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Current Mood

An overhead view of our cat Boo sleeping on a blanket on the window seat with his head and arms stuffed into pillows in July 2019

I’ve been a bit worn out this past month and haven’t been hiking in a couple of weeks, we’ll see how this weekend goes. I’m not completely exhausted like I was when we moved and during the last weeks of Ellie’s life, and I haven’t had to work long hours, rather it’s just that there’s been a lot going on, a lot to learn, and it’s taken a bit out of me. It hasn’t helped that this past week the night owl has been reasserting himself, if only I could sleep like Boo! Thankfully while he was pretty stressed after Ellie died our resident philosopher has been doing better lately.

The First of the Second

The head of a bobcat is visible as it peers over a large rock formation on the Jane Rau Trail in McDowell Sonoran Preserve in Scottsale, Arizona in July 2019

One more bobcat photo, this is the first one I took of my second ever sighting. Though most of the sky was blue, there were low lying clouds in the east that were frequently changing the light. This morning it worked in my favor as clouds partially obscured the sun as I walked back to check out what initially looked like a coyote-shaped cactus. The clouds not only softened the light but made it more diffuse so that the left side of the cat’s face isn’t in such deep shadow. If I could only choose one I’d prefer the shot where it is peering over the rocks but I also like how here the bobcat’s lovely face is fully shown while it verified I wasn’t a threat before settling in for a nap.

Dressed in Blue and Brown

An environmental portrait of a bobcat peering out from the rocks atop the Jane Rau Trail in McDowell Sonoran Preserve in Scottsdale, Arizona in July 2019

If my former home in the the Pacific Northwest was a paradise of blue and green I could describe my current home in the Sonoran Desert as a paradise of blue and brown, but that would not quite be true. There is far more green in this desert than I was expecting, a dusty green to match the dusty landscape and not the lush blinding greens of the Columbia River Gorge, but green just the same. But it is true enough for this scene, the brown cat in the brown hills, the blue sky behind. There were three pictures I wanted to take on that summer morning, a close shot of the bobcat, this more distant environmental portrait, and an even wider shot showing the rocks down to the desert floor. The latter I didn’t take as since I’m only shooting with one camera I didn’t want to risk taking off the telephoto zoom in case the cat walked up onto the top of the rocks. Instead it settled down for a nap on the ledge in the middle of the frame, out of sight of both me and the rising sun.

Dressed in Blue and Green

A tree swallow perches on a mossy dead snag in the rain at Long Lake on the auto tour of the River S Unit of Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge in Ridgefield, Washington in May 2012

This picture resonates strongly with me of my former home in the Pacific Northwest, a paradise dressed in blue and green. A tree swallow pausing from its aerial hunt on a rainy spring morning, tiny drops of rain beading on its tiny wings. The blue of the bird, the greens of the moss and lichen, the blue of Long Lake below, the green of the lush grasses at its marshy border, the meadow beyond. When I first visited Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge years ago the lake was full of snags near the road but one by one they began to fall. This snag was the last one near the road but eventually it too fell.