Bob in Summer

This  is Bob, taken several years ago, on the balcony, where the cats lived happily & fairly safely for years. He's called Bob because he has no tail.

He was born in my bathroom, to a feral cat I'd just caught after fishing for for 2 years. They had a big dog cage, with a small carrier for a hidden nest, and a litter box. The bars were far enough apart for the kittens to come out through them and make friends. (The mama cat, although she was never touchable, learned her name and came when she was called. She was the only one who got down off the balcony and back up onto it all the time.)

I didn't know in time that kittens need to be handled before weaning age by several people for them to become tame, so they weren't very give-away-able. But they didn't survive the dangers of this hillside (dogs, cars, coyotes, raccoons, foxes, a great horned owl, maybe bobcats, bears, or mountain lions) very long once they didn't live on the balcony anymore, so for several years Bob has been the last one left of 2 litters of feral kittens. His wily mother Ugly vanished a couple of summers ago.

He has always been very affectionate with me; he liked to chew on the hair on my forehead, and sleep right by my shoulder when he got the chance. He had been getting skinnier maybe since summer, but the last week or so he went downhill very rapidly. We just took him to the vet on Tuesday, and learned he has stomach cancer.

And I can't even stay with him for the week or so he has left. I am leaving this weekend to visit my mother; in any other case I'd put off the visit for a while, but she also is very unwell.

It's the season when the preying mantises come in from the cold

Suddenly there they are, hanging out on the window frames all over the house, before it's so cool that the windows are closed up tight. I'm happy to see them, numerous and healthy, though I wish they'd stay out in the garden. But they can catch the flies on the windowsills if they wish.

This is a male, with a narrow abdomen; the females I really wish would lay their egg capsules out in the roses.

Unusually among insects, they are large enough to see us and pay attention to our movements. Looking out for predators, I assume.

Some years ago, when I had several former feral cats, for whom hunting bugs was serious business, it was very hazardous for them to come near the lights in the summer. When the balcony light was on, they'd be clinging to the shingles above the balcony, hunting - except for the ones the cats dismembered.

And the ecology class rumor about their lifestyle is correct, sometimes the female beheads the male before mating. (In captive lines, the males can become reluctant to mate, (no surprise), so the biologist takes their heads off, and sets them down beside a female.) Without the inhibiting signals from the brain, the lower nerve ganglion, which has only one thing on its mind, is in control. They climb on and mate. Guys.

This photo was taken on 9/26/08. 

Oh, by the way, the commoner name is praying mantis. But they are certainly major predators, so I like preying mantis.

The night the vultures dropped in

First, in the very late afternoon, lying out on the lawn chairs, Larry & I saw them way up high, circling. Many of them, maybe 18 or 2 dozen, so high & small we could barely see they were birds, and they were grey against the sky, not black. We guessed turkey vultures, because we couldn't think of what else would be in such a large group, soaring, circling in a "kettle".

Then, without my seeing their actual arrival, they were dropping into the large Ponderosa pines south of the house, slightly downhill. It was still just light enough to try to get a few photos that night. This one was taken the next morning, Sept 26, 2007. I waited a couple of hours and took the later bus to school, hoping to get a shot of them as they flew.

Instead, they sat in the trees in sunny spots, or flew to the large black oak to the east of the house and stretched their wings out in the sun. I could just hear them saying "Mornin' Joe. Cup of coffee?" as they woke up slowly.

Meanwhile, out from under the same pine trees came a flock of wild turkeys, a dozen or so, industriously scratching for their breakfasts. I can see why Benjamin Franklin admired them.

Even by the time I had to catch the bus to school at 9:30, they had not left, still waiting for their thermal. As the bus pulled out, I could see just the first few rising slowly.*

That afternoon when I got home from school, I went straight to the window, but unfortunately without the camera. There they were, 2 dozen of them, circling down just above the treetops, deciding if they were coming here again. A breathtaking sight.


*My Young Wilderness Professional book-club friend tells me that they migrate that way, by rising very high on a thermal, then gliding down to the next one. And I guess this south slope makes a good one.

