life I didn’t have much time for hiking when they were budding and flowering and after she died I wasn’t in the mood for photographing them regardless. I knew I was healing as the days progressed as though I initially walked past I came back and took the time to get out the macro lens and tripod and photograph the growing fruit amidst dried flowers in the soft light before sunrise.

I suppose it was a sign of my mental state that I posted this elsewhere but somehow it didn’t make it to the blog until now, not sure what happened.

Bananas

Fruit grows on a banana yucca as a white-winged dove flies overhead early one morning on the Latigo Trail in the Brown's Ranch section of McDowell Sonoran Preserve in Scottsdale, Arizona in June 2019

I remember banana yuccas from last year but I can’t remember seeing the “bananas” themselves. I must have as they are hard to miss, either I’ve forgotten or I was just too overwhelmed by all the new sights before me. This year I photographed them a few times, although not in their earliest stages of development as it was at the end of Ellie’s life. I was waiting for this plant to be fully in the light as the sun came up but shadows from saguaros and trees behind me always cast at least some of the plant in shadow. Still I was delighted when a white-winged dove photobombed the picture, always nice to have wildlife in the picture even when they aren’t the subject.

Bookends

A white-winged dove and a canyon towhee bookend a fruiting saguaro before sunrise on the Latigo Trail in the Brown's Ranch section of McDowell Sonoran Preserve in Scottsdale, Arizona in July 2019

A white-winged dove and a canyon towhee bookend a fruiting saguaro before sunrise on the Latigo Trail. The morning lows are in the 80’s now, even I am wearing short sleeves on the trails. Normally I prefer long sleeves to physically keep the sun off my skin but for the next couple of months I’ll rely on sunscreen and being off the trails early before the sun gets too bright. Still wearing long pants though, too many things in the desert want to poke you when you get down low to photograph lizards.

The Early Days

Our dog Ellie sits in the grass in the backyard of our house in Portland, Oregon with her front paw on a tennis ball in January 2009

Ellie in the backyard in January 2009, three weeks after we adopted her. It looks a little posed, her paw on the tennis ball, but she did that in the early days. Did she stop it at some point? I remember her doing it back then but not after that, maybe it’s my faulty memory, maybe it had just been a while since she was able to run and fetch. She’s probably looking at my wife offscreen, she followed her everywhere in those days. Our bond became so strong for so long that it’s easy for me to forget that it took some time to form. The love was immediate though, on both sides, to know her was to love her.