Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
Our cat Sam watches the snow fall outside our picture window. This is the fourth time we’ve gotten snow this crazy winter but this is the first heavy snowfall. The other times ice was much more of a problem, but this is the lovely snow I had hoped to take Ellie out in the previous times. They’ve canceled work tomorrow so I’ll be able to take her on a nice long walk in the morning.
Well with that attitude, mister, maybe you should keep your opinions to yourself!
(In truth, while Boo was initially quite unhappy with Trixie’s arrival, we gave him time and space to adjust and they’ve become friends, he’s just yawning.)
Boo and Sam keep keep watch in our biggest picture window on a fall afternoon.
Emma watches the world go by outside the dining room picture window.
Another change I made to the Giving of Treats is to swap out the treat I give to Scout. While she still likes the WildSide Salmon dried salmon treats, she wasn’t eating them with the same fervor so I decided to mix things up a bit. I started off with Whiskas Wild Alaskan Salmon Flavor Temptations, a little treat with a crunchy whole grain shell and a meaty treat inside. Despite the name, the first ingredient is chicken meal and the wild Alaskan salmon flavor (whatever that is) is one of the last, but Scout loves them. She’s normally a bit picky about food so it’s nice to find another treat she gets excited about.
Sam likes them too, but that’s not too surprising, Sam likes just about everything. He has gotten more tolerant of Flea Medicine Night, a monthly ritual necessitated by Scout’s flea allergy, partly with experience I suppose and partly because I started giving the cats a few treats afterward to soothe their injured souls. Now instead of hiding from me for a few hours afterward, Sam has learned it is treat time and he doesn’t even resist his treatments with the same vigor that he used to — in other words, I don’t end up bleeding anymore.
Emma is another picky eater and while she likes the wet food she gets in the mornings, and sometimes eats the dried salmon treats, I have not yet found a dried treat she will consistently eat. I picked up a couple of new Temptations flavors, Free Range Chicken and Yellow Fin Tuna, to see how they would be received. I had little doubt Sam would love them but really hoped Emma would take to them too.
On the latest flea night I assembled the three cats after their treatment, each a little irritable but each eyeing the treat bags I held in my hands. Emma didn’t like any of the treats, a disappointment but not a surprise, while Scout loved them all. The biggest surprise was Sam, who not only didn’t like the new flavors but actually spit them out!
Scout, who was learned well from her Snuggle Twin, body blocked Sam out of the way and devoured his spurned treats and Emma’s too, not a normal behavior for our gentle Queen. I guess it’s safe to say she likes these treats!
I have given her the Tuna flavor the last few days in the mornings, the first time after I handed her the last treat she swatted my empty hand with her paw. I thought it an aberration until she did it again the following morning. This morning though she just buried her head in my empty hand and rubbed her head through my fingers to capture any fleeing evanescences from the departed treats.
After testing out the flash I wanted a picture of Scout looking down from the window seat similar to scrunchy Sammy but she wouldn’t cooperate. As both the oldest of the pets and the one who has been with us the longest, she’s the most inured to my hijinks. I was laying on the hardwood looking up, that’s the ceiling to the right, the molding right above her, and the picture window to the left.
While I was at first disappointed I couldn’t get the picture I wanted, I was delighted when she tilted her head just so and I was able to slide a few inches and position her like an orca spyhopping above the waterline, a cat’s ear in place of an orca’s head. So what started in disappointment ended with one of my favorite pictures of Scout.
No flash for this picture, there wasn’t anything to bounce it off of anyway.
Another flash test with Scout, also bounced off the ceiling as fill-flash.
One of the things I like about my new camera is the battery system, which is both more accurate and more detailed about how much life is left in the battery. All of my previous cameras used the same battery system, which had three indicators:
A slight exaggeration, but not by much. The new battery is one of the nice little touches to the 7D that doesn’t make the headlines.
The downside of course is that I can’t use the same batteries from my old cameras, and I found out this morning just how painful that could be. After visiting Ridgefield last weekend, I left the battery in the camera during the week so I could take pictures of the pets. Last night I put it in the charger but went to bed before it finished.
As you may have guessed by now, I got up before sunrise this morning to go back out to Ridgefield, arrived at the refuge and realized the 7D’s battery was still sitting in its charger. At home, 30 minutes away.
Sigh.
There’s a reason I get my camera gear together the night before I go hiking, a morning person I am not. On the plus side, I did bring my old Canon 10D along, so I wasn’t completely dead in the water. And water there was, it rained hard the entire time I was there.
It reminded me of a time years ago when I was in grad school and not long after I had gotten my first tripod. On a day hike in nearby West Virginia, I forgot my tripod and ended up missing a nice shot of a bat hanging in a tree. On my next trip, eager to avoid the same mistake, I checked, double-checked, and triple-checked that I packed the tripod before leaving.
Yet when I got to West Virginia, I realized I had brought the tripod, yet left the camera at home.
I haven’t had much time for blogging or learning the new camera with NaNoWriMo going on this month (after a slow start I’m currently at 44,195 words and barring unforeseen mishaps should cross the 50,000 word finish line before Monday). I did make sure the hot shoe worked by hooking up my flash and using it as fill-flash on one of my favorite subjects, sleeping in front of our biggest picture window with a bit of fall color behind her.
I’m reminded of two things:
This is one of the last pictures I took with my Canon 10D before upgrading to the 20D in March of 2005. It certainly wasn’t my last picture with the 10D, not even close, as I like to shoot with two cameras in the field and the 10D has soldiered on as my second camera.
Templeton didn’t care either way.
As the snow falls, Sam watches me shovel the sidewalk from the comfort of his window seat. He didn’t offer to help.
Boolie 