I saw the owl killing a rabbit

Well, not quite. Coming up the hill towards the ditch, just before 8:00 pm, when it was still quite light, I heard the screaming. As I crossed the ditch, the screaming stopped, and as I turned into the trail, the owl flew up from just beside me. The terrified rabbit was still alive, twitching and trying to jump, but not able to get up and run away. All I could do was to go by as quickly as possible, so the owl could come back and kill it.

I've seen more wildlife here than I ever did at our cabin in Northern Idaho, at the north end of Priest Lake, where we spent all our summers, growing up. This was one I'd rather have missed. Now I know what probably happened to several of my cats, over the years.


*I've seen the owl several times at the turn in the trail. The neighbors say the owl we've heard on the hillside is a great horned owl. This was the first picture I've gotten, on Sept 17th, 2009, a few weeks after the day it killed the rabbit (Aug 24). If it's a great horned, it has its "horn" feathers lowered. But it's big enough to kill a jackrabbit.

Buddy isn't so lonely now

He's in with Bob & Pandora again, after years of being an outcat, (he was exported after he and the three-legged cat rolled off the roof in a fight).

Last week I saw a fox in the yard, the first time in all these years. First there was a noise sort of reminiscent of a cat-fight, but without the fire-siren effects. Then 2 things were going by that way, too fast to see what they were. Then the fox was coming back this way, without apparently having caught the other fox or the neighbor's cat he'd been chasing.

(And amusingly unseen by the fox, a jackrabbit was going off the other way, down through the orchard. I've seen one escape a coyote the same way, without ever being seen.)

The fox was mostly brindle color, like an Abyssinian cat, with some reddish areas.

Buddy was sitting on the porch observing this. He wouldn't come in then, but when he came in that night for dinner, I wouldn't let him out again, but instead put him in with Bob and Pandora.

And by now they're settling in. Bob doesn't yet quite get the point of the greeting ritual - he'll bump heads once, and walk together a bit, but turning around and going back for another pass 3 or 4 times - not yet. And Pandora - still hissing.

I let them into the bedroom area last night. And in the dark I put out my hand to pet a cat, and felt short (soft?) fur, and - a tail! Buddy! And he liked being petted.

Buddy used to be untouchable except on the feeding table, over the back of Dovey or Valentine. And he hasn't been touched for almost a year.

My taxonomy for recognizing cats in the dark is very short and simple right now, not requiring the usual subtleties of voice, size, and texture of fur.

1) Long fur?
Yes - Pandora
No - see #2

2) Tail?
No tail - Bob
Tail - Buddy

Also Bob's fur is very short & flat, and somewhat harsh feeling. Buddy's is short, but soft and plushy. I didn't know that before.



*I took this picture, and photoshopped it, years ago, when they all lived on the balcony.

Swallows' summer vacation

One hot summer day on the Nevada County campus of Sierra Community College, the swallows were all excited, collecting in a couple of trees, chattering noisily.  A gentleman who works on campus told me that they were collecting to go elsewhere for the rest of the long hot summer, after the babies were old enough.

One or two of them were flying back and forth into a hallway where there was a nest. Looked like she or they were checking to see that all the chicks were out of the nest. 

And it reminded me of when I was a kid, and Dad just had to get himself ready, and pack the car, for the annual trip to the lake, while Mom had to get herself and all the food, and 4 kids ready to go.

"Come on kids, aren't you ready to go yet? Dad has the car started already!"

This photo was taken on July 17, 2006.

The Pacific coast iris hybrids are blooming in the yard

Some of my favorite flowers are blooming here now.

The little wild white irises and yellow Calochortus down the hill along the trail, apple trees in the orchard, dogwoods all around town, and here in the yard, many colors of hybrids of the Pacific coast irises, along with hardy Geraniums and Veronica Waterperry.

The English bluebells (Scilla) are just finishing, the last of the flowering lawn bulbs, and the rest of the spring garden bulbs are done here.

This textured picture of an iris should make fun fabric, especially in a mirrored layout, where, when the grasses meet at the edges of the image they make interesting bug-like designs.

Cheesecake in the Light

Cheesecake is gone. He died last Thursday. He was just 19 years old. That summer I was going to the pound, looking for my missing mama cat, and he was just the most irresistible kitten I had ever seen. (Hence his name.) He was about 2 weeks bigger than the kittens who had been born on my bed May 5. (Wake up. Squeaking by my feet. Kittens!) So I think he just turned 19.

