Feed the Birds

Gratuitous and random shots of.....Squirrel?

Seeking Sun

Yes, a couple of days passed, and I had no gratuitous cat pictures.

Now, it wasn't so much that I didn't have cat pictures. Heavens no! As a cat and camera owner, I have gazillions of cat pictures. Even when cats aren't being unbelievably photogenic, they are still the things we are far more likely to use as test subjects for cameras, or newly learned functions of cameras...

(Go ahead. Ask anyone else who owns both a camera and a cat. See what they say!)

I did slip Mr. Squirrel in. Who was almost as appealing and photogenic as a cat...

But it was so cold over the last few days...[How cold was it, Anti-V?] that warm furry cats simply weren't warm enough. I wanted some kind of picture of *hot*.

So, I went poking off through all my photo files, on two different hard drives, looking for some occasion where I'd taken pictures of 'hot'. (I should have checked the iron smelting folders. Now there's 'hot'...)

I found pictures of summer, and growing things. Which were nice. But they didn't really speak of heat to me. I did find a handful of cats in hot weather, doing that really flat inanimate thing that hot cats do... That might have served two purposes, 'hot' and 'gratuitous cats'.

But then today, two of my highly photogenic brood discovered a patch of sun. Don't they look lovely?

Of course the truth is actually that Lily found the sun, and was happily napping when her brother came along and discovered Lily. I don't think she was too impressed.

Not Cats, Not Spring

Instead, some pictures from our friend who comes to the bird feeder, sits on it and spills all the seed...

More Random Photos

Since I'm sure no-one (including myself) wants to listen to me mutter about his continuing cold - two weeks now - or my worry that I'm finally starting to come down with it, let's follow along in my new trend, and give you a gratuitous cat shot, Charv the Inert:



And a photo of remembered spring. (It's even whiter outside today, and now their talking arctic cold fronts. Brrrr....)

Gratuitous Cat Pic for Jan.12/09

The Lily-cat.



And a special bonus, because it's Monday, and cold and white outside,
a random picture of a growing thing.

Gratuitous Cat Pic for Jan.11/09

Gratuitous Cat Pic for Jan.10/09

The Brown Hills of Earth

Well, now, that was a fast turnaround. And just as fast gone, as arrived!

Just before Christmas we had a day of unusually mild temperatures, and rain. Of course, what that did for here, with the five foot base of snow, was wash down the surface, and turn it to ice. Which quickly put paid to our Christmas Eve get-together with friends. We couldn’t even get the car up the very mild hill in the front road!

(Though our friends later reported that icy conditions in front of their place had ended them with some cars in the front yard and a hydro pole snapped in half, and a whole living room of firemen and EMT’s! So, we made a mutual observation that it had been wisdom, and not wimpiness…)

But then a day or so after Christmas, it got a bit mild again, and started to rain. And rain and rain and rain… In fact I even heard thunder. Once.
Anyway, it was enough rain to actually do more than damp down surfaces, and abetted by the mild temps, the snow did start to diminish. There was the overnight roar of avalanches as sections of snow slid off the steel roof. (Crushing as it went, mind you…)

[Overall it’s been a kind of destructive winter thus far. The lean-to roof over the coal storage was flattened. The portable garage car port is well and truly squooshed. One of the roof beams of the smelter shelter broke under snow load, and heavy water-drenched snow sliding off the roof has tried to pull the wood storage shed down, and crushed our honeysuckle tree.]

On the 28th we went to head over to family in the Peterborough area, and discovered they’d now closed our road due to flooding. (All this melt water, and the ground still frozen…) In fact we drove past a farmer’s field that was totally underwater, with whitecaps and breakers rolling in from the high winds. Except for the fact it was a strange and unusual mini-environment, utterly out of place, it was a pretty sight. (Sadly, not a camera to hand…)

But by the time we got back early evening on the 29th, it had started snowing again, and has kept right on at it. And then there wasn’t even any point in trying to take a picture. We’re not as deep as we were, but we’re certainly just as white!

v

The Ultimate Snack Food?

Stolen from my brother's blog about life in Cambodia...