I had forgotten

Tags

cartoon, cats, sleep deprivation, young cats

Kitty update: we’ve opened the doors to the room. They can now go wherever they want, with the exception of the section of the house with my office and archives, as it hasn’t yet been cat-proofed. Last night I arrived home after being in The City and realized that I had forgotten a few things.

I had forgotten that adolescent cats wake up right when I’m going to bed.

I had forgotten that shy young cats that barely move during the day become cheetahs at night, and that every surface, including myself, is a highway.

I had forgotten that anything that moves under bedcovers is a target. (My feet are thanking gawd it’s still cold at night and there’s a lot of bedcovers.)

I had forgotten that young cats can and will pull a bedroom apart, discarding unseen-in-the-dark booby-traps for those taking midnight excursions to the bathroom.

I had forgotten that young cats will not stop until they have achieved their goals, even if those goals are extracting a packet of tissues from the inside pocket of a folded-up fleece jacket. (I had to hang it up.)

I had forgotten what it’s like to have one cat discover how to mole under bedcovers when another cat is sitting on the outside of the bedcovers.

I had forgotten how noisy and revolting a cat can be when sitting on you in the middle of the night enthusiastically cleaning its bits.

I had forgotten that young cats come and tell you when it’s time to get up and feed them… and I had forgotten that this time is much earlier than the alarm is set for.

I had forgotten how delightful young cats are.

First whine of the year.

Tags

photography, winter

Yeah, this is sunshine. Right.

(Written early in the morning, posted later.)

This Christmas break gave me a little over two weeks at home and a fair amount of spare time. This is a big thing for me, as my schedule is such that most of the time I only get two or three days home a week, and they’re still working days.

When I’m at home for an extended period I bring the car home, which is also a big thing, as it normally resides in the Big City where I work the rest of the time. Mostly at home we must get around on foot or via an electric scooter. When the car is home we can go a lot more places, and take the dog (a scooter obviously being unable to transport two large people and a golden retriever).

Having gotten a new camera a month or so ago, I’d been looking forward to having two weeks to explore its functionality. Two weeks of being able to go to places not available without a car. Two weeks to taken pictures of winter sun, and frost, and ice on puddles.

So what did I get?

Rain. Grey, damp, cloudy, dark days. One day of slushy snow that was neither particularly pretty nor pleasant to walk in (the walking was more like wading). Mud. Mud around us, mud on us, mud on Our Dog. If there’s been sun there’s been so little that I can’t remember it.

And day after day, the forecast cheerily said, “sun tomorrow!” or “sun the day after tomorrow!”

But the photo at the top, taken yesterday (yes, sun had been predicted yet again) is about as good as we ever got.

The constant greyness has been incredibly depressing from a creative standpoint. I found that there are only so many dull, grey pictures of water dripping from things, shot in inadequate light, that I wanted to take. Eventually I pretty much stopped taking pictures at all—I would take the camera on walks, but hardly ever saw anything that seemed worth photographing. I’m not normally subject to SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), but this winter seems different—are our winters always this GREY?

And then I got up this morning, and guess what? Perfectly clear, sunny, and cold. Frost on the foliage, and no doubt ice on puddles as well.

The ferry lineup

And I’m in a car on a ferry heading back to the Big City. From the last time off I’ll have till next Christmas.

I am so pissed.

Okay, that’s off my chest. Now here’s a pretty picture to make up for it. If I can’t take pictures of frost on leaves at least I can take a picture of sunlight through a grating.

Thanks loads, guys.

Here in Canada this is Thanksgiving weekend, so lots of socializing, eating too much, relaxing…

Well, maybe not relaxing. Someone on the street behind us (i.e. not really very far away at all) chose today to start drilling a well. This required a pile driver. So much for the plan of sitting out in our yard and enjoying our time off.

It ran from 11 am till 4 pm.

I rarely get to spend weekends at home, much less holiday weekends, and on top of that I’ve had a migraine for three days, so perhaps I’m less inclined to charity today than some might be. And more inclined to escalating bad language and (literal) cursing. But really—a holiday weekend?

Relaxing. Yeah.

The assault

Tags

cone, fir cone, squirrel, wildlife

We have several douglas-fir trees in our yard, and they’re tall. The cones mostly grow near the tops, which are probably about 70 feet up. So when some demented squirrel decides to de-cone the tree all at one go, as happened yesterday, it’s best to be cautious. It’s amazing the speed—and relative mass—that a cone can pick up over 70 feet. It was the sound of the missiles hitting the porch that drew me outside in the first place—no soft thud, but a bloody great WHACK when each hit.

It’s amazing how fast the little bugger can throw them down.

Presumably he’s collecting for winter. But he doesn’t take them tidily away, oh no. We have a 20-foot swathe all around the base of the tree, littered with gooey fir cones. (they’re even more resiney after hitting the ground at high speed, I’ll bet.)

He came back today to check them and have a nibble. We know where this is going. He’ll wait till they open a bit, then he’ll find a nice place to sit, and he’ll extract the seeds to hide for winter and toss the rest, and the next thing you know we’ll have vast piles of cone bits swamping up a corner of the yard. And then he’ll start with another tree.

We may need to invest in hard hats.

On a hot day the best place to lie…

Tags

gardening, Our Dog

…is ON the strawberries.

(It’s not as bad as it looks. These are volunteers and are growing entirely in the shade, where they make nice ground cover but are unlikely to ever produce much in the way of fruit. But still.)

We have cherries

Tags

birds, cherries

We also have birds. A lot of birds.

Which is to say, we do not have cherries.

(I am purely mystified by the fact that when I was a kid, my parents got enough cherries off an un-netted tree to can some. How did they do it?)

What we did

Tags

deer, deer fence, gardening

What we did…  

Okay, I’m off the kalamari

Tags

squid, weird

Photo by creativity103, CC BY 2.0

Clearly my empathetic qualities are unevolved, because when I read this article, the experience of the female squid was not of primary concern to me.

Good candidate for the Darwin Awards

Tags

cartoon, Darwin Awards, The Stoopidz

I swear I’m not making this up. This guy stepped into a crosswalk and then stood there. And stood there. I stopped my car to wait for him. He looked up from his texting with the most baffled expression—clearly he didn’t have a clue why I’d stopped.

The stoopidz, they are everywhere.

This is SO not good for the lavender.

Tags

dog, gardening, lavender, Our Dog

It's not like the deer aren't enough of a gardening challenge.