grass – Boolie

Two Dancers

Two dancers in the morning light, not yet ready to yield the night. A high thin band of smoke from wildfires in California blanketed the sky and the light had an unusual look to it, in person I preferred the trees when directly lit but in pictures I have a slight preference to this subtler version when the light dimmed. If they were closer to one of the trailheads I’d have photographed these trees (tree? trees? not sure) dozens of times by now but to get to them I have to walk past my favorite saguaro and a phalanx of woodpeckers, hawks, wrens, thrashers, and flycatchers. To solve this problem I’m thinking of getting a big catapult to chuck me directly into the middle of the preserve, I haven’t worked out how to survive the landing but no plan is perfect.

Halloween in the Desert in 2018

A few pictures from 2018 of Halloween decorations in the Buenavante neighborhood where we rented in our first year in Arizona. Halloween certainly had a different feel after our many years in Portland.

Life Finds a Way

The Handsome Fellow

I was editing this picture of Templeton from 2003 so I could bring its associated blog post back online only to discover there was no associated post, and it never even made it up onto my old site before then, but better late than never. Templeton was a handsome little fellow with his green eyes and gray tuxedo and had a charming personality to match. I wasn’t a cat person when I met him a decade prior when my wife and I started dating, how little I understood then of how he would change my life. I didn’t get my first camera until college or grad school, the most basic of point and shoots, with my first SLR in my last year of grad school, so I’m thankful I switched to digital in 2000 and began photographing him more often. This picture encapsulates a lot for me, I took it during our first full year in the house in Portland where we would live for sixteen years. I think of him every day as I do all the pets and am thankful for the pictures I have to remember him by, he was a little charmer!

My Guardians

Tomorrow I’m scheduled to meet an oral surgeon to get my last wisdom tooth removed, I wish they had removed them all when I was young but it is what it is. The other lower one was removed years ago while we were in Portland and the dentist struggled to get it out, I was laid up for a couple of days on heavy pain killers. What I remember from those days was waking up every four hours or so to change the gauze in my mouth or to take new meds, and every time I woke up a different cat was sleeping on my chest. It may have been coincidence but at the time it felt as though Templeton and Scout were working in shifts, making sure I was alright, and indeed I was thankful for their devotion. Here the two play in the backyard in 2003 during their supervised outdoor time, Templeton in the foreground and Scout back by the window under my office.

Good with Children

When we adopted Ellie in 2009, fortunately for us her previous owners (who called her Sidka) filled in a detailed questionnaire about her when they left her with the Humane Society for Southwest Washington (who transferred her across the river to the Oregon Humane Society where we adopted her a day later). They had at least two kids of their own and it was obvious from their responses that Ellie had been dearly loved.

In the section on behavior with children, to the question of “How will your dog react to a child approaching while he/she is sleeping?” they answered “wanting love”, which brings tears to my eyes even now. To the question of “Would you recommend this dog live with children?” they checked yes and added “Good with kids. Very loving (good for slow or disabled child)”. I felt a little guilty upon reading that when we adopted her as we had no children of our own and didn’t need a dog who was so loving towards them.

We did need a dog who would be loving towards cats and they often go hand in hand, and it turned out Ellie had experience not just with children but with other dogs and cats and got along well with all. I was a little worried too that she would miss having kids around but looking back now, knowing how deeply she bonded to my wife and I, I needn’t have been concerned.

The picture is from the fall of 2013, some of the neighborhood kids had come over into our backyard and joined me in playing with her. Everybody loved her.

Nearly everyone. One of the elderly neighbors was afraid of dogs so when we passed on our walks I’d give her the heel command and she’d pull up tight to my side and keep watching me until she got her treat. I started doing the same with dogs who were afraid of other dogs and even though Ellie loved meeting other dogs, she quickly picked up on her own which dogs would rather pass by so I didn’t even have to give her the heel command, she’d immediately come to my side and watch me until she got her treat.

Which caused an issue when I realized some dogs would give her a wide berth at first until they saw that she was friendly, then would turn around and eagerly want to meet her. I had to laugh as she’d give those dogs the side-eye, trying to keep her distance, as she didn’t want to risk giving up her treat for having ignored a dog who didn’t want to say hello. I learned to quickly give her a treat so she’d say hello, then she’d want another treat for being gentle with the dog and not scaring it.

She always got the second treat.

To the Old and To the New

We’re taking the pets up to the new house this afternoon and will spend our first night there, with the movers packing up the rental house tomorrow and delivering on the next day. This is Ellie enjoying a sunny day in the backyard of the rental house, we’ve had a great year here and have loved the house and the neighborhood but are very much looking forward to being settled into our new home.

Frost & Fog

A great blue heron takes a break from hunting voles in a meadow on a cold and foggy December morning in 2006.

A Long Ago Spring

Twelve years ago on a cloudy spring morning at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge I came across this muskrat eating the grasses at the edge of one of the lakes or ponds. I don’t remember where exactly and my notes back then were rather sparse and don’t provide any clues.

Up & Up & Up

Bitterns can look like a football with a head attached so it always amazed me when they’d stand and stretch their necks up, and up, and up. Useful for seeing over tall grasses and also as a defensive pose, I saw them do it multiple times when bald eagles soared high overhead, although the subterfuge worked best when the grasses were brown instead of green. I was never quite sure how they distinguished the distant eagles from other birds of prey but I did a quick check of the skies if a bittern I had been watching suddenly struck a thin vertical pose.