Boolie

Psst! Hey Em! Do You Want to Know a Secret?

I think she just wants to sleep, Samwise.

The Slow Road

I always knew Scout’s death would be particularly hard for me but I didn’t expect it to be this hard. It’s been four months since she died but the road to recovery has been a slower walk than I expected. It hasn’t helped that work got unexpectedly stressful and hectic during those months, leaving me so worn out that I was often falling asleep after dinner. Rather embarrassing for a night owl like me.

They say you shouldn’t make any major changes in the wake of the loss of a loved one, and though I suppose the advice usually applies to the death of a spouse I’ve applied it here as well, for there have been a number of times the past few months I’ve felt like abandoning wildlife photography. I suppose that’s partly a reaction to the amount of time it takes to photograph the way I like and partly to the new telephotos being priced far out of my range.

It is true I haven’t been up to Ridgefield since January, partly because I haven’t felt like going, but partly because I’ve been too tired to get up at the early hours I like to visit the refuge. And I guess I did put my camera aside entirely for a few months until I started taking pictures of the pets again these past few weeks, but at least I did use my time away from Ridgefield to start expanding out the wildflower garden I started a few years ago. I’m slowly making the backyard more bird friendly, as I’ve been experimenting with shooting birds from my office window. And this fall when the birds migrate back, I’ll join them at Ridgefield.

Unfortunately I didn’t get much done on the computer since our cat Sam, who had been close to Scout and struggled too after her death, was constantly snuggled up on my lap where my computer normally resides. But coincident with the warming weather and opening of windows he has ventured further afield, so I’m making my return to blogging and hope to get caught up on email.

This picture of Scout is from January of 2007 as she sat in her heated bed in my office. Templeton was still alive then but would die at the end of the year, shortly before we adopted our cats Sam and Emma, a year before our dog Ellie. Life marches on and someday soon I’ll be able to look at pictures of Scout with all smiles and no tears, just as I can with Templeton.

I’m just not quite there yet.

A Good Fit

I’ve put about 2000 miles on our new XV Crosstrek over the past four months and I have to say, I absolutely adore the car. Somebody at Subaru loves me.

Subaru has announced a hybrid version of the Crosstrek that will come out this fall that, while barely improving the gas mileage, adds a number of other features I like — especially since it looks like it can go short distances on battery alone, which would make it perfect for visiting Ridgefield. Some of the improvements are things that were already available on Crosstreks in other regions of the world — turn indicators on the mirrors, keyless entry and start, and a stop/start engine. Others are new and address a couple of criticisms I have of my Crosstrek — more sound insulation and an easier-to-read speedometer.

While it mostly sounds like a nice improvement on a car that fits me so well, there are a few downsides. Price hasn’t been announced, the gas tank got smaller so range isn’t really increasing, and the wheels are a little more traditional and not as fun as mine. But above all, they abandoned the lovely tail lights of my car (shown above) and went with a clear LED cluster. Whoever designed the lights on my Crosstrek gets top marks as I love both the front and rear light clusters, and that’s rare for me. I’m also glad to once more be driving a car with orange turn signals in the back, another thing I’m going to make mandatory when I’m king of the world.

Despite its inferior taillights, we’ll likely replace the aging Outback with the new hybrid this fall and become a two-Crosstrek family. Assuming the Outback makes it that long, it was out of commission for a couple of weeks for repairs after getting rear-ended while stopped at a stop light. The repairs were expensive enough that I was afraid the insurance company might write the car off, but thankfully they didn’t. It’s been a great car and sold me on the Subaru brand, I hope the Crosstrek serves us as faithfully.

Twelve

Scout would have turned twelve today.

This was my view these past twelve years as I edited nearly every image you’ve seen here, Scout in her heated bed, sitting right in front of me. Usually she’d be curled up in the bed but sometimes she’d watch me as I worked. She was a tiny little thing so if she was laying down she had to stick her head up to reach the top. It didn’t look too comfortable but it always made me laugh.

Oh Scout, you were the best, and I miss you so.

Peace

My favorite coyote picture, taken over a year ago in January of 2012.

