Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
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.
Sam had been sleeping on my legs when Boo, who had been with us for about six months, came in and snuggled up tight with him. I thought Sam would get up but instead they both fell fast asleep. I wanted to snap a picture as a reminder of how our slow introduction of the shy little Boo had paid off, and thankfully had my EOS M beside me on the couch.
The M doesn’t have an articulating screen so I held the camera out blind and hoped for the best. Thankfully I had the zoom lens attached as it has image stabilization, I needed to stop down to increase the depth of field and in the low room lighting even at ISO 3200 ended up with a shutter speed of a third of a second. It doesn’t combat the blur from their breathing but it did help quite a bit with camera shake.
Ellie curled up with her two favorite toys on the dog bed in my office. She is crazy for these orange balls, I can’t take one on our walks because she spends the entire walk trying to poke it out of my hand. I wake to Ellie and her ball in the morning (she climbs in beside me when my wife gets up). I used to not let her have the balls in the house as they carry a lot of energy when they bounce, but in her advancing years she’s happy enough to play gently with me on the couch.
Taken in the midst of several days of snow, it won’t last long but Ellie and I made merry while it was here.
It might look like she’s catching the ball, but Ellie is actually throwing it back to me. We adopted her when she was five and she was already doing this cute little trick so I can’t claim any credit for it.
Age is taking its toll on her mobility but the snow (and my unexpected day off) had Ellie feeling frisky and in the mood for a game of catch.
I’ve photographed Ellie many times over the years but most of my pictures don’t show her goofy and sweet personality very well. The problem is that the moment I stop playing with her so that I can take her picture, she pauses and waits for me to start playing again, and if her mouth isn’t open she just looks sad or even, as she does here, a little bit angry. Her eyes aren’t as wide open as they normally would be to help protect them from the falling snow.
But all of that snow on her snout is from rooting through the snow to get her ball, I assure you we were having a great time.
We got hit with a bit of snow the past few days and, since the city is not well-equipped to deal with it (our winters are generally pretty mild), we were sent home from work early on Thursday and told to stay home on Friday. Since Ellie loves the snow, I hoped to get some shots of her playing as the snow fell, but unfortunately much of the snow came late in the day on Thursday and Friday, and Saturday we were out during the day.
But I did get some pictures on Friday even if most of them are not action shots like this one, as its rather hard to both throw the ball and take the pictures. For this shot I think she was coming to get a treat as the ball is in the snow behind her. It’s a bit back-focused, the autofocus on the little EOS M is not at all quick, but to be fair even my SLR has trouble tracking her black fur.
I took this picture of Boo on the last day of the year. He had been with us for almost six months and had grown so much physically and emotionally that it was hard to remember the terrified little kitten who trembled in fear at our introduction. Within the past couple of weeks he’s started curling up beside me on the couch and when I go to bed at night. It’s been heartwarming to see how much Boo has embraced his second chance at life.
My sweet Scout died a year ago today and not a day has gone by that I haven’t thought of her. The healing process took much longer than I expected, and while there are still times I miss her intensely, mostly I’m filled with fond memories rather than grief over what I lost. I didn’t photograph her a lot in her last year as she hated the camera, but thankfully on this day in the fall I went and got my camera when I saw her resting on the guest bed with our youngest cat Sam (she’s looking at him just out of frame, he was curled up in a sunbeam under the window).
Boolie 