Cheesecake, and those kittens whose mama went missing, and later Fussy, whom I got from the pound in October, all used to do something in the dark at night. They would all oodge up towards my face, kneading and purring like crazy, as if I were their mama. If one started, the others would join. I called it a purring fest.

In recent years, when only one cat got to sleep with me, he was the one. And sometimes he seemed to remember the purring fests from when he was young. It's the season when the cat starts sleeping on the bed again

In about the last 2 years he had become very skinny, but was still mobile and eating. In fact, until about 1 ½ weeks before he died, he was eating 2 cans of cat food a day. About 3 weeks earlier, the other cats killed a mouse - and before I got back with the camera to take a picture, Cheesecake ate half of it. A last memory of his hunting past.

One thing I finally found out, almost by accident, is that when they are getting weak, the easiest way for them to drink is from a drip onto a surface, like a sink or tub. I knew a cat years ago who only drank that way. We had a hot week, and Cheesecake was not sitting on his pad by the heater, but on the cool bricks. So I put him in the tub, where he used to like to be in the hot summer. And so, he was able to drink water from the drip, his last night.

I took this original photo in about the summer of 2003, and you can see he still looked young and beautiful. Then I added a layer of a pattern of light coming through one of the old windows here at sunrise or sunset, and tried different blending modes.

Goodbye Cheesecake. I love you.

Wildflower season

Lupines at Bridgeport, on Buttermilk Bend trail. Only the second time this year I've been there, since I've been working most weekends. This picture was taken on April 18 2009. Taking pictures on the way out, and trying to walk more on the way back.

I was looking for a photo op to illustrate "Only good dogs get to go for a walk on Buttermilk Bend trail", but there weren't nearly as many dogs out for a walk as on Easter Sunday.

Spoonflower hooray!

At Spoonflower (www.spoonflower.com), you can upload a design, and get digitally-printed yardage with your design printed on it! I only have about 114 designs sent to them so far, and have gotten some successful samples in light and medium colors. *

This is a design that started as a small dye-painted square of test fabric. Then I scanned it, Photoshopped it to get many colors, and made an array so it could print as yardage. Soon I'll order a sample to see how the colors come out. Then if that works well, I'll get a couple of yards to make perhaps a knee-length vest, lined in a teal fleece which I got for that, and then found it didn't go with the batiks I intended to use. And it will be my unique fabric.

Your designs remain private unless you choose to make them public, but no one except your self can buy them now. Someday. Unless one of your designs is chosen to be in the weekly contest, and it wins - in which case people can buy it for a week. And you would win some fabric. Right now they're printing on a quilting-weight cotton. Other fabrics later. (Update: several more fabrics now available, in different widths.)

This is a lot of fun. Click on the fabric to see some of my other designs.


*(Dark or black backgrounds with low-contrast images don't work well.)

11-09 UPDATE Spoonflower now makes it possible for us to put our fabrics up for sale, but only the ones we have ordered swatches of. So I have a couple available for sale now, and more coming. This one soon. 11-29-09 This one is now available for sale: 
http://www.spoonflower.com/fabric/111479

I'd forgotten I did these raven sketches

I found them going through old class files, looking for duplicates to delete.

I think they'll make fun fabric designs.

There are three ravens who hang around in the parking lot at work. One of my co-workers feeds them. If they're flying overhead and he calls, they come down. They have him trained to call when he has food for them.

It's time to plant your flowering lawn

This is Pipit, another of my favorite small narcissus. (3-30-08) Yes, I could have shown this photo in the spring when it was taken, but I'm showing it now as a reminder that it's time to plant your flowering lawns. As early as the bulbs are available, while the weather is still nice enough to sit out on the lawn. Maybe after the first rain. (We might get one this weekend.)

Sit on a bit of not-too-bad lawn with a bag or two of small bulbs: dwarf narcissus, grape hyacinths, small Scillas, crocus, especially the smaller species crocus, Chionodoxa, lots of others.(See Gardening list of posts in the sidebar.) Dig out a weed and stick in a bulb; that will give you a nice natural distribution. Transplant in some old-fashioned fragrant violets to cover the holes. Water. If the fall rains don't arrive, continue to water.

Come Spring, enjoy months of fragrance and color. For decades. Have fun.