randomness

stalking the stalker :)

 

we had an ice storm in CT and it brought the birds to my deck

which is my favorite part of winter :)

 

 

 

and i was able to drive through my favorite wildlife refuge in western MA...

found a great blue heron weathering the icy rain before heading south to warmer climates.

he posed nicely before taking off...

 

back to the deck wildlife ...

 

 

 

 and ending with some holiday-ness ...

 

 

that's pony-boy, enjoying the fire :)

 

looking back...

for years, i volunteered at a cat shelter in Connecticut. 

i spent hours at the place each week, feeding the cats,

cleaning floors, scooping litter, cuddling with homeless cats...

 

the amount of work that goes into running a shelter is endless,

the constant need is mind-numbing, and there is never enough money. 

however, the volunteers get the job done - here in Connecticut and all across the country. 

if ever an animal rescue organization needs help, i do whatever i can to provide whatever i can -

the need is huge.

 

i worked for 8 yrs at this shelter and it was extremely rewarding. 

i now have eleven inside cats, all rescues

and three cats that we feed on our decks whenever they show up...

 

in an effort to shine more light on a never-ending need,

i put together a calendar of some of the images i had shot at the shelter. 

this is for sale on my etsy shop (see link in right sidebar or click HERE)

and all proceeds will be donated to the cat shelter in hopes of saving many more homeless cats.

 

here are some images of the cats i knew at the shelter.

some had a home and lost it.

some never had a home.

some are feral and the shelter will be only home they ever know,

and they are the lucky ones. they will be warm and fed and cared for...

 

please help all homeless animals whenever you can.

thank you.

 

august . . .

I took a break from everything in july.

I lost my cat and my life was turned upside down.

it isn't like I don't have other cats; I do. 

and this guy isn't more special than the others.  they are all special.

the issue is that I love these cats to pieces. 

there's a bunch of them (ok...eleven) and each one has a hard luck story.  

so when they come to me and I can't find a good home for them,

I become the good home.

 

so yellaboy got out.

and I came apart at the seams. 

at the same time, I had company for a week. 

they were fabulous; they helped me look for the cat.

and understood the heart-pain I was feeling because they knew the back-story of yellaboy.

he wasn't spotted until 5 days into his disappearance.

once he was spotted that first time, he started surfacing each night around dinnertime.  and he yowled pretty much all night long.

 

I set humane traps and caught two raccoons but no yellaboy...



towards the end of his disappearance, I saw him more regularly.

 

and after two weeks of tracking him, I finally caught him.

he was exhausted, had cuts all over his head and a bad case of fleas. 

but he was home.

it was a good thing.

 

especially at first.

we got him neutered two days after he came home. 

but he didn't seem to get the message that the party was over.

he was still all fired up, wanting to find some girls.

he yowled for love.

night after night, day after day, hour after hour.

it's been a long week since he's been home.

if it wasn't for the coyotes and foxes outside in our area, I might have let him go back out.

but with all the horror stories I was told during his disappearance by well-meaning neighbors, I couldn't take that chance. 

so until we go back to CT, yellaboy stays inside. 

hopefully, he will go back to the happy (and quiet) guy he was before his escape

and I won't have to make the choice of letting him go out. 

I don't handle that well, and it won't make things easier.

 

so i'm very grateful that it's now august.

I am playing along with Susannah

(found here: http://www.susannahconway.com/the-august-break-2013/  )

 for an august break.

it's so similar to Photo Hunt word-of-the day

(found on facebook here - https://www.facebook.com/groups/121164257895903/ )

and it is exactly what I need to pull myself together.

 so I am going to post my images from the first three days of the month on a new post and I am then embracing the hell out of august.

bring on the summer :)

 

 



tuesday was a lovely day :)

light snow fell all day long...

i worked by my window, so i could watch the birds.

 

the cats hung out, so did the squirrels...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

gotta love a day like tuesday :)

 

 

 

 

 

yellow boy saga...

we, like the rest of the northeast, spent a chunk of last weekend cleaning up after hurricane sandy.  as we did that, we kept an eye out for the little yellow cat that we spotted more than a few times since Sandy blew through.

 

we fed him night and day, worried night and day, as well.

there was another bad storm heading our way this past wednesday and both joey and i wanted this little boy safe and sound for the storm.

so tuesday morning,

i took the serious step of setting the trap. 

i always hate doing this because.

first, it really scares the animal and this guy was already very skittish. 

and second, if it works, what am i going to do with this guy if he gets into the trap?

 

but the concern about his well-being,

and our ability to weather the worry, won out.

and the trap was set.

 

less than 15 minutes later, he was caught! 

 

i brought the squirming hissing ball of yellow fur upstairs to the 'rescue safety zone' - the office bathroom. i foolishly opened the trap to let him out before i removed the stuff fom the counters and shelves. next thing i knew, the yellow boy was jumping 8 ft in the air, like a maniac, trying to find a way out.  he was leaping up the wall, across the room, hanging from the molding and the lip of the mirror. it was a freaking circus. toothbrushes, handsoap, candles, clock - all were flying around the room with the flying wallenda brother in the bathroom. OMG

 

over the next few hours, i checked on him several times, and could see he was adjusting a little better to his new surroundings. i had put a carrier, litter box and soft pillow along with food in there to ease his adjustment, and tried to leave him alone.  he ate the food, piddled on the pillow, and finally hid in the carrier.

but the acrobatics had ended.

 

 

three days later -

he is still in the bathroom, safe and warm.

the snowstorm did its damage, but thankfully, not to the little yellow boy.

what we do with him now is still an unknown. 

but he lets me come in and sit with him.

i sing (very badly) songs to him which he seems to enjoy :) 

his favorite seems to be 'away in a manger'...i think the words speak to his personal story, and his years of laying his sweet head in the hay.  but i could be imagining that.

 we are going to have to figure out

what the longterm plan is for yella fella,

but for now the next step is to attempt to touch him.  