Coyotes have a complicated and controversial relationship with our modern world, and I’m not sure how this pack will fare now that subdivisions have replaced the meadows on the hills above the refuge. I see them near the road sometimes as I drive into town before sunrise, but I see them as roadkill too. And there will be conflicts with barbed-wire fences and dogs and cats.

But on this morning, as it hunted for voles with its mate, and as a few snowflakes began to fall, all was peaceful. Only the three of us were around, and since I stayed quiet in my car, they let me watch at my leisure as they worked the length of the dike.

A peaceful morning for me, if not for the voles.

The Eyes of Ellie

We speak a different language, she and I, but her big brown eyes stare deeply into mine and ask what words cannot.

“Can I have a piece of your pizza?”

Yawn

Northern harriers like this yawning female are one of the most commonly seen birds of prey at Ridgefield but they usually keep their distance, so I don’t get to play around with close-up pictures of them. I keep hoping one day …

Sam & Emma

A shot from last fall of Sam and Emma.

The two are friendly but don’t often cuddle up like this, which is unfortunate since in the six weeks since Scout passed away, the ever-snuggly Sam has been on constant lookout to replace her affections. A lot of the time the two spent together they spent with me, so it’s not so much that he’s spending more time with me but rather that he wants to be up close rather than out on my legs, a favorite Sam spot since he was a wee kitten.

I don’t know if we’ll ever adopt another kitten in the hopes that the two will become close friends, just as he and Scout did five years ago, but in the meantime we’ve tried some commercially available Scout substitutes, such as

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Scout
Skout
Kiss Me I’m Scouttish

but so far none have worked.

For such a tiny little cat, she left a big hole to fill.

A Slow Recovery

Hard as it is for me to believe, it’s been almost five weeks since Scout passed away. Her loss has been particularly hard on little Sam but he’s been making a slow recovery and is now nearly back to normal, or perhaps has reached the new normal. Sam loves snuggling on my legs (shown here a few years ago), to the point that if life were a cartoon I’d have permanent Sam-shaped divots on my legs. But after Scout died he’d only sit in my lap tucked up tight against my chest, as though he was huddling against the cold. After a couple of weeks he relaxed a bit and while still in my lap moved a few inches away, and then a few inches more, but he still stays so close that I can’t really work on my laptop.

I don’t know if he’ll return to sleeping on my legs or if I’ll have to adapt to his new position on my lap. Sometimes he’ll walk down to where he used to sleep but he’ll turn around and come back, so perhaps it’s just going to take a bit more time. He did go all the way down to my feet the other day, but not unaided. Our dog Ellie was snuggling up next to me as well and suddenly sat up and began licking him in the face. He put up with the indignity for a little while but when it was clear she wasn’t going to stop, he moved down to my feet until the coast was clear when she fell back asleep, and then he came back.

His purr has finally returned. It didn’t completely disappear after Scout died, but it got very quiet and hard to come by and didn’t last long. Just in the past few days he’s purred loud and long when we climb into bed at night, so he is definitely recovering.

So too am I.

Scout was my near and constant companion so when I’m at home even now her absence is clearly felt. After getting past that initial wall of grief in the days after she died, a shadow of sadness lurks and at unpredictable times I feel her loss most acutely. But that is at it should be, she was one of the best parts of my life.

With Sam snuggling too close for me to do much typing on my laptop, I’ve been catching up on a lot of old classic movies and British mysteries, usually with Sam on my lap, Ellie tucked up beside me on my right, with our other cat Emma a few feet to my left in her heated bed. Scout’s heated bed lies empty, and that in and of itself is surprising. Sam loved sleeping in her bed and I assumed after she died he’d take it over as his. But right after she died he’d only occasionally get in, then for a few weeks actively avoided it. Now he’s back to occasionally sleeping in it, but mostly it lies empty.

He has been sleeping in Ellie’s beds quite a bit, but that’s not unusual, he’s always done that. Emma has started doing it too, and I had to laugh the other day when both of Ellie’s beds near my office were full of cats and Ellie was scrunched up over on the floor beside them.

What a blessing they are, these little ones.

Looking Up

A female lesser scaup scans the skies while swimming in the soft light of a winter’s morning. I love photographing when the waters are this still and found her expression almost whimsical, but there’s a good reason the ducks keep an eye on the skies above Ridgefield.