Boolie

The Trixie Maneuver

Back in March I was photographing Boo resting on the heating vent when we experienced the Trixie Maneuver, where she approached and backed up and sat down right in front of him, anxiously waiting to see if he would attack her. She had been trying these submissive approaches with Boo, mostly unsuccessfully, but while his eyes went wide for a moment, he did allow her to stay, and she leaned over on her side with her feet and tail overlapping his hands.

While it took a couple of months for Boo to accept Trixie, peace does not yet reign among the cats in our household. Boo and Sam have been at odds since Emma died and Trixie arrived, and Sam has had enough of both the young cats. He’s fine if they are on their own but swats them if they try to snuggle with him.

These things take time, and to help normalize relations I’ve been lining the three of them up each day to give them some cat treats, and they all get along fine then. Sam will be a lot happier when he relents, as he’ll love having extra snuggling partners, but for the moment he’s curled up in my lap and happy to be on his own.

Rear Window

Templeton does a little bird watching from one of the rear windows in our old house. That house was much more modern than our current house, one of the things I miss is the many windows and the great views into the backyard. And the air conditioning. And the two-car garage. While we had nice neighbors on either side, in general I much prefer our current neighborhood, and I certainly don’t miss the commute.

Gray Tuxedo

A picture from 2001 of our cat Templeton, this picture has been offline since I took my old site down a while back. He was a handsome little fellow in a gray tuxedo coat and would transform my thinking about cats. What a blessing it was to have known him.

Stately

The robin is one of the most familiar birds in the United States and I had a fondness for them growing up, partly because they were easy to see in the many trees around our house and partly because they were the state bird of my state at the time, Michigan. I love photographing them but funnily enough don’t see them that often in the places I visit most. This male was feeding on the ground on a rainy winter afternoon at my favorite wildlife refuge and was the last shot I took on the day.

Matted

This coyote was hunting along the edge of Rest Lake with another coyote on a winter afternoon. I saw them on multiple occasions, moving about the refuge together, this one had matted fur under its neck and was easy to recognize.

Preening

A red-winged blackbird preens his red feathers.

Have Boo, Will Travel

After the arrival of Trixie, Boo decided it was time he was moving on and packaged himself for transport.

I took this with my little Canon mirrorless camera but the light levels were so low that the image quality suffered. I really enjoy the concept of mirrorless cameras and would like to use them for most of my non-wildlife photography, but it will mean moving away from Canon for the first time ever as they are deliberately (and perhaps understandably) holding back on designing good ones until the market matures. Sony has some full-frame models that would have better handled this scene, if I had to choose today I’d probably go that route, but the expense of buying new lenses is holding me back at the moment.

Converted Farmland

The wildlife refuges near me are converted farmland and to my eye this is most evident at the William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge in Corvallis, Oregon. There are several barns around the property, such as this one near the old fruit orchard, and the headquarters is in the old pioneer house. Or at least it was, I can’t say for sure if it still is today. We used to live near Salem and driving to Finley was reasonable, but since we moved to Portland over a decade ago it would now be a two hour drive (four hours round trip). So I haven’t been in many years, but perhaps I should make the pilgrimage one day to get reacquainted.

A Snapshot of Scout

I’ve never put this picture of Scout online before as it’s just a simple snapshot from when she was around one year old, but I was editing it today and my eyes filled with tears and I had to put it aside for a while. It caught me off guard, as while I will go to my grave missing her, she died two years ago and usually by now the sense of loss isn’t quite so pointed. Besides I’ve edited other pictures of her recently with only the expected dull ache of distant loss.

I suppose it has as much to do with Emma as Scout as I’ve been thinking a lot about her recently. Grieving for her got interrupted with the health problems the other pets had and as needs must, we focused on the sick more than the dead. They were both far too young when they died, especially Em, and while we tried everything to save them, ultimately their fates were out of our hands.

The silver lining, of course, in outliving our pets is that as sorry as I am to have lost Scout and Emma, I’m happy to have welcomed Boo and Trixie into our home. Only I hope I won’t grieve for their loss for many years to come.

Winter in the Willamette Valley

Winters in Oregon’s Willamette Valley are generally cool, not cold, and more wet from rain than white from snow. This allows many plants to stay green throughout the winter, with my favorite green that of moss which almost glows in the soft overcast light. This picture from 2002 is from the forested section of Baskett Butte, where moss covered the branches that had fallen to the forest floor.