AND for us both, yella boy and me,  to live through the attempt.

wish us luck

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



yella fella..

back in the summer, i was taking pics of some birds in the neighborhood

and spotted this little yellow cat stalking the birdfeeder...

at first glance, i thought one of our cats got outside.

he looked just like spitty (below), same color, same shape of his face... 

i knew our cats were inside but this definitely looked like a relative of our gang.  we had spent a couple of years trying to catch and spay a neighborhood stray, named cyco, who had litter after litter.  we finally caught her in 2008, but that was after finding homes for 30+ kittens. seven ended up living with us and two were adopted by my neighbor.  this outside yellow boy seemed to look like a cyco-boy but we couldn't figure out, after 4 yrs, how we could have missed him all this time. but wherever he came from and whoever he was, he was very skinny and stalking birds.  i went into rescue mode - not only to save the cat but the birds too.

my neighbor who had adopted 2 of cyco's kittens - gracie and lucky - joined in the effort. lucky had wandered off two years earlier and we were hopeful, at first, that lucky had finally come home.     but after comparing pics of lucky (left) to this new guy, we determined they were not the same cat. 

soon, others were spotting the little yellow cat and we were all feeding him at the plant nursery behind the stretch of woods.  he now had a name - dutch :)

 

dutch was friendly and was easy to pet and cuddle. 

this made us all think that this little boy was not a cyco-boy because they are all very skittish.  we ultimately captured him, and lucky's mom adopted him. 

 

 

after a visit to the vet

to get him checked out,

dutch became duchess - he was a she :)

so duchess was a girl, she was healthy
and she had a home. 

HUGE relief... i did not want to spend another winter worrying about the yellow he-she, out in the weather. 

Sunday night, as we prepared for Hurricane Sandy to hit, both joey and i rested easier, knowing we had done our part to get all the stray cats in the neighborhood into good homes. not having to worry about them being outside in the 'storm of the century' was such a relief.

 

yesterday, at first light, i took a quick walk around our end of the condo unit to see if trees had fallen on our cars or anything. i was almost back to the house and there was nothing bad anywhere to be seen :)

 

and then...i saw it.

 

over stalking birds at the neighbor's birdfeeder was a skinny little yellow cat.

the yellow cat that i had spotted a few months ago, and who i thought we'd rescued was still out there???

 

yes.

yes he was.

the good news is that it was AFTER the hurricane and he was in one piece.

the bad news is that winter is closing in fast.

i put out a bowl of food and operation rescue began.

 

after a very long day at work and with hurricane clean-up,

i checked the bowl of food and it was all still there.

at 5am this morning, i checked again and the entire bowl was gone from the deck.

i figured the windy rainy night could have the reason,

so i just laid on the couch for a bit, watching the hurricane recap on television.

and then i saw him. 

he came up to sliding doors,

put his feet on the threshold like outside guy used to do and looked in. 

i froze - he was not my imagination.

he was real, he was looking at me and it was heart-wrenching.

 

so i went into action, got some wet food

and put it outside where the bowl of dry food had been. 

and it wasn't long - 10 minutes? - before somebody was eating it. 

the problem was, it was a possum.  eeek. 

we used to feed outside guy and a gang of possums and raccoons so we're used to wildlife on the deck. but it has been a while. the possum must've been lying in wait since feb 2011 when we caught outside guy. i suspect he ate the dry food too. 

 

so now we watch and worry over another outside guy. 

this one is birdfeeder boy :)

we are hoping it takes less than the 3 yrs it took to snag cyco mom, or the 18 months it took to grab outside guy.  based on the 4wk success story of duchess-the-he/she, maybe it can happen....

 

 

if not NOW, then when...

on monday, kim's challenge for the beyond layers class was to work on reducing procrastination,

 not only in the artistic side of life but in every other aspect also.  

all week, i thought i embraced the thought thoroughly.

i DID instead of planning on doing.

i shot the 'word of the day' on photo hunt on facebook every day. and i posted them. 

i got a lot done at work that i'd been putting off, including my expense report (!). 

i even took a walk one morning,

instead of depending on pacing when on the phone to get my exercise. 

i was feeling pretty confident that i had put aside procrastinating for the week, at least...

on friday night, i was determined to continue to GET THINGS DONE. 

the photo challenge for the B/L class was 'pastels'.

and the word of the day on fbk was 'simple'. 

in my quest to get things done, i was going to do a simple pastel :) 

multi-tasking was the deal.

i went and bought some flowers, pulled out an antique vase

and set up the picture in the setting sun at the back door. 

the sun was fading fast and timing was critical,

if i was going to get the shot i had planned in my head. 

but pony had a different plan.  

he wanted to participate. 

no amount of holding him with one hand, shooting with the other hand, was going to work. 

he wanted to smell the flowers. 

finally, i had to let him, just to get it over with. 

and there was the shot i needed.

but bigger than that was the lesson that i needed...

i was on a mission to do, do, DO...

it took kim's message of 'if not NOW, then when?'

combined with pony's insistence on 'stop to smell the flowers' to get through to me. 

sometimes it is time to stop.

sometimes doing isn't everything. 

because sometimes its about appreciation, not action.  

life happens in those moments and it's oh-so-easy to miss them...

appreciating the simple pleasures is what gives a life the sweet moments of joy,

and we all (even pony) need some joy right about now
because...

if not now, then when???

picture enhanced with NOW texture from kim klassen, along with multiple adjustment layers

and a framed effect