Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
“I’ll just lay over here quietly until you finish. Take your time. I’m not bored at all. No please, don’t worry about me, I’m fine. Play with Scout, she deserves your time too.”
(LOUD SIGH)
“It’s a good thing baby hedgehog loves me …”
You might have noticed that this pose is an Ellie specialty. She carries the little hedgehogs all over the house to make sure she doesn’t miss a moment’s opportunity for hedgehoggery.
Many parts of the former British Empire celebrate Boxing Day after Christmas, a day originally set aside to give gifts to the less wealthy parts of society. While we don’t celebrate Boxing Day here in the States, we do celebrate Unboxing Day in our home, a day set aside to unbox our artificial Christmas tree. This day will always be a day of joy and sadness for me, as it was not only one of Templeton’s favorite days of the year, it was also the day he died in 2007.
But it is also a day of joy, as the cats all love it, Emma especially. I brought the box down early this year but didn’t get the tree out for another week, and every day when I came home from work Emma would be sleeping beside the box. I’m not sure if the smell brought back pleasant memories or if she was trying to guilt me into putting the tree up.
I finally put it up last night, and before I even had the top assembled Emma was sleeping under the bottom branches. Sam was climbing in it before I had the branches spread out, and today it showed clear signs of cats tunneling upwards through the branches. We’ve had this tree throughout our married life but I don’t how much more of this kind of love it can take. Scout used to love to climb in it when she was younger, but being the resident genius she at least figured out how to climb up without leaving an evidence trail behind her.
Last night all three cats were under the tree, and I hoped to get some pictures but Emma woke up and came out to greet me so I didn’t have much time. Snuggle buddies Sam and Scout stayed put so I had a little more chance with them.
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.
As I drove into Yellowstone in the fall of 2007, I stopped to photograph an elk bull that was sleeping in a meadow. As I got back to the car, I noticed this bison bull laying down across the Madison River, its back frosted white by the dirt it must have been wallowing in.
I’ve been trying to write a description of Ellie to go along with this picture but it keeps coming out wrong. She’s obviously a black lab, but whenever I type it out she comes across as huge and gray with big floppy ears and large white tusks. I couldn’t figure out why, then it dawned on me: I was writing with an Ellie font!
Sam has also really taken to the cat tree, preferring the middle perch that is covered like a tube. Scout is the only one who doesn’t often sleep in the tree, but she doesn’t change her sleeping spots so casually. Even the sweltering temperatures of a heat wave don’t drive her from her favorite locations in the upper floors.
A forlorn Ellie watches Sam and Emma play in the cat tree. She often relaxes this way with her front legs splayed wide. Don’t feel too sorry for her, she got some gifts from the pet store as well.
For the past seven years, we haven’t had one stitch of furniture in the dining room. But it is empty no more!
We stopped by one of our local pet stores and picked up a cat tree with three perches. Of course, being cats, when we set it up in front of one of the big picture windows, they wanted nothing to do with this new thing in their lives. I sprinkled some catnip on each perch and walked away. Scout was the first to venture in, followed shortly thereafter by Emma (seen here in the covered perch).
Sam was a harder sell but after finally trying it out, he has rarely left it since. And he isn’t just sleeping on it, during the afternoon he was swinging all around the thing like a gymnast on the uneven bars.
I told you the ways of Emma were spreading. Scout usually circle sleeps in the warm beds but couldn’t resist poking her head out to watch the animal circus that was milling about my office.
Her favorite game is to be chased, Templeton was always good about it but with me she has to stop periodically and wait for me to catch up before sprinting away again. In general though Scout’s more lover than fighter and prefers snuggling to roughhousing. She used to play with Templeton but just as often enjoyed watching the two of us play. Maybe her youthful companions are rubbing off on her as lately Sam and Emma aren’t the only ones enjoying a rousing game of String. It started a few weeks back with a half-hearted attempt to catch the string then suddenly Scout was all claws and motion, rolling across the hardwood with arms flailing in pursuit.
The other night I was working in my office when I heard Emma running helter skelter in the next room, tossing her furry mice across the room and then pouncing in full fury. I got up to watch her and was surprised to see her sleeping in one of the warm beds. I crept into the hallway and peered around the corner and witnessed Scout in zealous fervor waging war on the infidels. Over the weekend she joined Sam and I in a game of mouse-on-a-wire, she’s watched us many a time but this was her first time leaving the sidelines and joining the fray.
And I’ve noticed a few times lately a cat cabal cruising the midnight hours with Scout on point. But her admirers aren’t limited to the likes of cats and men. The other night when I crawled into bed, our dog Ellie curled up against my legs and laid her head across my knees. When Scout took her usual spot on my chest, Ellie crept up in the darkness and laid her head beside Scout. It was such a sweet moment that I lay awake for a while listening to them breathing inches apart. I slowly drifted into sleep until I woke when Scout hopped off me and ran off to play with Sam. My feelings were only slightly hurt when Ellie immediately inched back down and lay across my knees.
It’s hard to compete with the Queen of Scoutland.
Boolie 