Oh how I love our sweet Ellie!
Blog
Early Present
In 2013, I returned to Ridgefield a couple of days before Christmas after a nearly year-long absence from the refuge. It was a fun day filled with herons and mergansers and even my first sighting of Columbian white-tailed deer, but I was especially pleased to see bitterns, a sentimental favorite of mine, at Rest Lake.
Hoodie & The Fish
I spent the morning sitting still at the edge of Long Lake and was rewarded when a small group of hooded mergansers swam in close to feed. There’s a sign hanging above a culvert that blocks part of the view of this section of the lake, but thankfully for me this male surfaced in plain view with a fish in his mouth.
Impaled
I’ve seen great blue herons catch a wide a variety of animals at Ridgefield, but most of the fish they catch near the shore are really small, so I was a bit surprised when this heron speared a larger fish at the edge of Long Lake.
No Worries
Boo in November at about a year old. This picture makes me laugh when I think about the terrified little kitten we brought home just four months prior.
The Elegant Pintail
The pintails on Horse Lake often keep their distance but sometimes you’ll get lucky and they’ll swim close to the shore, such as this handsome drake on New Year’s Eve.
The Prisoners
When Ellie and I got back from her evening walk to the dog park, I noticed all three cats watching us enviously from the open window in my office.
A Year of Boo
It was one year ago today that we adopted a seven-month old black-and-white kitten named Bronco from the Oregon Humane Society. We renamed the shy little fellow Boo and slowly introduced him to the other pets over the course of a month. He was so terrified when we first met that he shook like a leaf, so it’s been fun to see him become a part of our family. On this afternoon in April, he and Sam snuggled up together on my legs.
My allergies flared up unexpectedly this spring so I spent much of my time the past few months relaxing with the pets draped on me, rather than writing or editing pictures. An unproductive time but not an altogether unpleasant one.
Did Someone Order a Box of Boo?
If you’re a very important customer, Amazon sends you a free cat bed with nearly every order.
The Return of the Snuggle Fiend
Sam used to spend his days either curled up in my lap or in the heated bed beside our cat Scout, but her death over a year ago was pretty hard on him. At first he snuggled with me more than ever but then started spending much of his time on his own. Gradually he returned to me more and more and now can usually be found curled up in my lap, and at night follows me up to bed.
Boolie 